Last week, Republic Report sent a letter to 35 retiring Members of Congress asking them to reject backdoor bribery and publicly disclose negotiations they’re having with lobbyists and others for jobs after they leave office. Current disclosure laws are full of loopholes, leaving constituents in the dark about these negotiations. We’re outraged that Members of Congress are
Continue Reading >>>

As Republic Report reported last week, there are a number of high-profile American politicos — including former directors of the CIA and FBI, presidential candidates, and mayors of major American cities — who have taken up the cause of de-listing the  Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) from the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. The Department of
Continue Reading >>>

Imagine a country where the government makes laws and requires citizens to obey, yet citizens can’t read some of those laws unless they purchase the text, sometimes for a large amount of money, from a private organization. Imagine a country where a citizen posts the building safety laws of his own town on a website
Continue Reading >>>

Casual bribery goes on almost every day in the nation’s capital. One way special interests game the system is by heavily recruiting members of Congress to leave public service and instead serve powerful corporations as lobbyists. Congressman Scott Rigell (R-VA), a freshman lawmaker, talked about this issue at a town hall last week. Rigell received
Continue Reading >>>

For-profit colleges like ITT, DeVry, Kaplan, and the Art Institutes — sometimes called subprime schools because they leave many students deep in debt while taking billions of dollars from taxpayers — continue an expensive lobbying push to influence Congress and avoid accountability. Republic Report has received a 2011 draft strategy memo by the biggest for-profit college
Continue Reading >>>

How do you turn toxic sludge — including medical, industrial and human waste — into compost used for home gardening? Well, if you’re a large corporation, you hire a small army of lobbyists and public relations experts to pressure government regulators and aggressively fool the public. The Center for Media and Democracy’s Sara Jerving reports:
Continue Reading >>>

Budget cuts across the country have provided a new opportunity for corporations looking to cash in. Radio station WMFE reports that Osceola County in Florida recently moved to adopt a privatization effort as a result of budget cuts. Library Systems and Services, a private company based in Maryland, won the contract to administer six county
Continue Reading >>>

The Salt Lake Tribune today published a piece about Utah’s weak ethics laws surrounding the revolving door — where state lawmakers leave the legislature to become lobbyists. The paper notes that the state officially requires lawmakers to wait one calendar year before becoming lobbyists. However, there is a loophole that allows these legislators to lobby
Continue Reading >>>