Can Congress effectively police itself and stop corruption? We visited the Senate Ethics Office, and found a pretty blatant example of how lawmakers exploit a loophole in a rule designed ostensibly to stop revolving door bribery. In 2007, in the wake of the Jack Abramoff scandal, in which it became obvious that many lawmakers and
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In our broken campaign finance system, Members of Congress know that they can introduce and advocate for legislation that benefits a certain industry or special interest group and then be lavished with campaign contributions from the same interests. On June 11th, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) introduced a bill titled the “South Carolina Off-shore Drilling Act,”
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The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps) does a lot to help out low-income American families — 46 million Americans participate in the program, half of whom are children. This means there’s lots of money in SNAP — thanks to the weak economy, SNAP expenditures increased from $30 billion in 2007
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North Carolina House Majority Leader Paul Stam (R) has an idea for fixing our country’s education system — dump tens of millions of taxpayer dollars into private schools. Stam is a sponsor of House Bill 1104, which would utilize the “North Carolina Opportunity Scholarship Program” to shift up to $40 million of taxpayer funds in
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Last week, Governor Dannel Malloy (D-Conn.) had an opportunity to enact significant statewide campaign finance reform. Instead, he vetoed legislation that promised to be one of the most powerful disclosure laws in any state. As Public Campaign’s Nick Nyhart put it: “Malloy had a chance to be a national leader on reform, but opted to side with wealthy
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Today, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is testifying before the House Financial Services Committee about his megabank’s stunning $2 billion loss. As during his testimony before the Senate last week, Dimon is being shown enormous deference by members of Congress, many of whom receive campaign contributions from Dimon’s bank. Take, for example the committee’s chairman,
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Corporations often seek to elect their own politicians and set policy, but are nervous about public backlash from engaging directly in politics. That’s why so many corporations hide behind layers of front groups and dummy nonprofits to run ads and other electioneering efforts. Aetna, the health insurance company, was recently exposed for secretly financing at
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Drones aren’t just for battlefields in the Middle East or South Asia anymore. In February, Congress authorized the use of thousands of surveillance drones domestically in the United States. At a conference of drone manufacturers that Republic Report attended in Washington, D.C., lobbyists praised Members of Congress for giving them exactly the sort of authorization
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