The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) and its allies have been honored by the Business Ethics Network, which celebrates outstanding contributions to the advancement of corporate ethics, with two awards -- the BENNY Award and the Populist Category BENNY -- for our campaign asking corporations to "Dump ALEC".
CMD's Executive Director Lisa Graves was honored recently by the Wisconsin Association for Justice (WAJ). WAJ is the largest voluntary bar organization in Wisconsin representing the trial bar profession. WAJ presented Lisa with the President's Award for her ongoing work exposing the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), particularly ALEC's "tort reform" efforts which make it harder to hold corporations accountable when their products injure or kill consumers. She was presented with the award at WAJ's Winter Seminar and Annual Meeting at the Pfister Hotel and Tower in Milwaukee.
"We've endured too many of these tragedies in the past few years," President Obama said in response to horrifying shooting massacre of 20 little children and six of their educators in Connecticut.
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) appears to be anticipating an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) audit, after multiple complaints challenging the "corporate bill mill's" charitable status, based on documents recently obtained by Bloomberg News.
U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) took to the floor of the House of Representatives Wednesday night to criticize the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) for pushing "Right to Work" in Michigan, describing it as politically motivated "crush-the-union legislation" and noting the identical language between the ALEC model and Michigan's law.
For almost 40 years Wisconsin law has provided for same-day voter registration, a provision which greatly contributes to the state's record of consistently high voter turnout. On November 6, 2012, in Milwaukee alone 54,000 people were registered to vote at the polls. But this Wisconsin tradition unexpectedly came under attack when Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker discussed repealing the law at the Ronald Reagan library in California, a forum for Republicans with higher ambitions.
With final receipts tallied, spending on the 2012 federal elections has topped $6 billion, making it the most expensive election in the history of the world -- and absent reform, election spending is certain to escalate in coming cycles, despite much of the money spent in 2012 failing to sway election outcomes.
Amidst massive pro-labor protests, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has signed sweeping legislation attacking private and public sector unions, just hours after passing the lame-duck legislature. The operative language in the bills is nearly identical to the American Legislative Exchange Council's "model" Right to Work Act.
How times have changed. Ten years ago the United States was looking at importing natural gas via massive liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals, yet to be built. Now the country appears to be getting ready to significantly increase exports of LNG.
Minnesota's ethics board has long banned the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) "scholarship" scheme that allows corporations to fund legislator travel, providing further evidence that the practice should be banned in Wisconsin and other states. Recently obtained documents also show that corporations pay upwards of $80,000 to sponsor issue-focused ALEC "academies," which legislators attend on the corporate dime.
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