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National Popular Vote Stalled at the Last MinuteAlthough both the Senate and the House approved the National Popular Vote legislation by overwhelming majorities recently, in the wee hours of the last formal session of the year, the legislation failed to get the last pro-forma vote in the Senate required to send it to the Governor. While many bills get this last vote during "informal" session between now and January, a single Senator can block the vote. Because of the stiff opposition by Republican Senators, it is extremely unlikely for this vote to occur on the National Popular Vote bill. Election Day Registration also passed the Senate overwhelmingly but was never considered by the House.
State Senate to Decide
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Executive Director, Pam Wilmot, took part in a panel discussion of National Popular Vote. This took place in New York City. The panelists were introduced by Common Cause President, Bob Edgar. The panelists were Pam Wilmot, Dr. John Koza (Founder of National Popular Vote, Inc.) and Hendrick Herzberg (Staff Writer for the New Yorker). A video recording of the panel discussion appeared on was on CSPAN a couple of times. Here is the link to the video on their website.
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Members of Common Cause Massachusetts met the new President of Common Cause
Bob Edgar, the new President of Common Cause visited Boston last month. Members met with him on two occasions: first at Christ Church, zero Garden Street, Cambridge on 
Monday, November 12th, 2007. They were treated to a rousing speech from Bob urging them to take back politics from the "special interests." A second group met Bob at a reception at Deb & Paul Walker's house at 237 Brattle Street, Cambridge on Tuesday, November 13th, 2007. Again Bob made an impassioned appeal to the members to incease their activism and remember that open and accountable government is an achievable goal. Bob talked about his years in Congress and his experience leading other organizations. According to Bob, we are the leaders we have been waiting for.
Take a look at our Fall 2007 Newsletter -- easiest if you print out the .pdf file
National Popular Vote
National Popular Vote legislation just received a favorable report from the Joint Committee on Election Laws, with strong support from the two chairs, Representative Garrett Bradley (D-Hingham) and Senator Edward Augustus (D-Worcester). A vote in the House of Representatives is expected this fall.
Please email your legislators to urge them to support popular election of the President.
National Popular Vote Hearing
On Wednesday Sept 19th. 2007, the Election Committee Laws of the Legislature held hearings on the National Popular Vote Legislation. This would change the way we elect a President from the current system of winner-take-all in most states to a national vote, where the candidate with the most votes in all states wins. Those testifying in favor of the bill included Professor Jamin Raskin, a State Senator from Maryland (where the law is now in effect and Barry Fadem, President of National Popular Vote Inc. In addition to Common Cause, other citizens group in favor of the legislation include: Black Political Task Force, MASSPIRG, MassVote, and the NAACP.
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Representative Charley Murphy (D-Burlington), Professor and Maryland State Senator Jamie Raskin, Pam Wilmot, and NPV President Barry Fadem talk with reporters. |
MASSPIRG Director Janet Domenitz and Common Cause Director Pam Wilmot testify before the Committee |
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Roscoe Morris, Director North East Region of the NAACP, James Cofield, Director Black Political Task Force and Avi Green, Director MassVote testify before the Committee |
Common Cause Member Dick Terry testifies before the Committee |
After the hearing, a reception was held in the Nurses Hall at the Massachusetts State House.
More information about National Popular Vote can be found here OR Check out our Press Release
On June 10th 2007, Common Cause Massachusetts
Honored
Marty Meehan with the 2007 John Gardner Public Service Award
&
Karla de Steuben with the CC/MA Distinguished Service Award
Read about Marty and Karla here.
About 80 supporters of Common Cause gathered at Gore Place in Waltham to honor Marty and Karla. The weather was perfect and attendess enjoyed the brunch in the Gore Place coach house. Marty Meehan gave a moving speech reiterating his commitment to Civil Rights and Campaign reform. As always, Scott Harshbarger was adept at separating supporters from their money in the live auctions. Funds go to support oiur ongoing lobbying activities in Massachusetts: open government; campaign reform (funding, redistricting, same day registration).
You can find pictures of the event here.
E-Government Awards
In a crowded Nurses Hall on Thurday March 15th. Common Cause Massachusetts honored 72 municipalities from all across the Commonwealth.
Communities receiving the 2007 E-Government award were: Amherst, Andover, Arlington, Ashburnham, Ashland, Barnstable, Becket, Bedford, Bolton, Boston, Boxborough, Brookline, Cambridge, Chelsea, Chelmsford, Concord, Dedham, Douglas, Dudley, Dunstable, Duxbury, Falmouth, Framingham, Franklin, Gloucester, Groton, Harvard, Hingham, Holden, Holliston, Hopkinton, Kingston, Lenox, Lexington, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Maynard, Melrose, Methuen, Nantucket, Newton, North Reading, Northampton, Palmer, Paxton, Peabody, Pelham, Plympton, Provincetown, Salem, Saugus, Scituate, Sharon, Shrewsbury, Somerville, Southampton, Southwick, Spencer, Springfield, Stow, Sudbury, Swampscott, Tewksbury, Uxbridge, West Springfield, Westfield, Westford, Weston, Westport, Weymouth, Winchester, Winthrop, Woburn, and Worcester.
Most towns were represented by elected officials, town managers, and IT personnel (webmasters). Over 100 people attended. They came from the Cape, from Western Massachusetts as well as from Worcester county and from the conurbation around Boston. In many cases, the State Senators and Representatives from those districts were on hand to congratulate the municipalities. There was loud applause as representatives from each municipality received a certificate of excellent e-Government from Pam Wilmot, Executive Director of Common Cause Massachusetts.
“We are pleased to be able to honor so many towns this year,” said Common Cause executive director Pam Wilmot. “Many communities rose to the challenge and significantly improved their websites over the past year.”
“The foundation of our democracy is built on public access to information about our government,” added Karla de Steuben, a Common Cause board member and founder of the project. “The easier it is to obtain key information, the more likely it is that people will have the tools necessary to effectively participate in government—and hold our elected leaders accountable.”
Common Cause launched the Massachusetts Campaign For Open Government last year. At that time, only 24 communities met the Campaign’s standards and posted key governance records, which it defines as: the community governing body’s agenda, the governing body’s minutes, fiscal year 2007 budget information, the municipality’s bylaws, code or ordinances, and if applicable, town meeting warrant and town meeting results or minutes.
In September 2006, the number increased to 40 municipalities -- or about 11 percent of all 351 cities and towns. With the current audit, the number jumped to 72, triple the original number. The municipalities honored for posting all of the targeted records range in size from Pelham, with a population of 1,422, to Boston, with a population of 569,165.
“The internet is an easy and cost effective way to get information into the hands of citizens. Posting these six key records takes only minutes and costs virtually nothing”, said Wilmot. “Communities that make this information available on the web are providing an important service to their citizens, and we are delighted to be able honor them.”
A copy of the full audit and pictures are available at www.maopengov.org .
Will your Town Receive the E-Government Award?
On March 15, the middle of Sunshine Week, Common Cause will be honoring approximately 50 communities that have posted all key governance records on their websites: selectboard or city council minutes and agendas, town meeting warrants and results, the budget, and bylaws or ordinances.
Posting these records takes only minutes, and allows citizens 24/7 access to them. But far too few communities bother to take that time. Worse yet, some webmasters have said they purposefully decided not to post this information for fear of encouraging citizen action. Last fall, only 41 communities posted all of them. Last March, only 24 did.
We’ve written to cities and towns to ask them to join the 21st century by, at a minimum, posting these six key records.
You are invited to come on March 15th at 1.00 pm at the Nurses' Hall in the State House. Please let us know if you are planning on coming by sending us an E-Mail.
You can view the results of our last fall's review of local websites at: www.maopengov.org
Phyllis Cox
We mourn the death in early February of Phyllis Cox, widow of former National Chairman, Archibald Cox.
Rev. Robert Drinan, S.J.
Common Cause Massachusetts mourns the loss of a staunch supporter, Father Robert Drinan, who passed away at the age of 86 on January 28th. 2007. Father Drinan had served several terms on the National Governing Board of Common Cause. In 2001, Common Cause Massachusetts awarded him the John Gardner Public Service Award.
For many of us Father Drinan is remembered as a strong opponent of the Vietnam war but he was also a powerful advocate for the poor and powerless. He truly exemplified the Common Cause ideal of "speaking truth to power."
Common Cause Massachusetts 2007 Legislative Agenda
Electoral Reform:
- Enact legislation to permit election day voter registration. (Creem, Fox)
- Enhance voting security and accuracy by requiring paper ballots and audits of election equipment. (Kaufman)
- Enact legislation to allow early voting. (S. Walsh)
- Support instant runoff voting at both the state and local level. (Story, Wolf, Smizik, Kaufman)
- Utilize the plenary power of the states, granted by the U.S. Constitution, to determine how Presidential electors are selected, and the mechanism of an interstate compact, to institute a National Popular Vote for the President to make all votes equal and greatly increase turnout in Presidential elections. The reform becomes effective when states with a majority of electors have enacted this important legislation. (M. Walsh & C. Murphy, Menard & Havern)
- Enact a state constitutional amendment creating an independent non-partisan redistricting commission subject to strict map-making rules to achieve compactness, respect for town boundaries, grouping towns and neighborhoods by common interests, and adequate representation of minority voters. The amendment would prohibit drawing districts to benefit any individual or political party, and require that all aspects of the process be public. (Moore)
- Enact legislation providing public financing for state elections. (Petersen & Eldridge)
- Increase campaign finance reporting, especially “electioneering communications.” (Petruccelli)
- Create a blue-ribbon panel to review campaign finance law and practice and make recommendations for reform. (Kaufman)
- Safeguard the current $500 limit on Massachusetts campaign contributions.
- Drastically improve internet access to information about state and local government.
- Enact Open Meetings Law reforms. (Cabral)
- Update the lobbying disclosure law by requiring that all paid lobbyists report their expenses and disclose and specify their legislative priorities. (Jones)
- Update income and asset categories and penalties in the Ethics and Financial Disclosure laws. (Creedon)
Common Cause Launches Campaign for Open Government Website
Did you know that only 40 of Massachusetts' 351 towns and cities provide on-line access to all the key records (governing body’s agenda, the governing body’s minutes, fiscal year 2006 budget information, the municipality’s bylaws, code or ordinances, and if applicable, town meeting warrant and town meeting results or minutes) needed for an informed citizenry? An additional 46 are only one record away from getting a perfect score.
The Massachusetts Campaign for Open Government will involve hundreds of citizens asking their local governments to post these key records. The www.maopengov.org website contains tools for activists, information about public records and open meetings laws, and forms that will allow the public to complain about being denied public documents or being excluded from public meetings.
Putting these records on-line is a simple and inexpensive step. With more and more people using the internet as their main information source, communities that fail to post these key records are doing their citizens a disservice.
Visit our website at www.maopengov.org.
Download the common cause report on Open Government: www.maopengov.org/report.macog.pdf (Adobe Reader Required)
They talked about National and local issues. Alex Keyssar provided a sobering look at the very small actual swing in votes between Republicans and Democrats at the national level. Chellie Pingree talked about the problems people had in voting in Florida, Ohio and in general. She called for the depoliticizing of the running of elections, and, of couse, for a paper trail for voting machines. Dan Payne provided an insightful look at the local gubernatorial race and emphasized the challenges facing the new governor.
The presentations by the panelists were followed by an active Q&A session.
Gubernatorial Candidates, Patrick and Ross, together with 103 Legislature Candidates,
Endorse Common Cause Agenda
Common Cause Massachusetts recently announced the results of its 2006 Questionnaire sent last summer to gubernatorial candidates. All candidates responding have endorsed four key reform issues championed by Common Cause, including redistricting reform, open government, public financing of elections, and election day registration. Lt. Governor Kerry Healey and Christy Mihos have not responded.
Here are the responses to the Questionnaire that Common Cause of Massachusetts sent to the candidates for Governor.
Common Cause also sent a questionnaire to all 309 candidates for the Massachusetts state legislature covering good government issues such as redistricting reform, open government, campaign finance reform, ethics, and electoral reform. 121 candidates, largely from competitive districts, responded, yielding a return percentage of 39%. 102, or 93%, supported our Fair Districts redistricting reform measure, while 78 (71%) supported public financing of elections.
Here are the questions and links to the responses organized by district.
Tuesday November 7th, 2006 was Election Day.
Current Election Information
To find complete results, visit:
http://www.boston.com/news/special/
politics/2006_elections/general_results/
To view campaign contributions to gubernatorial candidates by geographical area (including the entire US), visit:
http://www.boston.com/news
bigarticles/campaign
or for a more comprehensive, but more complicated look at campaign contributions visit:
http://www.efs2.cpf.state.ma
EFSprod/servlet/WelcomeServ
Questions Common Cause has been asked in the run-up to the election:
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What is Common Cause/MA's position on Ballot Question 2—Cross-endorsement or “Fusion” Voting
- Common Cause Massachusetts has not taken a position on Question 2.
- What is happening with new Electronic Voting Machines
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The Commonwealth of Massachusetts will be testing three types of handicapped accessible voting equipment in a twenty-eight communities, the AutoMark, an optical scan reader, e-Slate with a verifiable paper trail, and the Diebold AccuVoteTsx, a touchscreen machine with a paper trail, that has had significant trouble in other jurisdictions. The Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) requires that all states have at least one accessible piece of equipment by this year. Massachusetts will not meet this deadline, but will use this field test to approve equipment for the next election. There has been much-deserved criticism of the Deibold machine, however, in the worst-case scenario, these machine will NOT replace current optical scans. Rather, there will be one machine per polling place that will enable disabled voters to vote independently. Of course the State Secretary may decide to approve only the AutoMark. Common Cause has, and will, continue to advocate for secure voting equipment with permanent paper trails and random audits for accuracy.
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Information on the September Primary Election
To view the results of the primary election with a town by town break-down visit:
http://www.boston.com/news
politics/2006_election
Common Cause endorses proposal for an investigative commission on the Big Dig
(Aug 2, 2006) - As the 2005-2006 legislative session winds down, Common Cause Massachusetts joins Senator Marian Walsh, numerous other legislators, Attorney General Tom Reilly, former Attorney General Scott Harshbarger, Phil Johnston, and others in supporting an independent commission to conduct a far-reaching review of what went wrong with the Central Artery project. We have sent a letter to each state legislator outlining our position. You can read it here.
Common Cause Urges State House to Close Campaign Finance Loophole
Releases Report Detailing Hidden Money in Massachusetts' Campaigns
(July 18, 2006) – With only two weeks left in the state’s legislative session Common Cause Massachusetts called on state lawmakers to pass a bill pending before the Massachusetts House of Representatives that would close a loophole in Massachusetts campaign finance laws that allows hundreds of thousands of dollars of campaign advertising to go unreported.
In support of the call, the group released a new study, Hidden Money: The Use of Electioneering Communications in Massachusetts, which includes examples of undisclosed campaign ads run in Massachusetts similar to those run in 2004 by the group "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth." The report reviews the use of "electioneering communications" and its regulation at the state and federal level.
To read or download Hidden Money: The Use of Electioneering Communications in Massachusetts, click here.
Read the Boston Globe Op-Ed on Campaign Financing Reform by Pamela Wilmot, Executive Director of Common Cause, Massachusetts and another Pam wrote on redistricting reform, run in the MetroWest Daily News and several other newspapers..
Results of the Con Con (including some Roll call votes) Wednesday, July 12, 2006 can be found here.
Supreme Court Rules Against Advocates
In two cases announced today and yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court disappointed advocates by upholding all but one district in the Texas redistricting case, and striking down all of Vermont's campaign finance statute.
While the effects of both cases in Massachusetts are likely to be small, these disappointing decisions may shape the nationwide political landscape for years to come.
Open Government
On Thursday March 16th, in honor of "Sunshine Week," Common Cause released a survey the internet presence of all 351 cities and towns and announced a new campaign to drastically increase internet access to key local government records-- agendas, minutes, budget, bylaws, and town meeting information. The survey found that only 23 municipalities-- or about 6.5% -- have all 6 key records posted on-line.
To learn more about the project and check your town : http://www.maopengov.org
To read the press release click here
Tex Mess: Gerrymandering Texas Style
An Evening with Sam Hirsch, a lead attorney in the Texas Redistricting case.
About 65 people gathered at the law offices of Holland and Knight on Thursday March 30th to hear redistricting expert Sam Hirsch discuss the Texas redistricting case. Sam shocked the audience with details of the Texas story and a Power Point presentation that illustrated the new gerrymandered Texas Congressional districts. Thank you to everyone who attended or contributed. We earned several thousand dollars to support our redistricting efforts in Massachusetts. Here is more about the event.
Democracy on the Docket
On February 28th and March 1st the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments on campaign finance reform and redistricting :
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Texas: A set of cases relating to the mid-decade redistricting initiated by Representative Tom DeLay. These involved: the constitutionality of a mid-decade redistricting; whether the redistricting dis-empowered minorities; whether the courts can disallow excessive gerrymandering. Check here for more information.
Recent articles and editorials on Texas Redistricting:
Vermont: The constitutionality of the Vermont Spending Limits Law. This law puts constraints on the amount of money candidates for State Offices can spend. Check here for more information.
Over 65 people attended the Common Cause Brunch on Sunday June 11th.
We honored
John McDonough with the John Gardner Public Service Award
and
Josh Friedes with the CC/MA Distinguished Service Award
Fair Districts a Little Short...
The results are in, and we have not collected enough certified signatures to qualify the Fair Districts initiative petition. We are, of course, disappointed, but we are not deterred from our goal of realizing fair electoral districts and a democracy that is more open, thriving, and accountable. All told, we collected more than 80,000 signatures, of which close to 60,000 were from unique certified voters. Several thousand people participated in the campaign in some way, from sending in their own signature to collecting signatures in public for many hours each week. We have every right to be proud of our efforts and to continue to pursue this issue with vigor.
Thanks to all of you who sacrificed a day, a weekend, or the entire nine weeks for this important campaign.
The Struggle Continues...
Had we reached our goal of 65,825 certified signatures, our job would not have been done - we would have had to secure a vote in the legislature. This is all the more true now. With a qualified petition, we would have had to get 50 votes, now we will have to get 101 on Senate Bill 12, which is pending before the Constitutional Convention. It is a difficult task to be sure, but not an impossible one if the people who participated in this campaign now turn their efforts to lobbying their own elected officials.
Common Cause remains committed to this and to other battles for democracy. We've had a 35-year history of monumental successes against tall odds, and we plan to go on speaking out and working for redistricting reform and other reforms that will make our government more open and accountable.
Special thanks to donors to our Fair Districts Campaign who provided the financing that made the Campaign possible, to the support from the national Common Cause office, to our coalition partners, our friends in the Legislature, to the staff of Common Cause Massachusetts, and to the army of volunteers who coordinated cities and towns to collect signatures.
Many Thanks
Sincerely yours,
Pam Wilmot, Executive Director
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