Donations spotlight: Support the Center for Media and Democracy in its fight against political corruption

Note from the CREDO Mobile team: This August, the Center for Media and Democracy is among three amazing nonprofits that will receive a share of our monthly grant. Funding from the CREDO Mobile community will support CMD in its work to lead in-depth, award-winning investigations into the corruption that undermines our democracy, environment and economic prosperity.

 Read this important message from CMD, then visit CREDO Donations and cast your vote to help send vital grant money to the group to assist its efforts—and the efforts of our other outstanding August grantees.

It’s undeniable that we’re experiencing one of the greatest threats in our lifetime to American democracy, the rule of law and a century of progress toward economic, social and environmental justice.

Unfortunately, this rising authoritarianism is clear evidence of what we at the Center for Media and Democracy have been reporting for over 30 years: that crony capitalists and right-wing networks will use any means necessary to hijack the government to serve their interests.

Our work over the past three decades has focused on exposing the right-wing billionaires—and the industries and organizations they control—who operate to benefit their own narrow special interests at the expense of ordinary Americans.

Their efforts to date have paid off. By peddling anti-labor, anti-teacher, pro-corporate and climate-denial legislation and propaganda, they have systematically undermined trust in public institutions and laid the groundwork for the ongoing crises that now face our nation.

As former Labor Secretary Robert Reich has said, “The first step in saving our democracy is identifying who is trying to take it hostage.”

Whether you’re a longtime fan of CMD or are just learning about our work for the first time, here’s a quick primer on how American oligarchs are taking our democracy hostage—and how CMD is fighting back.

They run a right-wing bill mill. Over the past five decades, the American Legislative Exchange Council has brought corporate lobbyists and conservative state legislators together behind closed doors to create and promote model legislation favorable to corporate interests.

ALEC’s agenda extends to almost every area of public policy, as lawmakers take these model bills written by powerful special-interest and far-right groups—including the tobacco, gun, oil, pharmaceutical and telecom industries—back to their statehouses and introduce them as their own. From lower wages to increased mass shootings, more pollution, fewer consumer protections and less bodily autonomy, the negative impacts on everyone living in the U.S. have been profound.

And, as our executive director, Arn Pearson, wrote in The American Prospect, “Since ALEC masquerades as a tax-exempt charity, your tax dollars subsidize it all.”

Our exposés have forced ALEC out of the shadows and earned widespread national coverage in numerous mainstream media outlets. More than 100 corporations have cut ties with ALEC since we launched our ALEC Exposed project in 2011. We maintain a regularly-updated online repository of all known ALEC politicians, corporate members and model bills.

We’ve also conducted issue-specific investigations, like exposing the nearly 700 ALEC-affiliated state lawmakers who have voted to make it illegal to access abortion, and concerned members of the public can use our briefing documents on ALEC’s harms, from undermining worker rights and degrading environmental protections to crushing local democracy, to raise public awareness.

But ALEC isn’t just responsible for pushing harmful legislation. It’s one of the main right-wing organizations leading the effort to rewrite the U.S. Constitution.

They’ve put the Constitution in the crosshairs. The Right has set its sights on what may appear, at first, to be a laughable moonshot: a first-of-its-kind convention to rewrite the Constitution.

But their effort is hardly pie in the sky. Deep-pocketed donors have been working steadily to trigger a constitutional convention so that they can “reverse 115 years of progressivism,” in the words of Tea Party Patriots cofounder Mark Meckler.

“The far right’s constitutional convention is a dagger aimed at the heart of most of what we look to Washington for: vital programs like Social Security and Medicare, and protection from economic catastrophes, pandemics and climate disasters,” wrote Arn Pearson and award-winning historian Nancy MacLean in The Progressive.

The Right justifies its drive to revamp the Constitution with populist rhetoric. But the American people would have no role to play in the constitutional convention that the Right wants to convene. Under their plan, state politicians will handpick the convention delegates and the smallest state would have the same influence as the largest.

To help the public understand this threat—and do something about it—CMD has compiled the state laws and resolutions addressing constitutional convention delegate selection and laid out just how anti-democratic such a constitutional convention would be in our Convention of States Politicians report.

Our role as a watchdog on corporate influence and extremism has never been more important. Whether it’s highlighting the operatives and funders pushing the Big Lie of election fraud or reaffirming our country’s tradition of standing up against tyranny, we work every day to expose the corporate interests and far-right forces undermining our American values and ensuring that the public has the facts to fight back.