Posts Tagged ‘corporate power’

May10

Freshman Democrats Fail First Exams on Wall Street Reform

By: Bartlett Naylor

Republicans on the House financial services committee have long been a cheap date for Wall Street. So it was no surprise that they voted unanimously on May 7 in favor of nine bills to eviscerate important safeguards in the 2010 Wall Street Reform Act pertaining to derivatives supervision. But American taxpayers would be discouraged to learn that most of the junior Democrats on this committee also jumped into the back seat with their Wall Street suitors.

Derivatives regard the gambling aspect of financial firms’ operations, the part in which they make high-stakes bets under the guise of “hedging.” For instance, the unregulated “credit default swaps” that nearly caused a full meltdown of the financial sector in 2008 were derivatives.

The bills in question include one (HR 1256) that cedes regulatory authority over foreign affiliates of American companies to foreign countries. Another (HR 992), allows taxpayer-backed banks to engage in risky derivatives bets that the Dodd-Frank reform law banned. The bills involve obscure terms, which, alas, are where the “muggers hide,” as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) once said. Here is Public Citizen’s memo explaining the bills that was distributed to the committee.  And here are materials from Americans for Financial Reform.

Democrats carried the day in the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010, which included the desperately needed derivatives reforms. But on May 7, a passel of Democratic freshmen — including Reps. John Delaney (D-Md.), Dennis Heck (D-Wash.), Dan Kildee (D-Mich.) Patrick Murphy (D-Fla.), and Kristin Sinema (D-Ariz.), along with junior members including Reps. John Carney (D-Del.), Jim Himes (D-Conn..), Ed Perlmuter (D-Colo.) Gary Peters (D-Mich.), and Terri Sewell (De-Ala.) -— voted for some or all of the measures to shoot holes through Wall Street reform.

More senior Democrats generally voted against the anti-reform bills. They were in Congress in 2008 and saw the consequences of the crash first-hand as voter-accountable representatives.

Why did these newcomers make common cause with the Republicans, who, notably, voted unanimously for each of the Wall Street sponsored bills??

Did these junior members not realize that Wall Street’s 2008 crash that erased $12 million in wealth was enabled by bad laws and lax regulatory oversight?

Were they unaware that Wall Street lobbyists outnumber progressive voices 150-1, and misperceive this imbalance as reflecting general public opinion?

Public Citizen publishes regular, careful examinations of how money and lobbyists play on the issues of excessive executive compensation, the Volcker rule which would ban bank gambling, and at the general assault on implementation of the Dodd-Frank reform law.
Political spending data relevant to the May 7 vote won’t be available for several months. Mother Jones’ has already begun to probe the connection. The magazine published contributions to such members as Himes and Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) Freshman members of Congress are in the midst of learning that the campaign for reelection in 2014 began in November 2012, and that Wall Street is a lucrative area code to call for the necessary funds to win the next election.

During the hearing on these deforming bills, Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), who knows something about fundraising having just bid for the Senate seat in an expensive media market previously represented by John Kerry, commented that these bills do just “what Wall Street wants.”

Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) enjoined her fellow members to learn the lessons of JP Morgan, once considered the best managed and safest bank on the planet. JP Morgan’s London whale loss may not have forced another taxpayer bailout, but shareholders lost 25 percent of their stock value when the supposedly best managed bank on the planet admitted to losing $6 billion on a bet. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) demanded to know why American taxpayers should backstop these swap bets. Struggling with the flu, Ellison’s brave speech seemed to signal a shift in momentum that House Democrats would stand firmly for reform, for Main Street, for the American taxpayer.

But the subsequent votes themselves revealed that something—contributions, or inexperience, or lobbying—sometimes carry more weight than they should.
Ideally, when these bills reach the House floor, others won’t be as easily seduced. Wall Street spends more than $2 million a day lobbying through 3,000 agents. Anyone caring to call their member of Congress to help counter this onslaught: the main number is 202.224.3121.

 

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April18

Activists to fracking corporation EQT: “Elections are not for shale!”

By: Rick Claypool

Activists gathered and rallied in Pittsburgh outside of EQT Corporation’s April 17 shareholder meeting to call on the multinational gas giant to keep its corporate money out of the people’s elections.

Public Citizen's Rick Claypool holding a sign with organization leaders at EQT political spending rally

Public Citizen’s Rick Claypool (holding the sign) with PIRG’s Blair Bowie (speaking) and Keystone Progress’ Ritchie Tabachnick, Common Cause PA’s Barry Kauffman, PennEnvironment’s Erika Staaf and University of Pittsburgh graduate Eva Resnick-Day

EQT has poured nearly $328,000 into Pennsylvania elections since 2001 and $281,000 into statewide races across the country since 2003. On the whole, the fracking industry has spent $23 million to influence Pennsylvania politics since 2003.

What do EQT and the rest of the industry reap from this political spending?

On the national level, the industry’s influence has resulted in fracking– the process of injecting millions of gallons of toxin-laced water deep underground in order to break up shale rocks and extract “natural” gas – being exempt from major environmental regulations, including the Safe Drinking Water, Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.

In Pennsylvania, 47 percent of state forestlands have been leased to shale drillers and 80 percent of state park mineral rites have been privatized.

The influence is also obvious when you look at EQT’s tax receipts. EQT’s effective federal tax rate over the past five years was -1 percent – meaning that, instead of paying, the corporation actually received $2 million back from the IRS. In Pennsylvania – where EQT is headquartered – the corporation’s five-year effective tax rate was only 0.1 percent.

At the rally, I delivered the petition signed by more than 20,000 Public Citizen activists calling on EQT to stop polluting our elections with its corporate money.

Among the groups rallying outside the meeting were Public Citizen, U.S. PIRG, Common Cause PA, PennEnvironment, Keystone Progress, One Pittsburgh and Clean Water Action. Others supporting the action include Food and Water Watch, Coffee Party and a network of advocates and investors united behind the banner of the Corporate Reform Coalition.

“Corporate spending injects a corrosive agent into our democracy,” said PIRG’s Blair Bowie in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “(It) drowns out the voice of ordinary citizens.”

Before EQT’s shareholders was a resolution, proposed by Clean Yield Asset Management, calling on EQT to study the feasibility of instituting a ban on political spending.

Photo of activists holding signs at EQT rally against corporate political spending

Pittsburgh activists rallying outside of EQT’s shareholder meeting.

EQT’s shareholders did not adopt the resolution, but the demonstration outside the meeting – as well as activists’ departing chant of “We’ll be back! We’ll be back!” – sent the corporation a strong message that the public will not tolerate the industry’s systemic corruption and co-optation of our government, at any level, from local to state to national.

And, as this shareholder season moves on, Public Citizen and the rest of the Corporate Reform Coalition will keep holding corporations accountable and fighting to get corporate money out of our elections.

Rick Claypool is online director for Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division. Follow him on Twitter at @RickClaypool.

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Posted in: Activism, Campaign Finance, Climate Change, Congress Watch Column, Energy8 comments

January8

SEC moves to shine a light on corporate political spending

By: Kelly Ngo

A significant move by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) takes aim at a glaring loophole in the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

In response to overwhelming public pressure – including a record-breaking 322,000 comments — and efforts by the Corporate Reform Coalition the agency has added to its agenda a rule that would require all publicly traded companies to disclose political spending to their shareholders. The SEC plans to consider the rule in April 2013.

“By supporting this rule’s placement on its regulatory flexibility agenda, which in turn is now on the Office of Management and Budget’s Unified Agenda, the SEC has taken a critical step to protect investors and to address the flow of secret corporate political spending that has arisen since Citizens United,” Congress Watch Director Lisa Gilbert said at a tele-press conference on the rule.

The rule would eliminate the paths that corporations have used to hide money they spend to influence elections, like giving to “dark money” nonprofits and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

“It’s important to understand the CEOs across America enjoy unchecked authority to spend unlimited sums of other people’s money to influence elections,” Adam Kanzer of Domini Social Investment Funds said. “They funnel millions of dollars to a wide range of tax-exempt entities including trade associations and 527 organizations. In fact, every election cycle we’re dealing with a new provision in the tax code and new type or organization.”

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Posted in: Campaign Finance0 comments

November9

Progress Waddles Forward: Risks and Opportunities in the Lame Duck Session

By: Rick Claypool

a photo of a duck

Flickr photo by D H Wright

Taken literally, the term “lame duck” refers to an injured duck that is unable to keep up with its flock.

On Tuesday, November 13, the month-long “lame duck” session of the 112th Congress will begin – and we’ll get a hint of whether the next session will be as plagued as the current session with partisan obstructionism.

If you have members of Congress who were voted out on Election Day or are retiring, the next few weeks is their last chance to make their mark. These lawmakers are the lame ducks.

In Congress, lame ducks will be indeed be left to fend for themselves as their “flock” of reelected peers prepares to join the newly elected  (or “freshman”) members in January, when the 113th Congress is sworn in.

Lame duck lawmakers are notoriously unpredictable. They no longer need to worry about raising money for reelection, so they are more free to stand up to corporate lobbyists and other moneyed interests.

However, because they’re not seeking reelection, they’re also less accountable to their constituents. Worse, they’re vulnerable to offers of cushy jobs at lobbying firms, where former lawmakers all-too-often receive six-figure salaries in exchange for doing Corporate America’s bidding and perpetuate Washington’s “revolving door” problem.

The upcoming lame duck session (scheduled to last from November 13 until December 14) is fraught with opportunities and threats:

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Posted in: Activism, Campaign Finance, Climate Change, Congress, Congress Watch Column, Energy, Financial Reform, Regulation28 comments

October25

“Celebration” at the U.S. Chamber protests Dark Money

By: Kelly Ngo

Birthday cake, party hats, boxes of presents, and protest signs calling for an end to the corporate takeover of our elections.

These, along with scores of activists who gathered to deliver birthday messages urging disclosure and accountability to one of the nation’s biggest dark money groups, were the main ingredients of the rally organized by Public Citizen and our partners in the Corporate Reform Coalition on Friday, Oct. 19.

Held in mock celebration of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s 100th “birthday,” the demonstration occurred outside of the U.S. Chamber’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., where activists held up signs with messages like “Democracy is NOT 4 sale!” and “End Corporate Rule.”

The Chamber, which has pledged to spend as much as $100 million in corporate money to influence elections across the country,  bears a significant portion of the responsibility for keeping our TV screens clear of useful information and facts, like who really paid for its pro-corporate ads (hint: corporations).

You’ve never seen a political ad that said, “Paid for by Chevron” or “I’m Dow Chemical and I approve this message,” right? But that doesn’t mean these corporations aren’t spending millions to influence our votes. That’s because the Chamber uses its 506(c) trade association status to accept millions from its massive corporate sponsors and spend unlimited corporate funds in elections without disclosing which corporations are actually paying for the ads.

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Posted in: Activism13 comments

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