The committee approved by voice vote the nominations of Cynthia L. Bauerly (D-MN), Caroline C. Hunter (R-FL), and Donald F. McGahn (R). Steven T. Walther (D-NV) was already awaiting Senate confirmation. Only one member, Ellen Weintraub (D) remains on the commission and has served since December 9, 2002. McGahn would replace Commissioner David M. Mason (R), who had been awaiting confirmation to another term until Bush recently decided not to renominate him. CC expressed again its concern with this politicization of the FEC and reiterated the compelling reasons for its opposition to McGahn’s appointment in this same letter.

Pentagon Propaganda Probing Proceeds

In his alliterative blog posting on May 27, Jon Bartholomew asks if the federal administration is about to be held accountable, because Congress passed an amendment last Friday to the annual military authorization that would mandate investigations of the Pentagon’s propaganda program by both the Department of Defense’s inspector general’s office and Congress’s investigative arm, the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The question before them is whether the Pentagon violated longstanding prohibitions against spending government money to spread propaganda to audiences in the United States. The program being investigated is the recently exposed Pentagon public affairs program that sought to transform retired military officers who work as media analysts into “message force multipliers” who could be counted on to echo the Bush administration’s talking points about Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo and terrorism in general.

CC/HI: Common Cause Up and Running Again in Hawai’i

On May 21 Common Cause President Bob Edgar appeared at a news conference at the state Capitol and announced that Common Cause Hawai’i has been relaunched after a six-year absence, making Hawai’i the 37th state where Common Cause is active. Nikki Love, Community Links director of operations and former aide to state senator Les Ihara, will lead it. The Honolulu Advertiser quoted her as saying, “The mission is to strengthen public participation and faith in our institutions of self government to ensure that government and political processes serve the general interest rather than special interests.”

Even before its re-establishment, the volunteer activists of CCHI branch helped stop a bill that would have allowed corporations to make direct donations to its state candidates. The measure would have treated companies the same as individuals and would have allowed them to give between $2,000 and $6,000 to political candidates.

Love and Edgar met the next day with Linda Lingle (R), the state’s governor, to urge her to sign into law HB661. This bill would create a pilot project for public financing of Big Island County Council elections. The pilot would begin in the 2010 council elections and run through the 2012 and 2014 elections.

CC/IL: Left Justified: We have common cause

CC President Bob Edgar will be in Rockford to speak at the 46th Annual Dinner of Rockford Urban Ministries (RUM) on Friday, June 27. He has addressed the group once before, and his talk this time will address, “Reclaiming Your Government and Making a Fresh Start for Democracy.” The program is free and open to the public and will begin at 
7:30 p.m.

CC/NM: Turf War

The Albuquerque Journal printed two stories outlining the latest ethics debacle at the New Mexico Legislature involving state senators who worked for an artificial turf company that acquired lucrative contracts with the state. The newspaper followed up with an editorial on May 21 about why the state needs an independent state ethics commission to combat this sort of highly questionable activity. CCNM notes that these scenarios are a common symptom of so-called citizen legislatures and emphasizes that there exists the need to consider paying its legislators a full salary in order to avoid this problem of being forced to get work elsewhere.