Category: Challenging Foreign Influence

Amazon vs. Democracy: Foreign Influence In The Seattle City Council Elections
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Challenging Foreign Influence

As of last week, Amazon has poured over $1.5 million into Seattle’s upcoming city council election through the local Chamber of Commerce’s super PAC, The Civil Alliance for a Sound Economy. That total represents more than the combined total raised by candidates without Amazon’s backing. As Rachel Lauter, executive director of the Working Washington advocacy group, said
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Report: Saudi-Led Oil Lobby Group Financed 2012 Dark Money Attack Ads
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Challenging Foreign Influence

A new report in The Nation on Friday details how the so-called American Petroleum Institute, a major lobbying group for Big Oil, is both funded in part by a Saudi oil company and directed in part by a registered foreign agent for Saudi Arabia who heads a subsidiary of that Saudi oil company.

It also reports that the Institute’s 2011 tax returns show almost half a million dollars in gifts to dark-money organizations that ran attack ads in America’s most recent elections — and that’s just what the Big Oil group spent in 2011. Just imagine what the 2012 figures could be.

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Alaska Dispatch: “Foreign corporations funnel millions into US elections”
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Challenging Foreign Influence

The Alaska Dispatch has a new story on foreign corporate spending on our elections. Excerpts are below.

Caveat: while the article accurately notes that it’s illegal for foreign individuals to spend money to influence U.S. elections, the article is incorrect in asserting that such spending by corporations is also illegal. Unfortunately for all of us, Citizens United removed such restrictions on corporate spending, which is one of many serious reasons we must overturn it with a constitutional amendment.

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