Let’s say your city needs cash to build a new school or sewer system. The budget lacks funds and the state government is only willing to pay a small share. What does your city do? Most likely, it issues a municipal bond.
Running for office in the United States is an expensive affair. Whether candidates are seeking a job in the White House or the Wisconsin statehouse, they must raise vast sums to be competitive.
In the 1987 movie “Suspect,” Dennis Quaid plays a lobbyist so desperate to get votes for a bill supporting milk producers in his home state that he sleeps with a congresswoman.
That was just a movie. But special interests in Washington D.C., still buy access and influence to broker deals behind closed doors. They leave journalists a few crumbs to follow, but we need to know where to look.
State supreme court judges who rely on public financing to fund their elections become less likely to favor attorneys who have donated to their campaigns in the past, a 2016 study suggests.
