Politics

After a court decision in March required nonprofit groups running phony "issue ads" to disclose their donors, David Koch's Americans for Prosperity (AFP) shifted to ads expressly calling for President Obama's defeat in the November 2012 elections. At the time, they claimed the change in tactics was only because the president's record was "disastrous," but now that the decision has been overturned and AFP can again run issue ads while keeping their funders secret, they have reverted to their old strategy. Is it because the group no longer thinks the president's record is "disastrous?"

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has vacated a lower court ruling that had upheld the state's voter ID law, setting the stage for the law to be blocked before the November elections.

Three right-wing organizations founded nearly forty years ago by conservative activist Paul Weyrich are rediscovering their shared origins. The Republican Study Committee, a caucus of 169 right-wing Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, is establishing a partnership with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the controversial "corporate bill mill" for state legislators, and their first meeting is scheduled at the Heritage Foundation headquarters. Each of those three organizations -- the RSC, ALEC, and the Heritage Foundation -- were founded in 1973 by Weyrich. (Weyrich passed away in 2008.)

Wisconsin state legislators are routinely deleting emails concerning their involvement with the controversial American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), exploiting a loophole that exempts the Legislature from records retention rules that apply to all other state and local government officials.