Investigating Power
With backing from a myriad of right-wing groups, the Center for Research on the Wisconsin Economy at the University of Wisconsin–Madison released a “research report” last month on the need to eliminate the income tax in the state.
Charles Koch’s Americans for Prosperity Action has spent $300,000 for door-to-door canvassing to support Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s U.S. Senate bid, its biggest expenditure yet for the 2022 elections.
The right-wing Bradley Foundation has earmarked at least $1.7M for ALEC’s distribution of sophisticated voter management software deeply tied to the Republican Party since 2017, the subject of an IRS whistleblower complaint and multiple state campaign finance complaints.
At the heart of this exemption from the retention rules for state lawmakers are arrogance and cowardice. Arrogance that legislators don’t think they should be subject to the same scrutiny as other public officials. Cowardice that they’re afraid of the scrutiny.
The Center for Media and Democracy released a new report today, “Using Unions to Carry Big Oil’s Water,” detailing how the fossil fuel industry and the American Legislative Exchange Council cynically use unions to win Democratic support for legislation that criminalizes and chills environmental protests under the guise of “worker safety.”
Lawmakers and the University of Wisconsin System should not be able to conduct the public’s business through secret channels.
Novartis and Mallinckrodt topped the list of ALEC corporations with expensive legal violations last year.
A Convention of States resolution calling for a radical rewrite of the U.S. Constitution is once again moving in the Wisconsin Legislature.
Republicans drew their own heavily favorable state legislative districts after their 2010 election wave. Now it’s time for a new round of redistricting, and the GOP will have an even greater advantage.
The GOP, ALEC, and right-wing justices at the Supreme Court are pushing a legal theory that could disqualify hundreds of thousands of votes in states like Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Minnesota that come in after legislative deadlines but before Covid-19 extensions granted by state courts or the executive branch.