Measure Would Bring to the November Ballot the ‘Right’ for Marylanders to Know the Sources of Money behind State Elections Annapolis, MD – February 27, 2018 —On March 1, 2018, the Maryland Senate Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee will consider a measure that would amend the state constitution and establish a “right” for the…
Voters’ Right to Know, a nonpartisan organization working to promote transparency of the money being spent to influence our country’s elections and lawmaking, is seeking a Digital Marketing / Creative Assistant to contribute to the production and execution of high-quality digital communications to support VRTK’s research and advocacy efforts. This position will work closely with…
By Christopher S. Elmendorf, Ann Ravel and Abby Wood As Facebook turned over more than 3,000 Russia-linked ads to Congress, Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged Thursday a more subtle but equally disquieting feature of Facebook-mediated politics: “You … don’t know if you’re seeing the same messages as everyone else.” This might seem trivial, but it’s becoming a…
Commentary by Ann Ravel Whenever we open a newspaper or look on Twitter, we see how vulnerable we are to the undermining of our democratic institutions. Over the past twenty years, citizens in the United States have become more cynical about the value of democracy as a political system, less hopeful that anything they do…
New Report Outlines Recommendations for Transparency in Who Pays for Political Ads Following revelations exposing online advertising surrounding the 2016 election linked to a Russian propaganda company, a report released today by MapLight and the Voters’ Right to Know project examines the lack of regulation around online political advertising and proposes concrete recommendations to improve…
Calls for more transparency and regulation governing the content and advertising on Facebook are suddenly coming from both the right and the left in Washington, and are likely to increase as more information emerges about how the company earns nearly all of its almost $30 billion in annual revenue. The attention has intensified since Facebook…
Almost everybody with a Facebook, Twitter or Instagram account saw a political advertisement on the internet last year. The opportunity for a political campaign is obvious. Internet ads give candidates and interest groups the ability to microtarget potential voters more effectively than TV, for far less money. Approximately two-thirds of Americans get at least some…
Gov. Brown Signs Legislation to Modernize California’s Online Campaign Database SB 1349 overhauls Cal-Access to make campaign and lobbying disclosures quick and easy to find online SACRAMENTO – Gov. Jerry Brown today signed legislation by Sen. Bob Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, to modernize California’s online database of campaign and lobbying information. SB 1349 directs the state…
It’s election time once again, and that means huge amounts of money are flowing into candidates’ war chests, political action committees and independent expenditure committees. How much? Record amounts. As of last week, more than $24 million had been reported in independent expenditures in state legislative races alone. That’s the most ever, and it’s not…
“This year’s national election may be unlike any we’ve seen before, especially at the top of the ticket. But a disconcerting constant remains up and down the ballot: the influence of large sums of undisclosed money. While media coverage tends to fixate on “Super PACs” and key actors on the national stage, a host of…
Sen. Bob Hertzberg chose, appropriately, the first weekday of Sunshine Week to announce his bill that would shed much more light on California’s political campaign money. Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, on Monday touted his Senate Bill 1349, which would drag Cal-Access – the state’s system that allows the public to check up on lobbyists and campaign…
Proponents suspended a campaign on Monday for a ballot measure to trace so-called “dark money” and tighten the rules on lobbying and campaign finance spending. The Voters’ Right to Know Act sought to ban lobbyists and their clients from giving gifts to legislators and called for an overhaul of the state’s dated campaign finance and…
Nancy Pelosi speaking at the California Democrats Convention in San Jose on February 27, 2016 “If we are to put the American people back in the drivers seat of our economy and our democracy in the fullest sense of the word, we most end the poisonous influence of secret unlimited special interest money in our…
At last there’s an initiative for Californians who think the initiative process has been overrun with the type of monied special interests it was designed to combat. Regular readers of this column know that my advice is to generally avoid those paid petition gatherers at street fairs or outside grocery stores. Their pitches are sometimes…
When Silicon Valley entrepreneur Jim Heerwagen decided to invest in an effort to reduce the influence of big money on politics, he considered a push for a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. “Then I realized I could be dead or not remember where my car keys were by the time…
