By Drew Grant 11/07/12 11:00am

ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE

Susan Lerner of Common Cause

How New York’s Poll Peacekeeper Spent Her Day From Hell

It’s election days like yesterday that Susan Lerner both lives for and dreads. The executive director of Common Cause left the house at 3:30 a.m. She spent the wee hours of the election morning printing out thousands of fliers alerting people to the voter hotline that the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG) were manning along with Lerner and her associates in Common Cause to field  calls about voting problems. It has been a joint election protection effort of NYPIRG and Common Cause for more than 20 years, and a solo NYPIRG effort before that time.

By 9 a.m. she had 60 volunteers manning phones that never stopped ringing, not even for a second.  Read More

By Reid Pillifant 3/05/10 4:32pm

Common Cause Reluctantly Calls for Resignation

The good-government group Common Cause is now calling for Governor David Paterson to resign.

“Given the fiscal and governmental crisis enveloping our state, we at Common Cause/New York have come to the reluctant conclusion that it would be in the best interest of the people of the State of New York for Governor Paterson to Read More

By Jimmy Vielkind 12/23/08 12:24am

A Big Tent for Opponents of the Senate Appointment Process

ALBANY—What do a Democratic assemblyman from the Bronx, a Republican state senator from Rome, a good-government advocate and the Niagara County Republican chairman have in common?

They all oppose New York's current system for selecting a vacancy for the U.S. Senate.

"New York has a system of special elections for vacancies in the state legislature–why Read More

By Azi Paybarah 10/22/08 8:23pm

Blooomberg as a GOTV Advocate?

A handful of votes this Election Day could determine the presidency, control of the State Senate and a few toss-up congressional races here, making  the Get Out the Vote operations  more meaningful than in years past.

And with that unprecedented call for voters to go to the polls, a critic of Michael Bloomberg says the Read More