Wisconsin State Senator Alberta Darling said that Mitt Romney could have won the state if Wisconsin's voter ID law had been in place for the November 6 election, despite zero evidence of voter fraud -- but also admitted she and other Republicans may not be "dealing with the real reality."
Despite Americans overwhelmingly rejecting Mitt Romney and his plans to "repeal Obamacare on day one," an effort to nonetheless thwart the federal health care law on the state level is underway, led by the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity and Cato Institute, with help from American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) model legislation. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is a key holdout and has not indicated whether he will continue to actively block the health care law.
One of the most significant developments for American progressives this election season was the election of Mark Pocan, who won Wisconsin's 2nd Congressional District seat with 68 percent of the vote. The popular and populist Pocan is likely to hold the seat, which was once held by Progressive Party champion Robert M. La Follette, for many years to come. Pocan represented the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) area in the state legislature and CMD worked with him on our ALEC Exposed project.
Although the Einhorn Family Foundation admitted to being the "private family foundation" behind the controversial "Voter Fraud is a Felony!" billboards that recently appeared in neighborhoods of color in Milwaukee and two Ohio cities, news broke Wednesday they secured the funds for similar billboards in 2010 from the Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation, a major funder of right-wing organizations that push the voter fraud myth.
Lawmakers Acknowledge That They Cannot Evade the Open Records Law by Shifting Official Correspondence to a Personal E-Mail Account
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 30, 2012
CONTACT: Brendan Fischer, [email protected]; Nick Surgey, [email protected]
Five Wisconsin state legislators have agreed to turn over any correspondence and documents with or related to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and held on their personal email accounts; the action settles a lawsuit brought by the Center for Media and Democracy and Common Cause.
Internal records show ALEC corporations have spent an estimated $4 million to send legislators to posh resorts since 2006
For Immediate Release: October 26, 2012
Contact: Sara Jerving, Center for Media and Democracy, (608) 260-9713; Mary Boyle, Common Cause, (202) 736-5770
Corporate backers of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) have funneled more than an estimated $4 million in gifts to state legislators for travel, hotel rooms, and meals at posh resorts since 2006, according to estimates based on internal ALEC records. The corporate lobby front group is already facing an Internal Revenue Service review of claims that it violated federal law by posing as a charity.
Help CMD as we prepare for the National Conference for Media Reform (NCMR)! NCMR will be in Denver, CO on April 5-7, 2013. The conference is organized by the nonprofit media reform group Free Press, founded by John Nichols and Bob McChesney, and is dedicated to the fight for a more independent, robust and diverse media system in the United States, which is essential to our efforts to build a better democracy.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, an alumnus of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) from his time as a state legislator, received an award named after one of ALEC's founders, Paul Weyrich, in February 2012.
GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney suggested to business owners they tell their employees how to vote on a June conference call organized by the National Federation for Independent Business (NFIB), an organization the Center for Media and Democracy has recently exposed as a partisan lobbying group advancing big business interests.
The Koch Industries policy limiting employee speech on social media may be unlawful in light of recent decisions by the National Labor Relations Board, but employers still have broad leeway to impose their political views on workers and punish those who disagree.
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