The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is the most powerful corporate front group you’ve never heard of. The group, sponsored by some of America’s largest corporations, writes legislation that tends to benefit its donors and ships these template bills to state legislatures for compliant lawmakers to pass. ALEC has pushed for legislation doing everything from attacking workers’
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Earlier today, we reported that Coca-Cola and PepsiCo said they would leave the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the corporate front group that pushes controversial laws like Stand Your Ground and disenfranchising Voter ID laws in state legislatures across the country.  Citizen groups, led by Color of Change, have pressured the corporations that fund ALEC
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The coal lobby just kicked off a $40 million campaign to manipulate the election cycle. In 2008, the industry planted questions in town hall events to coerce candidates like John McCain, Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama to support coal-friendly policies. This year, the effort seems quite similar — but the first ad of
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When GlaxoSmithKline, maker of popular drugs like Nicorette and Zantac, funds a secret lobbying effort that contributes to bad laws across the country, Republic Report is here to call them out. Companies often evade accountability for lobbying efforts by hiding behind undisclosed front groups.  But the Travyon Martin shooting may turn out to be a
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Coca-Cola and PepsiCo have both dropped their memberships in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the shadowy, ideologically conservative organization behind “Stand Your Ground” and other controversial state laws, including a ban on living wages, school and prison privatization, and disenfranchising voter ID requirements. ALEC links corporations with friendly state lawmakers and drafts model legislation to
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Today, President Obama signed the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act into law, which overwhelmingly passed both houses of Congress. The law takes aim at insider trading within Congress, which was exposed in a blockbuster 60 Minutes report late last year. “The powerful shouldn’t get to create one set of rules for themselves and another set
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Got a million bucks lying around? How about 100 grand? If so, you’re in good company…of the 714 super PAC donors in 2011, who gave an average of $88,000 to the nine biggest non-campaign organizations supporting (or, in many cases, opposing) candidates for president in 2012. With total outside spending on elections now in excess
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The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is the most powerful corporate front group you’ve never heard of. The organization, funded mostly by large corporations, writes model legislation and then sends these bills to state legislators across the country. It has successfully passed scores of laws on various issues. It was even behind pushing the law that
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