CommonBlog

Oil shale development brings opportunity for major financial gains, but also public health concerns, a combination that is not always good for government transparency. We sent open records requests to several county officials, including Garfield County, Colorado, after we heard about a secret meeting out in Utah where they may have been making policy away [...]

Whenever elected officials take steps to narrow the ways people can be involved in democracy, it really gets my blood boiling. You might remember back a couple of decades when the Colorado General Assembly refused to pass any bill requiring people and groups spending big money on our elections to disclose that information to the [...]

The famous “magic words” in elections are those the US Supreme court decided mean someone is advocating for the election or defeat of a candidate. They are phrases like “vote for” and “elect candidate X.” But using phrases like “Candidate X is a no good son of a gun” right in the middle of election [...]

This reads too much like a piece in the Onion. I checked three times to see if it was dated April Fool’s Day. The psychology in this article in American Banker is fascinating. The banking industry has an army, navy, marine corps and air force of lobbyists, PACs and rich people devoted to becoming more powerful [...]

As part of our non-partisan Just Vote! Election Protection program here in Colorado, we’ve brought on a new staff member, Elizabeth Steele. Elizabeth is joining Colorado Common Cause as the Just Vote Manager.  She comes to us after a career as a lawyer in private practice at Davis, Graham & Stubb, and as general counsel [...]