News Clips

However, Neal Katyal, who argued against the map on behalf of Common Cause in December, said he believes the high court still has jurisdiction. “It’s a pretty dangerous thing to allow state supreme courts to essentially test drive their opinion and go through oral argument at the U.S. Supreme Court and then pull it back,” Katyal, a partner at Hogan Lovells, said in an interview for Bloomberg’s “Cases and Controversies” podcast.

One of the voting rights groups that brought the original challenge to the GOP-drawn map said Friday’s ruling was “one of the gravest assaults on democracy ever in North Carolina.” “Now, extreme partisan gerrymandering has been legalized and it will be weaponized against voters. That’s wrong,” said Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause North Carolina. “Undoubtedly, the justices who wrote this shameful decision know it’s wrong, as do the self-serving legislators who embrace gerrymandering.”

Aaron Scherb Common Cause Senior Director, Legislative Affairs Scherb was critical of the House GOP’s changes to the Office of Congressional Ethics, saying the revisions on hiring would handcuff its ability to function. He’s a leading voice in the media on areas of corruption and potential ethical troubles on Capitol Hill. Hometown: South Bend, Indiana. Education: Haverford College; Johns Hopkins. First job: “Delivering newspapers for the South Bend Tribune.”

“Instead of improving election administration with funding for training, resources, and staff — lawmakers are wanting to criminalize voting and inject fear into our elections,” said Katya Ehresman, Common Cause Texas’ voting rights program manager, prior to the vote.

Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio, an organization that has opposed raising the threshold for passing constitutional amendments, said, “citizen-led ballot measures aren’t overused. We haven’t had one on the ballot since 2018. It’s unnecessary to make the process more complicated and it’s disrespectful of voters.”

“It’s just such an unregulated sphere that I think it poses challenges to all three pillars of our campaign finance law,” said Stephen Spaulding, a campaign finance expert at Common Cause.  “We know that its value is what it is on the day it’s received by the campaign, but then its value can fluctuate wildly and be manipulated in a way that redounds to the benefit of the campaign,” Spaulding said. “We have contribution limits in place for a reason, to guard against corruption and the appearance of corruption,” Spaulding said.