September, 06 2022, 11:11am EDT
Common Cause Scorecard Charts Lawmaker Support for Pro-Democracy Bills in 117th Congress in Wake of January 6th
WASHINGTON
As the January 6th Select Committee is reportedly set to hold more hearings this month, and less than two years since January 6th, Common Cause is releasing its 2022 Democracy Scorecard, which tracks the positions of every Member of Congress on issues vital to the health of our democracy during the 117th Congress. Throughout this Congress, members of the House and Senate were notified that various votes on key democracy issues - including many related to January 6th and its aftermath - would be counted in the Scorecard, which will be distributed to our 1.5 million members, as well as to state and national media.
"Americans expect and deserve legislation to strengthen and protect our democracy so that our nation can live up to its ideals - especially in the wake of January 6th. At Common Cause we keep close track of what members of Congress have done on these issues. Our Democracy Scorecard lets constituents know where their representatives stand," said Common Cause president Karen Hobert Flynn. "At the very start of the 117th Congress, Members were besieged in the U.S. Capitol by a violent, armed, insurrectionist mob intent on overturning the 2020 presidential election. Members of Congress were then faced with a series of choices in the months following to take steps that would strengthen democracy. Too many Members chose fealty to former-President Trump over the oath of office they swore to protect the nation."
"As we face unprecedented attacks on our democracy, protecting and strengthening our freedom to vote are paramount," said Aaron Scherb, Common Cause's senior director of legislative affairs. "After we witnessed the former president try to overturn our votes in a free election, it's imperative for Congress to establish fair national voting standards, despite continued filibusters by Senate Republicans. Congress would be wise to take heed of the voting rights bills, and the wave of other popular pro-democracy reforms, that are being passed at the state and local level while Republicans in Congress blockade them at the federal level. This Scorecard is a resource for all constituents to evaluate which members of Congress are working to strengthen our freedom to vote and which ones are trying to make it harder for Americans to vote.
Some highlights and trends from the 2022 Democracy Scorecard include:
- Most of the included bills would've become law if the legislative filibuster didn't exist, as many of them have majority support in Congress
- 101 members of Congress had a perfect score on this year's Scorecard, a more than 70% increase over the number of members who had perfect scores (58) in 2020
- California has the highest number of members of Congress (19) with perfect scores
- Vermont is the only state with every member of its delegation (3) earning a perfect score
- 7 states have both U.S. Senators earning a perfect score: Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oregon, and Vermont
A subset of votes and bills in this year's Scorecard include:
Votes
- Impeachment and conviction of former President Donald Trump for incitement of insurrection
- For the People Act
- DC Statehood
- Independent commission to investigate the January 6th insurrection and a resolution creating the January 6th Select Committee
- John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act
- Steve Bannon criminal contempt resolution
- Protecting Our Democracy Act
- Mark Meadows criminal contempt resolution
- Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act
Bills to cosponsor
- DISCLOSE Act
- Supreme Court Ethics Act
- Frank Harrison, Elizabeth Peratrovich, and Miguel Trujillo Native American Voting Rights Act
- Democracy for All Amendment
The Scorecard does not 'rate' candidates. Instead, it spotlights the votes and co-sponsors of legislation that would protect our elections, elevate the voices of all Americans in politics and government, make voting more accessible, end racial and partisan gerrymandering so that every American has a fair chance to elect representatives of their choice, and promote high ethical standards for elected and appointed officials.
Common Cause previously issued Democracy Scorecards in 2016, 2018, and 2020 based on the votes and cosponsorship of between 15-18 key democracy reform bills.
To view the full 2022 Democracy Scorecard, click here.
Common Cause is a nonpartisan, grassroots organization dedicated to upholding the core values of American democracy. We work to create open, honest, and accountable government that serves the public interest; promote equal rights, opportunity, and representation for all; and empower all people to make their voices heard in the political process.
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Israeli Cabinet Approves 19 New Apartheid Colonies in Occupied West Bank
"The ONLY reason Israel gets away with this naked thievery is US military and political support," said one observer.
Dec 21, 2025
Israel's Cabinet on Sunday finalized approval of 19 new Jewish-only settler colonies in the illegally occupied West Bank, a move the apartheid state's far-right finance minister said was aimed at thwarting Palestinian statehood.
Cabinet ministers approved the legalization of the previously unauthorized settler outposts throughout the occupied Palestinian territory, bringing the total number of new settlements in recent years to 69.
The move will bring the overall total number of exclusively or overwhelmingly Jewish settlements—which are illegal under international law—to more than 200, up from around 140 just three years ago.
Included in the new approval are two former settlements—Kadim and Ganim—that were evacuated in compliance with the now effectively repealed 2005 Disengagement Law, under which Israel dismantled all of its colonies in the Gaza Strip and four in the West Bank.
"This is righting a historic injustice of expulsion from 20 years ago," Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich—who is a settler—said on Sunday. "We are putting the brakes on the rise of a Palestinian terror state."
"We will continue to develop, build, and settle the inherited land of our ancestors, with faith in the righteousness of our path," Smotrich added.
Following an earlier round of approval for the new settlements last week, Palestinian presidential spokesperson Nabil Abu Rudeineh said, “All Israeli settlement activity is illegal and constitutes a violation of international law and international legitimacy resolutions."
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres earlier this month denounced Israel's "relentless" settlement expansion.
Such colonization, said Guterres, "continues to fuel tensions, impede access by Palestinians to their land, and threaten the viability of a fully independent, democratic, contiguous, and sovereign Palestinian state."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials—some of whom, including Smotrich, deny the very existence of the Palestinian people—have vowed that such a state will not be established.
While Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza—is under pressure from right-wing and far-right government officials, settlers, and others to annex all of the West Bank, US President Donald Trump recently said that "Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened."
Some doubted Trump's threat, with Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) executive director Sarah Leah Whitson reacting to the new settlements' approval by posting on X that "the ONLY reason Israel gets away with this naked thievery is US military and political support."
Israel seized and occupied the West Bank including East Jerusalem along with Gaza in 1967, ethnically cleansing around 300,000 Palestinians. Many of these forcibly displaced people were survivors of the Nakba, the Jewish terror and ethnic cleansing campaign that saw more than 750,000 Palestinians flee or be forced from Palestine during the foundation of the modern state of Israel.
Since 1967, Israel has steadily seized more and more Palestinian land in the West Bank while building and expanding colonies there. Settlement population has increased exponentially from around 1,500 colonists in 1970 to roughly 140,000 at the time of the Oslo Accords in 1993—under which Israel agreed to halt new settlement activity—to around 770,000 today.
Settlers often attack Palestinians and their property, including in deadly pogroms, in order to terrorize them into leaving so their land can be stolen. Israeli colonists have also attacked Israel Defense Forces soldiers they view as standing in the way of their expansion.
In July 2024, the International Court of Justice—where Israel is currently facing a genocide case related to the Gaza war—found the occupation of Palestine to be an illegal form of apartheid that must be ended as soon as possible. The ICJ also ruled that Israeli settler colonization of the West Bank amounts to annexation, also a crime under international law. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states that an “occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
As the world's attention focused on Gaza during the past two years, Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed at least 1,039 Palestinians—at least 225 of them children—in the West Bank. This year, at least 233 Palestinians, including at least 52 children, have been killed so far, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East.
On Saturday, Israeli occupation forces shot and killed two Palestinians in the northern West Bank, including a 16-year-old boy, Rayan Abu Muallah, who the Israel Defense Forces said was shot after he threw an object at its troops.
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Trump Ramps Up Aggression Against Venezuela With Seizure of Ship Not Under US Sanctions
The Venezuelan government condemned the seizure as "a serious act of international piracy;" meanwhile, a US official said the Coast Guard was pursuing a third tanker in the Caribbean.
Dec 21, 2025
The Trump administration's "total and complete blockade" of "all sanctioned oil tankers" off the Venezuelan coast was already denounced by critics as "an act of war"—and the United States further escalated its aggression on Saturday by seizing a tanker that is not on a list vessels under US sanctions.
US Coast Guard troops led Saturday's seizure of the Centuries, a Panamanian-flagged, Chinese-owned oil tanker in the Caribbean Sea, after it left Venezuela.
"The United States will continue to pursue the illicit movement of sanctioned oil that is used to fund narco-terrorism in the region," US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on X. "We will find you, and we will stop you."
On Sunday, an unnamed US official told Reuters that the Coast Guard "is in active pursuit" of a third tanker near Venezuela, "a sanctioned dark fleet vessel" that "is flying a false flag and under a judicial seizure order.”
The Venezuelan government condemned Saturday's seizure as "a serious act of international piracy."
Venezuela “denounces and rejects the theft and hijacking of a new private vessel transporting oil, as well as the forced disappearance of its crew, committed by military personnel of the United States of America in international waters," Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez said in a statement.
“These acts will not go unpunished,” she vowed, adding that Venezuela will pursue "all corresponding actions, including filing a complaint before the United Nations Security Council, other multilateral organizations, and the governments of the world."
Earlier this week, President Donald Trump declared a blockade of all oil tankers under US sanctions that are traveling to or from Venezuela.
Saturday's action followed the US seizure of the Panamanian-flagged Skipper—which is under sanctions—off the Venezuelan coast on December 10.
The Centuries seizure also comes amid the Trump administration's bombing of at least 28 boats allegedly transporting drugs in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, attacks that have killed more than 100 people and have been condemned as acts of extrajudicial murder.
In addition to the blockade and boat strikes, Trump has deployed an armada of warships and thousands of troops to the southern Caribbean, authorized covert CIA action against the socialist government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and has threatened to invade the South American nation. This latest wave of aggression continues more than a century of US meddling in Venezuela's affairs and sovereignty.
Numerous world leaders have denounced the US aggression toward Venezuela. On Saturday, leftist Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula de Silva said during a summit of the South American Mercosur bloc in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil that an "armed intervention in Venezuela would be a humanitarian catastrophe."
In the United States, multiple efforts by members of Congress—mostly Democrats, but also a handful of anti-war Republicans—to pass a war powers resolution blocking the Trump administration from bombing boats or attacking Venezuela have failed.
Echoing assertions by Venezuelan officials and others, one of those Republicans, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, said earlier this week that Trump's aggressive escalation "is all about oil and regime change."
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Dems Demand Answers as Trump Photo Disappears From DOJ Online Epstein Files
"What else is being covered up?"
Dec 20, 2025
Congressional Democrats on Saturday pressed US Attorney General Pam Bondi for answers regarding the apparent removal of a photo showing President Donald Trump surrounded by young female models from Friday's Department of Justice release of files related to the late convicted child sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein.
Amid the heavily redacted documents in Friday's DOJ release was a photo of a desk with an open drawer containing multiple photos of Trump, including one of him with Epstein and convicted child sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell and another of him with the models.
However, the photo—labeled EFTA00000468 in the DOJ's Epstein Library—was no longer on the site as of Saturday morning.
"This photo, file 468, from the Epstein files that includes Donald Trump, has apparently now been removed from the DOJ release," Democrats on the House Oversight Committee noted in a Bluesky post. "AG Bondi, is this true? What else is being covered up? We need transparency for the American public."
This photo, file 468, from the Epstein files that includes Donald Trump has apparently now been removed from the DOJ release.AG Bondi, is this true? What else is being covered up? We need transparency for the American public.
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— Oversight Dems (@oversightdemocrats.house.gov) December 20, 2025 at 9:30 AM
Numerous critics have accused the Trump administration of a cover-up due to the DOJ's failure to meet a Friday deadline to release all Epstein-related documents and heavy redactions—including documents of 100 pages or more that are completely blacked out—to many of the files.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche responded to the criticism by claiming that "the only redactions being applied to the documents are those required by law—full stop."
"Consistent with the statute and applicable laws, we are not redacting the names of individuals or politicians unless they are a victim," he added.
Earlier this year, officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation reportedly redacted Trump's name from its file on Epstein, who was the president's longtime former friend and who died in 2019 in a New York City jail cell under mysterious circumstances officially called suicide while facing federal child sex trafficking and conspiracy charges.
Trump has not been accused of any crimes in connection with Epstein.
House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) said during a Friday CNN interview that the DOJ only released about 10% of the full Epstein files.
The DOJ is breaking the law by not releasing the full Epstein files. This is not transparency. This is just more coverup by Donald Trump and Pam Bondi. They need to release all the files, NOW.
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— Congressman Robert Garcia (@robertgarcia.house.gov) December 19, 2025 at 5:06 PM
"The DOJ has had months and hundreds of agents to put these files together, and yet entire documents are redacted—from the first word to the last," Garcia said on X. "What are they hiding? The American public deserves transparency. Release all the files now!"
In a joint statement Friday, Garcia and House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said, "We are now examining all legal options in the face of this violation of federal law."
"The survivors of this nightmare deserve justice, the co-conspirators must be held accountable, and the American people deserve complete transparency from DOJ," they added.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.)—who along with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) introduced the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was signed into law by Trump last month and required the release of all Epstein materials by December 19—said in a video published after Friday's document dump that he and Massie "are exploring all options" to hold administration officials accountable.
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