Menu

Susan Harley

About Susan Harley

Posts by Susan Harley:

who is McConnell protecting: essential workers or essential donors?

Public Citizen Issue Brief Documents Chamber’s False Cries That the Sky is Falling

, , , , 0

By Nick Papazyan, Congress Watch Legal Intern

The coronavirus pandemic has claimed more American lives than all of the wars since the Korean War– combined. The virus is raging across the country, and we haven’t even begun what scientists call the “second wave.” At a time when we should be prioritizing public health and safety, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (Chamber) are seeking to immunize businesses from coronavirus-related lawsuits. On July 16, Public Citizen published an issue brief that exposes how the Chamber opportunistically uses moments of national emergency, such as a pandemic, to advance its anti-consumer agenda. Immunizing businesses would endanger workers, slow reopening of businesses, and give corporate wrongdoers a pass when they fail to take reasonable actions to keep people safe.

Despite the Chamber’s warnings that a flood of coronavirus cases is imminent, its rhetoric has no basis in fact. The issue brief exposes how the Chamber has used Chicken Little’s the “sky is falling” rhetoric for more than 20 years to scare legislators, the media, and the public to limit individuals’ access to the justice system

Yet, the sky never falls. A flood of litigation never emerges.

Months deep into the pandemic, there is no sign of a flood of coronavirus litigation against companies. In fact, the biggest bucket of cases by far are business-to-business lawsuits. The second biggest number of cases are civil rights violations, many of which only seek court intervention to stop alleged civil rights violations rather than award money damages.

Yet, the Chamber continues to push a false and hyperbolic narrative, even when it is unpopular with the public. Sixty-four percent of voters oppose letting corporations off the hook by giving them immunity from liability if it is proved that a company “engaged in unsafe practices.” That includes 72% of Democrats, 64% of Independents, and 56% of Republicans.

As the issue brief cogently points out, “[i]mmunity from liability will not restore our country from this time of hardship.” Instead, make sure that Mitch McConnell knows that lawmakers must prioritize public health over corporate profits. Only then, after businesses are safe for workers, consumers, and patients, can the nation begin to recover.

Red, white and blue text that says #ChangeTheChamber

Join the Fight to #ChangeTheChamber

0

By: Allison Behrens, Congress Watch intern

In the wake of seeing the terrible impacts of climate change on our planet, young people all over the world are rallying for action, holding protests and lobbying lawmakers to pass legislation to improve the future of our world. One such campaign led by students is being launched on July 8 by Lobby for Climate to call on large corporations to support strong climate legislation. Currently, many of them — including incredibly well-known names like Disney, Google, AT&T, and more — help fund the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its work to block federal action to address climate change.

Contrary to public perception, the Chamber of Commerce isn’t part of the U.S. government. It’s a trade association that is the biggest lobbying spender in Washington, D.C., and it uses its influence on Capitol Hill to lobby against the interests of small businesses and advocate for big corporations like fossil fuel companies. Though its full membership list is secret, companies like Disney or Google are known members. By continuing to be a part of the Chamber and not speaking out against its efforts to promote the interests of fossil fuel companies and stymie climate action legislation and regulations, these companies are also complicit in the damage fossil fuel companies continue to do to our planet.

That’s why this student-led campaign will be holding social media storms, Tweeting at these corporations on every Wednesday and Friday from 1-3 pm ET using the hashtags #LobbyForClimate and #ChangeTheChamber. They will be pushing Chamber member companies to support proactive climate legislation, end the Chamber’s obstruction of federal actions to combat climate change, and end the Chamber’s support of politicians who vote against policies to limit climate pollution. The campaign is beginning with a Twitter storm on July 8 aimed at the Coca-Cola and Pepsi companies, both members of the Chamber of Commerce and thus complicit in the Chamber’s support for fossil fuel companies. You can also find the campaign on Instagram and Facebook.

A similar Twitter campaign last summer spearheaded by U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y), U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D- Mass.) and others called #ChamberofCarbon led to the Chamber supporting the Paris Climate Agreement, an important step in the global fight to combat climate change. But the Chamber must be pressured to stop its climate obstructionism once and for all!

It’s vital for as many people as possible to participate in and support the students’ Change the Chamber campaign. See you on Twitter!

U.S. Chamber headquarters displaying JOBS banner

Corporate America is stepping up to support COVID-19 relief but its trade association is blocking a critical tool

, 0

As the COVID-19 pandemic exposes critical medical equipment shortages within our health system, the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association and the American Nurses Association have called for the White House to immediately use of the Defense Production Act (DPA) to produce and distribute much needed Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) and ventilators. Yet the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the largest lobbying spender in the country and trade association of many leading companies, has inexplicably lobbied the White House against the administration’s use of the DPA, which would enable the government to quickly accelerate the production of necessary medical equipment.

In response to the current COVID-19 pandemic, many companies are taking actions to meet these dangerous equipment shortages. Yet, many of these same companies belong to the Chamber and give it millions in payments that the Chamber then uses to lobby, as it has done here, against actively and comprehensively utilizing the DPA. Investors are asking many of these companies for expanded lobbying disclosure and highlighting reputational risks when the lobbying of trade associations contradicts company public positions at upcoming shareholder meetings, including Abbott Laboratories, AbbVie, Boeing, Citigroup, Honeywell and Pfizer.

The Chamber’s recent actions have received negative press scrutiny:

Trump is bending to big business during a pandemic, and Americans are worse off for it.
– Now This
Trump has refused to invoke the act because big business doesn’t want him to.
– New York Magazine
If enough member companies spoke out against the Chamber’s lobbying, it would have to stop… Google is also an active member of the Chamber, and the Chamber is blocking action that could marshal the resources of numerous companies to produce this equipment. If Google spoke out against the Chamber’s lobbying, it would create enormous pressure on the Chamber to shift course.
– Popular Information

Senators have called for “the Chamber to cease their lobbying efforts against measures to address the COVID-19 pandemic and place the economic and public health needs of hundreds of millions of American families above its members.” Additionally, major unions have condemned the Chamber’s actions. Finally, a report released by unions and advocacy groups calls on companies that are members of the Chamber to publicly call for the full use of the Defense Production Act.

Why is the Chamber, one of the most powerful lobbyists in Washington D.C., lobbying against the use of an act that gives broad authority to increase the manufacturing output of lifesaving equipment in a national emergency? While we wait for a definitive answer on their lobbying against the DPA, the Chamber has a long track record of lobbying against the broader interests of many of its corporate members.

For example, many of the Chambers corporate members individually support efforts to combat climate change and the Paris Climate Accord, yet the Chamber, on behalf of its members, has consistently lobbied against effective climate change regulations. A similar schism occurs on the issue of tobacco and public health, where many Chamber companies are committed to advancing patient health and well-being, yet the Chamber has worked to block global anti-smoking laws. On the issue of a minimum wage the Chamber appears to be out of sync with its members again. The Chamber claims to represent the interests of more than 3 million businesses and yet, while 80 percent of small business support raising the minimum wage, the Chamber is opposed to raising it.

These are just three examples where the Chamber has pushed for a harmful, deregulatory corporate agenda that goes against the public positions of many of its members and appears to be aligned only with the small number of companies that are its largest contributors. Do Chamber member companies really oppose the use of a law that is needed to address the acute shortage of personal protection equipment and ventilators that hospitals and front-line workers are facing? With the impact of the pandemic reaching every corner of America and across the globe, it’s incomprehensible that anyone — including corporate lobbyists for the Chamber — would block the use of employing every tool available to fight the disease and save as many lives as possible.

Investors Seek Disclosure of Lobbying at Citigroup, Pfizer, Abbott, Honeywell, Boeing and AbbVie, Highlighting Chamber Pandemic Lobbying Misalignment

Amidst this focus on the Chamber’s ongoing opposition to the DPA, shareholder proposals asking for lobbying disclosure will be going to vote at upcoming shareholder meetings at many companies that belong to the Chamber or sit on its board. These proposals at Citigroup, Pfizer, Abbott, Honeywell, Boeing and AbbVie ask the companies to disclose board oversight for lobbying and all federal and state lobbying expenditures, including disclosing all payments used by the Chamber for lobbying.

A major concern for investors is when indirect company lobbying through a company’s trade associations directly contradicts the company’s public positions.

On the one hand, these companies are working to speed production of ventilators and respirators to respond to COVID-19. Yet on the other, their trade association is blocking effective use of the DPA that is sorely needed to address the pandemic.

Exempt solicitations filed in support of the resolutions specifically highlight this contradiction and the reputational risk for companies from these types of trade association lobbying misalignments.

April 21 – Citigroup

Citigroup is providing $15 million in COVID-19 related relief efforts and supports “efforts to act swiftly, proactively and aggressively to mitigate the impacts of this situation.” The shareholder proposal filed by the New Economy Project notes that Citigroup supported the Paris Agreement on climate change, but the Chamber has worked to undermine it. The exempt solicitation states that “by funding a trade association’s lobbying, Citigroup is effectively endorsing its lobbying positions,” while also highlighting the pandemic as “another disturbing example of the conflict between Citigroup’s stated commitments and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s lobbying.”

April 23 – Pfizer

Pfizer is calling on the biopharmaceutical industry to join it in committing to unprecedented collaboration to combat COVID-19. The shareholder proposal filed by Oxfam notes that Pfizer sits on the boards of both the Chamber and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), which together have spent over $1.9 billion on lobbying since 1998, yet fails to disclose how much of its Chamber and PhRMA payments are used for lobbying. Oxfam’s exempt solicitation notes that Pfizer believes in addressing climate change, but the Chamber undermined the Paris climate accord, thereby creating important misalignments on one of the defining issues of our time. It further notes a similar misalignment in the Chamber’s responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.

April 24 – Abbott Laboratories

Abbott is producing and distributing rapid point-of-care COVID-19 tests and “working 24/7 to make as many tests as we can and create the next round of needed tests.” However, it also serves on the Chamber board of directors. The shareholder proposal filed by the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) notes that Abbott believes in addressing climate change and supports good health, yet the Chamber undermined the Paris climate accord and has worked to block global antismoking laws. UUA’s exempt solicitation also notes that Abbott signed the Business Roundtable Statement (BRT) on the Purpose of the Corporation to be socially responsible, yet the BRT is lobbying to limit the right of shareholders to file resolutions.

April 27 – Honeywell

Honeywell has committed to increasing production of N95 respirators and other personal protection equipment in response to the current COVID-19 pandemic, yet also serves on the Chamber board of directors. The shareholder proposal filed by Mercy Investment Services notes that Honeywell is committed to reducing global greenhouse gases and signed an agreement to work with United Nations Environment to combat climate change, yet the Chamber undermined the Paris climate accord. Mercy’s exempt solicitation highlights the Chamber COVID-19 misalignment and points out that shareholders “face a trade association blind spot as Honeywell fails to disclose its trade association memberships.”

April 27 – Boeing

Boeing is assisting COVID-19 recovery and relief efforts, including manufacturing much needed face shields, yet is a member of the Chamber. The shareholder proposal filed by the Province of Saint Joseph of the Capuchin Order notes that “in the wake of the two 737 Max jet crashes, questions have been raised whether Boeing’s lobbying led to relaxed Federal Aviation Administration oversight, including ‘long-standing concerns about industry capture of the FAA, from lobbying by the aerospace industry—Boeing spends millions lobbying Congress and federal agencies each year—to the revolving door between the FAA and Boeing and other companies and lobbying groups in the industry.’” The exempt shareholder solicitation states that “Boeing needs to repair its tarnished reputation and can show its commitment to rehabilitating its image and culture by more fully disclosing its lobbying activities.”

May 8 – AbbVie

AbbVie is “collaborating with select health authorities and institutions globally on clinical research” and is donating $25 million to help support underserved communities and healthcare systems. The shareholder proposal filed by Zevin Asset Management notes that AbbVie is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, which has spent over $1.5 billion on lobbying since 1998, and sits on the board of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), which spends millions lobbying against drug pricing measures. The exempt shareholder solicitation states that “AbbVie’s disclosure lags many of its peer group members which disclose the portion of trade association payments that are used for lobbying.”

Tell Corporate America to end the hypocrisy 

If you own shares directly in these companies, you should vote in favor of these proposals, which asks the company to prepare an annual report on its lobbying activity so that shareholders- the true owners of the company- can assess the associated risk.

If you don’t own stock directly in these companies –or any other company where these shareholder resolutions are filed this year — but are worried about undisclosed political spending by corporations that is being used to influence our democracy, chances are you can have an impact through your 401(k) instead.

If you invest your retirement through BlackRock, State Street, Dimensional, Fidelity or Vanguard, you can vote with your dollars and tell the funds to support disclosure.

 

Note: This piece was first posted on the Corporate Reform Coalition website.

road-closed

Trump and the U.S. Chamber Agree: the Future of Infrastructure is Profits, Not People

0

By Claire Kaplan, Advocacy Intern 

If you drive on highways (or walk and bike underneath their overpasses) you already know that maintaining our roads is critically important. But infrastructure means more than roads, highways and bridges. It means schools, hospitals, water and even the internet. Infrastructure is one of the most essential services a government can provide for its people, and failure can mean catastrophe. This year, the Trump administration and its ally the Chamber of Commerce have infrastructure reform at the top of their agendas, and both the White House and Chamber have released plans on the topic in the recent past.  And just like we saw last year with healthcare and taxes, “reform” is code for big-business giveaways that leave American communities, especially low-income communities, out in the cold. Here are three key proposals from the Trump and Chamber plans:

Deregulation and Steamrolling Public Protections

The most predictable proposal present in both the Chamber’s plan and that of the Trump administration is deregulation (they call it “eliminating regulatory barriers”). Both plans argue that deregulation will cut costs without sacrificing quality. There are two problems with this argument. One, unsurprisingly, is that deregulation often compromises both quality and safety. The second problem with deregulation of infrastructure projects is  that we would give up the benefits of safeguards while not at all likely to save any of the promised money, either.

In the case of the Trump plan, the most significant deregulatory risk is to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) which protects species and habitats but also people and communities from polluting projects.  And, the Chamber’s infrastructure plan specifically threatens drinking water safety by proposing to roll back the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA’s) ability to veto building permits for projects that negatively impact US waterways, which would increase the risk of water contamination from new highways, dams and pipelines. Its provisions for private leasing of federal lands could also allow pipelines to be built through national parks. Opposing regulation is par for the course for the Chamber of Commerce, which in the past has spoken against the Volks Rule (which strengthens employer obligations to maintain records of workplace injuries and illnesses) as well as other worker-safety regulations like one that protects workers from exposure to high levels of crystalline silica dust on the job. The Chamber even opposes compliance with the Endangered Species Act.

Deregulation will not save money on infrastructure projects  because repairing and rebuilding shoddy construction often costs more than simply building it right the first time (sometimes a lot more). Consider a 1960’s construction project in Florida to help control flooding from the Kissimmee River. The original project did not serve its intended purpose, instead becoming stagnant and ultimately polluting the river, killing almost all plants and wildlife in the area. Whereas it cost $194 million in today’s dollars to build it, cleaning up the mess will cost at least $1 billion. That wouldn’t happen today with our current regulatory system for infrastructure projects, that requires robust environmental review.

Not only would steamrolling environmental review rules do unacceptable damage to our environment, these disasters become problems for taxpayers to deal with. Without regulation, communities would be left like those of the Kissimmee River project– faced with a poorly-done project with benefits that never materialize, now consuming more than five times its initial cost simply to reverse the damage it has done. Truly, deregulation would lead to the worst of both worlds.

The Threat of Public-Private Partnerships

Another commonality between the Trump and Chamber plans is a focus on private investment and public-private partnerships. The Trump plan follows the Chamber’s lead by expanding the use of Private Activity Bonds (a key financing tool for public-private partnerships, or “P3s”), allowing privatization of federal infrastructure, and reducing or eliminating constraints to P3s in transit, transportation, provision of water, and even the Veterans Affairs department. The Chamber and the Trump administration claim that these P3s will lead to high-quality services and projects that cost less and give the public more choice, but these claims are erroneous.

First, P3s are not cheaper since private contracts are notorious for their hidden costs. Some of them are to the local government – like when Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels had to pay a private company $447,000 of taxpayer money to offset “losses” from when the governor waived tolls for motorists escaping a massive flood. Some of them are to the public, like when a Chicago consortium operating the city’s parking meters required the city to raise rates in parts of the city by as much as 800% over four years. Private companies typically charge 59% more than public entities to provide utilities like water (in Coatesville, PA the increase was 282% between 2001 and 2015). When a private company began charging tolls on the MLK Freeway in Virginia for the first time in decades, the governor had to step in and renegotiate the deal after some residents received bills totaling more than $10,000. Private companies expect revenue, sometimes an unrealistic amount, and if they don’t get it, they’ll take steps to recover the difference.

The Chamber claims that cities will be able to choose among competing bids, so they can just avoid these bad deals. Well, that may be true in rich areas, but low-income communities won’t be able to offer such lucrative contracts. Some public projects just aren’t profitable on their own. To expect private companies to take a loss in order to help low-income communities is naive. Even if these projects are taken on, expect user fees to be so high that many residents will no longer be able to afford the prices of essential services like water to their homes or the tolls on the roads to their jobs.

This isn’t always true, of course – there are plenty of P3s that do provide services at a discounted cost. Unfortunately, most savings claimed by private contractors are due to huge layoffs and underpayment of wages (specifically, from finding ways to avoid having to pay prevailing wage requirements). That’s what United Water did when they signed a deal to operate Atlanta’s water system in 1999, then proceeded to fire more than half the system’s employees and cut training for the rest. In 2003, the city decided they’d had enough of constant service problems, water-main breaks and even occasional boil-only alerts. They dissolved the partnership.

P3s are supposed to give the public more say, at least – but even this claim is questionable. If the city of Chicago wants to put more bike lanes on its road, they are restricted from making these improvements. Why? Because a private company runs their parking meters, and more people bicycling means fewer paying tolls. The city also has to reimburse the company if they want to close a street (say, for a parade or street fair). The contract went through city council in four days, with no hearings or opportunities for public input. Now, regretful city officials are locked in to the deal. Public-private partnership contracts are also known to contain “non-compete” clauses to protect their profits. That company in Norfolk, VA charging drivers $10,000 in tolls put a clause in their contract limiting the city’s ability to erect or improve “alternative facilities” for drivers who can’t afford such hefty fees. Who exactly has “more say” in these deals? Not the city’s residents.

The bottom line is, the most important thing for a private company isn’t providing high-quality service. It’s not improving the community. It’s not even the well-being of their workers. It’s profit. If other considerations – like safety, pollution, or quality – conflict with profit, expect private corporations to put profit first.

Cutting federal funding

Not only does the Trump administration agree with the Chamber’s mistaken belief that safeguarding public protections isn’t necessary, and that private investment is preferable to public, but they have an additional shared priority for infrastructure reform: they don’t want the federal government to pay for it. The administration’s plan calls for $200 billion in federal investment, but it also calls for $280 billion in cuts to services. That’s a $1.40 loss for every new $1 available, and will lead to massive job losses. State and local governments, used to shouldering 20% of the costs of new infrastructure projects, will now be asked to take on 80%. Worse, under the Incentives Program, even the meager federal funds still available will be preferentially allocated to projects that show strong revenue or revenue potential (i.e. the projects where they are least needed). Some cities will be able to raise the money by increasing state and local taxes, but others will be forced into public-private partnerships to try to make up the difference. Communities too poor to raise revenue through taxation or attract profit-motivated investors face the prospect of simply being unable to afford to fix their broken infrastructure at all. Propaganda from the Trump administration calls this a “$1.5 trillion plan” for infrastructure investment. Don’t be fooled. Most of this money is coming from two places: hypothetical private investors, and taxpayers.

Both the Chamber and the Trump infrastructure plans laud running the government “like a business.” That should alarm you because, to a business, you are nothing more than a revenue-generating customer. But Americans are not the government’s customers. We are its owners. Customers just pay and take what’s available, but owners can demand something better. Stand with Public Citizen and organizations around the country to say: our schools, highways, hospitals, and water are not for sale to the highest bidder. We demand a government that puts people over profits when it comes to infrastructure investments.

 

Cross-posted on Daily Kos and Citizen Vox.

comcastattbroke

The Chamber Gets What It Wants and Layoffs Still Ensue

1

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce sided against 83% of the American public by heavily pushing to repeal the rules that ensured net neutrality. Likewise, polling on the Republican tax bill in the final days before passage showed it 22 points underwater with the public, meanwhile  a Public Citizen report found that the Chamber had 100 lobbyists working in support of the bill.

The Trump Administration, however, overlooked the largest online protest in history and daily tax protester arrests and gave the Chamber both items on its wish list. The theory was that these massive handouts to big corporations would super-charge growth for the middle class. So let’s take a look at what’s happening with two likely Chamber members that benefited from both of these decisions.

In December, Comcast got big headlines for announcing a one-time bonus for its employees and over $50 billion in infrastructure investment over five years. All, however, was not as it appeared.

It turned out that Comcast, the most hated company in America, had secretly laid-off 500 employees days before Christmas. One former employee worker stated that they had to sign a “nondisclosure agreement as part of a severance package”, even though he only worked in sales.  Just this week they notified state officials that planned to lay-off 405 more employees outside Atlanta. (They did find room in their budget to be the most active corporate lobbyist on taxes in 2017.)

As for the capital expenditures, an Ars Technica analysis found that unless Comcast goes well above the promised $50 billion, it would actually represent a smaller annual increase in Comcast’s infrastructure spending than in recent years.

AT&T is another presumed Chamber member that benefited from both actions and promised to greatly invest in its business. Like Comcast, it too made a splashy announcement about a Christmas bonus for its workers and tried to bury news that they were laying off workers (in AT&T’s case thousands of them.) The Communications Workers of America have filed a lawsuit over the layoffs.

Last spring, AT&T’s CEO was very clear what massive tax cuts for his corporation would mean: every billion dollars in savings would mean an additional 7,000 good paying jobs at AT&T. Yet, an August op-ed in the New York Times by the Institute for Policy Studies pointed out that “AT&T enjoyed an effective tax rate of just 8 perfect between 2008 and 2015, despite recording a profit” and during that time reduced its workforce by nearly 80,000 people. It did however find a spare $34 billion for stock buybacks during that time, which serve little purpose outside of increasing value to investors.

The Chamber would have us believe that if we just accommodate the every whim of big business, this time things will be different and the public will be the real winners. History tells a different story and we can see it playing out again right now with Comcast and AT&T’s workforce reductions.

The Chrysler Building and the MetLife Tower

Undermining the FSOC: Chamber Seeks to Roll Back Regulations On Massive Nonbank Financial Institutions

, 1

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has strongly opposed centralized oversight of “nonbank” financial companies that precipitated the 2008 financial crisis and has fought to help a major contributor avoid heightened standards, according to a new report from Public Citizen’s U.S. Chamber Watch.

This analysis is the last in a series of three reports on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s financial policy agenda issued over the past few weeks by Public Citizen’s U.S. Chamber Watch. This report examines the Chamber’s advocacy regarding the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), which consists of financial regulators and was created as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to identify risks to the financial stability of the United States.

Read the report here.

 

Undermining the CFPB: Chamber Seeks Light Regulation of Credit Cards by Limiting Powers of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

1

As congressional Republicans threaten to shut down the government over ideological policy provisions including an attempt to eviscerate the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Public Citizen’s U.S. Chamber Watch released a report documenting the business lobby’s efforts and arguments against the new agency’s benefits to consumers.

The analysis is contained in the second of three reports on the Chamber’s broad attack against Wall Street reform. Titled “Undermining the CFPB,” the report highlights the Chamber’s defense of the onerous credit card terms megabanks promote at the expense of consumers. It also looks at the Chamber’s attempt to stifle dialogue between the CFPB and the U.S. Department of Defense as the agencies work to protect members of the military from predatory lending – a goal especially important for vulnerable service members deployed overseas.

 

Read the report here.

Undermining Dodd-Frank: A Critical Review of the 2015 “Fix. Add. Replace. (FAR)” Agenda of the Center for Capital Market Competitiveness at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

0

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s sweeping attacks against Wall Street reform are based on policies unsupported by evidence, harmful to small business and consumers, and largely beneficial to Wall Street, according to an analysis by Public Citizen’s U.S. Chamber Watch.

The analysis is contained in the first of three reports on the Chamber’s attempt to undermine policies that benefit Main Street. Titled “Undermining Dodd-Frank,” the report provides an overview of the Chamber’s assault on reforms initiated after the 2008 economic collapse, which was fueled by reckless Wall Street practices.

Public Citizen’s report documents some of the Chamber’s most outrageous positions and shows its tendency to protect the nation’s largest banks. For example, the Chamber criticizes modest safeguards on complicated derivative transactions where 90 percent of the market involves only five large banks. The Chamber also invokes Main Street when attacking consumer safeguards against credit card industry abuses, even though seven banks control 74 percent of this sector.

Read the report (PDF).

flickr-by-flickr-zizzybaloobah

Not Buying It: Countering the Chamber’s Anti-Class Action Accounts

, 3

Lawmakers should not set great store by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s April testimony from attorney John Beisner before the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on the Judiciary. In his testimony, Beisner advocated legislation to prevent what he labels “overbroad” or “no-injury” class actions. A new Public Citizen report, “The Fiction of the ‘No-Injury’ Class Action,” counters his argument case by case.

Because class-action lawsuits are often the only feasible way to bring small-dollar claims, class actions are powerful tools for combating corporate wrongdoing and are frequently a target for corporate interests seeking to limit consumers’ access to court remedies.

In one of its many theories about why consumers’ should not be able to hold bad actors accountable, the Chamber’s lobbyists are pushing the idea that consumers who were duped by misrepresentations into buying products or overpaying for products have suffered “no injury.”

Public Citizen’s report has the goods on the real letter of the law: Consumers conned into buying a product that is defective or mislabeled have suffered economic injury. For example, consumers duped into purchasing worthless cold remedies have suffered an obvious injury, but Beisner’s testimony for the Chamber called their lawsuit a “no-injury” class action.

Public Citizen’s report looks past the façade of Beisner’s arguments and reviews each of the class-action lawsuits referenced in his testimony to show that the cases involved real injuries suffered by consumers who bought defective products or made purchases because of misrepresentations. These injuries included the need to repair or replace products to avoid serious injury, as well as economic losses suffered when consumers paid for defective products that were not worth the premium prices charged, purchased worthless products that were not what manufacturers represented them to be, or paid extra for products based on misrepresentations about their nature or quality.

The report also explains that securities law, trademark law, and antitrust law accept that consumers can suffer an economic harm if they purchase a product based on false information or an artificially inflated price. The policy goals that underlie those types of laws likewise apply to consumer misrepresentation suits — protecting purchasers and the integrity of the marketplace.

Let’s make sure Congress doesn’t buy what the Chamber’s trying to sell. The laws and rules that allow consumers to band together in a single suit to seek compensation for harm are essential protections that Congress should strengthen, not weaken.

 

 

flickr-by-flickr-VoxEfx

U.S. Chamber’s New Primary Focus Puts Incumbents in Crosshairs

, , , , 0

 By: Aurora Randolph, Congress Watch legal fellow

Massive troves of United States Chamber of Commerce (U.S. Chamber) money in elections are hardly a new occurrence. The Chamber spent $70 million helping elect Republicans in 2014. But as rogue right-wing Republicans continue to yank on the leash of their establishment conservative leadership, reality seems to be setting in for the Chamber – not just any Republican in office will do. To that end, the Chamber is looking to aggressively shape the Republican narrative by pouring money and resources into elections even earlier, during the primaries. And no punches will be pulled for GOP incumbents.

cfi.conserv.IEs

A look at the changing trend in money from independent expenditures in primaries

Chamber’s Recent Success

Early primary money has been a winning strategy for the Chamber. In 2014, the candidate backed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce won in 14 out of the 15 races.

In 2013, the U.S. Chamber helped nudge a Republican primary in the establishment’s favor when it contributed around $200,000 to Representative Bradley Byrne’s campaign for the open seat of Jo Bonner in Alabama’s 1st District. Byrne ran against tea-partier Republican Dean Young, a disciple of the Freedom Caucus who had said he wouldn’t support John Boehner as speaker. The race was razor-thin for the duration but the Chamber’s cash (and hail-Mary ad featuring Brett Favre) proved vital in Byrne’s finish.

In the expensive, dramatic Mississippi senate race Chamber-supported Thad Cochran defeated tea-party darling Chris McDaniel in the primary runoff. McDaniel was heavily funded by all the major national tea-party ideological groups, and Cochran by business groups and the Republican establishment. In fact, the Mississippi election was the top primary race by outside spending – at just above $8 million. The Chamber spent $500,000 supporting Cochran on top of the $100,000 they gave to a state-level group, Mississippi Conservatives, which also financially supported Cochran.

While the Chamber has been involved in primaries in the past, a new direction in its campaign spending will mean that incumbents will now be on the hit-list. “Last year, we were very aggressive in primaries and the general, and we intend to be again,” Chamber spokeswoman Blair Holmes said. “It’s not a change in policy as much as it is a recommitment to last cycle’s successful approach.” But Politco reports that the lobbying group is developing a new strategy to challenge those sitting members that have refused to champion its special interests, a “major shift for the business community.” “We’re just going to run it 24 months in a row, cycle after cycle after cycle,” said Thomas Donohue, the Chamber’s president and chief executive officer.

The consequences of the tidal wave of money in primaries

In examining the ever-increasing amount of early political money, Moyers & Company emphasize that in picking their desired candidates and injecting cash, groups with huge resources silence the volume of the rest of our democratic voices. Likening such influence to unconstitutional poll taxes, they highlight the systematic disenfranchisement of poor and working class citizens this creates – especially in “safe” partisan districts – by foreclosing on their ability to meaningfully participate in deciding who represents them.

The discontent with what is known as the “money primary” – the competition before any vote is cast between candidates vying for the favor of moneyed interests to fill their campaign war chests and lend them political legitimacy – is not a fringe issue. In “Let’s Democratize the ‘Money Primary’,” Business Insider describes the process as “a tiny, tiny number of rich people will choose who gets to be the most powerful man or woman.” People need to be able to engage in what is increasingly becoming the key deciding point in electoral politics.

Who is on the ballot matters – pure and simple. Not surprisingly, the views of a majority of Americans differ sharply from those of wealthy Americans. The New York Times reports a 2013 paper from Northwestern and Vanderbilt Universities showed that while two-thirds of the general public said the government should “see to it” that anyone who wants a job can find one, only 19% of the wealthy believed the same. And 40% of wealthy respondents, compared to 78% of the public, believed that government should make the minimum wage “high enough so that no family with a full-time worker falls below the official poverty line.” If the wealthy can act as political gatekeepers to our ballot, elections lose their democratic meaning.

When the U.S. Chamber dumps primary money into elections, local voices are drowned out. The Chamber’s far right political agenda does not align even with some of their local affiliates. When the U.S. Chamber ran attacks against Senator McCaskill, for example, the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce made clear it was not involved with the ad. The U.S. Chamber’s aggressive stance against climate change action has also led local chambers to distance themselves from the national juggernaut.

In a dysfunctional electoral system, the powerful and unique position of the U.S. Chamber to alter not only national legislation and candidates but even dictate the direction of congressional primaries is a trend that we need to be aware of and work to change. The trend of big money and big influence working its way into every crevice of politics underscores why we need campaign finance reform now. And shows why this initiative needs to be driven by a grassroots movement of engaged individuals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Load More