Lawmakers on the Senate's Environment and Public Works committee will meet Wednesday, June 15, to hear from experts on public health as it relates to the longstanding Clean Air Act.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Air Act, passed in 1970, will have saved $2 trillion dollars by 2020 and 230,000 lives each year. But this spring, lawmakers in the House of Representatives attacked the law by passing a bill to keep the EPA from regulating green house gases. Similar legislation did not pass in the Senate.
The Sunlight Foundation will live blog during Wednesday's ...
Continue readingPlaintiff in Citizens United case forms a Super PAC
Citizens United, whose court challenge to rules barring political spending by corporations has led to far-reaching changes in the campaign finance landscape, has formed its own Super PAC, allowing it to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections.
Paperwork for the new committee -- Citizens United Super PAC LLC -- was received by the Federal Election Commission on Saturday Friday and posted on its website this morning.
In Citizens United v. FEC, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in January 2010 that prohibitions on independent expenditures by corporations and unions are unconstitutional. The case grew out of Citizens United's ...
Continue readingSenate says hackers didn’t break through firewall
Earlier today, TechPresident reported that hackers LulzSec had broken into the Senate's website, Senate.gov. LulzSec posted what appears to be directories of files already posted in various Senate websites.
Martina Bradford, Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms of the Senate, told the Reporting Group that while hackers had accessed the server supporting the public website, they hadn't gained access to internal Senate files like mail servers or the Senate intranet. "There are always people coming at us, and we do a pretty good job of staying many steps ahead of them," she said.
TechPresident noted that when LulzSec hacks a site ...
Continue readingRepublicans Debate in New Hampshire
With just about 18 months until the next presidential election, seven Republican candidates are gathering in New Hampshire tonight to debate each other over whom would the best to take on President Obama in 2012. To keep the debate in perspective and offer context, analysis, insights and real-time fact checking, the Sunlight Foundation will cover it live at http://sunlightlive.com.
Using our real-time multimedia platform, we'll help separate fact from fiction and provide data showing the influence of campaign contributions and lobbying efforts.
The expected participants include:
- Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts
- Michele Bachmann, representative from Minnesota ...
Sharron Angle launches Super PAC
Former senatorial candidate and tea party favorite Sharron Angle, who lost her bid to unseat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., in 2010, has launched her own independent expenditure-only committee, Our Voice PAC.
On its home page, Our Voice PAC says it was formed in response to the launching of a Super PAC to support Senate Democrats. "Reid has taken steps to create a super-PAC (Majority PAC) modeled off of his successful smear-based political operation in Nevada," the site explains, "to make sure he stays in power. That is why Sharron Angle is launching Our Voice PAC."
The contribution ...
Continue readingPalestinian lobbyists meet with key decision makers
The Palestine Liberation Organization recently filed their bi-annual lobbying documents that show outreach to top decision makers, media and academia, and list meetings with up and coming policy leaders.
Lobbyists met with Dan Shapiro of the National Security Council a few months before before President Obama appointed him to be the U.S. envoy to Israel.
The general delegation of the PLO to the U.S. also honored General James Mattis on December 2011 at an event hosted by the Ambassador of Yemen. The event took place before he was named U.S. Central Command, replacing General David Petraeus.
Another ...
Continue readingTwo groups oppose soliciting for Super PAC scheme
Bob Kerrey and Warren Rudman, two former U.S. Senators who are now co-chairs of Americans for Campaign Reform, gave testimony almost a decade ago documenting how raising big soft money donations to political parties had a corrupting effect on lawmakers. The see a similar corrupting effect should the Federal Election Commission rule that federal candidates and party officials can raise unlimited contributions from any source for Super PACs. The Campaign Legal Center agrees, arguing that candidates for federal office and party committee officials are barred from raising funds not subject to the limits of the Federal Election Campaign Act ...
Three countries lobby to minimize fallout of political tug-of-war
South Korea, Panama and Colombia are lobbying to cement U.S. trade agreements that have been embroiled in political jockeying between the White House and Congress, recently filed foreign lobbying disclosures show.
On May 16, the White House announced President Obama will not sign the three trade agreements without Congress passing a job training legislation for workers displaced by foreign competition. Senate Republicans retaliated by threatening not to confirm President Obama’s choice for Commerce Secretary nominee. Soon after this impasse, the three countries upped their lobbying presence in Washington pushing their agenda for their country's free trade agreements ...
Continue readingBauer returns to firm with Super PAC practice
Departing White House counsel Robert Bauer is returning to the election law practice he built at Perkins Coie, where his once and future colleagues have been active on behalf of a pair of Super PACs. The firm recently asked the Federal Election Commission to rule on whether politicians can raise unlimited sums from any source for "independent expenditure-only" groups.
As the Reporting Group previously reported, Perkins Coie filed an advisory opinion request with the FEC on behalf of two clients, the Majority PAC (formerly known as CommonSense Ten) and the House Majority PAC, asking whether candidates for federal office can ...
Continue readingBankers critical of Dodd-Frank meet with Geithner
The same day Jamie Dimon, chief executive and president of JPMorgan Chase & Company, publicly bashed the new Dodd-Frank financial law he and the company's top lobbyist, Peter Scher, had a meeting with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
In his public statements reported on April 5, Dimon had harsh words for nearly every aspect of the new law, from derivatives oversight to regulation of interchange fees to the establishment of a new federal office, the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) to oversee the stability of the financial system.
Dimon was also part of a larger meeting the following day with the ...
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