Evelyn Reynolds

Alabama officially has a new congressional map that will increase the power of Black voters in the state, giving them the chance to elect their preferred candidate in at least two of the state’s seven congressional districts in 2024. The decision could help Democrats secure a majority in the US House next year.After the US supreme court twice rebuffed Alabama’s request to block drawing an additional district, a three-judge panel chose the new map on Thursday from three proposals offered by Richard Allen, a court-appointed special master. Black voters make up about a quarter of the population in the state, but comprised a majority in just one of the state’s seven congressional districts under the map Republicans adopted.The new plan maintains a majority in one of the state’s districts and creates a second district where Black voters make up 48.7% of the population. That percentage is enough to allow Black voters in the district a chance to elect the candidate of their choosing, the special master’s analysis showed.Black-preferred candidates in the district would have won 16 or 17 recent elections analyzed by the special master. The plan the judges chose splits just six counties and left the cities of Mobile and Birmingham largely whole. In total, the panel ruled, the proposal they adopted made as few changes necessary from the plan the legislature adopted to cure the illegal dilution of Black votes.The new district stretches from the city of Mobile across Alabama’s Black belt, named for its rich topsoil. The region has been marked by extreme poverty and the new district will give voters there more of a voice at the federal level.“Under the Voting Rights Act and binding precedent, the appropriate remedy for racially discriminatory vote dilution is, as we already said, a congressional districting plan that includes either an additional majority-Black district, or an additional district in which Black voters otherwise have an opportunity to elect a representative of their choice,” the judges said in their order. “This plan satisfies all constitutional and statutory requirements while hewing as closely as reasonably possible to the Alabama legislature’s 2023 plan.”Voting in Alabama is highly racially polarized, with Black voters preferring Democrats and white voters preferring Republicans in a general election. Any district that allows Black voters to elect the candidate of their choosing is therefore likely to favor Democrats. Republicans currently have a razor-thin 221-212 advantage in Congress’s lower chamber.The Alabama secretary of state, Wes Allen, a Republican elected last year, said in a statement the state would “facilitate the 2024 election cycle in accordance with the map the federal court has forced upon Alabama and ordered us to use”.Alabama Republicans fought aggressively to try and stave off creating an additional Black opportunity district. After the three judge panel initially struck down its map last year, it appealed to the US supreme court, which upheld the lower court’s ruling in a surprise move. Alabama then essentially defied both courts, drawing a new map that preserved a Black majority in just one district and increased the Black population in a second district to 41%, not enough to give Black voters the chance to elect the candidate of their choosing.The three-judge panel bluntly rejected that effort, saying it was “disturbed by the evidence that the state delayed remedial proceedings but ultimately did not even nurture the ambition to provide the required remedy”.Alabama again appealed to the US supreme court, which declined to step in and stop redrawing of the map.The case is seen as a major victory for section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits any practice that discriminates on the basis of race. Conservatives have long sought to hollow out the law by making it harder to prove racial discrimination under section 2. The fact that the conservative US supreme court agreed Alabama had crossed a line in this case was understood as a signal that the provision still has some force. Litigation is proceeding on similar grounds in Louisiana and Georgia, which could result in similar additional Black opportunity districts. Last week, the US court of appeals for the fifth circuit took the highly unusual move of stepping in to halt the redrawing of the state’s congressional map.“In spite of the shameful intransigence of Alabama Republicans, justice has finally prevailed in the state. With this new, fairer map, and for the first time ever, Black voters in Alabama could have two members of Congress representing their interests at the same time. This historic development will strengthen voting rights and ensure equal representation for so many Americans,” said the former attorney general Eric Holder, whose non-profit backed some of the plaintiffs in the case.He added: “Other states with pending section 2 cases should view this map, and this process, as both an example of basic fairness and a warning that denying equal representation to Black voters, violating the Voting Rights Act, and defying federal court orders is a direct tie to an odious past and will no longer be tolerated.” More

The wife and co-defendant of the indicted US senator Bob Menendez struck and killed a pedestrian in 2018, according to newly released police records.Nadine Arslanian Menendez was behind the steering wheel of a car at the center of a fatal crash which took place on 12 December 2018, the New York Times and the Record newspaper of Bergen, New Jersey, first reported.Arslanian, as she went by before her marriage, never faced charges for the deadly crash in Bogota, New Jersey. In fact, shortly after the wreck, Arslanian and Bob Menendez were given a brand-new luxury car as a gift.Arslanian struck and killed 49-year-old Richard Koop.According to police records, Koop was killed almost instantly after being hit by Arslanian.He was found lying in the road with a number of serious injuries, including “severe head trauma” and “possible fractured legs and arms”, NBC News reported.Arslanian reportedly hit a parked car after hitting Koop and was “bleeding from her hands”, police records said.“Why was the guy in the middle of the street? I didn’t do anything wrong, you know?” Arslanian said to police, according to the dashboard camera video obtained by NBC News.A police report on the crash stated that Arslanian was “not at fault” for the accident because Koop was “jaywalking and did not cross the street at an intersection or in a marked crosswalk,” NBC reported.But witnesses of the exchange between Arslanian and police said officers appeared to recognize her, and treated her differently, the Times reported.There is no record showing whether police asked Arslanian if she had consumed drugs or alcohol. Arslanian also reportedly did not receive a sobriety test.Arslanian did not face any charges in connection with Koop’s death.Four months after the crash, Arslanian and Menendez received a brand-new Mercedes-Benz convertible from Wael Hana, an Egyptian American businessman who was charged by federal authorities alongside the senator and his wife in September.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionArslanian Menendez had been complaining to Hana about the whereabouts of her car after the crash. The vehicle gift is valued at $60,000, the Times reported.The crash is part of a larger inquiry into Nadine and Bob Menendez over bribery and corruption allegations.Bob Menendez is accused of using his position in the US Senate and as chairperson of the foreign relations committee to benefit the government of Egypt.An indictment obtained by federal prosecutors in New York City alleges that between 2018 and 2022, Bob Menendez accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from Egyptian-American businessmen in exchange for helping them grow their businesses while avoiding legal issues.Arslanian and Menendez began dating in 2018 and married in October 2020.They have both pleaded not guilty to the bribery charges filed against them. More

Joe Biden faced intense criticism from environmental advocates, political opponents and his fellow Democrats after the president’s administration waived 26 federal laws to allow border wall construction in south Texas, its first use of a sweeping executive power that was often employed under Donald Trump.“A border wall is a 14th-century solution to a 21st-century problem,” the Democratic Texas congressman Henry Cuellar said. “It will not bolster border security in Starr county.“I continue to stand against the wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars on an ineffective border wall.”Environmental advocates said the new wall would run through public lands, habitats of endangered plants and species such as the ocelot, a spotted wild cat.“A plan to build a wall will bulldoze an impermeable barrier straight through the heart of that habitat,” said Laiken Jordahl, a south-west conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity.“It will stop wildlife migrations dead in their tracks. It will destroy a huge amount of wildlife refuge land. And it’s a horrific step backwards for the borderlands.”During the Trump presidency, about 450 miles of barriers were built along the south-west border. The Biden administration halted such efforts, though the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, resumed them.A federal proclamation issued on 20 January 2021 said: “Building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border is not a serious policy solution.”On Wednesday, border officials claimed the new project was consistent with that proclamation.“Congress appropriated fiscal year 2019 funds for the construction of border barrier in the Rio Grande Valley, and [homeland security] is required to use those funds for their appropriated purpose,” a statement said.The statement also said officials were “committed to protecting the nation’s cultural and natural resources and will implement sound environmental practices as part of the project covered by this waiver”.Observers were not convinced. Referring to a famous (and much-mocked) Trump campaign promise, Matt Stoller, research director at the American Economic Liberties Project, said: “Well Mexico didn’t pay for the wall, but Biden did.”Pointing to a campaign promise by Biden – “There will not be another foot of wall constructed in my administration” – Jason Miller, a senior Trump adviser, said: “Biden’s flip-flop here is not only a validation of President Trump’s border and immigration policies, but also a validation of President Trump’s entire 2024 America First campaign!”Polling shows Trump leads Biden when voters are asked who would handle border security better.On Wednesday, homeland security officials posted the announcement on the US federal registry. Few details were provided about construction in Starr county, Texas, which is part of a busy border patrol sector currently seeing “high illegal entry” by undocumented migrants via Central and South America.According to government data, about 245,000 such entries have been recorded this fiscal year in the Rio Grande Valley sector.“There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areas,” the homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, said in the federal registry notice.The Clean Air Act, Safe Drinking Water Act and Endangered Species Act were among federal laws waived to make way for construction. The waivers avoid reviews and lawsuits challenging violation of environmental laws.Starr county, between Zapata, Mexico, and McAllen, Texas, is home to about 65,000 people in 1,200 sq miles, part of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge.Federal officials announced the project in June and began gathering public comments in August, sharing a map of construction that could add up to 20 miles to existing border barriers. The Starr county judge, Eloy Vera, said the new wall would start south of the Falcon Dam and go past Salineño, Texas.“The other concern that we have is that area is highly erosive,” the county judge said, pointing to creeks cutting through ranchland. “There’s a lot of arroyos.”The Associated Press contributed reporting More

This week, Kevin McCarthy became the first speaker of the House of Representatives in history to be voted out of office. It was a fitting end to his speakership, one in which McCarthy had served only at the pleasure of a nihilistic bloc of far-right Republicans. It was little wonder, then, that he seemed almost jolly as he announced at a press conference that he didn’t intend to run for the office again.Far more galling was McCarthy’s attempt at the same event to present himself, in contrast to those who ousted him, as some sort of force for moderation and reasonableness. The truth is that McCarthy has been at the cutting edge of his party’s descent into madness, encouraging its worst instincts and indulging its most destructive personalities. People sometimes say that the congressional Republican party has become “ungovernable”. It’s more accurate to say that it has been deliberately radicalized – and that Kevin McCarthy played a key role in that process.Take a look down the list of recent Republican outrages and you’ll find McCarthy implicated at every turn. Flirting with birtherism? Check. Joking about physically attacking Nancy Pelosi, even after a violent mob stormed the Capitol to search for her? Check. Angrily demanding that other Republicans defend Donald Trump after the leaked “Access Hollywood” tape, in which Trump seemed to admit to committing sexual assault? Yep, that was Kevin.Perhaps most egregious have been McCarthy’s attempts to aid Trump in subverting the 2020 election, and then to minimize the January 6 insurrection which followed. Just hours after the deadly attack on the Capitol, McCarthy voted to reject Biden’s lawful election, citing spurious conspiracy theories. Although McCarthy briefly condemned the violence of that day, he soon moved to reconcile with Trump and became a firm opponent of imposing any sort of accountability on those responsible. In one of his most outrageous acts, he released thousands of hours of Capitol security video to Tucker Carlson, allowing the Fox News host to cherry-pick footage and spin the attack as merely a peaceful protest.McCarthy also defended and elevated the very worst members of his own caucus, declining to endorse their opponents in primaries or to marginalize them once they made it to the chamber. He was an early supporter of Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican who has supported QAnon conspiracy theories, called for prominent Democrats to be executed, and made racist and antisemitic remarks. Once she was seated, Greene emerged as one of McCarthy’s closest allies and his conduit to the Trumpian base. When Trump, Greene and other Republicans called for an inquiry into the possibility of impeaching Joe Biden over spurious allegations of corruption, McCarthy was happy to oblige.Even on the more mundane issues of taxing and spending which ultimately led to his ouster, McCarthy did nothing to quiet his party’s worst instincts. The speaker supports the practice of using the annual vote on raising the debt ceiling to hold the government hostage, threatening an economy-wrecking default in order to leverage policy concessions. After using that tactic earlier this year to force Democrats into a deal which would cut spending, he then reneged on it and sent the country hurtling towards a government shutdown. His management of the chaos which ensued proved to be his downfall.By actively working to radicalize the Republican party in so many different ways, McCarthy now bears as much responsibility as anyone else for the abject state in which the Republican party finds itself. Embittered and delusional, Republicans cannot pull themselves together enough to perform even the most basic tasks of governing. The speaker’s chair is vacant as the country heads towards another government shutdown, and Republican congressmen have gone back to their districts to nurse their wounds for a week. When they return there’s no guarantee that they’ll be able to cohere around a new choice for speaker – or that whoever they pick will do a better job than McCarthy did.Nobody should welcome this paralysis in the nation’s legislature. But if there’s a bright spot in all of this, it’s the fact that Democrats are well-placed to make hay from the Republicans’ self-inflicted wounds. Voters’ rejection of the Republican party’s radicalization is one of the reasons that Democrats did so well in the 2022 midterm elections. For all of the schadenfreude currently directed at Republicans, it’s Democrats like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi who deserve credit for denying Republicans a bigger majority and putting them in this bind to begin with. The struggle against Maga extremism has proven motivational for many voters, and McCarthy only helped Democrats to make the case.Ultimately, though, a two-party democracy cannot survive and prosper if one of its parties becomes so consumed by nihilism. It’s no surprise that Republican attacks on democracy and the basic norms of common decency make it so hard for them to navigate any task requiring compromise or reasonableness. But the corrosion that is eating away at their own ranks is unlikely to stop there. It’s also threatening to damage the country, be it through a catastrophic debt default or another outpouring of violence. That threat will remain until a critical mass of Republicans and their leaders will stand up and say: no more. Kevin McCarthy wouldn’t. Will anyone else?
Andrew Gawthorpe is a historian of the United States at Leiden University and the creator of America Explained, a podcast and newsletter More

Donald Trump called his former chief of staff John Kelly a “lowlife with a very small brain and a very big mouth” after the former marine general confirmed reports about the ex-president’s derogatory attitude to members of the US armed forces.In posts to his Truth Social platform, days after Kelly spoke to CNN, Trump said his former aide was “by far the dumbest of my military people … incapable of doing a good job” as chief of staff or, before that, homeland security secretary.“It was too much for him, and I couldn’t stand the guy, so I fired him like a ‘dog’,” wrote the former president, who made his name as a reality TV host with the catchphrase “you’re fired” – but who has been widely reported to be averse to confrontation when it comes to letting people go.Kelly left the Trump administration in December 2018. After that, he was widely believed to be a source for stories in reports and books detailing Trump’s dismissive attitude to wounded and dead soldiers and their families.This week, Kelly – whose son, Robert M Kelly, was killed in Afghanistan in November 2010 – went on CNN to discuss such stories on the record.Kelly also called Trump “a person who is not truthful regarding his position on the protection of unborn life, on women, on minorities, on evangelical Christians, on Jews, on working men and women.“A person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about. A person who cavalierly suggests that a selfless warrior who has served his country for 40 years in peacetime and war should lose his life for treason – in expectation that someone will take action.“A person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our constitution, and the rule of law.“There is nothing more that can be said. God help us.”In response, Trump had plenty more to say.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionKelly, he said, “had no heart or respect for people, so I hit him hard – made no difference to me. He’s already on record defending me all over the place. Nobody loves the military like I do! Now he finally speaks back by making up fake stories, or confirming the made-up stories of the Dem[ocrats] and radical left.“He’s a lowlife with a very small brain and a very big mouth … numerous people are angry and upset because they know they will never be in a new Trump administration, but only for one reason, they’re not nearly good enough. Kelly would be among those at the top of the list!”Despite facing 91 criminal charges (for election subversion, retention of classified information and hush-money payments) and civil threats including a fraud trial and a defamation trial arising from a rape allegation a judge deemed “substantially true”, Trump leads 2024 Republican presidential polling by wide margins. More

Donald Trump’s rightwing appointees to the US supreme court have insisted that they’re neither “politicians in robes” nor “partisan hacks”, but many Americans strongly disagree about that, and that’s a major factor behind the court’s extraordinary crisis of legitimacy. With the court lurching to the right in recent years, three in four Americans say it has become “too politicized”, according to a recent poll, while just 49% say they have “trust and confidence” in the court, a sharp decline from 80% when Bill Clinton was president.As the supreme court’s new term begins this week, it should be no surprise that many Americans are questioning the court’s legitimacy considering all of the following. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito have taken lavish favors from rightwing billionaires with business before the court and then failed to disclose those favors. The court’s conservative majority has often served as a partisan battering ram to advance the Republican party’s electoral fortunes. Mitch McConnell brazenly stole a supreme court seat from Merrick Garland to preserve the court’s rightwing majority. Not stopping there, McConnell and the Republican-led Senate raced to ram through Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation even after voting had started for the 2020 election.Many ethics experts say Thomas and Alito – supposed guardians of the law – violated ethics laws by failing to disclose the luxurious favors they took from billionaires. Adding to the overall stench, the court still hasn’t adopted an ethics code and acts as if the extravagant favors Thomas and Alito received are in no way a problem. Dismayed by the court’s ethical lapses, 40 watchdog groups have called on Chief Justice Roberts to require Thomas and Alito to recuse themselves in cases with links to their billionaire donor friends.Among many Americans, there’s a growing sense that the Roberts court, with its 6-3 hard-right supermajority, is irrevocably broken. Prominent critics say the conservative justices too often act like partisan activists eager to impose their personal preferences, whether by banning affirmative action at universities, overturning gun regulations or torpedoing President Joe Biden’s plan to forgive student loans.Concerns about the court’s legitimacy multiplied after it issued the blockbuster Dobbs decision overturning Roe v Wade and women’s right to choose. With nearly two-thirds of voters believing that Roe was correctly decided, many Americans complained that the court’s conservatives, in toppling Roe, were imposing their personal religious views on society.On one hand, the justices can assert they have legitimacy – they were duly nominated by a president and confirmed by the Senate. But on the other hand, using other democratic measures, the court seems squarely illegitimate. One might say the conservative supermajority is the product of counter-majoritarianism cubed. First, four of the six right-wing justices were nominated by presidents elected with a minority of the popular vote, and second, they were confirmed by Senators who represented a minority of the nation’s population. Third, these hard-right justices are often deeply out of synch with a majority of the public. They’re far more opposed to abortion rights, business regulations, labor unions and government measures that advance economic and social justice.Back in 1982 when I graduated from law school, many people thought the Rehnquist court was too conservative, but no one questioned its legitimacy. But then came the Bush v Gore ruling in which the conservative majority exerted its muscle in an extraordinary partisan fashion to deliver victory in the 2000 election to George W Bush – and thereby assure continued conservative control of the court.At his confirmation hearing, John Roberts famously said he would merely call balls and strikes as chief justice. But that statement has proven to be flatly untrue, an unfortunate curveball. As chief justice, Roberts has repeatedly gone far beyond calling balls and strikes, often in rulings that increased the Republican’s chances of winning elections. In Citizens United, Roberts engineered an atom bomb of a decision that blew up our campaign finance system and overturned century-old rules that sought to prevent corporations and the mega-rich from having undue sway over our politics and government. In Citizens United, the Roberts court did grievous damage to our democracy, helping transform our nation into a plutocracy where billionaires’ money dwarfs the voices of average Americans.Roberts also led the way in overturning a pivotal part of the Voting Rights Act that required Alabama, South Carolina and other states with a dismal history of racial discrimination to obtain pre-clearance from the federal government before they changed voting rules. Showing how out of touch he was with political realities, Roberts wrote a majority decision that essentially said that racial discrimination on voting matters was a thing of the past and that pre-clearance unduly interfered in those states’ internal affairs, despite their disturbing legacy of racism. That decision was one of supreme judicial arrogance, overturning a law that the Senate passed 98 to 0 and the House passed 390 to 33 to extend the Voting Rights Act for 25 years.Roberts handed the Republicans another huge victory when he led the court in turning a blind eye to egregious gerrymandering. In doing so, Roberts gave a green light to brazen gerrymanders and minority rule, like that in Wisconsin where in a recent election, the Republican party won nearly two-thirds of state assembly seats even though its candidates received just 46% of the vote. The supreme court is supposed to safeguard America’s democracy for the ages, and we should all question the legitimacy of a court that in decision after decision has eroded our democracy in a way that favors one political party. (I should note that Roberts, embarrassed by the court’s headlong lurch to the right, recently sought to shore up the court’s flagging legitimacy by mustering a 5-4 majority to overturn an Alabama voting map that diluted Blacks’ voting power.)Clarence Thomas’s corrupt behavior has raised concerns about the court’s legitimacy to new heights. As ProPublica reported, not only did rightwing billionaire Harlan Crow provide Thomas with a free nine-day yacht vacation in Indonesia, but Crow has ferried him around on private jets, purchased properties belonging to Thomas and his relatives and paid private school tuition for a grandnephew Thomas was raising. Separately, Thomas was flown to California to be the star attraction at a far-right Koch network fundraising weekend. Flouting ethics laws, Thomas disclosed none of this.Thomas seems to see a judge’s lifetime tenure as a license to skirt ethics and disclosure laws as well as a lifetime pass to take lavish favors from whomever he wants, even people with cases before the supreme court. As for Alito, he didn’t disclose that billionaire Paul Singer, who later had cases before the supreme court, paid for his luxury fishing trip to Alaska.For decades, the nation’s law schools have taught aspiring lawyers about the importance of judicial restraint and humility, of not overreaching. At a time when so many Americans are questioning the court’s legitimacy, the court should try all the harder to act with restrain and humility – and caution. Instead, the conservative supermajority, enamored with its power, seems intent on acting boldly and overreaching to stamp its rightwing vision on our constitutional order. These unelected justices seem happy to hobble our democratically elected president, in ways large and small, and in doing so, to dangerously undermine our democracy.
Steven Greenhouse is an American labor and workplace journalist and writer More

President Joe Biden has announced that an additional 125,000 people have been approved of student debt relief in a total of $9bn.Biden’s latest approval brings the total approved debt cancellation under his administration to $127bn for nearly 3.6 million Americans, the White House said in a statement.The new approvals include $5.2bn in additional debt relief for 53,000 borrowers under Public Service Loan Forgiveness programs, nearly $2.8bn in new debt relief for nearly 51,000 borrowers through fixes to income-driven repayment, as well as $1.2bn for nearly 22,000 borrowers who have a total or permanent disability.In an address on Wednesday, Biden said that his administration’s efforts to relieve student debt is “not done yet”, adding: “My administration is doing everything we can to deliver student debt relief as many as we can, as fast as we can.”“While a college degree is still the ticket toward a better life, that ticket has become excessively expensive. Americans who are saddled with unsustainable debt in exchange for a college degree has become norm,” he said.Biden went on to criticize the conservative-majority supreme court’s 6-3 decision earlier this year that ruled against his administration’s $430bn student debt forgiveness plan for 40 million borrowers.“Republican-elected officials and special interests stepped up and sued us and the supreme court sided with them, snatching from the hands of millions of Americans thousands of dollars of student debt relief that was about to change their lives,” he said of the decision.The education secretary, Miguel Cardona, hailed Biden’s decision on Wednesday, saying: “The Biden-Harris administration’s laser-like focus on reducing red tape, addressing past administrative failures, and putting borrowers first have now resulted in a historic $127bn in debt relief approved for nearly 3.6 million borrowers.”“Today’s announcement builds on everything our administration has already done to protect students from unaffordable debt, make repayment more affordable, and ensure that investments in higher education pay off for students and working families,” he added.Following the supreme court’s ruling earlier this year, the Biden administration launched Saving on a Valuable Education (Save) plan, which will go into full effect next July and increases the income exception from 150% to 225% of the poverty line.It also intends to reduce payments on undergraduate loans in half and ensure that borrowers “never see their balance grow as long as they keep up with their required payments”, the education department said. More

A broad coalition of opponents to the rightwing corporate agenda of the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec) will hold a rally on Wednesday night outside a glitzy gala event to celebrate the secretive group’s 50th anniversary.Environmentalists, gun reform campaigners, union leaders and voting rights activists will protest outside the $750-a-ticket event at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC, calling on corporations to cut ties with Alec . Alec is a tax-exempt group behind a slew of regressive state laws including the stand your ground gun legislation, right-to-work labor policies and so-called critical infrastructure protections that criminalize protest against fossil fuel polluters.“They design cookie cutter legislation to pass to state houses across the US, helping pass laws that make it harder to vote, harder to get healthcare, harder for workers to unionize, and harder to get dark money out of politics,” said Svante Myrick, CEO of People for the American Way, one of the rally organizers.“The model bills sound like they are protecting our country but are actually designed to protect corporate interests. We have to shine a light on this,” said Viki Harrison from Common Cause, a group which for years has pushed corporations to break ties with Alec over the racist impact of its legislation.Alec’s corporate members pay thousands of dollars to each year for access to friendly state legislators and a seat on policy groups such as the Energy, Environment and Agriculture task force, which has been a conduit for the fossil fuel industry to promote state-level policies that weaken environmental regulations and impede efforts to tackle the climate crisis.Membership dues from legislators, on the other hand, account for less than 1% of Alec’s annual revenues, according to tax filings uncovered by the Centre for Media and Democracy (CMD). The second-largest known donor to Alec is Charles Koch, whose foundations gave the organization just over $2m between 2017 and 2021, CMD found.Over the past five decades, Alec has secretly worked with corporate lobbyists, far-right groups and conservative state legislators to draft and promote hundreds of model bills that have affected almost every aspect of life in the US including tobacco advertising, prescription costs, access to higher education and abortion healthcare, consumer protections, voting rights, and environmental standards.“We’re exposing who is behind Alec … they are just a cover for corporations to use tax free money to undermine workers’ rights and give cover to polluters, extending the life of the fossil fuel industry,” said Tefere Gebre, chief program officer at Greenpeace USA. “Alec has provided cover for corporations to run our lives, and 50 years is enough.”Alec’s anniversary gala is sponsored by dozens of corporations, trade associations and rightwing thinktanks including Philip Morris International, The Heritage Foundation, US Chamber of Commerce and NetChoice, a tech industry group whose members include Amazon, Google, Meta and TikTok. Expected speakers include former corporate lobbyist and the current Alec CEO Lisa Nelson, and conservative political commentator Hugh Hewitt.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAlec has been contacted for comment. More