Media Center

Facebook has once again missed the opportunity to be the adult in the room when it comes to checking the clear and present danger that Donald Trump poses to the nation on social media. Instead, the company and its founder Mark Zuckerberg decided to try to plunge headlong into a race to the bottom with Elon Musk and Twitter, irrespective of the threat to public safety and national security.

It would be dangerously irresponsible for the social media platforms to restore Donald Trump’s accounts and risk the further spread of disinformation, hate speech, and the potential for real-world violence. The former president proved himself a clear and present danger on social media on January 6th – and in fact well before that infamous day. He utilized Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms to assemble and incite the mob of insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol that day with tragic and deadly results.  

Today, Common Cause and more than 20 other government accountability groups urged every member of the U.S. House of Representatives to codify the independent Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) into law. The letter follows a recent move by House Republicans to hobble the independent ethics watchdog in the new rules package for the 118th Congress. The letter emphasizes that voters made it very clear in the midterm elections that they are demanding more accountability from their elected representatives in Washington, not less.

The inclusion of the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act in the omnibus spending package is a vital first step in protecting the votes and voices of all Americans. Enacting these reforms to ensure that the will of the voters will be respected and followed is particularly important in light of Donald Trump’s announcement that he is again running for the White House and his public call to terminate the U.S. Constitution in order to overturn the 2020 election and declare himself president. We know from the January 6th Select Committee that Trump knows he lost that election, but he continues to repeat his Big Lie despite the fact that his own appointees at the Department of Homeland Security declared that the 2020 election was “the most secure in U.S. history.”  

No American is above the law. That includes former Presidents and their advisors. Donald Trump and those who aided and abetted his attempted coup remain a clear and present danger to our democracy. The members of the nonpartisan January 6th Select Committee deserve the nation’s thanks for investigating and publicly exposing the months-long plot waged by Trump and his associates, that appears to have amounted to a criminal conspiracy to overturn the will of the people and subvert the results of the 2020 election so that he could remain in power.

A new report from Common Cause, “Extremists’ Plot to Nationalize Voter Suppression: 2023 and Beyond,” examines a new wave of anti-voter bills that have been introduced by Republicans in Congress representing an attempt to nationalize voter suppression. These extremist bills have largely been ignored by the public and the media, but should Republicans gain control of the U.S. House or Senate, these bills would represent a serious threat to the freedom to vote for millions of Americans.