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Common Cause

April 23, 2013
Social Justice Leader Bob Edgar Dies
by Jeremy Leaming

A renowned social justice leader Bob Edgar died today at age 69. Edgar was a U.S. congressman for 12 years, leader of the National Council of Churches and since 2007 the president and CEO of Common Cause. While in Congress, he served on the committee that investigated the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Edgar, who the Religion News Service’s Adelle M. Banks reports died of a heart attack, was also a “bridge builder.” As head of the National Council of Churches he helped bring together an array of faith groups to advance social justice causes. “Early on,” Banks writes, “Edgar sensed that the venerable ecumenical agency was losing its public voice, and was one of the early supporters of Christian Churches Together in the USA, which brought the NCC’s mainline Protestant, Orthodox and black churches together with evangelicals and Catholics for the first time.”

U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr., Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, worked with Edgar during his time in the Congress and noted that he was the “principal co-author of legislation that updated the G.I. bill following the abolition of the draft ….” Edgar, Conyers noted, also served on the Veterans Affairs Committee, where he worked to address concerns over the deployment of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, and of veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.”

Edgar led Common Cause a nonpartisan group devoted to ensuring Congress works efficiently and is accountable to citizens. Last year the group lodged a federal lawsuit against the use of the filibuster, which has been used primarily and with increasing frequency by Republican senators to scuttle judicial nominations and thwart popular legislation, such as modest measures to promote gun safety. Edgar in a press release about the lawsuit said the filibuster had been used to “pretty much shut the place down.” He noted that far too often it would take a supermajority or 60 senators to allow much of any action to occur.

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Campaign finance, Democracy and Voting, Bob Edgar, Common Cause, filibuster, Rep. John Conyers, Robert Reich, social justice
May 15, 2012
Common Cause Challenges Filibuster, While Senate Leader Embraces Reform Efforts
by Jeremy Leaming

Obstructionism in Congress, as Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein argue in their new book, is largely, if not solely, born by Republicans. The obstructionism, which has, among other things, kept the number of vacancies on the federal bench consistently high, is finally prompting Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to rethink his opposition to reforming the filibuster, which has been the primary tool for Republican obstructionism in the Senate.

The public interest group, Common Cause, has also gotten into the act by lodging a federal lawsuit against that the filibuster, which conservatives in the Senate have used in an unprecedented manner, helping to create a Congress where not much is accomplished. (The Tea Party and the nation’s super wealthy, of course, like it this way. Economic policy continues to exacerbate economic inequality and brain-addled Tea Party leaders believe the Constitution established a weak central government, though in reality they just long for the Articles of Confederation, which really did establish a weak central power.)

Writing about the lawsuit for the Common Cause blog, Common Blog, Bob Edgar, the group’s president and CEO, who served 12 years in Congress, claims “ideological purists” in both parties have learned how to wield the filibuster to “pretty much shut the place down.” The filibuster he maintains is supposed to extend debate, not stop it.

“Here’s how the obstructionists work,” he writes. “To begin debate on a bill, senators must first adopt a ‘motion to proceed.’ But debate on that motion, as on most everything else that comes before the Senate is unlimited unless at least 60 senators vote to end it. That means a minority of as few as 41 can block any action simply by refusing to permit a vote on the motion to proceed.”

The group, representing members of Congress and children of undocumented immigrants who would have benefited from enactment of the DREAM Act, says the Constitution intends for the filibuster’s use in specific circumstances.

Attorney Emmet J. Boundurant and Common Cause Staff Counsel Stephen Spaulding prepared and lodged the lawsuit. The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein in a blog post about the constitutionality of the filibuster cites a 2011 article in which Boundurant explains his constitutional case against the filibuster. Klein also provides historical context for the filibuster, calling it a mistake. Klein cites Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison containing arguments against the use of a supermajority.

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Executive power, Constitutional Interpretation and Change, Bob Edgar, Common Cause, Emmet J. Boundurant, Ezra Klein, filibuster, Sen. Harry Reid, Senate obstructionism
May 14, 2012
ALEC’s Campaign to Silence Questions on Corporate Ties
by Jeremy Leaming

As the campaign continues to encourage supporters of the right-wing advocacy group, the American Legislative Exchange Council, better known as ALEC, to rethink their support of the group, The Huffington Post’s Dan Froomkin reveals the group’s efforts to help its members fend off pesky questions about its corporate backers.

Froomkin says a memo, obtained by Common Cause, was sent to ALEC members essentially telling them to try and change the subject. “The model answers,” Froomkin writes, “provided by ALEC have the consistent theme of attempting to obscure the influence of its corporate members and to shift emphasis onto the role of legislators, whose dues comprise only 2 percent of the group’s budget, according to an analysis by the Center for Media and Democracy.”

For years ALEC has crafted model legislation for state lawmakers advancing interests of corporate America, as well as Religious Right outfits and the National Rifle Association, usually with little media notice. Bu that changed after Florida’s so-called “Stand Your Ground” law drew national coverage.

Although ALEC has argued that laws, such as the Stand Your Ground Law, which garnered national attention after the killing of the Florida youngster Trayvon Martin, are wholly the product of state lawmakers, high-profile commentators have noted that the group and its work is funded largely by big corporations.

In late March, Matt Gertz of Media Matters noted that the Florida law, which provides great legal protection to people who shoot others outside their homes, is “virtually identical to Section 1 of ALEC’s Castle Doctrine Act ….”

A coalition of groups, including ColorOfChange and CMD, has urged corporate sponsors to pay closer attention to the work of ALEC and to stop supporting it. More than a dozen corporations have severed ties with ALEC, including Johnson & Johnson, PepsiCo., and Blue Cross Blue Shield. ColorOfChange recently announced that the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards has ceased support of ALEC.

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Economic inequality, Criminal Justice, ALEC, American Legislativve Exchange Council, ColorOfChange, Common Cause, corporate members, Dan Froomkin, stand your ground, The Center for Media and Democracy, Trayvon Martin