Casual bribery goes on almost every day in the nation’s capital. One way special interests game the system is by heavily recruiting members of Congress to leave public service and instead serve powerful corporations as lobbyists. Congressman Scott Rigell (R-VA), a freshman lawmaker, talked about this issue at a town hall last week. Rigell received
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For-profit colleges like ITT, DeVry, Kaplan, and the Art Institutes — sometimes called subprime schools because they leave many students deep in debt while taking billions of dollars from taxpayers — continue an expensive lobbying push to influence Congress and avoid accountability. Republic Report has received a 2011 draft strategy memo by the biggest for-profit college
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How do you turn toxic sludge — including medical, industrial and human waste — into compost used for home gardening? Well, if you’re a large corporation, you hire a small army of lobbyists and public relations experts to pressure government regulators and aggressively fool the public. The Center for Media and Democracy’s Sara Jerving reports:
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Budget cuts across the country have provided a new opportunity for corporations looking to cash in. Radio station WMFE reports that Osceola County in Florida recently moved to adopt a privatization effort as a result of budget cuts. Library Systems and Services, a private company based in Maryland, won the contract to administer six county
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The Salt Lake Tribune today published a piece about Utah’s weak ethics laws surrounding the revolving door — where state lawmakers leave the legislature to become lobbyists. The paper notes that the state officially requires lawmakers to wait one calendar year before becoming lobbyists. However, there is a loophole that allows these legislators to lobby
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There are 12,200 registered lobbyists in Washington, D.C. right now. And they earn $3.3 billion each year influencing Congress – mostly by way of talking with a silver tongue. Our friends at SofaPundit.com, Ryan and Sean Kleier, were incensed by the undue role lobbyists have over democracy, so they applied for a Fund for the Republic grant
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Two weeks ago, America’s subprime schools — the for-profit college industry, many of whose members rip students off and demand that Uncle Sam pick up the tab for their shoddy education — held a conference in Washington, D.C. We were there. The association for these schools, America’s Private Sector Colleges and Universities (APSCU), brought in elite
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Today, Republic Report announced that we are asking all 34 retiring members of Congress to make a simple, common sense commitment: “I will disclose any negotiations or offers for jobs on the front page of my congressional website.”  This afternoon we are delivering letters to all 34 congressional offices seeking this commitment. We want you
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