Anniversaries are often festive. Not today at the Federal Election Commission. As of April 30, the FEC’s current four commissioners have been on the commission for a total of 32 years longer than they should have been. Vice Chairwoman Ellen Weintraub’s six-year term expired 11 years ago, when George W. Bush occupied the White House, […]
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Posted inDemocracy
Kochs key among small group quietly funding legal assault on campaign finance regulation
Billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch are well-known for pumping tens of millions of dollars into so-called “dark money” nonprofits — groups that actively promote or criticize candidates for office but are not required to reveal their donors. Not so well known is the duo’s role in underwriting and sculpting the legal landscape that led […]
Posted inEnvironment
How big farms got a government pass on air pollution
This story was published in partnership with Mother Jones. This story also appeared in Mother Jones The Center for Public Integrity is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates betrayals of public trust. Sign up to receive our stories. WALLACE, N.C. — On nice days, Elsie Herring can sink back into her porch rocking chair, enjoying the rural property […]
Posted inDemocracy
FEC fines contractor that gave pro-Clinton super PACs illegal cash
Pro-Hillary Clinton super PAC accepted illegal contributions By Dave Levinthal October 31, 2016 How ‘Citizens United’ is helping Hillary Clinton win the White House By Dave Levinthal April 7, 2016 The Federal Election Commission has fined Boston-based Suffolk Construction Co., a federal government contractor, for making illegal contributions to a pro-Hillary Clinton super PAC, according […]
Posted inHidden Epidemics
Dangerous heat, unequal consequences
This story also appeared in Columbia Journalism Investigations Mario Wilcox won’t set out in the summer without an emergency kit in his car trunk: a cooler with an ice pack and a blanket. He learned this improvised life saver from his time in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars; ice and a wet cloth can cool […]
Posted inImmigration Decoded
Homeland Security shifts deportation decisions on sick immigrants to ICE
Update Sept. 19, 2019, 6 p.m.: In the wake of public outcry, U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Services (USCIS) announced today that the agency will once again consider requests for protection against deportation submitted by immigrants suffering personal crises. These requests have benefited immigrants who are receiving life-saving medical treatment as well as caregivers of some ill people. Earlier […]
Posted inDemocracy
The next ‘Citizens United’ is coming
(Editor’s note, May 22, 2017: The U.S. Supreme Court today declined to hear Republican Party of Louisiana v. Federal Election Commission. The plaintiff was fighting to dismantle federal rules barring state and local political parties from accepting unlimited amounts of money to advocate for or against federal political candidates. The high court’s decision means that […]
Posted inDemocracy
Are congressional Democrats lying their way to riches?
Last month, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi sent supporters an email. Subject line: “NOT asking you for money.” Open the email and Pelosi scolds Republicans for “playing politics with our national security.” She urges you to click a link if you agree. The link leads to a “Russia investigation survey,” which concludes with Pelosi doing […]
Posted inImmigration Decoded
Americans’ immigration emergency: Their spouses could be deported, or exiled
Nancy Sanchez has happily sponsored two of her husband’s children in El Salvador, so they could come to live as legal permanent residents with the couple in Herndon, Virginia. Legally, for immigration purposes, she’s considered their mother. A third child is also coming. But if Sanchez were to sponsor her undocumented husband of six years […]
Posted inImmigration
Lawsuit seeks court action to prevent deaths and neglect in ICE detention
A lawsuit filed Monday in California includes extensive allegations of preventable deaths, medical neglect and other abusive treatment of immigrant detainees inside an expanding national network of public and privately-run jails. The 200-page class-action lawsuit includes disturbing descriptions of life for people held in civil — not criminal — custody at some of the 158 […]
Posted inCoronavirus and Inequality
A likely but hidden coronavirus risk factor: pollution
This article was co-published by Mother Jones. Are you a health worker, medical provider, COVID-19 patient, or federal employee on the front lines of the pandemic? We want to hear from you. Email us tips@publicintegrity.org. Sue Mullins is an outdoor person. She gardens and takes her dog for long walks. But after she moved to Larimer […]
Posted inImmigration
Failing to bring back the dead
Warning: Graphic image below QUETZALTENANGO, Guatemala — Every week, Wendy Griselda DeLeon Morales goes to a cemetery in the hills of southern Guatemala and leaves flowers on the grave of a woman who may or may not be her mother. “Only God knows if that’s really her,” Morales says. The body, purportedly that of 41-year-old […]
Posted inInside Public Integrity
‘Citizens United,’ explained
More than $300 million has been spent so far on political TV ads in the 2016 election, and if you live in states hosting primaries or caucuses, you’ve endured a nonstop barrage at virtually every commercial break. This week, Reveal and the Center for Public Integrity team up to explain how a 2010 U.S. Supreme […]
Posted inInequality
The long battle for civilian oversight of the police
This story was published in partnership with Mother Jones. In Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Black residents are three times as likely as whites to have police officers use force against them, Tiffany Crutcher is on a mission to get civilian oversight. More than 140 such review bodies are operating nationwide, but the influence they have varies considerably […]
Posted inDemocracy
Lesson of 2017: Political campaign season truly never ends
Once upon a time not terribly long ago, federal politicians more or less kept their campaigning to election years. They reserved their energies in odd-numbered, non-election years for legislating and governing. No longer. This decade’s swift shift from such norms reached a crescendo in 2017, led by President Donald Trump’s pursuit of 2020 re-election cash, […]
Posted inThe Heist
Buyer’s remorse: Transcript
Transcript UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: From the Center for Public Integrity, this is The Heist. SALLY HERSHIPS, HOST: We’re going to start today’s episode by getting to know one guy. BOB CORKER: Hello. I’m Bob Corker. I hope you’re enjoying this holiday season. HERSHIPS: A former Senator from Tennessee, Bob Corker. CORKER: You know I never really […]
Posted inAsk Immigration Decoded
Hiding from ICE miles from the White House to avoid Trump’s deportation policies
Just nine miles north of the White House, the immigrant mom of three children took a dramatic step as the holiday season approached in December. Leaving her children behind in Fredericksburg, Virginia, Rosa Gutierrez Lopez sought protection from a Bethesda, Maryland, house of worship to avoid deportation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. […]
Posted inImmigration Decoded
Rhetoric attacking immigrants has been on constant boil for years
The horrific massacre of 22 people in El Paso – under investigation as a hate crime – took me back more than a quarter of a century. That’s when I first began covering anti-immigrant sentiment aimed primarily at Mexicans in California. It’s hard to accept, even with all I’ve seen, that we’ve reached a point […]
Posted inSystem Failure
Trump’s Justice Department has a powerful tool to fight police abuse. It refuses to use it.
This story was published in partnership with Vox. The Center for Public Integrity is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates betrayals of public trust. Sign up to receive our stories. This story also appeared in Vox Jefferson Beauregard Sessions was about to become irrelevant. It was his last day in office. Donald Trump’s attorney general, formerly a U.S. […]
Posted inElections
Transgender political candidates are increasingly common. The money backing them is not
March 10: This story has been corrected. About 1.4 million people in the United States identify as transgender at a time when President Donald Trump’s administration has been particularly hostile toward the “T” in LGBTQ — from trying to ban transgender individuals in the military to considering a federal definition of what constitutes gender. Meanwhile, […]
Posted inState Politics
Supreme Court punts on partisan gerrymandering, sets up fight in the states
The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that the federal judiciary has no role to play in extreme partisan gerrymandering cases yields uncertainty as to what happens next, but likely throws the issue into a mix of state venues. In a 5-4 vote along ideological lines, the court’s conservative majority said, in the words of Chief Justice […]
Posted inImmigration
ICE data: Tens of thousands of deported parents have U.S. citizen kids
This post is part of our new community-driven reporting project, Ask Immigration Decoded. Submit your questions, and we’ll answer the most popular questions on our blog, Immigration Decoded. In this post, we’re answering a question we received from Diane Falkowski: How many immigrants without criminal backgrounds have been deported, leaving U.S.-citizen spouses and U.S. citizen […]
Posted inThe Heist
Mnuchin’s world: Transcript
Below is a transcript of Episode 2 of The Heist. Transcript UNIDENTIFIED VOICES: From the Center for Public Integrity, this is The Heist. SALLY HERSHIPS, HOST: You may have seen this photo. It went viral. It’s the one where Steven Mnuchin, he’s Secretary of the Treasury, and his wife Louise Linton, are at the Bureau […]
Posted inImmigration
Homeland Security’s civil rights unit lacks power to stop abuse of migrant kids
The children’s lawyer was incensed. Her two tiny clients — one of them blind — had been in a shelter for three months, separated from their mother. The family had traveled from Mexico to the United States, reaching Nogales, Arizona, on March 1, 2018. Officials at the border found the mother, Nadia Pulido, had “credible” […]
Posted inDemocracy
How ‘Citizens United’ is helping Hillary Clinton win the White House
Hillary Clinton fashions herself as the ultimate general in a war against big-money politics. “You’re not going to find anybody more committed to aggressive campaign finance reform than me,” Clinton said following the New Hampshire primary. But the Democratic presidential front-runner stands poised to bludgeon her general election opponent with Republicans’ favorite political superweapon: the […]
Posted inDemocracy
Analysis: How might the ‘Citizens United’ decision be undone?
It’s taken a few years, but the 2010 Supreme Court case crucial to the creation of super PACs and “dark money” nonprofits has entered the political zeitgeist. More and more Americans are seeing and feeling the effect of that momentous decision, and they aren’t happy about it — regardless of party affiliation. In September, a […]
Posted inThe Mueller Report
Putin won the battle, but the outcome of the war is still uncertain
On the night of Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton, Russian President Vladimir Putin must have surely felt triumphant. Members of the Russian Duma reportedly burst out in applause when Trump’s election was confirmed, and Putin was spotted sipping champagne. In a speech at the Kremlin, he announced, “Russia is ready and wants to restore […]
Posted inDemocracy
Georgia’s special congressional election proves all politics aren’t local
Georgia’s 6th congressional district is absorbing an abnormal amount of out-of-town cash — and it’s not because of its music scene or southern hospitality. Since the start of Georgia’s special election early this year, out-of-state groups — super PACS, nonprofits and party committees — have together spent about $26.2 million to sway voters in the […]
Posted inHidden Epidemics
Climate change is killing Americans. Health departments aren’t equipped to respond
This investigation was conducted by Columbia Journalism Investigations and the Center for Public Integrity and co-published in partnership with The Guardian. PHOENIX — Charlie Rhodes lived alone on a tree-sparse street with sunburned lawns just outside this Arizona city. At 61, the Army veteran’s main connection to the world was Facebook; often, he posted several times […]
Posted inImmigration
The Center for Public Integrity’s top immigration stories this year
Investigative journalism doesn’t always abide by the news cycle. But when it comes to immigration, we found it important to weigh in with facts where charged statements and tensions ran high. In addition to our major investigations, we started up a blog to fact-check and provide background on the many changes we saw to immigration […]
