News Clips

On December 31, 2021, Common Cause PA's Executive Director Khalif Ali joined plaintiffs from across the state in filing an Application to Intervene in the ongoing congressional redistricting litigation currently before the Commonwealth Court.

“They’re using the constitutional amendment to pass legislation they can’t pass through the traditional and appropriate way,” Ali said, calling it unethical.

Khalif Ali, executive director of Common Cause Pennsylvania — a nonprofit that advocates for government accountability — said at Monday’s news conference that he’s concerned about diminishing confidence in democracy. “We cannot our legislators to forget about the verdict and what happened in Philadelphia,” he said. “We needed to enact these laws yesterday.”

In the wake of the last massive City Hall scandal in the early 2000s, a wave of reforms followed, including restrictions on pay-to-play contracting, campaign finance limits, lobbying disclosure, and ethics oversight. But as this trial made clear, glaring vulnerabilities remain. To move forward, Philadelphia and Pennsylvania should start with reforms in three key areas.

The controversy over the ad underscores how Pennsylvania’s partisan judicial elections can be just as contentious as campaigns for any other office.

“When you’re in a position of leadership, you have a responsibility, to tell the truth,” Executive Director of Common Cause Pa., Khalif Ali said. He says Perry should step down for sowing seeds of mistrust in our democracy. “You can’t just arbitrarily object and call into question the integrity of the process that was questioned in previous elections in which Republicans were successful.”

Those expense rules, highlighted in a series of stories by The Caucus and Spotlight PA over the past two years, have created “a culture of zero accountability,” Khalif Ali, executive director of Common Cause Pennsylvania, said during a recent Spotlight PA live event.