Last month, “Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to let stand a decision by the Montana Supreme Court, American Tradition Partnership vs. Bullock, upholding the state’s ban on outside election spending by corporations. The anti-environmental group American Tradition Partnership contends that Montana’s law conflicts directly with the Supreme
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Republic Report has covered how political money can corrupt government by influencing the actions of elected representatives. But professional hacks can also disrupt democracy by interfering with the voting process itself. Late last year, Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign began paying Nathan Sproul, a political consultant with a long history of destroying Democratic voter registration forms
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Military industry lobbyists are using the Tea Party as props to fight back against defense cuts. Companies that benefit from tens of billions of taxpayer dollars, many of which are for unnecessary and wasteful programs, are attempting to co-opt political support as they desperately try to maintain their pork barrel contracts. Take, for example, the
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Bank of America will be holding its annual shareholder meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina, on May 9th. A group of shareholders led by Trillium Asset Management will be introducing a resolution calling on the megabank to cease all political donations, as these “contributions can backfire on a corporation’s reputation and bottom line.” For example, retail giant
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The corporate-funded front group the American Legislation Exchange Council (ALEC) is panicking. After a dozen corporations and major foundations have left the group in recent days, ALEC is making a concerted effort to reach out to right-wing bloggers to come to its defense. But conservatives should not be fooled. While ALEC does promote some conservative
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As we reported earlier this month, Waffle House executive and Georgia state senator Don Balfour is pushing a bill, SB469, that would prohibit picketing outside private residences, a law that would’ve put the Founding Fathers themselves in jail. The law is being pushed with the help of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and Corporate America,
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Today, United Republic and Republic Report were joined by a passionate group of activists outside Koch Industries’ downtown Washington lobbying headquarters to criticize the petrochemical billionaire Koch brothers’ attempt to take over the Cato Institute. Cato has a long history of fierce libertarian beliefs, widening the debate in Washington on everything from civil liberties to
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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
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