Common Cause

Campaigns

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  George Santos must resign

  George Santos deceived his constituents to win a seat in Congress – and we can't let him remain in public office. Santos lied his way into office, inventing stories about his family background, work experience, education, values, and identity – even going so far as to capitalize off of tragedies like the Holocaust, the PULSE nightclub shooting, and 9/11. But national Republicans are rewarding his deceit – seating him on two committees. Kevin McCarthy even justified his actions by saying that “a lot of people” have lied about their resumes while running for office. This defense is simply ridiculous. George Santos lied about nearly every aspect of who he was – and deceived every single one of his constituents to gain power. If we don’t set a clear precedent now that this kind of dishonesty and corruption do not deserve to hold elected office, we’ll be giving a free pass to candidates to lie their way into public office – regardless of who they hurt in the process.

  60 of 100 Signatures

  Created by Common Cause
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  Tell the DOJ: Act on the criminal referral for Donald Trump

  Over the last 17 months, the January 6th House Select Committee has worked around the clock to investigate how Trump and his associates planned, promoted, and paid for the January 6th attack on our country – and how he repeatedly refused to lift a finger to stop it. They’ve uncovered increasingly shocking evidence demonstrating how Trump and his accomplices plotted to undermine our democracy, pushed dangerous election lies, and even wanted to throw out election results. They documented how Trump planned in advance to falsely claim victory regardless of the actual election results. Donald Trump brazenly violated his oath of office, and when his lies and conspiracies led to the horrifying and violent attack on our Capitol, he refused to tell the January 6th insurrectionists to stand down for a gut-wrenching 187 minutes. Now, we have a real chance at accountability – since the January 6th Committee has recommended criminal consequences for Trump’s actions.

  41 of 100 Signatures

  Created by Common Cause
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  Condemn voter suppression: Our elected officials must protect our freedom to vote

  Anti-democracy extremists filed more lawsuits in 2022 than in 2020 – the year that Donald Trump dragged out his election lies in court for months. And worst of all, almost a quarter of these lawsuits were spearheaded by elected officials – hyper-partisan Republicans trying to push an anti-democracy agenda through the courts, rather than fight legislative battles they know they can’t win. The increasing litigation from far-right extremists means we have to expect an all-out attack on our right to vote from partisan legislators this year at every level. They’re eager to make it harder for voters to cast a ballot, especially in Black and Brown communities. Unfortunately, some far-right extremists and failed political candidates would rather throw out legal votes to falsely cling to power than respect our democracy – and it’s up to us to stop them. Abusing our court system to push conspiracy theories and lies about election results or vote-by-mail is no way to legislate. Sign our petition to condemn attempted voter suppression and demand our politicians protect our freedom to vote.

  20 of 100 Signatures

  Created by Common Cause
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  REJECT and RESCIND any calls for an Article V Convention

  Donald Trump wants to TERMINATE the Constitution – because he’s finally realized that it’s standing in the way of his desperate attempts to overturn the 2020 election over two years after the fact. And while it might sound ridiculous, far-right mega donors and Trump cronies like Steve Bannon are working behind the scenes to do exactly that. Under Article V of the U.S. Constitution, Congress is required to hold a constitutional convention if two-thirds of state legislatures call for one. And right now, we’re just a handful of states away. Exploiting never-before used provisions of Article V of our Constitution, 28 states have signed on to allow unelected, unaccountable delegates to rewrite the Constitution with zero checks and balances. No convention has ever been called under Article V for a reason: there is just too much at stake. Far-right groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) are trying to get this done behind closed doors and out of the public eye. But Common Cause is shining a spotlight on their sinister efforts in state after state – and so far, we have successfully rolled back calls for an Article V Convention in Colorado, New Hampshire, Delaware, and others. We need your help now to protect our Constitution once and for all. Add your name to oppose a dangerous, unregulated convention of states. To learn more about the dangers of an Article V Convention, visit defendourconstitution.org.

  40 of 100 Signatures

  Created by Common Cause
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  Condemn Trump's reckless schemes and enforce consequences for election deniers

  Donald Trump’s disinformation machine is already preparing to call to overturn midterm election results in swing states… before most voters have even cast their ballots! You read that right – over the past few months, Trump has mobilized extremist attorneys and dark money groups – all towards a desperate attempt to reverse any results he doesn’t like. Make no mistake – this effort will likely fail, just like it did in 2020. But that doesn’t mean it can’t cause lasting damage to our democracy. And the most worrying part? Trump reportedly views this as a “dress rehearsal for Trump 2024.” Sign the Petition: Condemn Trump’s reckless plans to undermine our democracy – and urge the DOJ to keep enforcing consequences for elections deniers to make sure these plans don’t succeed.

  68 of 100 Signatures

  Created by Common Cause
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  Tell Mark Zuckerberg: Donald Trump cannot rejoin Facebook with a free pass to lie.

  Donald Trump could be back on Facebook as soon as Saturday. And, believe it or not, because he’s running for President again Facebook has already declared they’ll give him a free pass from their fact-checking policy! I don’t need to tell you how dangerous this is – the last time Trump’s election lies went unchecked, he abused his massive online megaphone to incite the violent January 6th insurrection – which led to the ban that may now be lifted. Since that deadly day, bipartisan investigators in Congress have uncovered a mountain of evidence showing how Trump’s social media vitriol was like “rocket fuel for extremists” – which means holding his statements to the same factual standards as every other user is the absolute least companies like Facebook and Twitter can do.

  68 of 100 Signatures

  Created by Common Cause
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  Twitter & Facebook must combat disinformation & hold Trump to the same standards as everyone else.

  Donald Trump is planning his big return to Facebook and Twitter – and I can’t emphasize enough how dangerous this is for our democracy. The last time Trump was on these platforms, he abused his massive online megaphone to incite the violent January 6th insurrection. Bipartisan investigators in Congress even called his social media vitriol “rocket fuel for extremists”. And now, he plans to bring the hateful rhetoric that he’d been forced to reserve for fringe, far-right pages like Truth Social back to mainstream platforms like Twitter and Facebook. No one – especially Trump – should be allowed to use Twitter or Facebook to lie and incite violence. At a minimum Facebook and Twitter must fact-check Trump and hold him to the same standards as everyone else. More importantly, Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms must enforce and strengthen their policies to combat disinformation, hate, and other harmful content. Our democracy cannot afford more lies and hate-fueled violence that go unchecked on social media.

  49 of 100 Signatures

  Created by Common Cause
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  PROTECT the Office of Congressional Ethics

  Here’s what’s going on: The Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) is an independent House ethics watchdog that Common Cause and others worked to create in 2008. It helped clean up corruption and make sure members of Congress were playing by the rules. Before the OCE, House members served as both judge and jury when considering ethical charges against their colleagues. Too often, there was a mutual “look the other way” understanding in which both parties would excuse each other’s misconduct. Now, Republicans want to go back to those bad old days and hamstring the OCE. They’re planning to make it harder to hire staff at the OCE and implement arbitrary term limits that would target three long-serving Democratic ethics board members – risking decades of institutional knowledge, and majorly weakening oversight in the new Congress.

  46 of 100 Signatures

  Created by Common Cause
• Denounce Elon Musk: Twitter must take action against disinformation

  Since purchasing Twitter, Elon Musk has emboldened election deniers, given a free pass to hate speech and misinformation, and fired a huge percentage of employees – including the executives leading Twitter’s content moderation team. He’s using his ownership of the platform to promote election denial. This is unacceptable – especially from a platform that claims to be the primary news source for 55% of its user base. We’ve urged social media platforms, including Twitter, to strengthen and enforce their content moderation policies to prevent dangerous election lies, conspiracy theories, and hate speech from running rampant. We, along with 120 other groups, called for specific policy changes to prevent harmful content from spreading further. But we’ve seen firsthand that platforms haven’t learned their lesson from 2020 – and Twitter is an egregious example. It’s clear that Elon Musk has no intention to act against misinformation or hate speech on his platform. Add your name if you agree: Elon Musk’s mismanagement of Twitter is dangerous for our democracy.

  4 of 100 Signatures

  Created by Common Cause
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  Fix our system: NO ONE should be jailed or imprisoned for an unintentional voting error

  There are people in jail right now for the “crime” of not realizing they’d lost their right to vote. Take Pamela Moses – whose story sparked national outrage when Tennessee officials gave her six years in prison for voting without realizing that she’d been disenfranchised by her past felony conviction, even after officials told her her voting rights were restored. The charge was later abandoned after Moses won a new trial – but it’s far from the only case. Just this summer, Therris L. Conney got one full year added to his jail sentence – after officials inaccurately told him he could vote while serving time in a county jail. The unjust reality is that when it comes to voting errors, those who are least able to mount a defense are punished more harshly. As a result, poor and Black people in the U.S. are punished more harshly for lesser violations than wealthy white retirees. That’s NOT how our democracy should work. We need to fix these inconsistencies in our legal system – and get rid of the racist felony disenfranchisement laws that put people in these precarious situations. We shouldn’t be incarcerating people for good-faith efforts to participate in democracy. It’s time to fix our system so that ALL of us get the say we deserve in our democracy – and no one is put in jail for an honest voting mistake.

  58 of 100 Signatures

  Created by Common Cause