After serving Iowans for 30 years in Congress, Jim Leach’s professional life outside the beltway doesn’t appear to be slowing down. Leach, a Republican who lost his Second District congressional seat to Democratic rival Dave Loebsack of Mount Vernon last November, was unanimously voted chairman of Common Cause’s National Governing Board on Monday.

“We’re so busy telling everyone else in the world how to do democracy that we’ve failed to place a proper emphasis on improving our own model,” Leach said in statement. “One of our most glaring shortcomings relates to conflicts of interest that grow out of the vast sums of money distributed through American campaigns. The problems of following the money make clear the case for a more transparent system, one where all citizens have opportunity to seek on a fair and competitive basis elective office. Common Cause is dedicated to campaign finance reform, and in a larger sense to uplifting the American debate and revitalizing the American political ethic. I look forward to being part of that effort.”
Common Cause, a nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy organization that was founded in 1970 and now has 300,000 members, works to increase the voice of citizens in public policy and to hold their leaders accountable, according to its web site.

Leach replaced Denver lawyer Martha Tierney, who has been serving as interim chairwoman. Leach is currently the interim director of the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is on leave from Princeton University, where he is the John L. Weinberg Visiting Professor of Public and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School. Leach serves on the board of several public companies and three nonprofit organizations – the Century Foundation, the Kettering Foundation, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and formerly served as a trustee of Princeton University.