Our Blog

Clear All Filters

April 18, 2024

Timi Iwayemi

Public Comment

Corporate CrackdownEthics in GovernmentTreasury Department

Advocacy Groups Comment On Biden Administration Rule To Combat Money Laundering In The Real Estate Sector

The Revolving Door Project joined Transparency International and other advocacy groups to provide comments on the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network’s (“FinCEN”) Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) to combat and deter money laundering in the U.S. residential real estate sector by increasing transparency.

April 15, 2024

Ananya Kalahasti Fatou Ndiaye

Interview 2024 ElectionCongressional OversightExecutive BranchGovernment Capacity

Unpacking The Federal Executive Branch, A Conversation With Vanderbilt University Professor David Lewis

Coverage of presidential elections typically hones in on contestants’ competing legislative visions, which in truth, tend to morph considerably when hit by the reality of an intransigent Congress. This prompts an important question: are presidential elections overrated? Well, before drawing that conclusion, consider one of the underrated consequences of a federal election: the potential for a new administration to alter the management of the federal workforce and the operations of individual departments within the executive branch. Although journalists eschew reporting of these consequences in favor of (legislatively focused) policy platforms and rallies, there is a wide body of academic research which investigates the impact of presidential administrations on the federal executive branch’s ability and capacity to fulfill its roles and responsibilities. 

April 13, 2024 | Talking Points Memo

Toni Aguilar Rosenthal

Op-Ed

Climate and EnvironmentIndependent AgenciesState Attorneys General

Republican AGs Are Teaming Up With The Corporations Poisoning Their States To Gut The Clean Air Act. Why?

More than 8 million people die from air pollution and fine particulate matter globally every year, according to the BMJ, a peer reviewed medical journal. Of that number, over 5.13 million people die from ambient air pollution resulting from fossil fuels use. Experts say that deaths from air pollution are also on the rise, and are currently expected to double by 2050. In the U.S. alone “350,000 may die annually from pollution produced by the burning of fossil fuels.” According to the American Lung Association (ALA) more than one-fourth of Americans live with “air pollution that can hurt their health and shorten their lives.” Of course, risk and exposure are themselves not borne equally; cities in the western U.S., along with communities of color, disproportionately bear the brunt of air pollution’s public health harms.

April 09, 2024 | The Texas Observer

Toni Aguilar Rosenthal

Op-Ed

Ethics in GovernmentState Attorneys General

TPPF’S LONG LOVE AFFAIR WITH KEN PAXTON

The attorney general’s close ties to Texas’ right-wing think tank and its large network of uber-wealthy donors and special interests.

Ken Paxton has spent almost the entirety of his decade leading the Office of the Texas Attorney General while also under felony indictment for alleged securities fraud. Yet, like every other time Paxton has faced allegations of wrongdoing, including misuse of office, retaliatory firings, and criminal misdeeds, he has once again managed to evade real punishment. By no small measure, this has been enabled by Paxton’s masterful use of state resources to court (and to bolster) the influence of extremely well-funded conservative legal organizations and networks, at the expense of the public interests he is supposed to represent, and to defend.