Category: Ethics (Page 2 of 24)

Become a Citizen Sponsor of the Bipartisan American Anti-Corruption Act

October 27, 2014 / MCDC

The American Anti-Corruption Act sets a standard for local, state and federal laws that:

Stop the bribery

The Act prevents lobbyists from donating to politicians and/or offering them any deals that could influence policymaking.

End secret money

The Act mandates full transparency: disclosure of all political money and “bundlers” who gather contributions for politicians.

Empower the voters

The Act imposes strict limits on PACs, and gives voters an annual $100 tax rebate to be spent supporting the candidate or party of their choice.

Learn more about the Act »

Inside the Koch Brothers’ Toxic Empire

October 1, 2014 / MCDC

By Tim Dickinson

The enormity of the Koch fortune is no mystery. Brothers Charles and David are each worth more than $40 billion. The electoral influence of the Koch brothers is similarly well-chronicled. The Kochs are our homegrown oligarchs; they’ve cornered the market on Republican politics and are nakedly attempting to buy Congress and the White House. Their political network helped finance the Tea Party and powers today’s GOP. Koch-affiliated organizations raised some $400 million during the 2012 election, and aim to spend another $290 million to elect Republicans in this year’s midterms. So far in this cycle, Koch-backed entities have bought 44,000 political ads to boost Republican efforts to take back the Senate.

What is less clear is where all that money comes from. Koch Industries is headquartered in a squat, smoked-glass building that rises above the prairie on the outskirts of Wichita, Kansas. The building, like the brothers’ fiercely private firm, is literally and figuratively a black box. Koch touts only one top-line financial figure: $115 billion in annual revenue, as estimated by Forbes. By that metric, it is larger than IBM, Honda or Hewlett-Packard and is America’s second-largest private company after agribusiness colossus Cargill. The company’s stock response to inquiries from reporters: “We are privately held and don’t disclose this information.”

But Koch Industries is not entirely opaque. The company’s troubled legal history – including a trail of congressional investigations, Department of Justice consent decrees, civil lawsuits and felony convictions – augmented by internal company documents, leaked State Department cables, Freedom of Information disclosures and company whistle-blowers, combine to cast an unwelcome spotlight on the toxic empire whose profits finance the modern GOP..

Your Tobacco Settlement Dollars at Work

September 4, 2014 / MCDC

The Virginia Way continues to tarnish the state’s image. In another example of activity that might not be illegal, but which is certainly dubious, the state’s tobacco commission has been handing out grants to its chairman’s kinfolk. That chairman would be Terry Kilgore, a state lawmaker and prominent Republican. It’s not unusual for some families to assume a disproportionate share of the leadership roles in certain rural communities, and there is no realistic way — nor perhaps even any real reason — to prevent that. But it certainly doesn’t look good when the normal course of business starts to look like familial self-dealing. At the very least, Terry Kilgore showed poor judgment by refusing to recuse himself from voting on grants that would be overseen by members of his family. There is also a broader question about whether the tobacco commission is receiving sufficient oversight.The ill-seeming votes, coupled with the Puckett brouhaha and a $4 million fraud case involving a former commissioner, suggest the commission is being run too loosely. Someone in Richmond needs to slip a leash on it — and give it a good yank.

~Times-Dispatch

Fact-Checking Perry’s Spin Machine

August 29, 2014 / MCDC

http://www.tpj.org/

Spin 1: A partisan witch hunt produced Perry’s criminal charges. NOT TRUE.

Over 36 years the Travis Co. Public Integrity Unit prosecuted 21 officials: 6 Republicans and 15 Democrats. At the time of Perry’s $7.5 million veto, the vast majority of that unit’s case load targeted complex finance and insurance fraud cases—not politicians. Democratic Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg’s office recused itself from Perry’s case for obvious reasons. After an Austin Democratic judge recused herself, the case went to Republican Judge Billy Ray Stubblefield, a Perry appointee. Stubblefield assigned the case to San Antonio Republican Judge Bert Richardson, a George W. Bush appointee. Richardson appointed special prosecutor Michael McCrum, who served as a federal prosecutor under the first President Bush. Only Republican judges have touched this case.

Spin 2: The charges against Perry are frivolous. NOPE.

Prosecutors do not pursue every criminal complaint received. A Republican judge believed this one had sufficient merit to appoint a special prosecutor. The prosecutor and members of the grand jury say there is compelling evidence. “These charges are very serious,” Prosecutor McCrum said. “There is evidence to support them, and there is nothing political about what happened in my investigation or the grand jury’s deliberations.”

Spin 3: The charges challenge Perry’s veto powers. HARDLY.

Texans for Public Justice (TPJ) filed its complaint before Perry vetoed state funding for the DA’s office. Nobody questions Perry’s veto powers. The charges allege that Perry broke the law by threatening an elected official to resign so he could appoint a replacement. “It’s perfectly legal to veto something,” Dallas Morning News reporter Wayne Slater wrote. “And it’s perfectly legal to demand that an elected official you don’t like should resign. But it might be illegal to link the two.”

Spin 4: Perry did not personally seek to oust DA Rosemary Lehmberg. A WHOPPER.

Perry said in May that he did not initiate any efforts to oust Lehmberg nor did he personally make any phone calls toward that end. A Perry attorney also claimed there’s no evidence that Perry threatened Lehmberg apart from the American-Statesman article that triggered TPJ’s complaint. In fact, many insiders have discussed their roles in the affair before and after the veto. The Statesman confirmed that Perry personally called attorney Mindy Montford to see if she would step in if Lehmberg resigned. So Perry personally sought to replace Lehmberg with Montford, whom Travis County’s Democratic voters rejected for that very same office in 2010.

Spin 5: Perry says the case is about drunken driving. WRONG AGAIN.

Two other district attorneys arrested for drunken driving failed to draw Perry’s wrath. Lehmberg pleaded guilty, served jail time, sought treatment and promised not to run for reelection. A legal case to drive her from office failed. Perry targeted Lehmberg because she controlled the Public Integrity Unit, one of few remaining Texas powers in Democratic hands. Texas Republicans have sought to strip that power from Travis County for at least 10 years. Perry is accused of breaking the law in zealous pursuit of this prize.