Finally, a sensible implementation of Amendment 41 in Colorado - On April 26, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter signed Senate Bill 210, finally resolving questions about Amendment 41, the sweeping ethics and lobby reform initiative introduced by Common Cause and passed by voters in November. This should end the speculation that Amendment 41 could be interpreted to ban college scholarships and blizzard relief to state employees' families. The bill creates a five-member ethics commission and provides them with guidelines: "Our guidance to the commission was that unless the complainant can show someone is taking something for private or personal financial gain, toss that complaint out as frivolous," said House speaker Andrew Romanoff. The State Senate, State House, Governor, and chief justice of the state Supreme Court each select one member, then those four select a government worker or official to be the fifth member.

Protecting internet freedom in Maine - If wealthy companies can pay internet service providers to have their websites load faster than other sites on the internet, then we lose "net neutrality"--the ability for anyone to view information freely and equally over the internet, and to post information and get their views out to an online audience. In Maine, Common Cause and MCLU created a coalition of non-profits, business owners, and municipal officials to fight for net neutrality. They had eight people submit testimony at a hearing last week, and generated four media hits plus a sparkling editorial in the state's biggest paper.

Monitoring the media in Sacramento - The Sacramento Media Group, a cadre of volunteers associated with Common Cause California, won a $7500 grant from the Social Science Research Council to do a project monitoring Sacramento political coverage in the weeks leading up to the CA presidential primary. They'll report back on how the local stations met voters' informational needs, looking at diverse communities and both English and Spanish language TV.

Instant Run-Off Voting in Vermont - On April 26, the Vermont Senate passed a bill that would implement Instant Runoff Voting for Vermont's national representatives. In an IRV system, voters can rank up to five candidates in a race, placing their top choice first and then ranking the other candidates, ensuring that their vote will "matter" and that a winning candidate will have majority support. The bill now heads to the Vermont House.

Paper ballot bill passes committee, heads to House floor - The Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007 (HR 811), aka the Holt Bill, subject of our Get It Straight By 2008 campaign, passed its House committee by a 6-3 vote and moves to a vote of the full House, likely next month. The bill would require all voting systems to produce a voter-verifiable paper record for every vote cast, and mandate automatic routine audits for all voting systems nationwide.

Ask Yourself Why... Mortgage Foreclosure Rates Are So High - Last week, Common Cause released the latest in our series of Ask Yourself Why reports, highlighting how special interest money in politics hurts average Americans. This report focuses on the mortgage lending industry. We generated several news stories, most notably from the popular insider paper The Politico, as well as radio commentary by Rachel Leon in New York, and multiple well-received national blog posts. The report is well worth reading and is available for download here.

What did we miss? Leave a comment with news from your state.