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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.

"As their first legislative act, Congressional Republicans have decided to significantly weaken the independent ethics office. Their actions are a complete failure of leadership.”

"Now, on the very first day of a new Congress, Republicans have put ethics, accountability, and transparency on the chopping block."

The American people deserve to see Donald Trump’s tax returns. Every other modern American President and every other major party nominee has disclosed their returns prior to Donald Trump. In light of numerous federal and state investigations of the former president’s finances, and convictions of multiple Trump Organization employees, the documents likely contain important information relevant to the public trust and must be made public.  

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.

Today, Common Cause submitted comments in response to the Federal Trade Commission’s Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking public comment on the harms stemming from commercial surveillance and whether new rules are needed to protect people’s privacy and information. The comments highlight the unique harms to democracy and civil rights caused by modern commercial surveillance practices and put forward solutions for how the FTC can adequately address these harms.