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Americans deserve to know their votes will be counted and their voices heard in our elections. Reform of the antiquated Electoral Count Act is an important step to safeguard the results of free and fair elections. President Trump and his associates came exceptionally close to engineering an overthrow of the 2020 election, as the January 6th Select Committee’s hearings have made clear. They did so in part by making bogus assertions about how the Congress should discharge its certification duties of the presidential election, inciting a violent mob, and convincing 147 Congressional Republicans to vote to overturn the election. Part of this plot included testing arcane provisions of the law that must be modernized and clarified before it happens again.

"Allowing donors to repay candidates’ loans is a shell game that breeds cynicism about our elections. Campaign donations end up in the candidate’s pocket, after the election – while voters are deprived of information about who’s funding the candidate, while deciding how to vote."

Say the legislation “is the bold, comprehensive bill we need because the threats to our democracy are deep, systemic, and wide-ranging”

A letter signed by almost 100 small business and community leaders urging Senator Susan Collins to support the “For the People Act” was released at an event at Portland City Hall. More than four dozen people gathered at a rally sponsored by Common Cause to hear local business leaders explain why the bill needs to become law.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and the House Republican Conference had a simple choice. They could side with democracy and common decency, or they could embrace racism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, anti-immigrant, hate, violence, and the untethered conspiracy theories spewed by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). McCarthy and his cohorts should have been voting to expel Rep. Greene from Congress altogether, but instead they refused to even strip her of her committee assignments as the conference once did with former Rep. Steve King (R-IA) for similar reprehensible behavior.

I am very sorry to announce that Ann McBride, who served in many capacities at Common Cause, including President, passed away on May 5. She was 75 and had been in declining health. Ann is an important part of Common Cause’s history and was a cherished mentor and role-model to me. Ann’s message was clear. Our victories were, she would often say, a message of hope for citizens – a reminder that working together, we all could make a difference in our government and our world.