It’s important to know about lawmakers’ conflicts of interest. For example, if they are for building expensive fighter jets produced by Boeing while at the same time owning Boeing stock, the public should know about this financial incentive. But many states currently lack strong disclosure laws that make it easy for the public to learn
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Republic Report was one of the first outlets to tell you about a dangerous bill in Georgia being pushed by a Waffle House executive and the Georgia Chamber of Commerce that would’ve outlawed picketing outside of private residences — a law that would’ve put the Founding Fathers themselves in jail. After we filed our report,
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Republic Report investigates political corruption of all types, and we’ve become increasingly concerned about retiring lawmakers. A study we produced earlier this month found that, out of the members of Congress who have become lobbyists and disclosed their salary, lawmakers moving through the revolving door can expect a 1,400% raise on average. The multimillion-dollar salaries
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Ex-Senator Evan Bayh, a lobbyist for financial services industry firms like VISA (as well as many other corporate interests), spoke at an industry event late last year to give his thoughts on the political dynamic in the US.  What he said could be lifted straight out of Naomi Klein’s book, “The Shock Doctrine”, whose thesis
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Samuel Wurzelbacher became better known as “Joe the Plumber” after he confronted then-candidate Barack Obama in 2008. Wurzelbacher told Obama that his tax policies would impact his ability to create a small plumbing business. Wurzelbacher, now a candidate for Congress, never founded that business. But he has continued playing up his plumbing background. “I’m counting
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Last year, Steve Lebowitz and I published a story for ThinkProgress revealing that Steve Lonegan, a Republican candidate for New Jersey governor in 2009, made false statements in order to obtain millions in public funding for his election. Our report sparked a qui tam lawsuit by a citizen in New Jersey against Lonegan for defrauding the
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Last week, you learned about former banking committee staffer Scott Eckel, who should just be settling into his new job as head of lobbying for Charles Schwab. Eckel is now earning money based on his connections crafted during his time as a public policy-maker, which is a nice clear a case of Backdoor Bribery. Below
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Selling out pays. We looked at just a dozen Members of Congress who became lobbyists and other advocates for special interests after they left office and found that they received an average of a 1,452 percent raise. So we here at Republic Report sent a letter to all 36 retiring Members of Congress asking them
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