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Money in Politics

Private Prison Companies, Executives Have Donated Millions To Congress

February 6, 2026 Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg and Ethan Corey, In These Times. , , , ,
Leading for-profit prison companies donated about half a million dollars to Republican members of Congress currently in office, and $58,000 to Democratic congressmembers, from 2021 through 2025, according to an investigation by The Appeal. Executives at these firms have also donated millions of dollars to candidates, political parties, and political action committees (PACs). More than 70,000 people are currently being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the majority of them are incarcerated in private prisons.

He Who Pays The Piper Calls The Tune

August 15, 2025 Dr. Wilmer J. Leon, III, Popular Resistance. , , ,
In theory, the fundamental premise of American democracy is “one man (or person), one vote.”  Under the original concept of Jeffersonian Democracy, in most states access to the franchise was limited to White males who owned at least a fifty-acre plot of land. Towards the end of the 18th century and early into the 19th century, states began lifting the property and education requirements for White males. African Americans were legally granted the right to vote with the ratification of the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1870.  Women were granted the right to vote with the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920.

Utility Industry Dollars Pour Into Public Service Commission Elections

November 2, 2024 Sara Sneath, DeSmog. , , , , ,
On Tuesday, Louisiana voters in 13 parishes will decide who will fill a vacant seat on Louisiana’s Public Service Commission, a little known but powerful five-member body that regulates electric companies, oversees telecommunications services, and sets utility rates. The person elected to District Two of the Public Service Commission will fill the seat left by Dr. Craig Greene, a moderate Republican who was seen as the commission’s sole swing voter. He is not seeking re-election. Earlier this year, Greene voted alongside the two Democrats on the commission to approve energy efficiency programs aimed at reducing electricity costs for residents.

US Elections 100% Bought Off!

July 7, 2024 Lee Camp, BreakThrough News. , , ,
US elections are the most bought-off in the world. How did we get here? Most people know that it has something to do with the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision. But most do not know it actually goes back more than a hundred years before that to an 1886 Supreme Court decision. But it gets worse — The statement that made corporations people (and therefore able to buy elections) wasn't even in the actual Supreme Court decision. It was in the "headnote" by the court reporter. Comedian Lee Camp dives deeper into the last hundred years of corporate money corrupting every inch of our elections.

A Maryland House Race Shows How Not To Cover AIPAC

June 12, 2024 Pete Tucker, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. , , , ,
The biggest outside spender in the 2022 Democratic primaries was an unlikely group: the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. This year, AIPAC—a group backed by Republican mega-donors that is devoted to maintaining strong US support for the far-right government of Israel—is going even bigger, aiming to spend a cool $100 million via its super PAC, the United Democracy Project. If the Koch brothers quietly spent millions to sway Democratic primaries, their chosen candidates would be tarred. Same goes for Big Oil, the NRA and other right-wing special interests. But AIPAC is an exception to this rule.

Threats To US Democracy Go Far Beyond Elections And Courts

April 21, 2024 Basav Sen, In These Times. , , , ,
The idea that U.S. democracy is in danger is now widely accepted among the U.S. political class and increasingly by the American public as well. ​“Not since President Lincoln and the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault here at home as they are today,” President Biden said during his March 7 State of the Union address. Much of the media attention on the threat has focused on our electoral system and courts. These procedural elements of democracy are of course critical. But there isn’t enough public discussion of threats to substantive democracy — the degree of government accountability to the public, as well as the protection of free speech and the right to dissent.

Democrats ‘Funneled’ Utility Money To Climate Candidate Challenger

January 25, 2023 Sara Sneath, DeSmog. , , , ,
Louisiana - Louisiana Democratic Party leaders are accused of funneling thousands of dollars from utility companies to the campaign of a fossil fuel–friendly candidate who ran for reelection on the state’s utility regulatory committee. Campaign finance records filed this week show that the Party received more than $90,000 in donations from utility companies, energy producers, and their executives during the elections for two Louisiana Public Service Commissioners. The same utility companies — Entergy, Cleco, and CenterPoint Energy — also donated directly to incumbent Lambert Boissiere III, whose campaign was largely sponsored by industry groups. Entergy, Cleco, and CenterPoint Energy did not respond to requests for comment for this story. Despite these industry donations to his opponent, climate candidate Davante Lewis won the District 3 Commissioner seat, which represents parts of New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

Since 2021, Big Oil Has Spent Over $200 Million To Sabotage Climate Action

July 29, 2022 Jake Johnson, Common Dreams. , , ,
The oil and gas industry, one of the most powerful corporate forces in American politics, has spent more than $200 million over the past year and a half to stop Congress from slashing carbon emissions as evidence of their catastrophic impact—from deadly heatwaves to massive wildfires—continues to accumulate in stunning fashion. That topline estimate of the fossil fuel industry's lobbying outlays and congressional election spending in the U.S. was calculated by Climate Power, which provided its findings exclusively to Common Dreams. Nearly 80% of the industry's campaign donations during the time period examined went to Republican candidates, according to Climate Power, whose analysis draws on data from OpenSecrets.

Shareholders Push To End Secret Political Spending

May 12, 2021 Judd Legum and Tesnim Zekeria, Popular.info. , , ,
Popular Information focuses a lot of attention on the activities of corporate PACs, even though the dollar figures involved are relatively small. Corporate PACs can contribute a maximum of $5,000 per election to a federal candidate. For a typical candidate that has a primary and general election, that's $10,000 per cycle.  So why do we spend so much time tracking this spending? Because corporate PACs are one of the few aspects of corporate political spending that is fully transparent. All of the money donated by corporate PACs to federal candidates is reported to the FEC. Things are a bit more complex on the state level, but it's a similar dynamic. Most states also have fairly regular disclosure of corporate PAC donations. Some states allow corporations to donate directly to candidates but those donations still must be disclosed.

Don’t Open The Door Further To Dark Money

May 1, 2021 Lisa Graves, The Progressive. , , ,
On April 26, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that could unmoor decades of transparency laws, even as dark money spending by special interests continues to rise.  The court’s new majority is being asked by billionaire Charles Koch’s nonprofits to expand on the notion that “money is speech” by ruling that the First Amendment bars disclosure laws that may chill large donors from giving more money to nonprofits. On the surface, the case, known as Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta, is about whether a state can require a nonprofit group to reveal a list of its donors who give $5,000 or more. That data is not public, but a glitch in California’s electronic filing system inadvertently made it searchable to other filers for a short period, which Koch’s Americans for Prosperity Foundation discovered. 

The Gamers’ Uprising Against Wall Street Has Deep Populist Roots

February 11, 2021 Ellen Brown, ScheerPost.com. , , ,
A short squeeze frenzy driven by a new generation of gamers captured financial headlines in recent weeks, centered on a struggling strip mall video game store called GameStop. The Internet and a year off in this shut down to study up have given a younger generation of investors the tools to compete in the market. Gerald Celente calls it the “Youth Revolution.” A group of New York Young Republicans who protested in the snow on January 31 called it “Re-occupy Wall Street.” Others have called it  Occupy Wall Street 2.0.  The populist uprising against Wall Street goes back farther, however, than to the 2010 Occupy movement. In the late 19th century, the country was suffering from a depression nearly as severe as the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Are We Not All In Search Of Tomorrow

February 6, 2021 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. , , ,
In 2019, 613 million Indians voted to appoint their representatives to the Indian parliament (Lok Sabha). During the election campaign, the political parties spent Rs. 60,000 crores (around US $8 billion), 45% of which was spent by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the governing party; the BJP won 37% of the vote, which translated into 303 of the 545 seats in the Lok Sabha. A year later, a massive $14 billion was spent on the US presidential and congressional elections, with the winning Democrat Party dominating the spending. These are massive amounts of money, whose grip on the democratic process is quite clear by now.

The Rich Are Defunding Our Democracy

June 16, 2020 Sam Pizzigati, Inequality.org. , , ,
How can you tell if you’re living in a democracy? The answer can get rather complicated. Simple yardsticks can often confuse more than clarify. Take the notion that you have democracies where you have elections. Ballots over bullets. Sounds good. But authoritarians have been brazenly manipulating elections — to cement their rule — for generations. The deadliest example: the plebiscite Adolf Hitler staged in 1934 to lock in Nazi power. Stormtroopers at polling stations would ensure Hitler an overwhelmingly “victory.” How about free speech as the most indispensable indicator of democracy’s presence? If people can get up on a soapbox to speak their minds, if they can publish whatever they have to say, you have a democracy. But this simple formulation turns out to be less than universally revealing.

California DAs Call For Ban On Police Union Money In Prosecutor Elections

June 5, 2020 By Eliyahu Kamisher, The Appeal. , , ,
A coalition of four current and former district attorneys called on the State Bar of California on Monday to ban law enforcement unions from funding district attorney campaigns, saying the contributions represent a conflict of interest that must be urgently addressed in the wake of recent police killings of Black men and women.  In a letter to the state bar association, the reform-minded district attorneys said their colleagues cannot ethically prosecute police officers if they are receiving funds and endorsements from unions that finance those officers’ legal expenses.  “District Attorneys will undoubtedly review use of force incidents involving police officers,” San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin said in a statement. “When they do, the financial and political support of these unions should not be allowed to influence that decision making.”

Why Are Democratic Candidates Taking Money From Union-Busting Lawyers?

February 8, 2020 By Andrea Beaty, Counterpunch.org , , ,
The Iron Workers Union endorsed Joe Biden last week, citing his dedication to “defend rights and jobs of American workers”, and calling him “a friend to union ironworkers”. The union endorsement marks one of many that Democratic candidates are fighting for by unveiling detailed labor plans and promising to overturn “right-to work laws” that weaken unions.
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