About: Suzanne Merkelson
Bio: Suzanne Merkelson is the former Associate Web Editor at United Republic. She previously worked at Foreign Policy magazine, where she was a web producer. She has also interned at The Atlantic and NPR’s On Point with Tom Ashbrook. Suzanne has written for the Chicago Tribune, Foreign Policy and The Atlantic, among others.
Kraft Foods Joins Coca-Cola and Pepsi In Leaving Corporate Front Group ALEC
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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Coca-Cola and PepsiCo Drop ALEC Memberships Thanks To Pressure On ‘Shoot First’ Laws
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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INFOGRAPHIC: Million Dollar Gifts Accounted For Half Of Super PACs’ Money In 2011
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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U.S. Flunks Corruption Index’s Money In Politics Test — We’re Tied With Tajikistan
What do Germany, Colombia, Ireland, Mexico, Georgia, Indonesia, Macedonia, and Serbia have in common? According to the nonprofit global governance watchdog Global Integrity, they all beat out the United States on regulating money in politics. The United States tied with Tajikistan scoring 29 out of a 100-point scale measuring the effectiveness of legislation regulating individual
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Big Oil Gave $23.5 Million To Senators Who Voted To Protect Oil Subsidies
Yesterday, the U.S. Senate failed to get the 60 votes needed to eliminate $24 billion in taxpayer subsidies for the five richest oil companies. Lining up neatly by parties, the 57-41 vote had all the Republicans, except for the two senators from Maine, joined by four Democrats, filibuster Sen. Bob Menendez’s (D-NJ) bill to cut
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Although Bill Gates Supports Gun Control, His Foundation Gave Over $375,000 To ALEC, Front Group Promoting ‘Shoot First’ Law
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has gotten some much-deserved exposure for its secretive campaigns to push harmful laws in statehouses across the country this week after it was revealed that it helped push Stand Your Ground, the law keeping Trayvon Martin’s killer free in Florida. ALEC, funded by many major corporations we all know,
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Another Young Man’s Shooter Apparently Protected by ‘Ghostwritten’ ‘Stand Your Ground’ Law
In the wake of the terrible tragedy of 17-year-old Trayvon Marton’s death, journalists, activists, politicians, and other concerned citizens have focused on the “Stand Your Ground” law (also known as the “Castle Doctrine“), which Florida police have claimed they are following in declining to arrest George Zimmerman, Martin’s killer. This law was pushed by the
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Exposed: The Corporations Behind The Law That May Let Trayvon Martin’s Killer Go Free
It’s been widely reported today that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the shadowy corporate front group that unites state lawmakers with corporations to pass state laws favorable to corporate interests, helped pass the law that might allow Trayvon Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman, to escape prosecution. Florida’s “Stand Your Ground,” the law that might help
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