Ethics in Government

April 18, 2024

Jeff Hauser Sarah Lipton-Lubet Lisa Graves

Press Release Ethics in GovernmentJudiciarySupreme Court

RELEASE: Watchdog Orgs And Court Reform Advocates Debut New Database Cataloging Right-Wing Groups' Amicus Briefs, Connections To SCOTUS Justices

Today, Take Back the Court, Revolving Door Project, and True North Research released a new database highlighting the troubling connections between the Supreme Court’s right-wing justices, the right-wing organizations that have weighed in on cases before the court, and the major donors funding them

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 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.

March 29, 2024 | The American Prospect

Timi Iwayemi Alex Moss

Op-Ed Congressional OversightEthics in GovernmentPatent and Trademark OfficePharmaRevolving Door

Senators’ Latest Attempt to Enrich Big Pharma Must Not Prevail

The patent system exists to promote scientific innovation to benefit the public, not to enrich private interests regardless of the merits of their scientific contributions. Yet that is precisely what PERA and PREVAIL would do by granting Big Pharma even more sweeping government monopolies and associated price-gouging power.

March 18, 2024

Andrea Beaty

Press Release Anti-MonopolyCongressional OversightEthics in Government

RELEASE: Virginia General Assembly Must Investigate Leonard Leo’s Influence On State’s Largest Public Research University

Today, the Revolving Door Project, Take Back the Court Action Fund, People’s Parity Project, Freedom BLOC and the George Mason University chapter of the American Association of University Professors sent a letter to members of the Virginia General Assembly calling on them to investigate Leonard Leo in regard to his undue influence on George Mason University. The groups called on the state legislature to investigate what Leo-tied activities are taking place under the aegis of a state school.

February 26, 2024

Andrea Beaty

Press Release Anti-MonopolyEthics in GovernmentTechTrade Policy

RELEASE: Wyden Unethically Champions Big Tech’s Anti-Regulatory Push Despite Wife’s Massive Investments In Apple, Microsoft, Amazon And Google

A new report this weekend revealed how the wife of Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) has maintained significant financial ties to Big Tech companies even as the Senate Finance Committee Chairman is playing a leading role in Big Tech’s global push for deregulation.

February 20, 2024

Toni Aguilar Rosenthal

Blog Post Ethics in GovernmentState Attorneys General

RAGA Leadership, A Fraught History: Jeff Landry

Jeff Landry’s time spent helming Louisiana’s Attorney General office was defined by a litany of ethical failings. Over the course of 15 years spent running for public office, Landry funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars of campaign dollars back into the coffers of his own staffing company – whose staff lists are not public – in an apparent circumvention of standard public transparency practices. During his time at the AG, Landry was also accused of giving preferential treatment to a pedophile with political connections, which ultimately led a former prosecutor to sue the Attorney General.

February 20, 2024

Toni Aguilar Rosenthal

Blog Post Ethics in GovernmentState Attorneys General

RAGA Leadership, A Fraught History: Steve Marshall

Alabama’s Attorney General, Steve Marshall, has spent his time in office funneling tens of millions of dollars to outside counsel in order to defend the state’s litany of laws prohibiting gender affirming care and Alabama’s notoriously violent prisons. Alabama, under Marshall’s stewardship, earmarked no less than $14.9 million to a single attorney to represent the state against DOJ prison suits over the next two years, even though that same attorney has already received $17.8 million from state coffers over the past five. That single attorney, Bill Lunsford, also donated $1000 to Marshall’s campaign in 2018.