The group's stated goals are more modest than ending campaign contributions. For example, it would like to see ordinances to ban fund-raising on public property and to force developers with projects pending in a town to more readily disclose local politic contributions. The meeting had a patriotic and religious, rather than a partisan bent. It began with the Pledge of Allegiance and an invocation. We're the last keepers of patriotism, Pozycki told the crowd.
Campaign contributions are up, votership is down, our democracy is in retreat.
Common Cause was founded in 1970 by John Gardner a former U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, as a nonpartisan citizens' lobbying group. Mostly through grass roots organizing, the Washington-based organization has since grown to 250,000 members nationwide, with 8,000 in New Jersey.