Investigating Power
Anti-trans policies have been adopted by national and local organizations backing Republican candidates as a winning strategy to push voters to the right. Members of the Council for National Policy (CNP), a secretive, well-funded group of powerful conservatives, received a tutorial on how to use public school boards and transphobia to drive voters to the […]
According to the Center for Media and Democracy, the SFOF “connects Republican state treasurers and auditors in 28 states with industry and dark money groups in the same way that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) does for state legislators.”
Democracy, Elections, Extremism, Featured Investigations, News
The article shows CMD obtained private emails between Gray and the state director of Heritage Action for America, Kristen Christensen, in which she provided line edits and sent examples of model bills to Gray both in the run up to the session and during it. Heritage Action is the sister organization of the Heritage Foundation, […]
ALEC, Climate, Democracy, Environment, Trump
“The large number and variation of anti-protest bills introduced in just three months – in combination with the self-proclaimed ‘law-and-order president’ administration’s revoking of student visas and disappearing of student protesters – indicates a movement towards fascism,” said David Armiak, research director with the Center for Media and Democracy.
ALEC, Climate, Democracy, Economy, Environment, labor, Trump
ALEC’s Essential Policy Solutions 2025 is easily accessible on the internet. As the Center for Media and Democracy notes, it outlines legislative strategies for “preempting local regulation, bolstering favored industries such as fossil fuels, undermining public education, curtailing voting rights, and much more.”
ALEC, Constitutional Convention, Democracy, Trump
Fewer than half the states have laws or policies governing convention procedures. The majority of those would give state legislators, rather than voters, the ability to select delegates. They’d also permit each state one vote, according to a 2025 review by the Center for Media and Democracy, a progressive government watchdog. The center obtained audio […]
Bradley Files, Extremism, Koch, labor
An analysis by the Center for Media and Democracy found that the Freedom Foundation — a 501(c)3 registered nonprofit that’s not required to disclose its donors — has received significant funding over the years from right-wing organizations like the Bradley Foundation (known for backing efforts to defund and get rid of unions) and the Charles […]
As the Center for Media and Democracy points out, there’s a strategic purpose to peddling these kinds of copy-cat proposals across GOP-controlled states. “Model bills like those developed and promulgated by ALEC serve a dual purpose: they both advance a cookie-cutter, pro-corporate agenda at the state level and create avenues for impact litigation whereby state […]
The scale of the Concord Fund’s giving to RAGA can be seen in a review by the nonprofit Center for Media and Democracy (CMD): from 2014 into 2024, the Concord Fund has given the 527 organization more than $17.8 million, and it gave millions of dollars more to RAGA last year.
Democracy, Economy, Environment, Koch, Trump
“Koch Inc is primarily a fossil fuel company, so they are going to do very well under Trump,” said Arn Pearson, executive director of the progressive non-profit watchdog Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). CMD obtained the donors’ letter and shared it with the Guardian.