News Clips

“I have no doubt that Silver will put forward the same defense, which is that it’s business as usual in Albany and therefore not illegal,” said Susan Lerner, executive director of Common Cause New York. “That’s why it’s so important that the first jury rejected this argument, and we expect that the second jury will do the same.”

“The deck is certainly stacked against regular Marylanders,” said Damon Effingham of the Maryland chapter of Common Cause. “It’s not the power of your ideas that’s winning the day. It’s your outsized wealth.”

Common Cause, the League of Women Voters and others said they filed motions Friday asking justices affirm a January lower court decision striking down the current boundaries as partisan gerrymanders. That three-judge panel's order to redraw the map immediately was delayed by justices during the appeal, so the 2016 boundaries are being used in this year's elections. The Common Cause motion requested oral arguments as an alternative if justices don't automatically uphold the lower ruling. Republican legislators who approved the map have two weeks to respond.

“When members resign, they can evade accountability,” said Stephen Spaulding, chief of strategy for Common Cause, a nonprofit group that advocates for strong ethics and campaign finance requirements. “Voters don’t get the answers that they would otherwise get … and (lawmakers) are able to really put a cloak over whatever violations they may have committed,” Spaulding said.

For years, companies have failed to adequately protect our personal data, and our weak privacy laws have paved the way for this to happen. It’s high time to put consumer privacy ahead of corporate greed.

“It illustrates how long it takes to get to this point,” Paul S. Ryan, vice president of policy and litigation at Common Cause, a non-partisan good government group, told Newsweek. “You really have to exhaust all your remedies.”​