When GlaxoSmithKline, maker of popular drugs like Nicorette and Zantac, funds a secret lobbying effort that contributes to bad laws across the country, Republic Report is here to call them out.
Companies often evade accountability for lobbying efforts by hiding behind undisclosed front groups. But the Travyon Martin shooting may turn out to be a tipping point. Gun manufacturers helped pass a law in Florida, known as Stand Your Ground, that could help Martin’s killer escape any real prosecution. A secretive group called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has worked with industry to ensure this same gun industry-supported law has been passed in some 25 states.
ALEC allows dozens of corporations to help anonymously pass many laws that are clearly not in the public interest — everything from discriminatory Voter ID laws to laws that allow cable companies to monopolize the market to efforts to reduce the minimum wage.
First Campus Progress and then Color of Change called out the businesses that fund ALEC, asking them to publicly disassociate from and stop funding the group over state Voter ID laws, which make it harder for young people, low-income people, people of color, and disabled, and others to vote. In the wake of the Trayvon Martin shooting, Republic Report, joined by Color of Change, Rebuild the Dream, and Center for Media and Democracy, again asked these companies to withdraw from ALEC. (See our letter to ALEC’s corporate board members here.)
Yesterday, Coca-Cola was the first company to publicly leave ALEC in the wake of these protests. But there are still many companies that provide funds for this shadow lobbyist group. GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK) John Del Giorno, a vice president for lobbying, is a board member to ALEC. Republic Report recently visited GSK’s D.C. lobbying office to make sure the company received our letter co-signed with Color of Change.
Republic Report is an investigative news blog dedicated uncovering the corrupting influence of money in politics.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment. We’re presently working to find 1500 new monthly donors to Truthout before the end of the year.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy