Archive for the ‘Activism’ Category

May8

Who do you support in 2012?

By: Kelly Ngo

Thousands of Americans may be unwittingly donating to political causes and candidates they do not support in the 2012 election. It’s not an elaborate scam; it’s a consequence of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision which gave the green light for corporations to make unlimited political contributions. The decision was based on the court’s alternate reality where unlimited cash (so long as it isn’t “coordinated” with campaigns or candidates), does not corrupt, and as Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert proved, the term “coordinated” actually means whatever you want it to mean.

Flickr photo by watchingfrogsboil

So how are Americans getting duped?

When publicly traded companies spend directly from their treasuries, they are not spending their own money, they’re spending shareholders’ money. And since more than half of American households own stock, chances are high that this election season, a lot of Americans will be supporting causes and candidates they haven’t even heard of, let alone want to support with a political contribution.

For instance, take 3M Corp., a company famous in Minnesota and nation-wide for scotch tape, sandpaper, and Post-its. 3M does not disclose contributions to trade organizations or faux nonprofit organizations like Crossroads GPS that play in elections. In 2010 3M contributed $100,000 from its treasury to MN Forward, a group supporting a candidate for governor who held controversial views on social issues.

Whether or not you agree with those views, corporations are organized to create profit, not to choose governors. Shareholders can choose on their own whether to spend money to support political candidates, but corporations should not be using their money to make the decision for them.

Thankfully, shareholders are rallying around the country to demand transparency from corporations that spend money in politics. Socially responsible investment groups have filed resolutions at hundreds of companies asking them to disclose the money they are spending to influence elections. Investors are gathering at shareholder meetings to support the cause, and in some cases asking companies to go a step further and refrain from spending money altogether.

Furthermore, a proposed SEC rulemaking requiring corporations to disclose political expenditures to shareholders has logged more than 260,000 comments supporting the measure. That’s more than any other SEC rulemaking has ever received.

Continue Reading

Posted in: Activism, Campaign Finance, Consumer Protection, Ethics, Uncategorized0 comments

May7

Shareholders spring into action to fight post-Citizens United corporate political spending spree

By: Lisa Gilbert

As corporate money continues to flood our democracy in the form of negative campaign ads and robo calls, people are getting mad and are taking action. This week, corporate CEOs are being put on notice as rallies and other actions are planned in relationship to first-time shareholder resolutions being put forth at 3M and Bank of America’s annual shareholder meetings.

The 99% Power coalition, which is playing a key role in this week’s activities, has taken on the outsized corporate influence in America and welded together many different movements calling on corporations to be more accountable to the public and their owners, the shareholders. This very likely means you; if you’ve ever had a pension, attempted to save for your retirement or have a 401K through your employer—you’re a shareholder.

One component of the 99% Power movement is the work that the Corporate Reform Coalition, made up of good-government groups like Public Citizen, institutional investors, academics and others, is doing to expose the high levels of corporate influence in our elections and to foster accountability of corporate political spending.

In conjunction with 99% Power, the Corporate Reform Coalition is supporting first-time ever “political spending” resolutions filed at 3M and Bank of America by helping to organize rallies at 3M’s annual shareholder meeting today and Bank of America’s meeting on Wednesday, May 9. On June 14, the coalition will do the same at Target Corporation’s annual shareholder meeting.

HELP SPREAD THE WORD: !

These rallies are designed to highlight an appalling problem: Thanks to the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court ruling Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, any CEO at a major company has free rein to pick up the corporate checkbook and spend, spend, spend to elect the candidate of their choosing. In 2010, for example, 3M gave $100,000 to MN Forward, a group that supported an anti-LGBT gubernatorial candidate, and their company’s political spending didn’t stop there.

The worst part of this newly enabled practice is that the shareholders of the corporations aren’t offered any input in – or even informed of – the political causes that their own money goes to influence. Again, the bulk of Americans are shareholders. Everyone who has a pension or investments in the stock market may be having their investments put into corporation’s secret political war chests—and they are powerless to stop it because they have no voice in the process.

Companies should get out of the political spending game and focus on doing what they were created to do: make a profit for their shareholders. And if they refuse to concede to their investors’ demands to stop spending money in politics, then at the very least, they should disclose their spending so that shareholders can make informed decisions.

What information we have about 3M and Bank of America’s spending is bad enough; what we don’t know but should is an outrage. Last week, this type of outrage set records at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the agency charged with protecting shareholder interests. To date, more than 260,000 people have submitted comments to the SEC demanding that it require corporations to disclosure their political spending. So whether it’s through the SEC or through the sheer determination of shareholders, corporate CEOs are not getting off the hook. The message of the 99% will be heard: It’s our democracy. It’s our money. And we will have the last word.

Lisa Gilbert is Public Citizen Congress Watch deputy director. Follow @CorporateReform for the latest on #corporat3Money.

Posted in: Activism, Campaign Finance, Ethics, Financial Reform, Regulation, Uncategorized0 comments

May2

Amplify Your Voice: Write to Your Local Paper

By: Rick Claypool

a photo of newspaper pagesLast night, I had the pleasure of talking during a webinar with activists from all over the country who are concerned about the damaging impact of corporate money in elections.

The focus of last night’s talk was tools and tips for sending a letter to the editor to a local newspaper. Getting a letter published in the opinion pages of your local paper is a great way to raise awareness in your community about the issues that are important to you.

Download the presentation (PDF) and the sample letter to the editor (PDF).

Letters to the editor are a critical part of any campaign in support of progressive reforms. Here are two big reasons why:

1.) Letters to the editor help newspapers gauge what interests their audience. If the newspaper’s editors know that there are locals (like you) who are interested in the problem of corporate money influencing elections, they’re more likely to devote page space to coverage of that issue. Even if your letter isn’t published, it’s probably having an impact that helps your cause.

Continue Reading

Posted in: Activism, Campaign Finance, Open Government0 comments

April26

Ugh H.R. 5! Dangerous medical malpractice bill reappears

By: Christine Hines

House Republicans in two different committees yesterday approved a malpractice liability bill, H.R. 5 – again. H.R. 5, a proposal that aims to limit the liability of the health industry and leave injured patients without an adequate avenue for redress, previously passed the full House in March.  This time, lawmakers on the House Energy & Commerce and Judiciary Committees presented the proposal as a fix to the nation’s budget.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

The bill, as we’ve repeatedly said, remains an expensive proposal that will cost lives and money while shielding the entire medical industry – drug and device manufacturers, hospitals, doctors, and nursing homes – from its own reckless conduct.

By restricting patients’ access to court, H.R. 5 will force medical malpractice victims and their families to turn to public, taxpayer-funded programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, and disability benefits for medical care and other financial assistance, because the negligent wrongdoers would be shielded from liability.

This unintended consequence would increase health care costs.

If nothing else, the House majority should pay attention to the money wasted when patients are unnecessarily injured by egregious medical errors or defective medical products. The Department of Health and Human Services pays $4.4 billion a year for the consequences of medical errors.

Some conservatives have even cautioned lawmakers about the bill’s effect on state laws. For decades, states have written their own laws for deciding negligence cases, including medical malpractice claims. A one-size-fits-all-policy on a traditionally state matter would wreak havoc on state laws.

Despite the numerous concerns and calls to drop this bill, the House majority’s ill-conceived and inaptly-named proposal – the Help Efficient, Accessible, Low-Cost, Timely, Healthcare Act – is expected to go up for another House floor vote. (You may wonder why there would be a second House vote on the same bill; this time, it is included in the FY2013 budget reconciliation recommendations, which it what both committees marked up yesterday.)

Indeed, it may fly through the House yet again, but we will have to rally the Senate to turn its back on this shameless and dangerous gift to industry.

Christine Hines is Public Citizen’s consumer and civil justice legal counsel.

Posted in: Activism, Consumer Protection, Litigation, Product Safety, Regulation, Social Justice, Uncategorized1 comments

April24

Got a credit card or bank account? Scrutiny of forced arbitration is good news

By: Christine Hines

We welcome today’s announcement that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will study the impact of forced arbitration in consumer financial services contracts, as required by the Dodd-Frank Act. The agency’s decision to begin working on the issue is good news for anyone who has a credit card, short-term loan, bank account or other financial service contract.

The principal goal of forced arbitration is to prevent consumers from joining together in class actions, because in many instances it is not feasible for consumers to pursue claims on an individual basis. Class-action bans allow companies to rip off consumers with virtual impunity, so long as they take relatively small amounts of money from each person. Individual arbitrations tend to be biased against consumers and favor the companies that provide arbitrators with repeat business.

Forced arbitration clauses usually are slipped into the small type of the lengthy documents you get when you apply for a credit card or loan, buy a cell phone or download computer software. We have long said that forced arbitration unreasonably denies consumers the ability to pursue claims against corporate misconduct. Our previous reports have shown that consumers overwhelmingly are on the losing end of contracts and terms of service that contain arbitration clauses.

We expect that any fair examination of forced arbitration will conclude that the practice is devastatingly harmful to consumers. The most critical step, then, will be for the CFPB to ban forced arbitration, ensuring that arbitration is always voluntary for consumers – not a kangaroo court or a tool for law-breaking corporations to insulate themselves from accountability.

Stay tuned for a report Public Citizen will be putting out tied to the anniversary of the AT&T v. Concepcions U.S. Supreme Court case that Public Citizen argued last year and check out our forced arbitration gallery.

Christine Hines is Public Citizen’s consumer and civil justice counsel.

 

Posted in: Activism, Congress, Consumer Protection, Regulation, Social Justice, Uncategorized0 comments

© Copyright . All Rights Reserved.