Adam Friedman » Government Corruption

Globe: For freshman in Congress, focus is on raising money

Adam — Sun, 06 Jul 2014 15:09:43 +0000

This recent Globe article provides a harrowing glimpse into the hours that should be devoted to crafting policy whiled away on raising money to preserve power. Want to do something about it? Support Lawrence Lessig’s MayDay PAC. – New members get the message quickly or they’re gone. It’s a fact of life in a gridlocked [...]

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Tewksbury slots: How the town government opposed the will of the people

Adam — Sun, 25 Aug 2013 16:15:51 +0000

Last Wednesday, in one of the highest-attended public meetings in decades, the people of Tewksbury, Massachusetts voted 1,568 to 995 against allowing a 24-hour slot parlor to open its doors in a 30-acre parcel zoned for commercial and research use. The proposal required a two-thirds majority vote to pass. At 60 percent opposed, it was [...]

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Globe: Governor Patrick plans ambitious overhaul of state’s troubled public housing

Adam — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 01:25:12 +0000

Kudos to Governor Patrick! – Link to full article By Sean P. Murphy, Globe Staff Governor Deval Patrick on Thursday will propose eliminating the state’s troubled patchwork of 240 public housing authorities and replacing them with six regional agencies in an effort to eliminate waste and corruption from the housing program for low- income and [...]

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Gallup: Americans want goverment to create jobs, reduce corruption

Adam — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 13:48:45 +0000

The work of government process reform is more important than ever, as Politico reports: Americans view reducing government corruption as the second-highest priority for the next president, behind only job creation, according to a new Gallup poll released Monday. Eighty-seven percent of respondents said that reducing corruption in the federal government is an “extremely important” [...]

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Here’s your donation.

Adam — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 05:29:50 +0000

The response I mailed in to the latest DNC fund-raising letter: If you need a little context, just listen to this.

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How unions, real estate developers, and Democrats stifle the inner city to ensure their own income

Adam — Mon, 21 May 2012 16:53:52 +0000

According to Honest Graft a compendium of evidence of special-interest corruption decaying our democracy, author and Wall Street Journal reporter Brooks Jackson aptly synthesizes a complex entanglement that many do-good liberals don’t realize they are funding, when they support their local union PAC or Democratic campaign committee: “[The need to raise money] does affect legislation. [...]

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Our state law-makers: we pay them full-time, they work part-time.

Adam — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 22:31:51 +0000

Imagine you are interviewing a potential new hire for a demanding full-time position in your company. The interview is going great, until the candidate explains that he has a second job, and, if hired, he will continue to work at the second job. Wouldn’t his candidacy now seem far less attractive? Many Massachusetts legislators don’t [...]

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Disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff tells all

Adam — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 21:25:12 +0000

You've got to get in the loop, and I've got the guy who will take us there. Never before have we been granted such a trove of insider stories about how so many of our Members of Congress are bought and manipulated for special interest gain. And the goods come straight from the most notorious lobbyist in recent history, Jack Abramoff.

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Steve Grossman takes $45K from the liquor industry he regulates

Adam — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 03:36:32 +0000

After reading in the Globe about how Massachusetts State Treasurer Steve Grossman attended a fund-raiser for lobbyists, I posted the following on his Facebook fan page. But first, the article’s most delectable quotation: In his biggest one-time haul of political cash since he took office, state Treasurer Steve Grossman accepted $45,000 at a fund-raiser earlier this [...]

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State Legislature Ethics Oversight Exchange

Adam — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 04:29:36 +0000

Brilliant good government policy proposal of the week, courtesy of Herald co-worker Todd Prussman: an interstate compact in which two different state legislatures of comparable size agree to provide all ethics and rules oversight administrative duties for each other. This way, there is a healthy amount of distance (disinterest) while one state’s office investigates cases [...]

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