Last year, Americans witnessed an explosion in million-dollar checks from a handful of uber-wealthy people underwriting political campaigns and election ads. In 2012, there were also numerous efforts to make it harder for Americans to exercise their fundamental right to vote through restrictive voter ID legislation and limits on voter registration.
Wisconsin's 2011-2012 legislative session saw the introduction of 32 bills or budget provisions reflecting American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) model legislation -- including Governor Scott Walker's contentious attack on public sector collective bargaining, voter ID legislation, and bills that make it harder for Americans to hold corporations accountable when their products injure or kill -- and 19 of those proposals became law.
The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) has joined an amicus brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court supporting the right of all Americans to access public records, regardless of which state they call home.
New details are emerging about how a multi-millionaire used shell corporations to funnel money to the Super PAC associated with embattled Tea Party group FreedomWorks for America -- and how those laundered contributions may have violated federal law.
You helped make the world a better place this year. You helped expose corruption and thwart efforts to distort our democracy.
1. You helped force 42 major corporations and 70 legislators to do something they did not want to do, leave the American Legislative Exchange Council.
Despite Wisconsin residents overwhelmingly voting for Democrats in the 2012 elections -- sending progressive powerhouse Tammy Baldwin to the U.S. Senate and reelecting President Barack Obama by 6.8 points -- five of the state's eight newly-drawn congressional districts voted out of sync with the majority of Wisconsinites and went for GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. This is largely because the GOP reworked congressional maps to their party's benefit during the redistricting process that followed the 2010 census and elections. Now, Republicans in Wisconsin are discussing plans to allocate the state's electoral college votes according to these new Congressional districts, giving the GOP a chance for victory in a state that has elected Democrats in each of the past seven Presidential elections.
Representative Tim Scott (R-SC), who was a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) as a state legislator and was voted into Congress in the Tea Party wave of 2010, has been nominated to replace Jim DeMint in the U.S. Senate.
"I was a member of ALEC," Rep. Scott told the right-wing Washington Times earlier this year.
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.
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