News Clips

“My concern always is that a generally positive measure like this might later during the legislative process be amended to include some onerous (anti-voting ) provision which then makes it impossible to support the overall measure,” says Jay Heck of Common Cause Wisconsin. “That occurred a few times in the last session with some voting measures.” One positive aspect of SB-39 is that it’s a stand-alone measure, Heck says, “rather than the mixed packages of bills we saw last session on elections and voting where some parts of the bill might have been something to support but there was always a part (or several parts) of the bill that would be terrible for voters so it could not have been supported as a whole,” Heck adds. “That’s very important.”

Mario Jimenez, executive director of Common Cause New Mexico and a former elections official, applauded the ethics commission for investigating the matter but said he was nonetheless disheartened to learn of the allegations. "When I read it, I was nothing short of infuriated," he told NBC News. "We're losing public trust."

Heather Ferguson, director of state operations for Common Cause, said the good-government group supports extending Hawaii’s ban on contractor donations to include at least the officers of a contracted entity. “It erodes public trust when contractors are allowed to contribute to campaigns because of the public perception of those donations due to many of the high-profile federal cases,” Ferguson said. “It would be helpful for the public to know that contractors can’t use campaign contributions as an additional way to bid for a job.”

In the House it’s one year and in the Senate it’s two — though there are all sorts of ways to “lobby under the table,” said Aaron Scherb, senior director of legislative affairs at Common Cause, a government watchdog group that decries the revolving door and its role in policymaking. “This is one among many of the problems that just show the influence that big money and special interests have in D.C.,” Scherb said. “Congress has to change the incentive structure, so that people don’t feel the need to go lobby for big business or corporate special interests,” Common Cause’s Scherb said.

"We're a purple state, so it makes for a bit of a contentious conversation at times around democracy," says Khalif Ali, executive director of the advocacy group Common Cause Pennsylvania.

“In Ohio we have a system that leaves us in the dark, so what jurors are going to have to do is tease out what is legal behavior in a system that avoids public scrutiny,” said Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio and a longtime Ohio advocate of campaign finance and government reform. “It’s really important that Ohioans hear what happened behind the scenes,” she said.