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True the Vote? Or Skew the Vote?

-- By Brendan Fischer and William Dooling.

MADISON -- Claims by an out-of-state Tea Party group that the campaign to recall Governor Scott Walker is fraught with error do not stand up to even limited scrutiny.

Findings released this week from the Tea Party-led "Verify the Recall" effort allege that recall proponents fell short of the 540,000 signatures necessary to recall Governor Scott Walker. However, a cursory review of the pages they allege are erroneous actually include the information they claim is missing. Signatures the groups deem "ineligible" are very clearly legitimate. Some of the problems appear to arise from data entry errors on the part of True the Vote volunteers.

Sewage Sludge Rash? Texas Musical Fest-Goers Blame "Dillo Dirt"

Nine months before tens of thousands flocked to a popular music festival in Austin, Texas, the concert park grounds were spread with sewage sludge. It was autumn of 2009, and sewage sludge was used as a "fertilizer" to make the grass -- parched from prior dry seasons -- green. But it rained the weekend of the festival, turning the grounds into a huge mud pit, with a stench that one concert-goer described as the smell of "pig manure," with the consistency of pudding.

Following the event, several attendees reported rashes and other maladies that they believe were contracted from coming in contact with the churned up human and industrial waste. The local media was abuzz with stories of the festival's epidemiological aftermath.

CMD Receives an "Izzy Award" for ALEC Exposed

The Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College has selected the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) for its annual "Izzy Award," which recognizes outstanding achievement in independent media. CMD was recognized for its ALEC Exposed project, and shares this year's award with Democracy Now! correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous, who was recognized for his exceptional reporting from Tahir Square. The award is named for the legendary I.F. Stone, the maverick investigative journalist who challenged Joe McCarthy's scare campaign and was the first to question the Gulf of Tonkin hoax.

Wisconsin Education Reform Only ALEC Could Love

After months of talking about "reforming" Wisconsin's public schools, Republican state legislators are starting to move on a number of proposals. The greatly anticipated bills bear the marks of having been poured through the filter of the American Legislative Exchange Council's agenda for school reform before they were exposed to the light of day.

ALEC Exposed - A project of CMDThis week, for instance, there is a hearing on a voucher bill for special needs children that appears to be modeled on the ALEC Special Needs Scholarship Program Act. Other measures are in the works to hold teachers "accountable" for the performance of their students, but not at voucher schools of the type supported by ALEC.

"Shameful" WI Redistricting Awaits Final Ruling

A federal court will rule in coming weeks on Wisconsin's redistricting plan, after sharply criticizing Republican lawmakers for developing the maps under a veil of secrecy and shutting the public out of the process. Along with voter ID legislation inspired by an American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) model, GOP legislators in Wisconsin appear to be reshaping elections for partisan political advantage.

Wisconsin Senate Recalls Heat Up, Lori Compas Enters Race Against Fitzgerald

Wisconsin Senate DistrictsLost in the constant news about the recall of Governor Scott Walker is the fact that four Wisconsin Senators are facing recall as well. Today, political neophyte Lori Compas will declare her candidacy against Wisconsin's Senate Majority Leader, rounding out a slate of candidates who are attempting to wrest control of the Wisconsin State Senate away from Republicans.

On January 17, 2012 the recall petitions for four Wisconsin state senators were delivered to the Government Accountability Board (GAB) along with recall petitions for Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and his Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch. The Senate recalls are targeting four Republicans; Senator Pam Galloway (R-Wausau), Senator Van Wanggaard (R-Racine), Senator Terry Moulton (R-Chippewa Falls), and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau).

Occupy Movement Set to Target ALEC Corporate Members F29

On February 29th, Occupy groups in over 70 cities will be targeting corporate members of the highly-influential American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC is best described as a "bill mill" for corporate special interest legislation. Through ALEC, corporations vote behind closed doors with state legislators on changes to the law they desire that often directly benefit their bottom line. Along with right-wing legislators from across the country, corporations are given "a voice and a vote" on "model" bills to change the law in almost every area affecting people's rights. Corporations sit on all nine ALEC task forces. They fund almost all of ALEC's operations. They have their own corporate governing board. They vote as equals with legislators to pre-approve legislation. Participating politicians then bring these bills home and introduce them in statehouses across the land as their own brilliant ideas and important public policy innovations—without disclosing their origins in ALEC. ALEC boasts that it has over 1,000 bills introduced by legislative members every year, with one in every five of them enacted into law. ALEC describes itself as a "unique," "unparalleled" and "unmatched" organization. It is as if a state legislature had been reconstituted, yet corporations had pushed the people out the door. This is not what democracy is supposed to look like.

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