Big chemical companies are quietly buying campaign ads that are polluting the airwaves in a bid to convince Congress not to regulate carcinogenic chemicals or not take other actions to protect health and the environment. The ads have appeared in districts of lawmakers who are poised to impact legislation to overhaul health and environmental standards.
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The Times Union of Albany has a lobbying story about BlackRock, the investment management firm headquartered in New York. Despite earning a tidy $2.2 billion in profit last year, New York lawmakers enacted a change in the tax code that is saving the firm between $5-10 million in taxes. Lobbying records from by New York
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Here’s a chart of Intuit’s lobbying expenditures in Congress, courtesy of Open Secrets. I suspect that some of that nine million dollars of lobbying by that company since 2008 has gone to making it more annoying for you and me to file our taxes. Here’s what I mean. In some countries, the equivalent of their IRS
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Hilary Rosen, a Democratic lobbyist and pundit for CNN, found herself caught up in 24-hour news cycle controversy after she made some inflammatory comments about Ann Romney’s work as stay-at-home mom. Rosen has apologized for her off-the-cuff comments. But the entire story may set off a greater, more substantive inquiry about the nature of Rosen’s
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A cyber security bill moving swiftly through Congress would give government intelligence agencies broad powers to work with private companies to share information about Internet users. While some critics are beginning to organize online against the legislation, defense contractors, many already working with the National Security Agency on related data-mining projects, are lobbying to press
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Last night, Hilary Rosen shockingly claimed that Mitt Romney’s wife, Ann Romney, “actually never worked a day in her life,” referring to Romney’s role as a stay-at-home mom. Watch her remarks: Rosen’s remarks have set off a firestorm in the media. As press outlets rushed to cover the controversy, they frequently referred to her as
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Multinational corporations have many options for influencing legislation in their favor, one of which is the Business Roundtable, a trade association with over a $24 million dollar advocacy budget. The Roundtable helps member companies like J.P. Morgan, Wal-Mart, and WellPoint ensure that Washington is making policy that benefits their bottom line. The group is gearing
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It’s not hard to understand what lobbyists do: They influence lawmakers on policy that’s important to their (often corporate) clients and employers, in many cases while they or their clients are providing campaign contributions and other benefits to the same lawmakers. But the legal definition of a lobbyist is complicated and leaves out many of
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