Here's a recap of Common Cause's work over the past two weeks. We're celebrating hard-won victories regarding the FEC and FCC and highlighting other important work throughout the country.
Federal Election Commission (FEC): We Stopped The White House Again!
On May 16 controversial White House nominee Hans von Spakovsky withdrew his name from consideration for a position on the FEC. Common Cause, working with a coalition of voting rights and reform groups, had opposed von Spakovsky because of his work at the Justice Department rolling back voting rights laws.
Evidence of what Common Cause predicted in our report on the Indiana Primary for young voters is turning up in the news this evening. Another victory for the architects of voter suprression in the state.
The reports of student voting problems are here, here and here. New Voters Project has reported from the ground that students at St. Mary's College, a private institution were unable to vote because their college ID does not count under the law, even though public college IDs would - if they have a valid expiration date.
You don't have to turn people away for having the wrong ID, you just have to get people not to turn up because they know they don't have the ID and can't get it. Some of the coverage above plays down the impact of the ID law on this primary. Yes, 12 nuns might not seem like a huge number (it's not even a whole cloister), but it's important to remember that there was a whole convent full of retired nuns that didn't and couldn't turn up because they too didn't have the ID.
In the end, suppressing one vote, disenfranchising one citizen is too high a cost to bear for an unfounded fear which produces a bad law. It's undemocratic, it's un-American.
In Indiana today young students and nuns, as old as 98, were denied their right to vote because of the strict and vote-suppressing photo ID laws in the state. The Supreme Court upheld the law in a split decision last week.
A dozen nuns in their eighties and nineties, barely able to make across the street to vote, were told they could not vote because they didn't have accepted ID. Four floors of nuns back at the convent for retired nuns couldn't produce ID either, so they didn't try. According to the AP:
Some showed up with outdated passports. None of them drives.
Fair Elections Action Week wrapped up last week, but reports are still coming in, including a report I'll share later today on a great development in the U.S. House. First, I'll highlight an excellent letter here from one of the core activists for public financing in Indiana, entitled, "
Opportunity to clean up government at all levels."
Unpacking from your Labor Day vacation? Cleaning up after the barbecues? We'll continue to unpack some tasty Common Cause tidbits from around the country, skewered to perfection and served---well, you get the idea. Here's the latest...
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