Investigating Power
The Koch family-controlled Claude R. Lambe Foundation (CRLF), one of the routine sources of funding for right wing groups for more than thirty years has dissolved, further limiting what little is publicly known of which groups seeking to change Americans’ rights receive money controlled or directed by Charles and David Koch and their operatives.
Newly-released ALEC documents obtained as part of CMD”s open records litigation provide more evidence that lobbyists and special interests are calling the shots within ALEC, undermining that group’s latest PR spin that it is a “legislator-driven” organization.
As Comcast moves forward with its plan to take over Time Warner Cable, their legislative agenda is facing greater scrutiny.
The State Policy Network (SPN), a web of right-wing “think tanks” in every state across the country, has close ties with the tobacco industry. When tobacco companies like Reynolds American or Altria/Philip Morris want to avoid tobacco taxes and health regulations, reports by SPN groups in many states can help inspire local resistance.
The Madison Group, the predecessor to the State Policy Network (SPN) — which was exposed recently in a Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) report, followed by the release of funding proposals detailing its coordination by The Guardian — was “launched by the American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC . . . and housed in […]
The Guardian published a set of coordinated fundraising proposals from State Policy Network (SPN) members today that confirm many of these groups’ intent to change state laws and policies, referring to “advancing model legislation” and “candidate briefings.” These activities “arguably cross the line into lobbying,” The Guardian notes. The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) highlighted these questionable political activities in its recent report, “EXPOSED: The State Policy Network: The Powerful Right-Wing Network Helping to Hijack State Politics and Government,” as well as in a recent follow-up article.
The State Policy Network (SPN), a web of pressure groups in all 50 states that call themselves “think tanks” while dramatically influencing state law, is a powerful and stealthy ally of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), as the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) detailed in the recent report, “EXPOSED: The State Policy Network: The Powerful Right-Wing Network Helping to Hijack State Politics and Government.”
In this new online resource, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD, the publisher of the award-winning ALECexposed.org investigation) documents the more than $83 million that right-wing billionaires and corporations are spending each year to fuel Tracie Sharp’s State Policy Network (SPN) and its 64 state “think tank” members.
Who is Tracie Sharp? She is the executive director of the State Policy Network, a web of right-wing “think tanks” in every state across the country.
Twelve new reports released today expose the State Policy Network (SPN), an $83 million web of right-wing “think tanks” in every state across the country. Although SPN’s member organizations claim to be nonpartisan and independent, an in-depth investigation reveals that SPN and its state affiliates are major drivers of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)-backed corporate agenda in state houses nationwide, with deep ties to the Koch brothers and the national right-wing network of funders. The reports show how these groups masquerade as “think tanks,” and describe how some of them may be skirting tax laws while really orchestrating extensive lobbying and political operations to peddle their legislative agenda to state legislators, all while reporting little or no lobbying activities.