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:

• A15 Action is an anti-Israel network of activists that called for a multi-city “economic blockade” around the world on April 15, 2024 to disrupt the global economy through blocking access to ports, bridges, and roadways. Their website called for participants to join in “blocking the arteries of capitalism and jamming the wheels of production,” while also claiming that “the global economy is complicit in genocide” of Palestinians. A15 Action is associated with the radical-left National Lawyers Guild (NLG) and called for NLG chapters to provide legal aid to participating protesters.
• The AAPI Victory Fund is a left-of-center Super PAC that works to mobilize Asian-American and Pacific Islander voters to vote for Democrats in elections. AAPI Victory Fund was founded in 2016 by Democratic Party operative Shekar Narasimhan, whom sits as the group’s chairman while also sitting on the board of the left-of-center organization Democracy Alliance. He is a member of the Economic Advisory Council for the Center for American Progress (CAP), and a member of policy leadership council at the Urban Institute. In March 2024, AAPI Victory Fund endorsed President Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign, pledging $30 million to target minority voters alongside the Latino Victory Fund and Collective PAC.
• The American Human Rights Council (AHRC) is an activist group founded to uphold human rights as defined by the United Nation’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Following the Hamas terrorist attack against Israel on October 7, 2023 and the subsequent Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, the AHRC issued a statement supporting Palestinians while claiming, “it is Israel, after all, that is accused of genocide at the World Court.” In April 2024, AHRC announced support for anti-Israel protests on college campuses and the “encampments for Gaza,” while asking universities not to “cave in to pressure from the Zionist lobby and Zionist donors.”
• The American Civic and Humanitarian Coalition is a pro-Palestinian organization based in the Chicago metropolitan area, and which seeks to increase awareness of and support for pro-Palestinian protests and rallies in the Chicago area. The organization uses the controversial “From the River to the Sea” slogan as the tagline on its website, a slogan which has been deemed antisemitic by the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee. The group also supports the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions(BDS) movement seeking to target companies that do business in or with the state of Israel.
• The ACLU of Southern California (ACLU SoCal) is the local affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), representing several counties including Los Angeles, San Bernadino, and Santa Barbara. The group advocates for left-of-center policy issues including removing police from schools, expanding access to abortion, and prohibiting local law enforcement from working with federal immigration authorities. In May 2024, the group declared their support for pro-Palestinian college protesters and encampments on the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) campus, while calling for the university to protect what it claimed was the protestors’ right to free speech.