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    The left needs its own version of techno-optimism | Amana Fontanella-Khan

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    Today we live in an era defined by crisis. Indeed, we are facing multiple overlapping threats at once: from accelerating climate breakdown to the rise of authoritarianism across the world, we are in a situation that the historian Adam Tooze calls “polycrisis”. It is no wonder that hope is scarce, pessimism is high and despair is pervasive. As one meme that captures the grim, morbid mood of our age reads: “My retirement plan is civilisational collapse.”But not everyone shares this gloomy outlook. On the extreme other end of public sentiment sit Silicon Valley billionaires: they are some of the most optimistic people on earth. Of course, it’s easy to be optimistic when you are sitting on enough money to sway national politics. And yet, the source of their optimism isn’t simply money. It is also a deep-seated faith in unfettered technological advances.The left is rightly skeptical of the rosy “techno-optimism” advanced by the likes of Elon Musk, far-right mega-donor Peter Thiel and hedge fund billionaire Marc Andreessen. To tech oligarchs, technological advancement is best delivered by unfettered free market capitalism. The democratic state is a hindrance to be opposed, dismantled and destroyed – a set of goals that they now enjoy the power to achieve. Their ideology ignores inequality and glosses over the material harms their companies wreak on workers and the environment. Silicon Valley’s billionaire techno-optimism is clearly incompatible with leftwing values and should be rejected.But can and should the left advance its own techno-optimism? Can it put forward a vision of a brighter future that can compete with the grand visions of space exploration presented by Musk? Can it make the case that science and technology ought to be harnessed to deliver breakthroughs, abundance, sustainability and flourishing of human potential? And what would a progressive, leftwing techno-optimism look like? A techno-optimism that the 99% could get on board with, especially communities of color, and Black people who have historically been excluded, or even harmed, by scientific and technological breakthroughs? These are some of the questions that this new series, Breakthrough, launched by the Guardian examines.The left used to embrace technology. Indeed, the most leftwing prophet of all, Karl Marx, was so pro-technology that he is often described as “Promethean”, a reference to the Greek god who stole fire to give to humans. And it was feminist Shulamith Firestone who in the 1970s envisioned a day where we might have artificial wombs and be liberated from housework, thanks to automation: a feminist utopia delivered by technology.Some of the most groundbreaking sci-fi imagery that we encounter in books and movies like the Matrix, such as people living virtual lives entirely untethered from their bodies, were first popularized by JD Bernal, the Marxist scientist and futurist who designed the so-called Bernal spheres, for permanent space settlement, in 1929. Writing of Bernal’s influential book, The World, the Flesh and the Devil: An Enquiry into the Future of the Three Enemies of the Rational Soul, Arthur C Clarke, considered one of the fathers of sci-fi, wrote that it was “perhaps the most remarkable attempt to predict the future of scientific possibility ever made, and certainly the most stimulating”. And it was all rooted in a firmly leftwing – and specifically, socialist – world view. And, of course, Star Trek, one of the most successful sci-fi series of all time, is widely considered to be depicting a socialist post-scarcity utopia.Today, however, the left is either fearful, agnostic or hostile towards technology. The green “degrowth” movement, for example, views industry and technology as the root of our climate crisis. For them, the solution to the climate crisis is not more technological growth and innovation, but less. As Kohei Saito, the author of the bestseller Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto, said in an interview: “I was initially more optimistic about the development of technology” but, after reading degrowth theories, “[I] abandoned the possibility of green growth.”Saito goes on to say: “If we want to have more, in today’s sense, it will simply bring about ecological catastrophe.” Reducing consumption and production – austerity and retreat, in other words – is the only path forward for the degrowth movement. But this ignores the fact that technology can help us replace fossil fuels with other sources of clean, affordable and scalable energy that would allow for continued growth and advancement, without harming the environment.Meanwhile, leftwing leaders such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are very good at the necessary and essential task of confronting tech monopolies and billionaires, who concentrate economic and political power in their hands. But what is often lacking is a positive, bold vision for what a science and technology agenda for the 99% would look like – how technology in the right hands might help provide abundance for all.This is a lost opportunity. For all the pessimism and decline that we are witnessing – declining rates of graduation, declining birth rates, declining rates of homeownership and a rise in deaths of despair and skyrocketing rents – we also may well be on the brink of unprecedented breakthroughs and advances that could create record levels of wealth to be enjoyed by all, if these breakthroughs are accompanied by a political system that favors the wellbeing of all over billionaires. It may be hard to imagine such a system at the moment, given that corporate interests have seized nearly all levers of power, but it is nonetheless critical to do so. Do we have a political vision of how tech and science might work for us all?In 2024, artificial intelligence (AI) was recognised with not one, but two, Nobel prizes. Google’s DeepMind discovered 2.2m entirely new materials – 800 years worth of science in a few months. Last year saw the first time that sickle cell disease, a disease that was hitherto incurable and predominantly affects people of African descent, was reversed in a novel Crispr gene-editing therapy. Cancer and heart disease vaccines could be ready within the next five years. And now, for the first time, AI is solving the intractable protein-folding problem – one of biology’s greatest challenges – and designing new proteins, which is essential for discovering new drugs and understanding why certain diseases occur.View image in fullscreenSo why is it that technology is almost never invoked by the left as a solution to polycrisis in general, or the climate crisis in particular? Why is it that the only people who offer bold, inspiring visions for the transformative role of technology are the likes of reactionaries like Musk?There are, of course, reasons for this. Technology alone is no panacea. Nor does technology guarantee progress. In fact, periods of technological advancement have almost always been accompanied by violence, dispossession and war. Many leftwing philosophers in the post-war period, having witnessed the ravages of fascism and Nazism, equated technology – and even the very idea of progress itself, with violence.As the Frankfurt school philosophers Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer – both of whom were Jewish intellectuals forced to flee Nazi Germany – argued in Dialectic of Enlightenment: “Technology … aims to produce neither concepts nor images, nor the joy of understanding, but method, exploitation of the labor of others, capital.”And Black artists such as Gil Scott-Heron, witnessing the advances of the space age, asked what benefit the Apollo mission might have for those struggling to make ends meet back on Earth. In Whitey on the Moon, Scott-Heron writes:“A rat done bit my sister Nell.(with Whitey on the Moon)Her face and arms began to swell.(and Whitey’s on the Moon)I can’t pay no doctor bill.(but Whitey’s on the Moon)Ten years from now I’ll be paying still.(while Whitey’s on the Moon)”Those critiques continue to resonate with many today. Especially as we witness one billionaire after another fly into space, as life on Earth grows more perilous by the day. And as billionaires push not simply the frontiers of space, but of the human body itself, it is right to remind ourselves of the legacy and history of eugenics. We can only benefit from warnings – such as those made by Timnit Gebru and Émile Torres – that the pursuit of longevity and eternal life, as well as transhumanist projects such as Neuralink, risk perpetuating eugenicist ideals in the 21st century.Perhaps, though, we would do well to adopt the position of the Frankfurt school philosopher, Herbert Marcuse, who accepted many of the critiques that his colleagues made of the Enlightenment, but who also left space for the possibility that it could go either way. In a 1941 essay on technology, he wrote: “[Technology] can promote authoritarianism as well as liberty, scarcity as well as abundance, the extension as well as the abolition of toil.”He envisioned a world in which technological progress might allow human flourishing and self-realization. In a world that is technologically advanced enough, “everyone could think and act by himself, speak his own language, have his own emotions and follow his own passions” once we are “no longer chained to competitive efficiency”.Perhaps the most important condition for us to flourish is to address our climate crisis. Today, to warm our homes and cook our meals, we still set fire to things. Those who cook on gas stoves heat their food over literal flames, as cavemen once did. If we are to move out of the fossil fuel era into a new, cleaner and sustainable era – while still maintaining our freedom to travel and fly and enjoy the material comforts that we do today – this will require a combination of political will and technology. Whether fusion energy, fission or a host of renewables, the path to a new era of energy production requires new technologies and breakthroughs. Right now, for example, Silicon Valley billionaires are investing billions in chasing the holy grail of limitless, clean fusion energy to power AI. Can and will the state match those efforts? And should the left make the case that it should?There is no inherent value in technology. It is neither good nor bad. It is up to us how machines are used. And indeed, who makes those machines, how, and to what ends are all political questions. While we push to change our political system and direct it towards a more equitable, inclusive and liberatory path, let us also, at the same time, push for technology to move in that direction, too.We live in dark, depressing and – frankly – terrifying times. Our planet’s fragile ecosystem is fast spiraling out of control. Our democracies are fracturing. And billionaires are seizing for themselves all of the spoils of the digital era. Technology might well be the thing that pushes us over the edge. But it could also, if we play our cards right, allow us to exit our era of polycrisis. But that won’t happen on its own. The path towards better technology – tech for the 99% – can only be achieved through a politics of the 99%. And it must start with a vision.It is time that the left deploy all of our energies and powers towards a political vision of abundance. Abundance that is delivered by a movement for the 99% that pushes for technological growth and development for the benefit of all.We hope this series might be a place for that political vision to be discussed, debated and laid out so that optimism about the future – in particular, techno-optimism – is no longer just something that the very rich in this world can have.

    Amana Fontanella-Khan is the Guardian US opinion editor More

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      Mitch McConnell is retiring from US politics. Good riddance | Moira Donegan

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      You would think that this is exactly what Mitch McConnell wanted. McConnell, the 83-year-old Kentucky senator – who announced last week that he will retire in 2026 and not seek an eighth term – is one of the most influential Republicans in the history of the party. But he has in recent weeks expressed dissent and discontent with the direction of the Republican party. He voted against some of Donald Trump’s cabinet appointees, refusing, for example, to cast a vote for the confirmation of the anti-diversity campaigner and alleged rapist and drunk Pete Hegseth.He has also voiced some tepid and belated opposition to Republicans’ extremist agenda, citing his own experience as a survivor of childhood polio as a reason for his opposition to Republican attacks on vaccines. But the Republican party that McConnell is now shaking his head at is the one that he created. He has no one but himself to blame.Over his 40 years in the US Senate, with almost two decades as the Republican leader in the chamber, McConnell has become one of the most influential senators in the nation’s history, radically reshaping Congress, and his party, in the process. Few have done more to erode the conditions of representative democracy in America, and few have done more to enable the rise of oligarchy, autocracy and reactionary, minoritarian governance that is insulated from electoral check. McConnell remade America in his own image. It’s an ugly sight.In the end, McConnell will be remembered for one thing only: his enabling of Trump. In 2021, after Trump refused to respect the results of the 2020 election and sent a violent mob of his supporters to the Capitol to stop the certification of the election results by violent force, McConnell had an opportunity to put a stop to Trump’s authoritarian attacks on the constitutional order.McConnell never liked Trump, and by that point, he didn’t even need him: he had already won what would be his last term. He could have voted to convict Trump at his second impeachment; if he had, it’s likely that other Republican senators would have been willing to do so, too, and that Trump could have been convicted and prevented from returning to power. He didn’t. McConnell voted to acquit, and to allow Trump to rise again. If the next four years of Trump’s restoration are anything like the first 30 days have been, then that will turn out to have been the singularly significant decision of McConnell’s career.But McConnell had been working against American democracy long before Trump sent the mob to ransack the Senate chamber and smear feces on the walls. It was McConnell, after all, who is most responsible for the current campaign finance regime, which has allowed unlimited amounts of dark money spending to infiltrate politics – making elections more influenceable, and politicians’ favor more purchasable, in ways that tilt public policy away from the people’s interests and towards those of the billionaire patron class.Such arrangements of funding and favors are not consistent with democracy; they change politicians’ loyalties, diminish the influence of voters, diminish constituents and their needs to a mere afterthought or communications problem in the minds of elected representatives. This was by design, and it is how McConnell liked it. In Washington, he operated at the center of a vast funding network, moving millions and millions of dollars towards those Republicans who did his bidding, and away from those who bucked his authority.It was partly his control over this spiderlike web of wealthy funders that allowed McConnell to exert such control over his caucus. It is hard to remember these days, when Republicans pick so many fights with each other, that the party was once feared for their discipline. McConnell was able to snuff out any meaningful dissent and policy difference in public among Republican senators with the threat of his deep-pocketed friends, always ready to fund a primary challenger. The lockstep from Republicans allowed McConnell to pursue what he viewed as his twin goals: stopping any Democratic agenda in Congress, and furthering the conservative capture of the federal courts.As Senate Republican leader during the Obama years, McConnell pursued a strategy of maximal procedural obstructionism. His mandate was that no Republican in the Senate would vote for any Obama agenda item – that there would be no compromise, no negotiation, no horse trading, no debate, but only a stonewalled total rejection of all Democratic initiatives. This has become the singular way that Republicans operate in the Senate; it was McConnell who made it that way.The underlying assumption of McConnell’s strategy of total opposition and refusal was that Democrats, even when they win elections, do not have a legitimate right to govern. In practice, the authorities of the presidency or congressional majorities expand and contract based on which party is in power: Republicans can achieve a great deal more in the White House, or with control of Congress, than Democrats can.In part this is because of McConnell’s procedural approach, which posits bending the rules to suit Republican interests when they are in power, and enforcing the rules to the point of functionally arresting legislative business when Democrats take the majority. This, too, is antithetical to democracy: constitutional powers can’t be limited for one party, and expanded for another, so that voters are only fully represented if they vote one way. The strategy of obstructionism functionally ended Congress as a legislative body in all but the most extreme of circumstances. What was most the most representative, electorally responsive, and important branch of the federal government has receded to the status of a bit player, and policymaking power has been abdicated to the executive and the courts. That’s McConnell’s doing, too.Maybe it was part of McConnell’s indifference to the integrity of democracy meant that he refused, during the Obama era, to confirm any of the president’s judicial nominees. Vacancies on the federal courts accumulated, with seats sitting empty and cases piling up for the overworked judges who remained. But McConnell’s seizure of the judicial appointment power from the executive was only in effect when the president was a Democrat; when Republicans were in power, he jammed the courts full of far-right judges.When Antonin Scalia died in 2016, under Obama, McConnell held the US supreme court seat open for almost a year, hoping that Trump would win the 2016 election and get the chance to appoint a right-wing replacement. When Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, just a few weeks before the 2020 election, McConnell jammed through the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett. His tendencies, then, were always authoritarian: power, in his view, did not belong to those the people elected to represent them. It belonged, always, to Republicans – no matter what the voters had to say about it.Mitch McConnell is an old man. In 2026, when he finally leaves office, he will be 84. He will not have to live in the world that he made, the one where what was left of American democracy is finally snatched away. But we will. Whenever you see a horror of anti-democratic rule – whenever cronyism is rewarded over competence, whenever cruelty is inflicted over dignity, whenever the constitution is flouted, mocked, or treated as a mere annoyance to be ignored by men with no respect for the law or for you – remember Mitch McConnell. You have him to thank.

      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

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      Elon Musk’s rumoured $100m donation may just fuel a fresh look at UK political funding

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      Elon Musk has denied he is gearing up to chuck $100m at Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, as it pushes to take on the Tories. But the very fact the question arose is a reminder of the pressing need for political funding reform on this side of the Atlantic.Musk is the living embodiment of economic power in the modern US: a multibillionaire, with spicy political views, who has bought his way into a role as Donald Trump’s costcutter-in-chief.Part of his motivation seems to be not just slashing spending for the sake of it but the dismantling of regulators that his companies have found irksome.He had previously joined legal action, alongside Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, aimed at having the National Labor Relations Board declared unconstitutional, for example.This is the body, created in 1935, that enforces workers’ rights. It ensured staff at Amazon’s Staten Island warehouse had the opportunity to ballot – successfully – for union recognition (an outcome the giant retailer has continued to challenge).Musk has also said he wants to “delete” the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, suggesting it is “duplicative”.Musk et al’s affront at the very idea that federal agencies have oversight of business is reminiscent of the fury faced by President Theodore Roosevelt and his allies during the so-called Progressive Era, at the turn of the 20th century, when they fought to bust vast monopolies and tame the worst excesses of capitalism.The mega-rich capitalists back then were the likes of JD Rockefeller and JP Morgan but then, as now, there was a clash of principles about the government’s right to oversee corporations. And then, as now, money was used to buy influence over the debate.If Musk and his co-director, Vivek Ramaswamy, succeed in scrapping a whole suite of regulators, it could fundamentally shift the relationship between capital and the individual (which, of course, is exactly his hope).Musk’s deregulatory zeal may yet run into trouble in Congress, and Trump may tire of his fellow egotist and end up wheeling out his catchphrase from the Apprentice to tell the Tesla boss “you’re fired”.But the immense influence Musk has bought, by spending an extraordinary $243m (£190m) on getting Trump re-elected, and using X to pump out pro-Trump propaganda, should sound alarm bells in the UK.We may lack the equivalent of Silicon Valley’s galactically rich donor class, with their screwball libertarianism. But we still have a system where wealthy individuals can effectively give unlimited sums to their favourite political parties.There are spending limits during campaigns, but these are very high: for a party standing candidates in every seat in the UK, it topped £34m at this year’s general election.Party funding rules state that you have to be a UK citizen to give more than £500 – or a UK-registered company, which “carries out business in the UK”.So even if Musk felt so minded, he could not donate as an individual, but would have to channel any donation to Farage’s crew via the UK outpost of Twitter, now known as X.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut the very fact he could do so in theory highlights the gaping holes in our funding rules.Keir Starmer’s Labour seems at ease with big money. Labour declared three times as much in donations as all other parties combined during this year’s election campaign – more than £9.5m – with big donors including the trade unions, of course, but also wealthy individuals, such as Lord Sainsbury, the former chair of the supermarket chain, as well as the Autoglass founder, Gary Lubner, and the hedge fund manager Martin Taylor.Yet the row over freebies – which led to Starmer being castigated over donations of glasses and gig tickets – revealed a deep public scepticism over the role of private money in politics.Just as with the MPs’ expenses scandal, a practice that Westminster considered perfectly normal was shown to be deeply unpalatable to voters.Labour’s manifesto included a promise to “protect democracy by strengthening the rules around donations to political parties”. It is unclear what that meant, and it didn’t feature in Labour’s first king’s speech, but my colleague Eleni Courea has reported that Labour will look closely at a forthcoming report from the IPPR thinktank, which is expected to recommend a £100,000 annual cap on individual donations.Cross-party talks on political funding have often foundered on Labour’s reluctance to accept any cap on trade union donations. This is a difficult circle to square – Labour is, after all, the party of labour. At the very least, union donations should be democratically endorsed, so that they function as much as possible like a collection of individual members’ subs.On this basis, plans in the employment bill to move to an “opt out” approach for union political funds seem like a backwards step (though the unions would point out that they do hold regular votes on how their political funds are used).Transparency International, which campaigns to drive big money out of politics, recommends a much lower £10,000 cap on donations, and has a slate of other suggestions – including reducing campaign spending limits, which were raised dramatically by the Tories. Labour would be wise to look closely at these, too.Political funding reform should be a worthy aim in itself, without the looming threat of the populist right. But If Elon Musk’s enthusiasm for Nigel Farage helps motivate the UK’s mainstream parties to crack on with cleaning up politics, both men will have made an unexpectedly positive contribution to public life. More

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      As the NRA fades, a more zealous US pro-gun group rises as a lobbying power

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      A zealous gun rights group, even more uncompromising than the once formidable National Rifle Association, is emerging as a force in US politics with a mission to oppose efforts at gun control and ease further America’s already lax regulations on firearms.Last year the Gun Owners of America (GOA) spent $3.3m on lobbying, a record sum for the hardline foe of gun control that now claims over 2 million members and activists, and has previously operated in the shadows of the larger NRA.The GOA’s record lobbying spending in 2022 was spurred in part by a rise in its annual revenues, which more than tripled from $2.3m in 2016 to $8.7m in 2021, according to tax records.The GOA is an adamant enemy of gun control measures of all stripes, and proudly calls itself the “no compromise” gun lobby. Its surge in lobbying spending reflects one way it has capitalized on the financial and legal problems of the once 5 million-member NRA in the hopes of expanding the GOA’s political clout, say gun experts.“The GOA was formed in the 1970s because they believed the NRA was too liberal,” said Robert Spitzer, the author of several books on guns and a professor emeritus at Suny Cortland in New York. “True to its creed, the GOA has opposed every manner of gun law and attacked the NRA at every turn.”The GOA’s anti-gun control posture was underscored by its opposition to a bipartisan compromise gun control bill in 2022 that closed some gun law loopholes, including for prospective buyers under 21, and implemented gun violence prevention policies, becoming the first gun control bill enacted since 1994.The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act garnered just 29 Republican votes in Congress, but the GOA this year in an alert to its members warning of pending legislative threats suggested those votes were “cowardly”.The GOA’s lobbying efforts in 2022 were notable in another way: it was the only gun rights group to increase its spending in 2022 according to OpenSecrets, and surpassed the NRA’s lobbying expenditures of $2.6m last year, a drop of over $2m from the NRA’s 2021 total.Through the first six months of 2023, the GOA spent $1.8m on lobbying, putting it on track to equal or surpass the $3.2m it spent last year.As it has ramped up its influence activity in Washington, the GOA also touts its member chapters and allies including the California Gun Rights Foundation and other ones in Florida, Pennsylvania and Texas.Nationally the GOA and its chapters have flexed their lobbying and legal muscles in some significant fights in several states. For instance, in New Mexico the GOA has claimed success in obtaining a temporary restraining order against new gun curbs in Albuquerque.On the legal front, the GOA has also filed amicus briefs – with help from the conservative lawyer William Olson, who put forward some aggressive schemes to Donald Trump in late 2020 as he sought to overturn his election defeat – in at least two major cases pending at the supreme court where the GOA is seeking to thwart existing and new gun regulations. This month the court heard arguments in US vs Rahimi that could overturn a 30-year-old ban on guns for individuals under domestic violence restraining orders.Gun experts say the GOA has long tried to outflank the NRA on the right as the most implacable opponent of gun control measures, and now sees an opening to expand its influence in federal and state battles over gun control.“With the mostly self-inflicted damage the NRA has suffered, the GOA very much wants to replace the NRA as the nation’s pre-eminent gun rights group,” said Spitzer. “To that end, it is raising and spending more money, filing more suits against gun laws, and has formed its own Super Pac and political victory fund. These and other tactics mimic the NRA’s traditional political playbook.”In Spitzer’s eyes, “the GOA’s prospects for success depend on the extent to which the NRA can recover from its reversals and retain the loyalty of gun owners”.The NRA has reportedly lost about 1 million members since 2019 after allegations of financial misconduct surfaced and the New York attorney general sued the CEO of the NRA, Wayne LaPierre, and other top executives for using the NRA as a “personal piggy bank”.Some ex-members of Congress say that historically the GOA has tried to exploit a perception that the NRA is too moderate.“For years, the NRA had concerns about losing members to the GOA and other extreme groups,” the former Republican congressman Charlie Dent said. “Any time the NRA tried to compromise on something, the GOA would accuse them of selling out.”Likewise, gun control advocates and ex-NRA officials say the GOA has been moving to fill the gap created by the NRA’s woes.“The NRA’s loss has been GOA’s gain,” Kristen Rand, a veteran lawyer with the Violence Policy Center, a gun control advocacy and research group, told the Guardian. “GOA makes the NRA look thoughtful and moderate. No matter how minor a change in rule or statute, GOA always portrays it as a sweeping gun ban.”Such hardball tactics have coincided with an uptick in the GOA’s federal campaign spending to expand its influence. The GOA donated $147,500 to Republican federal candidates last year, more than double what the group donated in 2018 to federal candidates, according to OpenSecrets.Further, the GOA last year established a Super Pac, the GOA Victory Fund, which spent $2.6m on federal races in last fall’s elections.The GOA did not respond to calls seeking comment.To keep the heat on Congress by mobilizing its members, the GOA regularly posts feverish alerts. Several alerts this year have bashed regulatory moves by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) and other efforts to tighten gun curbs in response to rising deaths from gun violence, and mass shootings in Maine, New York, Texas and other states since Joe Biden became president.One GOA alert this year broadly condemned the ATF as a “rogue executive branch that flat out hates gun owners and the constitution”.Other GOA alerts warn darkly of threats of new gun control bills after last year’s bipartisan measure passed, including a possible assault weapons ban that Biden has called for, but which is deemed unlikely while Republicans control the House.One alert warned: “Now, Biden and the anti-gun lobby are dialing up the pressure on the same cowardly Republicans to find support for the next item on their endless wish list of gun control … a national ban on so-called ‘assault weapons’ and normal capacity magazines.”Gun control advocates say the GOA’s scare tactics are out of sync with reality.“Gun Owners of America peddles hyperbolic falsehoods about any and all attempts by Congress to slow the devastating toll of gun violence in our nation,” said Adzi Vokhiwa, the director of federal affairs for Giffords, a gun control advocacy group.“They even oppose every effort by the ATF to simply enforce gun laws.“Gun safety laws limiting the availability of firearms to people with a history of dangerous behavior can and do co-exist with the ability of law-abiding gun owners to freely exercise their second amendment rights, despite GOA’s false claims otherwise.”Other anti-gun control groups have also ramped up their lobbying and legal drives.The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), which represents the firearms industry, has outspent the NRA on lobbying in recent years. In 2020 and 2021, the NSSF reported spending $4.6m and $5m respectively on federal lobbying. By contrast, the NRA spent $2.2m and $4.9m.Some ex-NRA officials downplay the influence of the GOA and other pro-gun groups in the wake of the NRA’s problems.“The void created by the self-inflicted and fatal chaos that is the current NRA is being filled by numerous other pro-gun organizations,” a former NRA executive said, adding that this situation “is more of a reflection on the demise of the NRA, than the effectiveness of other organizations”.Another ex-NRA honcho quipped: “GOA’s rise corresponds to when the NRA started going down the crapper.”Assessing the GOA’s impact and expanded lobbying efforts, the Violence Policy Center’s Rand stressed: “As the NRA has lost its footing, its more extreme members have embraced GOA. The group’s expanding influence can only drive pro-gun positions on legislation even further to the right.” More

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      Pro-Israel groups target US lawmakers critical of Gaza war with attack ads

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      The pro-Israel lobby in the US is airing attack ads and beginning to back primary opponents to challenge Congress members who are not voting for or supporting Israel’s war on Gaza.During the last 10 days, groups that support Israel have launched ads in at least seven districts targeting those who have been particularly vocal in calling attention to the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, opposing Israeli military aid or criticizing Israel’s government.The groups will probably pump tens of millions of dollars into primaries this cycle to back its candidates. While most of the targets are members of the “Squad” of progressive Democrats, one of them is a libertarian Republican who opposes foreign spending. “I don’t think [the pro-Israel] lobby can beat me, and they definitely can’t beat me with this topic,” said the Republican Kentucky congressman Thomas Massie, referring to his recent vote against military aid for Israel.A group of Super Pacs and dark-money non-profits – most notably groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) and the Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) – tied to Israeli interests contributed about $43m to US campaigns during the last cycle, according to Open Secrets, a campaign finance watchdog.Among its targets is the Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, the House’s only Palestinian American, who co-sponsored a resolution urging Joe Biden to call for a ceasefire. She and other progressive Democrats later opposed a bipartisan resolution expressing support for Israel that failed to mention Palestinian victims, and have not supported US military funding for Israel.In response, the DMFI has launched a six-figure ad campaign in Tlaib’s district that opens with ominous music and an image of a narrator rattling off a list of grievances.“She’s one of only seven Democrats in Congress to vote against missile protection for Israel, one of only nine Democrats against condemning the brutal attack on Israel by Hamas,” the narrator says. “Tell Rashida Tlaib she’s on the wrong side of history and humanity.”Meanwhile, the Mainstream Democrats Pac, backed by the LinkedIn co-founder and billionaire Reid Hoffman, has voiced interest in supporting primary challenges against Tlaib and the progressive congresswoman Cori Bush of Missouri.The latest round of ads also mark a shift in strategy. Attacks from these groups have typically focused on domestic issues, but this time they are hitting US lawmakers for not supporting Israel’s war effort, a move political observers say represents a risk given the divide among Democrats over the war. Israel has killed more than 10,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in retaliation for Hamas’s 7 October attacks in southern Israel, which killed more than 1,400 Israelis.“I don’t know which polls [the pro-Israel lobby] is reading, but I’m looking at polls and not seeing an issue that there’s a lot of consensus around on the Democratic side,” said James Zogby, a pollster and founder of the Arab American Institute. “There is not a lot of thinking going on about whether this is the hand they want to play or tactic to use.” A new poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows that nearly half of Democrats disapprove of how Joe Biden, who has been fiercely supportive of Israel, is handling the war.The ads are largely focused on progressive members of Congress who have been critical of Israel’s response to the 7 October Hamas attacks, especially those with the Squad, whose members have not shied away from condemning Israel’s ongoing airstrikes in Gaza.Critics accuse the groups of regularly misrepresenting their targets’ positions to paint them as supporters of Hamas.In Tlaib’s case, campaigns against her may not affect her chances of re-election in 2024. The third-term congresswoman has trounced Detroit political opponents by as much as 40 points in recent elections. She represents a sizable Arab American constituency, and in recent years has recorded a 75% approval rating in her district, which she previously told the Guardian stems from running a robust constituent services program in one of the nation’s poorest districts.Her criticism of Israel is unlikely to bother constituents, pollsters say.“She could withstand even a well-funded primary challenge, especially if there is more than one opponent,” the Michigan pollster Bernie Porn told the Guardian.In New York, George Latimer, a Westchester county executive who is planning a “solidarity mission” to Israel, is widely expected to announce his candidacy against the representative Jamaal Bowman, who also signed on to the ceasefire resolution. Bowman won his last challenge by more than 30 points.Much of the Republican party is in virtual lockstep with the pro-Israel lobby, but one member is not: Massie. He said he supports Israel’s right to defend itself and condemned Hamas’s “barbaric” attacks, but he is staunchly anti-foreign aid and voted against resolutions or legislation calling for billions in US military assistance.Aipac’s Super Pac, United Democracy Project, has spent nearly $90,000 on radio and television ads attacking Massie in his district in recent weeks. Aipac has unsuccessfully tried to unseat him in past cycles, Massie said, adding he was “not worried” about a promised primary challenge.“That’s just not something that motivates people in my district to vote, and [Aipac] knows that,” Massie said. He believes the pro-Israel groups may continue to invest in attack ads even if it probably cannot unseat him because it helps the groups raise money from donors and sends messages to others in Congress.Others might be more vulnerable. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar narrowly beat Don Samuels, a former Minneapolis city councilman who is expected to soon announce a rematch, while another challenger, attorney Sarah Gad, is attempting to turn the war into a campaign issue.In Pittsburgh, the United Democracy Project spent $2m in 2022 opposing the congresswoman Summer Lee in the primary, which she won by one point. Israeli interest groups are now backing her opponent, Bhavini Patel, a borough councilwoman in the Pittsburgh area. Patel is making Israel a central issue, and taking aim at Lee’s response to the Hamas attacks.“Our member of Congress waited to speak out, and then offered qualified remarks,” Patel said. “Her belated statement fell short on unequivocally condemning Hamas’s terrorist attack on innocent Israeli citizens, suggesting they not be allowed to defend themselves.”Lee issued a statement on X the day of the attack that read “I strongly condemn the horrifying attack”. She also mentioned Palestinian civilian victims.Earlier this month, she directly addressed efforts to unseat her.“We condemn Hamas. We mourn the killing of innocent Israelis. We continue demanding safe return of hostages,” Lee wrote on X. “Certain Super PACs & their friends wanna threaten my community’s votes for supporting peace … but my community is with me against war, for lasting peace, and against killing innocent people.”
      This article was amended on 11 November 2023 to clarify Thomas Massie’s position on the Israel-Hamas conflict. More

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      The power of junk food companies in Washington – podcast

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      When and why did so-called food deserts first emerge? How has the fast food industry become so powerful? And despite the growing rate of obesity in the US, why are politicians not stepping in to improve nutrition?
      This week, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Dr Eduardo J Gómez of Lehigh University, on how his new book Junk Food Politics taught him about the power of lobbyists

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know More

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      Amazon and Google fund anti-abortion lawmakers through complex shell game

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      As North Carolina’s 12-week abortion ban is due to come into effect on 1 July, an analysis from the non-profit Center for Political Accountability (CPA) shows several major corporations donated large sums to a Republican political organization which in turn funded groups working to elect anti-abortion state legislators.The Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) received donations of tens of thousands of dollars each from corporations including Comcast, Intuit, Wells Fargo, Amazon, Bank of America and Google last year, the CPA’s analysis of IRS filings shows. The contributions were made in the months after Politico published a leaked supreme court decision indicating that the court would end the right to nationwide abortion access.Google contributed $45,000 to the RSLC after the leak of the draft decision, according to the CPA’s review of the tax filings. Others contributed even more in the months after the leak, including Amazon ($50,000), Intuit ($100,000) and Comcast ($147,000).Google, Amazon, Comcast, Wells Fargo and Bank of America did not respond to requests for comment. An Intuit spokesperson pointed out that the company also donates to Democratic political organizations, and that “our financial support does not indicate a full endorsement of every position taken by an individual policymaker or organization.“Intuit is non-partisan and works with policymakers and leaders from both sides of the aisle to advocate for our customers,” an Intuit spokesperson said in a statement. “We believe engagement with policymakers is essential to a robust democracy and political giving is just one of the many ways Intuit engages on behalf of its customers, employees, and the communities it serves.”A Bank of America spokesperson pointed to the company’s policy that donations to so-called 527 organizations such as the RSLC come with the caveat that they only be used for operational and administrative purposes, not to support any candidates or ballot initiatives. The CPA, meanwhile, argues that since the RSLC’s operations are explicitly designed to support candidates and ballot initiatives, such a policy is a distinction without a difference.Although these companies did not directly give these vast sums to North Carolina’s anti-abortion lawmakers, the CPA’s analysis is a case study in how corporate contributions to organizations such as the RSLC can end up being funneled into anti-abortion causes. When Republican state legislators successfully overturned a veto from the Democratic governor last month to pass the upcoming abortion ban, nine of lawmakers voting to overturn the veto had received campaign contributions from a group with links to the RSLC.The RSLC, which works to elect Republican lawmakers and promote rightwing policies at the state level, is at the top of a chain of spending and donations which eventually connected to rightwing candidates in North Carolina. This type of spending, which relies on channeling money through various third-party groups from larger organizations, is a common part of modern political campaign financing.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn this case, the RSLC gave $5m to the Good Government Coalition political organization between June and November last year, which in turn gave $6.45m to the rightwing political group Citizens for a Better North Carolina. Finally, that organization gave $1m in independent expenditures to support nine anti-abortion state lawmakers who later voted to overturn the governor’s veto of the abortion bill.These donations are evidence that corporations are proving to be complicit in the broader movement to limit abortion rights, the CPA non-profit argues, even as many of these companies publicly tout women’s empowerment and employee access to healthcare.“Companies need to know where their money is ending up,” said Bruce Freed, the president of the CPA. “This should be a lesson – a lesson that they should have taken a while ago but that frankly is driven home right now with what has been happening in North Carolina.”Several of the companies, including Intuit and Bank of America, made statements last year offering to cover healthcare costs for employees who needed to travel out of state for medical procedures, in some cases explicitly mentioning abortion as an example. Google sent an email to employees acknowledging that Roe v Wade had been overturned and informed them about options for relocating to Google offices in different states.“Equity is extraordinarily important to us as a company, and we share concerns about the impact this ruling will have on people’s health, lives and careers,” the email stated.The companies which donated to the RSLC are also large donors to Democratic political groups, and tech giants such as Google and Amazon tend to spend millions each year more broadly on lobbying efforts.The RSLC, whose board members include former lawmakers, governors and White House advisers such as Karl Rove, boasts on its website that it spent more than $45m on supporting Republican candidates during the 2021 and 2022 election cycle.In addition to North Carolina’s abortion ban, South Carolina also passed a bill last week that would criminalize most abortions at six weeks into a pregnancy – generally a period before people know they are pregnant. A state judge issued a temporary halt on the ban within hours of Governor Henry McMaster signing it into law, and it will now be reviewed by the state supreme court.North Carolina’s 12-week abortion ban is scheduled to go into effect on 1 July, drastically curtailing abortion access as many other southern states have passed near total bans. More

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      Revealed: the US adviser who tried to swing Nigeria’s 2015 election

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      Revealed: the US adviser who tried to swing Nigeria’s 2015 electionSam Patten, an American consultant later mired in controversy, exploited emails obtained by Tal Hanan’s team In late December 2014, a team from Cambridge Analytica flew to Madrid for meetings with a handful of old and new contacts. A member of the former Libyan royal family referred to as “His Royal Highness” was there. So, too, was the son of a US billionaire, a Nigerian businessman and a private Israeli intelligence operative.For Alexander Nix, the Etonian chief executive of Cambridge Analytica, and his new employee Brittany Kaiser, who networked like most other people breathed, there may have been nothing unusual about such a gathering.But, by any other measure, it was an unlikely ensemble, not least because last week the identity of the intelligence operative was revealed to be Tal Hanan: an Israeli “black ops” mercenary who, it is now known, claims to have manipulated elections around the world.Hanan, who operates using the alias “Jorge”, has boasted of meddling in more than 30 elections. His connection to the now defunct Cambridge Analytica offers a revealing insight into what appears to have been a decades-long global election subversion industry.Hanan’s group, “Team Jorge”, was unmasked by an international consortium of media, including the Guardian and Observer, which revealed the hacking and disinformation tactics it uses to try to sway elections.Quick GuideAbout this investigative seriesShowThe Guardian and Observer have partnered with an international consortium of reporters to investigate global disinformation. Our project, Disinfo black ops, is exposing how false information is deliberately spread by powerful states and private operatives who sell their covert services to political campaigns, companies and wealthy individuals. It also reveals how inconvenient truths can be erased from the internet by those who are rich enough to pay. The investigation is part of Story killers, a collaboration led by Forbidden Stories, a French nonprofit whose mission is to pursue the work of assassinated, threatened or jailed reporters.The eight-month investigation was inspired by the work of Gauri Lankesh, a 55-year-old journalist who was shot dead outside her Bengaluru home in 2017. Hours before she was murdered, Lankesh had been putting the finishing touches on an article called In the Age of False News, which examined how so-called lie factories online were spreading disinformation in India. In the final line of the article, which was published after her death, Lankesh wrote: “I want to salute all those who expose fake news. I wish there were more of them.”The Story killers consortium includes more than 100 journalists from 30 media outlets including Haaretz, Le Monde, Radio France, Der Spiegel, Paper Trail Media, Die Zeit, TheMarker and the OCCRP. Read more about this project.Investigative journalism like this is vital for our democracy. Please consider supporting it today.Three reporters in Israel went undercover, pretending to be consultants trying to delay an election in a politically unstable African country. They secretly filmed more than six hours of Team Jorge’s pitches, including a live demonstration by Hanan showing how he could use hacking techniques to access the Telegram and Gmail accounts of senior political figures in Kenya. Hanan did not respond to detailed requests for comment but said: “To be clear, I deny any wrongdoing.”Previously unpublished emails leaked to the Observer and Guardian proved that Hanan had interfered in the 2015 Nigerian presidential election, in an attempt to bolster the electoral prospects of then incumbent president Goodluck Jonathan – and discredit Muhammadu Buhari, his main rival. And he did it in coordination with Cambridge Analytica.There is no suggestion that Jonathan knew of either Cambridge Analytica or Team Jorge’s ultimately failed attempts to get him re-elected. And the campaign had nothing to do with the hack of Facebook data that propelled the company into the headlines in 2018.Instead, its most salient feature was a classic dirty tricks campaign. Team Jorge obtained documents from inside the opposition campaign of Buhari that could later be leaked to the media. Cambridge Analytica did the leaking.That episode has been drawn sharply into focus in recent days. But one name so far not mentioned has been that of Sam Patten, the consultant who managed Cambridge Analytica’s campaign on the ground in Nigeria. Three years later, Patten would come to be known as a cooperating witness in Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US election.A former state department official, Patten was ultimately charged and pleaded guilty to acting as an unregistered foreign agent to a Ukrainian oligarch. And among a memorable cast of characters who wound up as part of Mueller’s investigation, Patten’s business partner, Konstantin Kilimnik, stood out: he was a Russian spy.A spy who allegedly passed polling data – processed by Cambridge Analytica – from the Trump campaign to Russian intelligence in 2016 and planted false narratives about Ukraine in the 2020 election. Kilimnik was later subjected to sanctions by the US Treasury, which described him as a “known Russian intelligence services agent implementing influence operations on their behalf”. He has denied that he worked for Russian intelligence.A campaign so dirty it panicked staffClose readers of the Observer may fuzzily recall some elements of this story from our coverage of the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018. In the news frenzy that followed the Observer and New York Times revelations about the illicit (and now known to be illegal) heist of millions of people’s Facebook data, one story got lost in the mix.Four days after the original report in the Observer, we published a series of follow-up stories in the Guardian about a campaign so dirty that, even at the time, employees worried that they were implicated in illegal activity. This was the Nigeria campaign that resurfaced this week, with the unmasking of Hanan finally solving the mystery of the identity of the “Israeli consultants” referenced in the story.In 2018, some employees knew Hanan as “Jorge” but his true identity was unknown. Kaiser, grilled by MPs in parliament, said she could not “recall” his name, and she did not know about his activities until after the event.Emails leaked to the Guardian and Observer reveal when Nix asked her the real name of “Jorge” from “the Israel black ops co” in May 2015, she replied: “Tal Hanan is CEO of Demoman International.”Kaiser told the Observer that her parliamentary testimony had been a “daunting experience”, adding: “I didn’t remember the name of the Demoman company when asked.” She said she had no prior knowledge of the methods Team Jorge would end up using in Nigeria, and downplayed her role in the campaign.Observer front pagesCambridge Analytica and Team Jorge were, she said, working “separately but in parallel” for the same client – the Nigerian businessman both sides had met during the gathering in Madrid. “Alexander flew in for this one to pitch the Nigerians and separately so did Jorge,” Kaiser recalled.After the Madrid meeting, Kaiser said, she was not involved in any “operational matters with Jorge” in relation to the Nigeria campaign, which was led by a team on the ground. “I sent some emails to put everyone in contact with each other and sort out who was doing what as time was short,” she added.The emails suggest that Patten would, as part of his role at Cambridge Analytica, take responsibility for exploiting the material that Hanan obtained from the Nigerian opposition. Despite anxiety over the material, which panicked staff had assumed had been “hacked”, someone at Cambridge Analytica combed through the documents, looking for dirt on the opposition candidates.And it was Patten who appears to have leaked select documents to BuzzFeed and the Washington Free Beacon.‘Ghost’ campaign in NigeriaIn January 2015, Patten found himself parachuted into Abuja, Nigeria, to lead a last-minute $1.8m “ghost” campaign for SCL (Cambridge Analytica) in support of President Jonathan and against Buhari. Kaiser had helped land the contract in her first weeks with the company.In her memoir, Targeted, she writes that it was her friend, a former Libyan prince, who introduced her to “wealthy Nigerian oil industry billionaires” who wanted a last-minute anonymous campaign to help get Jonathan re-elected.Emails obtained by the Observer show that Kaiser’s travel schedule in December 2014, when she was helping seal the contract, was a whirlwind of meetings across three continents with highly placed contacts and a complicated web of different, though often overlapping, projects.One was the last-minute attempt to affect the outcome of the west African election. While the wealthy Nigerian client hired Cambridge Analytica and Team Jorge on separate contracts, the expectation was that both sides would coordinate.Within a fortnight of the Madrid meeting, Patten flew into Abuja. He is understood to have coordinated with others in the country against Buhari – among them Hanan, who sources say he met in a hotel in Abuja. Another Team Jorge operative working in Nigeria did so under the alias “Joel”.Hanan claimed in emails that they had entered the country on a “special visa”. A highly placed source told the Observer in 2017 that the Israeli contractors travelled on Ukrainian passports and that their fee for work in Nigeria – $500,000 – was transmitted via Switzerland into a Ukrainian bank account.A busy time for Sam PattenIn press reports, Patten has said he was not involved in Cambridge Analytica’s controversial data-targeting practices. The work he performed for the now defunct firm, he told New York magazine in 2019, was more “standard”, described as analysis, speechwriting, ads and “attempts to sway the media”.But the consortium’s investigation and previous reporting by the Observer suggest a different story. It was a busy time for Patten, whose work in Nigeria took place days before he founded a new company – Begemot Ventures – with Konstantin Kilimnik, the Ukrainian-born political consultant alleged to be a Russian intelligence agent by the US government.According to the emails, Patten flew to London at the end of January. That was where, according to the subject line of one email, a “final sweep” of the material that Team Jorge had obtained using deceptive measures was undertaken. There is no evidence that Patten knew about the nefarious methods through which that material had been obtained by the IsraelisBut others at the firm were alarmed. Cambridge Analytica employees who worked in the company’s office in Mayfair, central London, told the Observer in 2018 how they had been given a thumb drive by two Israeli operatives, one of whom is now known to be Hanan. Employees described their panic when they realised they were looking at private emails that they assumed had been illegally hacked, with one said to have “freaked out”.Do you have information about Tal Hanan or ‘Team Jorge’? For the most secure communications, use SecureDrop or see our guide.Kaiser told parliament that episode was “concerning”. But she said she did not believe the emails had been “hacked” in the classic sense, via computer, but by a person hired by the Israeli team to physically infiltrate the Buhari campaign and illicitly download them there.Whatever the case, it was Cambridge Analytica’s job to search for dirt. We “continue to analyse the information that we received from Jorge to see if there is anything that would ignite the international press”, an employee told a representative of the client. “If we find something, then we will push it.”Patten, it would appear, was focused on exactly that. The problem was that the data dump was disappointing. Referring to “the matter that brought us back to London”, Patten asked colleagues: “Did anyone come up with anything that could be of interest? My overall read is that, while a good insight into campaign thinking, there are few silver bullets or smoking guns.”He added that he would “use the AKPD bits”. That was a reference to emails revealing that AKPD Message and Media, the political consultancy founded by David Axelrod, a former chief strategist to Barack Obama, had briefly been hired by the Buhari campaign.“What are our media pitch angles?” Patten asked the next day, in an email enumerating three points, including that “B’s [Buhari’s] actual positions are obscured by a slick ‘change’ campaign steered by well-heeled American consultants”.Hours later, he sent another email: “Boom. Story 1 in progress, background sources needed, off the record, who other than me can do?” He then sent another email to clarify that he needed someone on the team to speak to a journalist to tell them Buhari, the leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), was “running a tight, American-style campaign with discipline and a scripted message”.Five days later, an article appeared in BuzzFeed headlined “Firm founded by David Axelrod worked in Nigerian election as recently as December”. It referenced “emails between top APC officials obtained by BuzzFeed News”, which echoed Patten’s talking points.On the same day, another article appeared in the Washington Free Beacon that also referenced the leaked emails. It cited “a series of emails” obtained by the conservative news website “between senior APC party members and advisers”.BuzzFeed declined to comment. The Washington Free Beacon did not respond to a request for comment. When reached by phone, Patten said he had no recollection of a man named Tal Hanan or Jorge, and was “not involved” in anything having to do with the “Israeli hackers” who were previously the subject of media attention.When asked whether he had ever contacted reporters to discuss AKPD working for Buhari, he paused. “I’m not going to get into that,” he said, before ending the conversation. He did not respond to further requests for comment. Nix did not respond to questions, other than to say this newspaper’s “purported understanding is disputed”.TopicsCambridge AnalyticaDisinfo black opsEspionageNigeriaGoodluck JonathanMuhammadu BuhariAfricaUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Rightwing group pours millions in ‘dark money’ into US voter suppression bid

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      Rightwing group pours millions in ‘dark money’ into US voter suppression bid Tax filings reveal advocacy arm of Heritage Foundation spent $5m on lobbying in 2021 to block voting rights in battleground statesThe advocacy arm of the Heritage Foundation, the powerful conservative thinktank based in Washington, spent more than $5m on lobbying in 2021 as it worked to block federal voting rights legislation and advance an ambitious plan to spread its far-right agenda calling for aggressive voter suppression measures in battleground states.This article was produced in partnership with Documented, an investigative watchdog and journalism projectPreviously unreported 2021 tax filings from Heritage Action for America, which operates as the foundation’s activist wing, shows that it spent $5.1m on contracting outside lobbying services. The outlay comes on top of $560,000 the group invested in its own in-house federal lobbying efforts that year, as well as registered lobbying by Heritage Action staffers in at least 24 states.The 990 tax filing was obtained by the watchdog group Documented and shared with the Guardian. It points to the pivotal role that Heritage Action is increasingly playing in shaping the rules that govern US democracy.The efforts help explain the unprecedented tidal wave of restrictive voting laws that spread across Republican-controlled states in the wake of the 2020 presidential election. The Brennan Center reported that more voter suppression laws were passed in 2021 than in any year since it began monitoring voting legislation more than a decade ago.The expenditures also signal a dramatic increase in Heritage Action’s advocacy activities. In 2020, Heritage Action had reported no spending at all on outside lobbying.Republicans filed record number of anti-voting lawsuits in 2022 – reportRead moreHeritage Action, whose board includes the Republican mega-donor Rebekah Mercer, is set up as a 501(c)4 under the US tax code which exempts it from paying federal taxes. It operates as a “dark money” group, avoiding disclosing the sources of its total annual revenue of over $18m.In the past two years the organization through its public messaging has echoed Donald Trump’s lie that US elections are marked by rampant fraud. A private plan prepared by Heritage Action last year set out a two-year, $24m “election integrity” strategy.The plan, obtained by Documented, proposed a two-pronged approach that would work to block moves by Democrats in Congress to bolster voting rights while at the same time pressing Republican-controlled states to impose restrictions on access to the ballot box. It said: “Where Democrats hold power, we must defend against bad policy. Where conservatives and our allies are in power, we must advance changes that protect the lawful votes of Americans.”The Heritage Action plan, which was first reported by the New York Times, is being published by the Guardian for the first time.Download original documentPart of Heritage Action’s two-year strategy is to promote what it calls “model election laws”, focusing initially on eight battleground states: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, Texas and Wisconsin. In a private meeting with donors in Tucson, Arizona, in 2021, the group’s executive director, Jessica Anderson, boasted about the role Heritage Action had played in pressing Republican-controlled legislatures to impose strict restrictions on voting, including limits on mail-in voting and early voting days.In a video of that meeting obtained by Documented, Anderson told the donors that the group acted “quickly and quietly”, bragging that “honestly nobody noticed” their behind-the-scenes influence. Heritage Action staff have registered to lobby in at least two dozen states. Voting rights in 2023: what are the key issues for US democracy?Read moreThe laser-like focus on key swing states like Georgia appears to have had an impact. The New York Times found that one-third of the 68 voting bills filed in Georgia in 2021 contained policy measures and language that aligned closely with proposals from Heritage Action.The group has publicly claimed that it had a hand in advancing 11 voting bills in at least eight states in 2021, though in some cases legislation was passed in only one chamber or went on to be vetoed by the state’s governor.Heritage Foundation, under the auspices of its elections supremo Hans von Spakovsky, curates an “election fraud database”. It claims to expose the errors, omissions and mistakes made by election officials, but it presents incomplete and misleading information and underscores how exceptionally rare fraud is within the US system.Its records stretch back 40 years, a period in which billions of votes have been cast. Yet the database records only 1,402 “proven instances of voter fraud” – a “molecular fraction” of votes cast nationwide, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.The newly disclosed tax filings also show that Heritage Action ramped up its spending on advertising as it sought to influence lawmakers and the public around its controversial voting agenda. In 2021, the organization reported paying $6.1m to outside contractors for “marketing and advertising” – a sharp rise from $1.8m the previous year.Among the top contractors employed by Heritage Action was CRC Advisors, the consulting firm tied to Leonard Leo, a chairman of the Federalist Society who is best known for his decades-long campaign to pack federal courts with rightwing judges. CRC Advisors was paid over $797,000 for “marketing and advertising” in 2021.Some of that ad spending was targeted in Georgia. After that state’s 2021 restrictive voting law caused a backlash from businesses and led Major League Baseball to move the All-Star Game from Georgia to Colorado, Heritage Action spent nearly $1m on TV ads defending the law aired on CNBC and local TV stations.Conservative donors pour ‘dark money’ into case that could upend US voting lawRead moreThe group also spent nearly $500,000 on Georgia TV and digital ads during the MLB All-Star Game, and spent at least $700,000 more on ads supporting the Georgia bill’s passage.On the federal level, Heritage Action also ran ads in West Virginia, Arizona, Montana and New Hampshire urging the Democratic senators in those states to oppose reforming the filibuster to pass democracy reform legislation with a simple majority. “It’s an all-hands-on-deck moment,” Anderson said of potential filibuster changes at the April 2021 donor summit.Heritage Action was formed in 2010 out of the rightwing policy empire embodied in the Heritage Foundation, which dates back to 1973. The foundation was created by Paul Weyrich, a richly networked conservative who wanted to inculcate small government, anti-regulation ideology at both federal and state level.From the start, restricting access to voting was a core part of Weyrich’s mission. In 1980 he infamously articulated his thinking by saying: “I don’t want everybody to vote … Our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”This article was produced in partnership with Documented, an investigative watchdog and journalism project. Brendan Fischer is a campaign finance specialist with DocumentedTopicsUS political lobbyingThe fight for democracyUS politicsUS voting rightsnewsReuse this content More