Brendan Fischer
Brendan Fischer is associate counsel at The Campaign Legal Center. Formerly with PR Watch, he graduated with honors from the University of Wisconsin Law School. Prior to law school, Brendan served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in a rural community in Northeastern El Salvador. Twitter: @brendan_fischer
Articles by this author
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Views Thursday, May 07, 2020 We Believe This "Dark Money" Group Illegally Spent Nearly $5 Million to Destroy Sanders 2020 Campaign Voters from across the political spectrum are concerned about the rise of secret spending in our elections and rightly so. Political transparency is a means to advance the principles of the First Amendment by encouraging the exchange of ideas needed for voters to make informed decisions. Campaign... Read more |
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Views Friday, September 16, 2016 Wisconsin Case Offers Rare Glimpse into Inner Workings of Our Broken Democracy We now have a rare glimpse into the inner workings of a broken campaign finance system. The Guardian this week published 1,500 previously unreleased emails and financial documents leaked from a now-halted investigation into alleged campaign finance violations by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and his... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, August 02, 2016 Isn’t It Ironic?: Koch-Backed Group Rails Against Corrupting Influence of Money in Politics After spending countless millions fighting to protect unlimited secret money in elections, the Koch political network has adopted a surprising new approach: railing against the corrupting influence of money in politics. New ads from the Koch-backed Freedom Partners Action Fund attack Democratic U.S... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, April 26, 2016 Lying About Election Spending, Dark Money Group Brags to Donors it Will 'Win Senate Seats' with 'No Donor Disclosure' Newly-released documents expose how shadowy political operatives flaunt campaign finance law to keep donors secret – and that federal regulators are asleep at the switch. The Commission on Hope Growth and Opportunity (CHGO) formed in February 2010 – just weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court’s... Read more |
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Views Thursday, July 23, 2015 How San Diego Is a Petri Dish for the ALEC Agenda This week, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) descends on San Diego, California for its annual meeting of lobbyists and legislators. In many ways, San Diego is an appropriate setting for ALEC's conference. Beyond the walls of the Manchester Grand Hyatt, where ALEC members convene... Read more |
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Views Friday, July 17, 2015 Five Things to Know About the Scott Walker John Doe Ruling The Wisconsin Supreme Court has single-handedly rewritten the state’s limits on money in politics, rendering the state’s disclosure laws and contribution limits meaningless, and opening the door to unlimited funds directly from corporations and foreign firms. In a 4-2 decision that broke along... Read more |
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Views Sunday, July 05, 2015 As Walker Announces, Wisconsin GOP Moves to Gut Open Records Law On the same day that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker announced his run for president, the Wisconsin GOP has proposed a virtual gutting of Wisconsin's open records law, long considered one of the best in the nation. The drastic changes were proposed in a last-minute, anonymous budget motion, with... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, April 21, 2015 Koch Brothers Declare Scott Walker Is Our Man Has Scott Walker won the Koch primary? Charles and David Koch, the billionaire co-owners of Koch Industries, one of the largest privately-held companies in the world and the overseers of one of the biggest private political organizations in the country, told Republican donors in New York on April... Read more |
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Views Saturday, February 21, 2015 Wisconsin Introduces Word-for-Word ALEC Right to Work Bill Wisconsin Republicans have called a special session to take up a "right to work" measure attacking private sector unions--and the text of the bill, the Center for Media and Democracy has discovered, is taken word-for-word from American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) model legislation. See the... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, January 27, 2015 The Kochs Will Spend $1 Billion on the 2016 Elections, but Deny It The political network organized by Charles and David Koch plans to spend an incredible $889 million to capture the White House in 2016 and deepen the Koch party's bench in Congress. But that's not what they'll tell federal regulators. If history is a guide, the Koch network will claim that much of... Read more |