Republic Report has been highly critical of the watered down and toothless Stock Act, the recently passed law to curb insider trading in Congress. We had hoped the bill would include Senator Chuck Grassley’s (R-IA) political intelligence lobbying registration provision, as well as Senator Sherrod Brown’s (D-OH) amendment on blind trusts and some form of
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Republic Report’s Lee Fang Discusses Backdoor Bribery on MSNBC Campaign asks retiring members of Congress to share future plans United Republic’s senior investigator, Lee Fang, went on The Dylan Ratigan show to talk about the Backdoor Bribery campaign. Republic Report has sent a letter to every retiring member of Congress asking them to disclose any
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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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It’s important to know about lawmakers’ conflicts of interest. For example, if they are for building expensive fighter jets produced by Boeing while at the same time owning Boeing stock, the public should know about this financial incentive. But many states currently lack strong disclosure laws that make it easy for the public to learn
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Republic Report was one of the first outlets to tell you about a dangerous bill in Georgia being pushed by a Waffle House executive and the Georgia Chamber of Commerce that would’ve outlawed picketing outside of private residences — a law that would’ve put the Founding Fathers themselves in jail. After we filed our report,
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Republic Report investigates political corruption of all types, and we’ve become increasingly concerned about retiring lawmakers. A study we produced earlier this month found that, out of the members of Congress who have become lobbyists and disclosed their salary, lawmakers moving through the revolving door can expect a 1,400% raise on average. The multimillion-dollar salaries
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Ex-Senator Evan Bayh, a lobbyist for financial services industry firms like VISA (as well as many other corporate interests), spoke at an industry event late last year to give his thoughts on the political dynamic in the US.  What he said could be lifted straight out of Naomi Klein’s book, “The Shock Doctrine”, whose thesis
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Samuel Wurzelbacher became better known as “Joe the Plumber” after he confronted then-candidate Barack Obama in 2008. Wurzelbacher told Obama that his tax policies would impact his ability to create a small plumbing business. Wurzelbacher, now a candidate for Congress, never founded that business. But he has continued playing up his plumbing background. “I’m counting
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