On Monday, Wal-Mart announced that it will be dropping Mercury Public Affairs, a leading PR and lobbying firm, after one of its associate spied on some warehouse workers in Los Angeles. “We take this matter seriously and have taken the appropriate steps to ensure this type of activity is not repeated,” said Wal-Mart spokesman Steven
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Last night, incumbent Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) easily bested a tea party-backed primary challenge from Dan Liljenquist, getting 66% of the vote to his 33%. Hatch’s win came on the heels of a huge fundraising advantage. He raised $9,709,238 and spent $10,151,378 during the campaign cycle, while Liljenquist raised $778,362 and spent only $614,638. Interestingly, 40 percent of the
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One of the best ways for special interests to influence our lawmakers is to hire former government staffers to get the insider access needed to win legislation and regulation. By passing through the “revolving door,” these staffers are generously rewarded for winning over government favors for private clients, often clients who seek to distort public
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Late last week we reported how the U.S. Senate voted to sustain cuts worth billions of dollars from the food stamp program in the name of fiscal austerity while maintaining billions of dollars of subsidies and other price supports for the Sugar Lobby. Let’s look even deeper into the original 33-66 failed vote to restore
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Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) head Grover Norquist is one of the most powerful men in Washington. His anti-tax pledge has won over hundreds of elected officials, and he regularly gets meetings with powerbrokers in D.C. But there’s one thing even he’s afraid of. And that’s answering questions about how his organization gets cash from
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Two weeks ago, we were the first news site to report that Mercury Public Affairs, acting on behalf of its client Wal-Mart, sent a senior associate to spy on organizing workers in Los Angeles. The same day, we confronted Mercury at its Washington, D.C. headquarters and were met with tight lips and few details from
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SCOTUSblog reports that in a 5-4 decision, the court decided to reverse the Montana Supreme Court’s ruling that the state’s ban on corporate money in political campaigns is constitutional. In essence, the Supreme Court just struck down Montana’s ban on corporate political spending, in a move that is sure to have dire consequences for the
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Late last month, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed banning soda sales larger than sixteen ounces in the city’s restaurants, movie theaters, and street carts. This proposed ban has been highly controversial, and deserves a healthy debate (no pun intended). But as with any other issue in modern American politics, big corporations and their
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