Big news on thwarting the tech oligarchy. The Detroit News reports that a coalition of Michigan organizations just got the green light to launch their campaign for a 2026 ballot initiative that would restrict utility companies and major state contractors from making political donations. The effort comes after energy companies, crypto donors, and tech lobbyists worked to stop a raft of environmental bills and then state lawmakers gave tax breaks to data centers. In case you missed it, check out this Democracy News conversation with Voters Not Politician’s Executive Director Christy McGillivray on the importance of “getting past the gatekeepers that are corrupting democracy.”
Speaking of tech money, Meta has started a super PAC. According to Politico, Meta is planning to spend tens of millions of dollars funding candidates with “a light-touch approach to tech regulation, especially AI, in Silicon Valley’s home state.” I had not realized that “light-touch” is the new euphemism for enriching powerful corporations at the expense of the environment and workers.
Just in time for Labor Day, the Fifth Circuit sides with Elon Musk’s Space X over the National Labor Relations Board, the agency that oversees the right to collective bargaining. The American Prospect reports that Space X sued to stop the NLRB from investigating fired workers’ claims that they’d been terminated for criticizing Musk online. Space X argued that the NLRB is unconstitutional. The infamously conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Space X. The American Prospect describes how this decision could have wide implications for workers seeking recourse–and companies trying to get away with illegal activity.
Meanwhile, Trump grinds the NLRB to a halt. Bloomberg Law reports that the NLRB has only one sitting member as of this week, for just the second time in its 90-year history. Within days of taking office in January, Trump fired then-NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox, depriving the agency of the quorum needed to issue decisions on labor disputes. In May, the Supreme Court upheld Trump’s ability to fire Board members at will. This week, another NLRB member’s term runs out, leaving another vacancy. Lauren McFerran, board chair under Biden, told Bloomberg, “It is a combination of hostility and aggressive neglect that’s led to this situation.”
“Will America be governed by the rule of law or the rule of lobbyists?” asked Roger Alford, a conservative law professor and former anti-trust official fired from Trump’s Department of Justice for insubordination, in a speech to a crowd at the Tech Policy Institute in Aspen. Alford is a MAGA Republican. Most of us probably disagree with quite a few of his premises. But you can’t argue with him when he blows the whistle that the current DOJ is allowing politically connected companies free reign because, “Under the rule of lobbyists, antitrust laws are nuisances or obstacles to overcome.”
Texans aren’t giving up the fight. The Texas Tribune reports that several organizations have filed lawsuits against Texas Governor Greg Abbot and Secretary of State Jane Nelson arguing that Texas’s newly gerrymandered congressional maps, drawn at Trump’s behest, intentionally discriminate against voters of color and therefore violate The Voting Rights Act. The NAACP of Texas, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and LULAC are among those that have filed lawsuits. Stay tuned for more on Texans fighting back in future dispatches from Democracy News.
ICYMI…
One on One: End Citizens United President Tiffany Muller and Brennan Center for Justice President and CEO Michael Waldman.
In this week’s one on one conversation, End Citizens United President Tiffany Muller and Brennan Center for Justice President and CEO Michael Waldman chat about the important work of protecting our democracy.