InfluenceWatch Friday

InfluenceWatch, a project of Capital Research Center, is a comprehensive and ever-evolving compilation of our research into the numerous advocacy groups, foundations, and donors working to influence the public policy process. The website offers transparency into these influencers’ funding, motives, and connections while providing insight often neglected by other watchdog groups.

The information compiled in InfluenceWatch gives news outlets and other interested parties research to use in reporting on significant topics that are often overlooked by the American public.

CRC is pleased to present some of the most significant additions to InfluenceWatch in the past week:

• The Kentucky Lantern is a news website that covers state politics and policy. Founded in 2022, it is part of States Newsroom, a network of left-of-center state-focused news outlets initially supported by the Arabella Advisors-managed nonprofit Hopewell Fund. The Kentucky Lantern promotes a critical race theory–linked “diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice” policy which claims “bias and system racism” are widespread within the journalism field.
• The Foundation for Economic and Social Justice (FESJ) is an advocacy organization that promotes left-of-center policies on issues such as wealth redistribution, environmentalism, and worker cooperatives. The FESJ has previously partnered and co-signed letters with other left-of-center organizations including the National Lawyers Guild, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and CODEPINK. FESJ co-founder and president Gilbert Saucedo was previously the co-president of the National Lawyers Guild of Los Angeles.
• Legal Voice is a left-leaning advocacy organization that pushes for state policies that would expand Medicaid-like coverage and unemployment insurance for illegal immigrants. According to its website, the group strives for “gender liberation” by “challeng[ing] patriarchal and racist power structures.” A 2023 blog post by the group stated that it implements “an anti-racism lens in every aspect of [its] work” while claiming “the work will never be done, as white supremacy is deeply embedded in every system we both work and live within.”
• WorldDenver, or the Denver World Affairs Council, is a local affiliate of the international affairs and civic organization World Affairs Council. WorldDenver has previously received grant funding from the Aspen Institute’s Stevens Initiative, which was itself sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and the Bezos Family Foundation, among other entities. WorldDenver executive director John M. Krieger previously served as director of campaigns for the ACLU of Colorado as well as communications director for US-PIRG.
• Florida Rising is a state-based advocacy group that promotes left-of-center policies including increased abortion access, same-day voter registration, and closing trash incinerator plants. Florida Rising and its sister organization, Florida Rising Together, were created in 2021 from the merger of New Florida Majority and Organize Florida, two affiliates of the national left-wing activist group Center for Popular Democracy (CPD).