Star Tribune: Outside Cash Floods Rematch of Rick Nolan & Stewart Mills “Residents in Duluth, Brainerd and the Iron Range: Get ready for a sustained bombardment of political advertising. The Eighth Congressional District race between Democratic Rep. Rick Nolan and GOP challenger Stewart Mills has now drawn the largest flood of outside cash in the...Read More
The Cost(s) of Corporate “Free Speech” In this era of increasingly unfettered corporate power, it’s worth remembering that — at least once upon a time — corporate charters were issued by the sovereign (king, actually), to a relative handful of entities, and conferred extremely narrow rights and powers. Like, the right to conduct a specific...Read More
2012 Presidential Campaign “President Obama’s campaign has $88 million in the bank. Mitt Romney’s campaign has $30 million in the bank. The Obama campaign plus the Democratic National Committee has $123.7 million in the bank. The Romney campaign plus the Republican National Committee has $185.9 million in the bank. And that advantage is increasing month...Read More
Proposed 29th Amendment Rocks are not people. Frogs are not people. Cars are not people. Asteroids are not people. It should hardly be necessary to state something so patently obvious, but here goes one more: Corporations are not people. Cititzens United Aftermath Ahh, but according to the U.S. Supreme Court, corporations are people — or...Read More
Fewer Realtors = Less Lobbying Clout Want to know another reason why the mortgage interest deduction for homeowners is in jeopardy as never before? It’s not just because the budget deficit is ballooning, prompting policymakers to look for novel ways to raise revenue (although that’s certainly true). And it’s not because the philosophical case for the deduction —...Read More
The Supreme Court’s Ruling on “Citizens United” Does anyone — besides the Supreme Court — really believe that the problem with contemporary American politics is that there’s too little corporate money driving the nation’s political agenda? To the point where whole industries — like Wall Street and the financial sector — quite transparently now have...Read More
