Today, Issue One and the Campaign Legal Center called on the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to enforce penalties against Americans for Job Security — one of the top spenders of political “dark money” in recent years — for failing to file three years’ worth of mandatory tax returns. For this, Americans for Job Security could be punished with the loss
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A bipartisan proposal to save taxpayers money and increase political transparency has passed a new milestone. Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) has become the 51st sitting senator to sponsor the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act (S. 298), legislation that would require senators and Senate candidates to electronically file their campaign finance reports, something that House candidates and presidential candidates have been
Read MoreThis op-ed by Issue One Executive Director Meredith McGehee originally appeared in The Hill. In the face of several highly charged allegations of sexual harassment, the Senate is turning to its ethics committee for political cover. It is an open secret in Washington that this committee is an “ethics committee” in name only. In the face of numerous allegations of sexual
Read MoreThe Office of Government Ethics (OGE) has released public stakeholder comments to the agency’s 2018 Strategic Plan. Issue One submitted feedback supporting OGE’s vital role in the health of our democratic system. The released public comments can be found on OGE’s Electronic Reading Room. Issue One’s comments from Chief of Policy, Programs and Strategy Meredith McGehee are below: Dear Ms.
Read MoreMeredith McGehee, chief of policy, programs and strategy at Issue One, is challenging the creation of a new political fundraising group established this week by the Democratic Party. On Thursday, Politico reported the formation of a new mega joint fundraising committee called the Democratic Grassroots Victory Fund. This joint fundraising committee will solicit contributions to benefit the Democratic National Committee,
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Today, Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), John McCain (R-AZ) and Mark Warner (D-VA) introduced the bipartisan “Honest Ads Act” to combat interference by foreign entities in U.S. politics. The bill would ensure that paid political advertising appearing on large online platforms would be subject to similar disclosure standards that are currently applied to paid political ads on television and radio. A
Read MoreIssue One Chief of Policy, Programs and Strategy Meredith McGehee released the following statement in light of a newly-released Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) report regarding Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY): “The Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) found that Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY) violated insider trading laws and House rules by taking ‘official acts’ on behalf of the pharmaceutical company, Innate
Read MoreIn response to President Trump nominating Trey Trainor to be a commissioner of the Federal Election Commission (FEC), Issue One Chief of Policy, Programs and Strategy Meredith McGehee released the following statement: This nomination has White House Counsel Don McGahn’s fingerprints all over it. Issue One calls on the U.S. Senate to publicly and fully vet the nomination of Texas
Read MoreIn light of recent reports that Facebook told congressional investigators they sold political ads to Russian-tied sources during the 2016 election, Issue One Chief of Policy, Programs and Strategy Meredith McGehee released the following statement: “Because the Facebook ads are not public, it is currently impossible to determine if the Russian-tied entity, the Internet Research Agency, threaded the needle described
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To help inform Issue One’s landmark report, “The Price of Power,” we interviewed several members of our bipartisan ReFormers Caucus at-length about their experiences with fundraising and concerns with the “committee tax” imposed on lawmakers. Every Tuesday and Thursday over the next few weeks, we will release edited excerpts of those conversations with these former lawmakers to supplement and expand
Read MoreCongress Must Act on Honest Ads
Just as Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) recently wrote about the need for Congress to act on shady dark money campaigns, ReFormers Caucus Co-chairs Amb. Tim Roemer (D-IN) and Rep. Zach Wamp (R-TN) take his comments one step forward: Congress must also act on foreign disinformation campaigns by passing the Honest Ads Act.
Read Amb. Roemer and Rep. Wamp’s new op-ed.
