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:

• Lawrence H. Summers is an economist who served as Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton Administration, as well as an economic advisor in the Obama Administration. Summers was also a professor at (and later president of) Harvard University and the chief economist at the World Bank. He currently sits on the board of OpenAI. Summers was critical of several economic policies pursued by the Biden Administration, calling the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 “the least responsible macroeconomic policy we’ve had in the last 40 years.”
• The Satoshi Action Fund is an advocacy group that promotes public education and legislation in support of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. One co-founder, Mandy Gunasekara, previously worked as chief of staff at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) during the First Trump Administration, was a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and was both a senior policy analyst and director at the Independent Women’s Forum. Co-founder Surya Gunasekara was previously executive director of policy at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as well as senior counsel for international affairs at the U.S. Department of Energy during the First Trump Administration.
• The Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) is a Native American advocacy group that promotes left-of-center environmentalist policies. In 2021, IEN was one of hundreds of organizations that co-signed a letter to Congress criticizing nuclear power as a “dirty” form of energy and a “significant” source of pollution, and advocating for a “renewable electricity standard” through weather-dependent power sources. The IEN supports the Green New Deal as a crucial part of what it considers an “Indigenous Just Transition,” which it believes requires a “massive transfer of wealth…into the hands of grassroots leaders.”
• The Topeka Independent Living Resource Center (TILRC) is an advocacy group that supports de-institutionalizing those with disabilities. Between 2015 and 2023, the TILRC received annual grant funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services‘ (HHS) Administration for Community Living, ranging from $689,201 in 2020 to $277,722 in 2023. By 2024, TILRC’s tax-exempt status had been automatically revoked by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), its website was shut down, and its executive director Ami Hyten left the organization.
• The US Palestinian Council (USPC) is a pro-Palestinian advocacy group that has organized and endorsed events for public officials and organizations. It has helped host fundraisers for several Democratic Party candidates and officials including U.S. Rep. Marie Newman (D-IL), then-U.S. Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), U.S. Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA), U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN), and U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). USPC president John Dabeet was a former advisor to President Joe Biden’s foreign policy team during his 2020 election campaign, but by 2024 he was criticizing the Biden Administration for supporting what he called “the Zionist entity” following the October 7, 2023 Hamas terror attack against Israel.