News Clips

Sylvia Albert, national director of voting and elections at grassroots organization Common Cause, tells Bustle that people who want to get involved in ensuring fair elections can sign up to volunteer with Election Protection, which needs lawyers to answer questions via the nonpartisan voter hotline, 866-OUR-VOTE. If you're not a lawyer, you can still volunteer with Election Protection through its nonpartisan poll monitoring program. "Volunteers commit to taking at least one Election Day shift to stand outside of assigned polling location after receiving training," Election Protection's website states. "You will distribute 'Know Your Rights' cards to voters, answer basic questions from voters at the polls, and help voters resolve any problems that occur, with the help of trained legal professionals."

With Chief Justice John Roberts sworn in and every senator a duly sworn juror now considering the Articles of impeachment against Donald John Trump, 45th president of the United States, every American, regardless of political belief, must demand fairness, transparency and facts. The chief justice and the Senate must ensure fairness and provide transparency. Trump and his team must tell us the facts or face perjury charges as well.

“Voters don’t get the information they deserve, simply as a result of a group creating its own disclosure regime it imposes on itself,” said Paul S. Ryan, vice president of policy and litigation at Common Cause.

In the past decade, Citizens United has come to symbolize not just the deluge of money in our elections, but also voters’ frustration at not being heard by their elected officials. Polling shows that only 17% of us believe our political parties and politicians “care about people like me.” The rest of us are feeling disenfranchised. Only 20% of us are “satisfied” with our nation’s campaign finance laws; the rest of us want change.New Yorkers are leading the way to a post-Citizens United future. For decades, we’ve supported public funding of campaigns to counterbalance big money corruption.

“The bottom line in Texas is Republicans are scared to death of demographic changes,” said Anthony Gutierrez, executive director of Common Cause in Texas, “and are doing anything and everything they can think of to keep those changing demographics from affecting elections."

"[S]everely restricting their access to Senators comes across as nothing more than a blatant attempt to limit transparency and Member accountability in what Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has billed as a show trial to ostensibly 'clear' President Trump of any wrongdoing," said Common Cause President Karen Hobert Flynn. "The American people deserve a transparent impeachment trial, but this is one more attempt to deny that to them. These are reporters who interact with Members of Congress every day in the halls of Congress and penning reporters looks like a dog-and-pony show to allow Senators to dodge tough questions."