The Center for Public Integrity is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates betrayals of public trust. Sign up to receive our stories. Having bought himself into contention for the Democratic presidential nomination, billionaire Michael Bloomberg will tonight stand atop a debate stage in Las Vegas, a city where big money rules. Despite President Donald Trump’s tweetsertion that […]
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Posted inNational Security
Visions of a new national security paradigm
More than 20 years after 9/11, Muslim Americans continue to face discrimination at U.S. airports, at banks and in the security-clearance process, says the Muslim Public Affairs Council. These actions fuel anti-Muslim animus throughout the U.S. and abroad, warns the council’s president and co-founder, Salam Al-Marayati. Created in 1988, the nonprofit works to improve public […]
Posted inDemocracy
Study: Most Americans want to kill ‘Citizens United’ with constitutional amendment
Three-fourths of survey respondents — including 66 percent of Republicans and 85 percent of Democrats — back a constitutional amendment outlawing Citizens United. The study also indicates that most Americans — 88 percent overall — want to reduce the influence large campaign donors wield over lawmakers at a time when a single congressional election may […]
Posted inDemocracy
Prepare to be shocked! Trump’s one weird trick to avoid a campaign investigation.
The Center for Public Integrity is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates betrayals of public trust. Sign up to receive our stories. This is a tale of how President Donald Trump is avoiding judgment by the government agency that’s supposed to “protect the integrity of the federal campaign finance process.” It begins in June, when the Center […]
Posted inWho Counts?
Cities want noncitizens to vote on local matters. GOP sees a target
WASHINGTON – Abel Amene was born in Ethiopia and came to the U.S. when he was 13 years old. Amene, who is a green card holder, has lived in the D.C.-area for the past 23 years, where he helps seniors sign up for vaccine appointments and volunteers in political campaigns. In 2021, he wrote a […]
Posted inDemocracy
Debating Democrats tackle — and dodge — how money influences politics
The most telling tales of money in politics are sometimes the tales never told. During the first Democratic presidential debates this week — in an election that will easily be the nation’s most expensive ever — several notable candidates never addressed “dark money” in elections, campaign propaganda sponsored by Russians or the political influence of […]
Posted inUnequal Burden
Tribes need tax revenue. States keep taking it.
OSAGE NATION — On a crisp November morning, Teresa Bates Rutherford gazed at the construction site of her future home — her mind on her tax struggle with the state of Oklahoma. The trust land she is building on has passed down through generations of her family on the Osage Reservation, located in northeastern Oklahoma. […]
Posted inDemocracy
She wants to overturn ‘Citizens United,’ the decision that gave rise to super PACs. She’s also supported by one
June 4: This story has been updated. It’s a historic year for Native Americans in politics — and not just for the candidates. A one-of-its-kind bipartisan super PAC, bankrolled by tribes and a prominent abortion rights group, is attempting to boost Native American candidates at a time when a record-breaking number of indigenous hopefuls are […]
Posted in2020 Presidential Profiles
9 things to know about Eric Swalwell
Editor’s note: U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell ended his presidential bid on July 8, 2019. U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., is running for president. Rumors about his intention to run have been swirling since November when he visited Iowa to meet the Asian & Latino Coalition in Des Moines and Iowa Democratic Party chairs in Dubuque. […]
Posted inDemocracy
Steve Bullock hates ‘dark money.’ But a lobbyist for ‘dark money’ donors is helping his campaign.
Montana Gov. Steve Bullock is staking his name and presidential campaign on battling “dark money” — a commonly used term for secretive political cash meant to influence elections. He’s even suing President Donald Trump’s administration over it. But next month, Bullock is scheduled to visit Washington, D.C., for a closed-door campaign fundraiser co-hosted by 11 […]
Posted inInside Public Integrity
Public Integrity staff share expertise in using data to cover inequality
Journalists from the Center for Public Integrity will facilitate discussions and training sessions addressing how data journalism can confront inequality at the Investigative Reporters & Editors’ 2023 NICAR conference March 2-5 in Nashville. In addition to the Pulitzer Prize-winning nonprofit news organization’s own journalism confronting inequality, Public Integrity works to build investigative reporting capacity and […]
Posted in2020 Presidential Profiles
9 things to know about Bill de Blasio
Update, Sept. 20, 2019: Bill de Blasio has officially dropped out of the 2020 presidential race. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced today that he is running for president. “Don’t back down in the face of a bully. Confront him, take him on,” de Blasio said in a campaign kickoff video. “As president, I […]
Posted in2020 Presidential Profiles
9 things to know about Steve Bullock
Update, Dec. 2, 2019: Steve Bullock has suspended his campaign for president. In a presidential field of self-described progressive candidates, a centrist Democrat is emerging — one with a keen focus on how money affects politics. “We need to defeat Donald Trump in 2020 and defeat the corrupt system that lets campaign money drown out […]
Posted inWatchdog newsletter
Homeland Security: Noncitizens’ barriers to health care thwart COVID-19 progress
The Department of Homeland Security published a post-Trump report recently recognizing that immigrants are up to three times more likely to work in “essential” jobs with high risk of COVID-19 exposure than U.S.-born Americans. Essential workers who are not U.S. citizens are “especially vulnerable” to the virus, the report warns, because they also face multiple […]
Posted inImmigration
How families fleeing violence won — then lost — the green card lottery
Osama Mohamed let out a sigh of relief as he and his wife stood at the steps of the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on the first day of September. Clutched tightly in his hands was the letter he’d been chasing for nearly a year and a half. “Congratulations!” its bolded words declared. “Your […]
Posted inWho Counts?
How we documented inequity in access to voting
In one state, a ballot will be mailed to every registered voter this fall. It can be returned by mail, or in one of numerous drop boxes. You can also cast a ballot in person, during a lengthy early voting period or on Election Day, with an average wait time of just 3 minutes. If […]
Posted inDemocracy
A modern history of campaign finance: from Watergate to ‘Citizens United’
A legal war has been waged since the campaign finance reforms that followed the Watergate scandals, when Congress passed the bedrock for our modern money-in-politics regulatory regime. And while reformers have notched significant victories, deep-pocketed deregulators have slowly chipped away at major provisions by challenging them all the way to the Supreme Court. Here’s a […]
Posted inDemocracy
FEC lays bare internal conflicts and challenges in letters to Congress
The Federal Election Commission’s four leaders are offering lawmakers clashing perspectives on the agency’s very purpose. The FEC’s greatest challenge to fulfilling its mission is a misperception that “adherence to the rule of law and sensitivity to Americans’ First Amendment rights reflect hostility towards enforcing the law or, even, toward the Commission itself,” Republican commissioners […]
Posted inWho Counts?
Gerrymandering, signature rejections dilute Latino vote in Washington state
Washington state has steadily made access to voting more equitable in recent years and has long been a pioneer in providing universal access to voting by mail. It’s one of five states in the U.S. that mails ballots to all registered voters for every election. The state has also made drop boxes more accessible. A […]
Posted in2020 Presidential Profiles
9 things to know about Andrew Yang
Update, Feb. 11, 2020: Andrew Yang has dropped out of the presidential race. Lawyer-turned-entrepreneur Andrew Yang has never occupied elected office. That’s not stopping him from running for the White House as a Democrat. The Schenectady, N.Y., native and son of Taiwanese immigrants is running on a platform of “human-centered capitalism,” which he says would […]
Posted inHarm's Way
Leaving the island: The messy, contentious reality of climate relocation
This article was produced in partnership with Columbia Journalism Investigations, the Center for Public Integrity and Type Investigations. ISLE DE JEAN CHARLES, Louisiana — A sliver is all of this islet that remains above water. What hasn’t slipped into the Gulf of Mexico shows the punishing effects of disastrous climate change: trees killed by saltwater, […]
Posted inToxic Labor
Florida’s anti-immigration law targets disaster relief workers
Hurricane Ian’s raging winds and nearly 13-foot storm tide moved like a “slow tsunami” as it overtook Sanibel Island, destroying everything in its wake. The worst storm in a century washed away sections of the three-mile causeway that connects this mostly wealthy community to Southwest Florida. This story also appeared in Columbia Journalism Investigations and […]
Posted in2020 Presidential Profiles
9 things to know about Elizabeth Warren
Update, March 5, 2020: Elizabeth Warren has ended her presidential campaign. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who leapt out in front of other heavyweight Democratic presidential hopefuls by forming an exploratory committee on Dec. 31, has blazed the campaign trail with immediate stops in Iowa and New Hampshire. Warren, her state’s senior U.S. senator and a […]
Posted inDemocracy
Indigenous journalists make way for sunshine
This story also appeared in The Investigative Reporting Workshop Lori Edmo just wanted to find out how her tribe was spending federal COVID-19 relief money. As a member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, on the Fort Hall Reservation in southeastern Idaho, she knew her tribal government had received more than $17 million in CARES Act funding […]
Posted inWatchdog newsletter
Shootings shape the debate on school policing
When he heard the news of a shooting at his old high school, Endi Montalvo-Martinez fell into a panic. Montalvo-Martinez has a cousin who attends Des Moines’ East High and an aunt who works as a paraprofessional there. His relatives were unharmed, but it wasn’t a victimless crime. The incident marked the first fatal school […]
Posted inDemocracy
Halloween’s over. The FEC? Still a zombie.
The Center for Public Integrity is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates betrayals of public trust. Sign up to receive our stories. These are dark times at the Federal Election Commission, which has now gone two months without enough commissioners to enforce federal campaign finance laws. That’s because U.S. senators and President Donald Trump have failed to […]
Posted inDemocracy
Inside Donald Trump’s army of super PACs and MAGA nonprofits
At the outset of Donald Trump’s bid for the White House, he blasted super PACs on Twitter as “scams” and “unfair” and disavowed such outside help. This story also appeared in PRI Then he changed his tune. By the end of his 2016 campaign, more than a hundred super PACs and similar groups had spent […]
Posted inWho Counts?
Maryland expands access to absentee and early voting
Maryland has been among the most aggressive states in the country over the past two years in making access to voting more equitable. Since 2020, the heavily Democratic Maryland state legislature has passed and Republican Gov. Larry Hogan signed new state laws that expand access to early voting and absentee ballots; improve voting access for […]
Posted inWho Counts?
After record 2020 turnout, Iowa Republicans adopt numerous voting barriers
A record number of people voted in Iowa two years ago. Its Republican-controlled legislature and Gov. Kim Reynolds responded by adopting a broad set of limitations last year that put up various roadblocks to absentee and election day voting. Voting rights advocates have called this legislation a blatant effort to suppress participation in elections after […]
Posted inWho Counts?
More than 15% of Black Mississippi residents permanently barred from voting
Mississippi has the highest percentage of Black residents in the country at nearly 39%. White Republicans have long had total control over state government due to an array of voter suppression policies dating back to Reconstruction, designed to keep the formerly enslaved from exercising full citizenship rights. Mississippi has an extreme felony disenfranchisement law, with […]
