Keeping Politicians Honest

Consumer Watchdog fights to make your voice heard by calling out dirty politicians and attacking the influence of the special interests that keep them in power.

From Sacramento to Washington DC we follow the money trail from special interests to policymakers, and track bad public policy back from politicians to their donors.

Our ArnoldWatch blog has been reporting on Governor Schwarzenegger, and his broken promise to represent the people, not the special interests, since his inauguration. At DirtyMoneyWatch we've documented, exposed and built the movement to reform the variety of crooked campaign tricks developed by lobbyists and the politicians they wine, dine and order around. And we’ve written, campaigned for and passed strong campaign and conflict of interest reforms across California.

Join the fight to clean up the dirty money corrupting our democracy.

Recent Articles:

Justice Is Probing Google's Book Deal

By Alex Pham, LOS ANGELES TIMES
July 3, 2009

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Consumer Group Calls For FBI Probe Of AIG

By Wire Reports, UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL (UPI)
March 18, 2009

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Consumer Group Letters Charge Conflict of Interest in Oil-Friendly Outcome of California Fuel Temperature Study

CONTACT: Judy Dugan, 213-280-0175, or 310-392-0522 x305, or Jamie Court, x327
March 17, 2009

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AIG Bonuses Should Be Delivered by FBI, Consumer Watchdog Says

CONTACT: Jamie Court, (310) 392-0522 ext. 327; or Doug Heller, ext. 309
March 16, 2009

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Dinners, Trips, Concerts Are Perks Of The Capitol

By Steven Harmon, CONTRA COSTA TIMES
March 15, 2009

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Recent Posts in Keeping Politicians Honest:

DOJ letter shows Google anti-trust probe is serious

The U.S. Justice Department is serious about probing the Google Books settlement for possible anti-trust violations. Consumer Watchdog was one of the first organizations to ask the department to investigate.

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Obama On Tonight Show Hints At Tomorrow's Regulatory Agenda

The president talked and joked easily with America from Jay Leno's couch last night, as close to a fire side chat as it gets in these times. Leno is no Jon Stewart but Obama did offer some clues as to where his financial regulatory approach is going. 

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Stuck in a privatized time warp

Sen. Chuck Grassley, the top GOP politician in the health care reform debate, is positive that Americans don't need an option to private, for-profit health insurers. He sees his anything like offering Medicare as a voluntary option to consumers as a deal-killer, according to CQ.com (subscription barrier). A guy with Grassley's mind-set must also see private contractors as the saviors of Iraq and AIG as the model for a healthy, deregulated financial system.

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Will the politicians give back their AIG bonuses'?

After Enron's fraud on California during the 2001 electricity crisis became clear, a lot of politicians felt they had to give back their Enron contributions.  Our consumer group was the beneficiary of a few of those returned dollars, since we fought the energy industry's deregulation schemes.  Now Open Secrets reports AIG's contributions, from employees and related political action committees, to federal lawmakers totaled $9.3 million over the last decade, with an exact 50%-50% split between Democrats and Republicans. AIG sure knows how to hedge its bets.

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The state of electronic medical record privacy

A newspaper reporter just called to ask about the state of privacy under electronic medical records, which will now be spreading thanks to $20 billion in the federal economic stimulus plan.  Electronic medical records can help avoid medical mistakes, like those suffered by Dennis Quaid's newborn twins, but the privacy protections under the stimulus bill need to improve.

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