News Clips

The approach obscures the sway donors have on politicians’ decisions, said Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio, a government watchdog group. “Ohioans should be able to follow the money so that they’re able to identify who is attempting to influence public policy,” she said. “Instead, we are left with political ads that have a disclaimer or a ‘paid for by’ that is from an organization that we actually have to work to figure out where they got their funding.”

Susan Lerner, the executive director of the government reform group Common Cause, called on Mr. Santos to step down and urged the bipartisan Office of Congressional Ethics and federal prosecutors to investigate.

“This case has set a clear precedent for redistricting in North Carolina,” said Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause North Carolina, in a press release. “Voting maps must be free from gerrymandering and respect the right of North Carolinians to have a voice in choosing their representatives. Our districts belong to the people, not politicians.”

Voting rights advocates are mulling whether to mount another dauntingly expensive ballot initiative to make the commitment to nonpartisan maps ironclad, said Catherine Turcer, the executive director of Common Cause Ohio. And the bar to success might get even higher. Republican legislators proposed a constitutional amendment last month that would raise the threshold for voter approval of constitutional changes to 60 percent of the vote, from the current simple majority. Republicans call it a move “to safeguard Ohio’s constitution from special interests” who pour money into initiative campaigns. Ms. Turcer called it an effort to shield the ruling party from anything that could dilute its control. “It’s clear these people are drunk on power,” she said. “And what do you do with those kinds of people? You take away their keys.”

“I think the reason Common Cause is fighting so hard to make sure everyday people understand what’s at stake in Moore v. Harper is that this is not just about who decides how lines are drawn for districts in North Carolina. This is fundamentally about our American democracy,” Common Cause's National Redistricting Director Kathay Feng tells Symone Sanders, host of MSNBC's Symone Show.

“It’s cross ideological,” says Aaron Scherb, who keeps an eye on Congress for Common Cause, the good-government watchdog group. “All sorts of crypto players throw their money around, to progressive causes, conservative causes.”