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A majority of Visa shareholders rejected an effort to require the company to provide more disclosure about its role in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and related lobbying activities. Boston Common Asset Management, an investment firm focused on socially responsible investing, and the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations (UUA), a religious organization that affirms the inherent capacity for good in human beings, filed a resolution to require the company to disclose all payments used for lobbying purposes, including payments to groups like ALEC. In all, over 100 million votes were cast in favor of the resolution -- 37% -- but that substantial outpouring of support for greater transparency accounted for less than a majority of the votes cast by Visa shareholders.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has actively lobbied against state plans to implement a national popular vote for president, urging state legislators to preserve the Electoral College -- which GOP legislators are now trying to rig to ensure the the next president is a Republican. In late 2011, ALEC officially changed its policy on the Electoral College to implicitly support allocating electoral votes by congressional district.

David Koch's Americans for Prosperity (AFP) chapter in Wisconsin is throwing its support behind a proposed mine in the state's far North. A mining bill -- almost identical to the one that failed last year in the Wisconsin State Senate -- was reintroduced this week in the state legislature. What changed? Republicans picked up two more Senate seats in 2012, which may give mining supporters the slim margin they need.

Just days before three people were shot in an altercation on a college campus in Texas, fourteen Texas State Senators co-sponsored a National Rifle Association-backed bill to prohibit colleges from restricting concealed handguns on campuses. The legislation closely resembles a "model" adopted by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).