Some People Say

The Washington Post considers it a big news story that Republicans are criticizing SEIU for their ties to ACORN. The article says "some criticize," but here are the sum total of the critics in the story:

"Some Republicans", Republican Reps. Mark Steven Kirk and Peter Roskam of Illinois and Patrick T. McHenry of North Carolina, a guy named Herman Benson who appears to publicly hate SEIU for a living, and James "Buddy" Caldwell, the Democratic Attorney General of Louisiana, a state where the statewide Democrats are all Democrats in name only.

That seems like a broad cross-section of American opinion, worthy of the title "some".

Eric Boehlert traces this back to the media's touchiness with any criticism from the right that they are ignoring their issues. So they go completely in the other direction and dutifully type up guilt-by-association pieces like this, and they bury the truth about who is actually leading the crusade:

Today, with the GOP increasingly irrelevant and the right-wing media, and specifically Fox News, taking over as the Opposition Party, other journalists are now taking their cues in terms of partisan news from radio talk show hosts and cable TV hosts. It's unprecedented.

In today's "Some Criticize" era, all White House opponents have to do (regardless of who they are or what power they hold) is criticize Obama and the press corps snaps to attention and starts typing up the list of grievances. So today we have the Post furthering Fox News' attempted guilt-by-association with regards to ACORN and labor power SEIU, but the Post pretends it's really the GOP that's leading the charge:

"Last week, Republican Reps. Mark Steven Kirk and Peter Roskam of Illinois and Patrick T. McHenry of North Carolina urged the Census Bureau to stop allowing the SEIU to help recruit workers for its 2010 head count."

This utterly mundane partisan request suddenly qualifies as news in a Post article that's virtually barren of any actual revelations about ACORN or SEIU? Again, it's really Fox News and the GOP Noise Machine that are criticizing the "connections" between ACORN and SEIU, and it's the Post presenting that hodge-podge as news.

The article is really a ping-pong match of charges and random associations, like a written version of The Glenn Beck Show.

Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress, in a far more newsworthy story than what some Republicans are saying about whatever, have introduced a bill to hold defrauders of the government Treasury to the same standard to which the House held ACORN:

Top-ranking liberal lawmaker Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) pressed her colleagues to support a legislative counterpunch to the GOP’s effort to defund the controversial grass-roots organizing group ACORN.

McCollum, a senior Democratic Whip in her caucus, challenged the 172 Democrats who supported a measure to cut off federal funds for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) to endorse a similar measure geared towards private companies in business with the government.

The appropriations committee member introduced the “ACORN Act,” or “Against Corporations Organizing to Rip-off the Nation Act,” last week; it is the first formal defense against the recent GOP success in Congress to defund the left-leaning activist organization.

Democratic Reps. Raul Grijalva (Ariz.), David Obey (Wis.), Pete Stark (Calif.), Keith Ellison (Minn.), Lynn Woolsey (Calif.), Jim McDermott (Wash.) and Barbara Lee (Calif.) have co-sponsored the bill that would cut off federal agreements with private companies, nonprofits and other groups that have been convicted of defrauding the government.

If we had a media capable of dealing in an actual even-handed manner instead of the fake even-handedness they currently peddle, every Republican in the country would be asked if they support holding all corporations convicted of defrauding the government to the same standard.

Instead, we get "Some people say SEIU has cooties because it played in the same sandbox as ACORN."

Closing In On The Insurance Industry

Lots of groups are taking action against the insurance industry and their attempts to get a forced market for themselves and increase their profits at the expense of their customers.

Health Care For America Now has a new ad spotlighting Stephen Helmsley, the CEO of UnitedHealth Group, and his $57,000-an-hour lifestyle, contrasted against the thousands of families who have experienced a medical bankruptcy:



In connection with that, SEIU is encouraging supporters to take out Craigslist ads seeking to rent a room in an insurance company CEO mansion. They have the Craigslist sites for Philadelphia (CIGNA's Edward Hamway), Minneapolis (UnitedHealth's Stephen Helmsley) and Indianapolis (WellPoint's Angela Braly), and sample "room for rent" ads to work from. A sample:

Bankrupt Mother of Two, Seeking Room @ Insurance CEO Mansion

I'’m seeking a room to rent in Cigna CEO Ed Hanway’s $13.6 million dollar mansion. (We'’ll take a room in one of his three beach homes, too.) My family would be very quiet and courteous housemates, and given the size of Ed's mansion, he won't even hear us! I'll be bringing along my two twin girls, both of whom were diagnosed with cancer at the age of four. CIGNA is refusing to pay for the human growth hormone they need to grow properly - and the out-of-pocket expenses for this treatment are…

This is the Craigslist ad of Stacie Ritter of Philadelphia, who is literally holding a protest outside Ed Hamway's home as we speak, standing outside until she gets the care she needs from CIGNA.

MoveOn member Dawn Smith is faced with a similar struggle from CIGNA. They raised her prescription drug costs for her treatable brain tumor by 10,000%. She is writing to CIGNA to seek answers, and you can sign her letter.

What makes you think you can treat sick people this way? When will you stop doing this to me and the thousands of people like me who are suffering? And if you solve this latest problem, how do I know you won't do this to me again next week--that you're actually changing your ways and not just trying to make your PR problem disappear?

Please answer these questions. I need to know, for the sake of my health and my life. Many others have signed this letter too, to support me and make sure I get answers.

The truth is starting to leak out. Even the traditional media is covering stories about insurers denying coverage by calling a broken wrist a pre-existing condition. This is an industry that is doing whatever it can to maximize their profits, even though they know a public option wouldn't bankrupt them. The more people understand how the industry works, the easier it will be to get a health bill that works for all of us.

Unions And Health Care

The labor movement has generally been a pretty strong voice for health care reform. That actually makes them an anomaly, because they and the workers they represent already receive, for the most part, quality health care through their collective bargaining contracts. The health care is often so good, in fact, that many unions gave up several wage hikes in order to get it. And now, with provisions in the Baucus bill to tax insurance companies for offering "Cadillac" care, we're starting to see the unions' self-interest come into play. Richard Trumka, the new head of the AFL-CIO, told Ben Smith that he would fight the insurance company tax:

AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka seconded a fellow labor leader who applied a barnyard epithet to the Senate Finance Committee's bill and with its proposal to tax some medical benefits.

"Gerry has much wisdom," Trumka said in an interview today, referring to AFSCME President Gerald McEntee, who attacked the bill last week. "We don’t think that the way to provide benefits for everybody is to tax people's benefits so they end up losing their benefits."

"We will fight pretty doggedly attempts to tax benefits because we’ve paid for those benefits over the years – we’ve forgone wage increases, pension increases, days off, and everything else to get those medical benefits," he said.

Trumka at least offered an alternative to pay for coverage subsidies and Medicaid expansion - a financial transaction tax. It's a very good idea to tax a minimal amount on every stock transaction - it's a pure tax on wealth, would hit those who make money from selling back and forth a hundred times a day, and would probably lead to limits on computerized flash trading, which should be illegal anyway. But it just makes no sense as a way to pay for health care. I also think Trumka is being a bit disingenuous by saying that taxing insurance companies on high-dollar plans would "tax benefits." It could just as well incentivize insurers to charge less on high-dollar plans. Trumka has a serious argument about the trade-offs of the union movement, but that should be accomplished through negotiation - companies relieved of an enormous health care burden may be happy with a payout.

The employer-based system is no friend to health care and should not be artificially preserved by a giant employer deduction. Baucus' bill offers a backhanded way to get at that deduction, but with nothing to rein that in, health inflation will probably cause every union to give back health benefits anyway. So at some point, we have to start moving America off of employer-based health insurance.

In another development, this Politico article quotes Anna Burger from SEIU saying that she could support a bill without a public option. SEIU and Burger have since refuted that, but that union has always taken a slightly more pragmatic approach. I'm generally tired of hearing "X says he/she could live with a bill without the public option!" stories, so I'll let that one lie. Soon enough people will have to pick a side, anyway.

CIGNA Denies Cancer Patient Care, CEO Makes $120 Million

(I am a blogger fellow with Brave New Films on their Sick For Profit campaign. Visit us on Facebook.)



Today Brave New Films released their second installment in the Sick For Profit series, taking a look at the corrupt practices of CIGNA, denying care to their customers while their lead executives rake in millions and lead lavish lifestyles.

Meet Jo Joshua Godfrey. She had cancer without knowing for over a year.

"I would go to CIGNA and they would tell me I had bronchitis and give me medicine and send me home. No matter what medicine they gave me I wouldn't get better. Then the CIGNA Director called me up and she told me that there was nothing wrong with me at all. I called the doctor, and I came with my film and my CAT scan and he just put it in, it took exactly thirty seconds. He told me, 'You have cancer,' and he said the reason CIGNA did not want to give you your records is they've known right way back for years that you have cancer and they're not going to treat you."

CIGNA took in $19.1 billion dollars in revenue last year, with a $292 million dollar income. That doesn't include the salaries given to people like CEO Ed Hanway. He made a cool $12 million last year, and over the past five years he took in $120 million. Hanway has $28 million in unexcercised stock options. The company corporate jets, also not seen in profit statements, cost $68 million. This money is gained, as former communications director Wendell Potter says in this video, through denying claims and dumping the sick, enhancing the value of the company for Wall Street investors. The effect on people's lives, meanwhile, is tragic. Nataline Sarkysian, featured in the Americans United For Change advertisement, lost her life after CIGNA repeated denied her a liver transplant, despite the family having full coverage.

Meet Stephen Coddington, the wife of Marian, a stroke victim:

The case manager at the nursing home called me in and was really upset, and she said, "CIGNA is wanting to discontinue therapy with her. The doctors called and appeals were denied." It has been a day-in and day-out fight. Every talk that I've had with them, it's been, how can we wiggle off this hook.

This is the human cost for an insurance company's existence, for the record profits and supreme lifestyle of their executives. Welcome to the American health insurance industry. Instead of helping policyholders attain the health security they need for their families, big insurance companies get rich by denying coverage to patients. Now they're sending lobbyists to Washington, DC to twist the arms of lawmakers to oppose reform of the status quo. Why? Because the status quo pays.

CIGNA is not a special case in the insurance industry. It's perfectly normal and expected for a corporation to maximize profits. The difference with insurance is that the profit comes at the expense of your health care, and frankly, all the regulations in the world won't substantively change that. The best way to fight back is through exposure, a juxtaposition of the human luxury paid for by human misery.

So help us shine this spotlight. CIGNA's advertising tagline is 'A Business of Caring.' We think they ought to come up with something more appropriate for their actual practices. If you come up with one, post it on our Facebook page. Here are some examples. We'll send the best over to CIGNA. In addition, Jo Joshua Godfrey will join SEIU Healthcare 775NW outside the CIGNA corporate offices in Seattle, Washington today as they demand quality and affordable health care for every American as a fundamental right and not a privilege. If you're near 600 4th Ave in Seattle around 12:30 PT today, head down and show your support.

And send this video to your friends. Everyone needs to know what's at stake in health care reform. This kind of denial of coverage can happen to anyone under the current system.

Pushback: SEIU Potential Walk-Out, Corporate Tax Cut Repeal, Court Overturns Medi-Cal Cuts

Rumors ran rampant yesterday that state employees, pushed too far by yet another salary cut (totaling 20% over the course of the year), would potentially strike.

Doug Crooks, Director of Communications with the Service Employees International Union’s local 1000, which represents more than 95,000 state employees, declined to confirm the rumor but said any decision would be made by the employees through an authorization vote.

“In the first place, that decision hasn’t been made yet,” said Crooks about the plan to strike. “That decision hasn’t been made yet. We are definitely going to strongly oppose and do everything we can to prevent the governor from imposing a fourth furlough day. But check back with me Monday.”

“The bottom line is we negotiated with this governor in good faith and we agreed on a contract that would save $340 million dollars immediately, and if applied to all state employees it would save the state a billion dollars. That’s billion with a ‘B.’ And for the governor to undermine that contract now is beyond irresponsible. He’s made the state employee a pawn” in the state budget negotiations.

“Well actually, it’s a five percent cut on top of those three furlough days,” explained Alicia Trost, a spokesperson for Senate leader Darrell Steinberg. “It’s simply a scare tactic by the governor, yet another, and we feel the state workforce has already paid their fair share. What’s worse is that it would have a horrible effect on the economy if state workers were to lose up to 20 percent of their buying power.”

By the way, Mr. Stogie just lost a furlough case, with a judge tentatively ruling that he cannot furlough the legal staff of the State Compensation Insurance Fund, which has emboldened the larger pool of workers in SEIU. But more to the point, in the world of Arnold Antionette and the Yacht Party, workers making a median income getting 20% salary cuts while the largest corporations doing business in the state get a massive corporate tax break is considered "everyone paying their fair share."

Speaking of which, Lenny Goldberg offers the text of an initiative to repeal the negotiated-in-secret corporate tax cuts and save the state $2.5 billion dollars a year. Opponents typically respond with race-to-the-bottom rhetoric about businesses leaving the state, which isn't true, by the way.

Finally, a federal appeals court ruled that California cannot cut Medi-Cal reimbursements, in an opinion written by a George W. Bush appointee. The familiar pattern of breaking the law to cut the budget often runs up against judicial review, and so the criminals in Sacramento - considering what they're attempting, I don't consider that hyperbole - will have to try something else to achieve their long-sought destruction of the social safety net.

SEIU Addresses Schwarzenegger, Obama In New Ads

Barack Obama visits California for a couple DNC fundraisers today. I doubt he'll have time to turn on the teevee. But if he does, he will be greeted with a new ad featuring Pauline Beck, the woman who Obama worked with in the SEIU's "Walk A Day In My Shoes" campaign during the Presidential primaries.



The ad is aimed mostly at Arnold Schwarzenegger, who mandated cuts to home health care worker pay, and got the federal government to sign off on them without impacting the flow of stimulus dollars. Basically, Schwarzenegger used the technicality that counties would not be responsible for backfilling worker pay, and therefore burdened with dealing with state cuts, because they always have the option of just cutting the workers completely. It's just another example of the Governor thinking that the message of "the people" is to place the entire burden of the budget deficit on the backs of the most vulnerable members of society.

But a new print ad running in today's LA Times actually addresses Obama directly over the issue.

Dear Mr. President,

I am Pauline Beck — the California home care worker you spent a day on the job with in August 2007. You helped me provide care to Mr. John Thornton, an 86-year old man in a wheelchair who is able to stay in his home because of the care I provide.

I know you are very busy, but Mr. John and I, and my fellow home care workers and their clients, need your help.

You see, Governor Schwarzenegger wants to cut my pay back to $8 an hour. These are tough times, but if my pay gets cut to minimum wage I won’t be able to support my family. It’s just wrong to pay us so little for taking care of people who have given our communities and our country so much…

I know you are a good man and I am proud of the job you are doing. I hope you and the Governor can work together to help Mr. John, me and the 750,000 of Californians just like us. It would make such a difference in our lives. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Pauline Beck

SEIU is right to personalize this crisis and take on the Governor and the political leadership. The President ought to know about how California is seeking to reverse his stimulus package by slashing the salaries and services of those most able to contribute quickly to the economy, forestalling recovery.

Obama Did Her Job, Now He Watches Silent As Arnold Cuts Her Pay

Commenter seanp mentioned this in my Calitics diary about the Obama Administration waiver for the Governor to cut In-Home Support Services salaries for health care workers:

When Obama was running as a Presidential candidate in 2007 he spent a few hours working with a home health care worker in Alameda, 61 year old Pauline Beck. Remember, this woman had a union contract:

While Beck's life - struggling to make ends meet with two jobs and regular visits to the food bank - couldn't be more different than the 46-year-old Democratic presidential candidate's, she came away feeling "he just cares about people. ... He wanted to know about me, yes, he did. He really wanted to feel what I did."

I wonder how Pauline Beck feels about the Obama administration helping cut her wage from $12.10 an hour to $10.10 an hour. I guess she can get a third job.

Actually, according to Andy Stern, Pauline and IHSS workers like her will get cut back to $8 an hour. Several bigger bloggers and national groups are picking up on this story today. As Greg Sargent notes, Pauline Beck even spoke at the 2008 DNC. There's video of the then-candidate's visit with Pauline Beck.



Sargent confirms with SEIU that Beck would be hit by this reduction in wages, just two years after Barack Obama walked a day in her shoes. The Administration could have used the power of the purse - and the threat of pulling stimulus money away from California - to get the Governor to back off on these wage reductions. Instead, they acquiesced, and Pauline Beck, Obama's former work buddy, will pay the price.



Brian Beutler of TPMDC has more on this, and Andy Stern has sent a message to his supporters asking them to call the Governor and stop the cuts, although the President is implicated in his message as well.

Two years ago, President Barack Obama walked a day in the shoes of SEIU home care worker Pauline Beck.

Today, Pauline and home care workers across California face pay cuts of up to 33% -- from $12.10 an hour down to $8.

Governor Schwarzenegger's belief that solving the state's fiscal problems on the backs of those who take care of the most fragile among us is an absolute disgrace.

Please call the Governor's office and tell him you strongly disagree with his misguided priorities:

916-445-2841

Earlier this week, Californians sent a clear message of no confidence in Governor Schwarzenegger -- soundly rejecting his proposed budget reforms.

He proposed four ballot initiatives, and all four went down to overwhelming defeats.

The L.A. Times noted that some are beginning to write his "political obituary."

It's no wonder why.

Stern intimates that he will "file a challenge" against the Govenror's decision. Maybe Schwarzenegger needs to walk a day in the shoes of these home health care workers- oh, wait, that didn't work either.

Governor Only Successful Among Administration Bureaucrats

Arnold Twitters in that he got "permission" to enact the budget cuts on home health care workers and still qualify for all federal stimulus money in the health care sector. Cap Weekly has more.

The state of California has received permission from the federal government to cut wages of home healthcare workers without fear of losing federal stimulus dollars.

The ruling comes as a victory for the Schwarzenegger administration, and a defeat for the Service Employees International Union which had sought federal intervention to stop the cuts.

Cuts in home healthcare worker pay were part of the budget solution passed by Gov. Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders in February. As part of his May budget revision, Schwarzenegger has proposed further cuts for in-home support workers. The Legislature cut IHSS worker pay by $2 per hour, lowering wages from $12.10 to $10.10 per hour. The cuts saved the state an estimated $74 million.

It's important to note that, while these cuts suck and will really hurt IHSS workers, they are relatively minor compared to the cuts in health care and education Schwarzenegger wants to enact, while still qualifying for stimulus money. So the Administration can still wield some power here. But obviously this is a bad sign. The Governor should not be allowed to essentially reverse the effect of the stimulus on his own. In fact, he ought to just resign.


...Arnold takes the flawed message from the election that it was a tax revolt.

Schwarzenegger said he received the voters' message "loud and clear: an overwhelming majority of people told Sacramento, 'Go and do your work yourself, don't come to us with your problems...."

"The message was clear from the people, go all out and make those cuts and live within your means," he said.

Voters were so worked up, in fact, that they turned out in the lowest numbers in state history, and they voted down the same borrowing gimmicks and spending cuts for successful programs that will now compose the Governor's agenda. Let me suggest that I don't believe in his message-taking ability.

Marc Cooper actually has a decent column on Arnold's total failure.

Health Care Breakthrough?

In what is being pitched as a major announcement, health industry groups are vowing to slow the growth of health care costs over the next decade, to accommodate President Obama's reform strategy.

Reporting from Washington -- Leading health industry groups have agreed to slow the explosive growth of healthcare spending, according to administration officials and others knowledgeable about the agreement.

Hospitals, drug makers and doctors, among others, wrote a letter to President Obama outlining their plan, which estimates $2 trillion in savings over the next decade.

The letter lacks much detail but suggests savings could come from simplified billing, restructuring the way hospitals are paid and using more information technology, among other steps.

Obama plans to promote the letter at a White House event today.

Although the agreement does not outline any industry commitments to accept specific reductions in revenue, it does signal continued engagement by powerful healthcare interests in the Obama administration's effort to overhaul the nation's troubled healthcare system [...]

Signatories include the American Medical Assn.; the American Hospital Assn.; the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America; the Advanced Medical Technology Assn., which represents device makers; America's Health Insurance Plans, which represents insurers; and the Service Employees International Union, which shepherded the agreement.

Specifically, they want to reduce the annual spending growth rate by 1.5 percent, which translates into $2 trillion in the next decade. Like the article says, the letter is thin on specifics, preferring to instead talk about "encouraging coordinated care" and "addressing cost drivers" and "reducing over-use and under-use of health care." Some of the reforms, like prevention and dealing with obesity and health IT, are familiar.

The positive development here, as Krugman writes, is that health insurers and the medical industry want to be part of a solution instead of committing themselves to blocking one. They believe that reform will happen with them or without them, and so they'd rather be around to influence the outcome. Another plus: in addition to agreeing to work with the Administration on reform, they appear to have accepted the basic economic arguments about how to bend the cost curve in health care.

How are costs to be contained? There are few details, but the industry has clearly been reading Peter Orszag, the budget director.

In his previous job, as the director of the Congressional Budget Office, Mr. Orszag argued that America spends far too much on some types of health care with little or no medical benefit, even as it spends too little on other types of care, like prevention and treatment of chronic conditions. Putting these together, he concluded that “substantial opportunities exist to reduce costs without harming health over all.”

Sure enough, the health industry letter talks of “reducing over-use and under-use of health care by aligning quality and efficiency incentives.” It also picks up a related favorite Orszag theme, calling for “adherence to evidence-based best practices and therapies.” All in all, it’s just what the doctor, er, budget director ordered.

However, I think there's also reason to be skeptical. By committing themselves to lowering costs, these industry leaders are essentially committing themselves to lower profits, which is illogical unless they see that as a best-case scenario. AHIP and some of these other groups have every incentive to guard their profits while rejecting reforms that would cut into them too heavily. For instance, cost control could be a bargain in exchange for killing the public option. The lack of detail in the letter should not go unmentioned, either, and the Administration must make mandatory some changes to reduce costs rather than relying on these former enemies of reform to voluntarily reduce. Because "reducing over-use" of health care can mean a lot of things - denying care, for example. Specifics like those in this CAP report on health care modernization could be mandated. The White House had better put all this in writing and ensure that the effort is sustained - voluntary efforts in the past have lasted for only a year or so.

I agree that there's an absolute benefit to this, strictly in the sense of optics. Stakeholders are working toward reform rather than pushing against it. The conservative bullshit artists led by the discredited fraud artists Rick Scott, who are trying to demonize the Obama plan, have no friends this time around. But let's verify these changes instead of accepting the industry offer at face value.

See also this potentially bigger breakthrough in financing for the health care plan, potentially a much bigger deal, because these assumed cost controls still don't get the reform out the door, dedicated revenue sources do. Joe Biden recently said "we believe that the committees will come back to our plan for financing." The Administration became the prime mover on finding revenue, and even if the initial efforts were tossed out, the Finance Committee will need that money eventually, and they'll have an off-the-shelf option to return to.

...just got off a call with HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and she made a few points:

• Everyone understands that the current system is unaffordable, unsustainable, and unacceptable to the American people.
• Health care sits atop the President's domestic agenda.
• Today was not a day for these stakeholders to talk about their specific cost control plans, and legislative specifics have not been addressed either.
• I did appreciate her saying that transforming health care does not equal providing more insurance.
• The stakeholders made a commitment to report back to the President on June 1 with progress on cost containment.

The Blackmailing of SEIU In California

Roger Niello has found a use for the special election - to deny the SEIU a contract they bargained in good faith with the Governor. Enough Yacht Party members joined him to delay the deal.

A local Republican on Monday helped defeat an Assembly bill that must be passed to enshrine the new contract the Schwarzenegger administration signed this year with its largest state workers' union.

Roger Niello, R-Fair Oaks, urged legislators to oppose or abstain from voting on AB 964, saying it was "awfully inappropriate" to vote right now on the agreement with the Service Employees International Union, Local 1000.

Niello said legislators should wait at least until May 19, when Californians vote in a special election on six propositions to shrink the budget gap.

"We should not pre-empt the voters by dealing with this issue today (Monday)," Niello told the Assembly. "It can wait until June or after."

Of course, voters have no say in government labor contracts; they appear nowhere on the May 19 ballot. But Andrew McIntosh explains what's really going on here, something the Sacramento Bee saw fit to put on their website but not in their print edition.

Niello appears to be using Republican clout to offer the governor some leverage - holding out on the contract approval as long as possible so that the SEIU doesn't mount a major attack-ad campaign on propositions he favors, such as 1A.

That proposition would give the governor new power to unilaterally make mid-year cuts in spending to some programs and extend certain tax increases by two years.

That's hardly speculative. Niello voted for the budget and supports the ballot measures that resulted from them. He knows that SEIU has already dropped $500,000 into defeating Prop. 1A, the long-sought spending cap, and has decided to use the leverage of the contract vote to blackmail SEIU into keeping quiet. Even Republicans who don't support the special election have no problem taking time out of their busy day to shit on workers, so they are happy do the Governor's bidding, hoping that, in the aftermath, they can knuckle the union down for more concessions should the measures fail. Which would be absurd - the Governor made a deal, which includes major concessions from the union, separate from the passage or failure of any ballot measure.

No surprise, by the way, that the Bee doesn't go into this level of detail in their print edition - the editorial board basically threatened SEIU in exactly the same way as Niello a week or so ago, arguing that the passage of their contract should be tied to Prop. 1A's passage. And they have the audacity to call out the SEIU for duplicity, while rooting on legislative blackmail because SEIU's parent organization disagrees with the editorial opinion of the Bee on how to best serve the long-term interests of the state. And this shows in them leaving the underlying reasons for legislative deals out of their news articles.

The Good Kind Of Kabuki

This Arlen Specter/Joe Sestak story has evolved rapidly in the past 48 hours. Labor in particular has basically given Specter a choice - support our issues or we'll support somebody else. The famously ornery Snarlin' Arlen will have to decide whether he only responds to right-wing pressure.

On today's "Top Line," Richard Trumka, the secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, warned that union leaders may drop their longstanding support for Specter, D-Pa., if -- as he has promised to do -- he votes against them on their legislative priority, the Employee Free Choice Act.

"Those decisions will be made by people in the state, and our members in the state know who will stand with them. And if Arlen Specter -- he stood with them in the past -- if he continues to stand with them, they'll support him. If he doesn't, they won't support him," Trumka told us.

Sestak echoed this after a meeting with the SEIU's Andy Stern, saying bluntly, "I cannot see the unions across the board supporting Specter if he cannot support EFCA ... [Stern] let it be known that it’s very much on the top of their agenda.” And leading Democrats are hinting to Specter that his ability to stave off a primary challenge will be dictated by his record as a Democrat.

I'm wondering whether at least a little of this is kabuki. Sestak loses nothing from calling out Specter - even if he decides against running, he gains credibility as a Democrat enunciating Democratic principles. And if Specter does end up voting the right way on health care or EFCA, Sestak gets at least some of the credit. And given that Sestak has only grown louder in his criticisms, he certainly hasn't heard from on high - say, from the White House - that he might want to tone it down. It serves their interests to have a credible voice pushing Specter, or a chorus of voices.

Regardless of the theater at play here, Specter cannot exactly take the chance of not listening.

Why Give Up So Much To Arlen Specter?

Democratic vote against the Obama budget Arlen Specter continues to feel the heat from various elements of his new constituency. Lifelong Democrat (as opposed to Democrat for 2 days) Joe Sestak keeps firing warning shots.

"I'll wait and see. Is he gonna be for what we believe in. if it's not good for Pennsylvania, well then we'll make that decision."

And Andy Stern has a much tougher messsage on Specter today than he did on the day of the announcement, essentially saying that they will judge the new Democrat on his policies and not his party.

"We applaud the Senator on showing the political courage we know it took to change parties--and to move to a place we believe is more closely aligned with his personal convictions. But SEIU has always been an organization that supports candidates and elected officials based on their commitment to working families, not their party labels.

The issues that face working people in Pennsylvania have not changed, and the support we need from our representatives in Congress hasn't changed, either.

We know there have been contradictory and confusing reports about what Senator Specter's decision means for the priorities of working families in our state. In a word: our fight for Employee Free Choice and quality, affordable healthcare continues, as strong as ever."

This is of course as it should be. Arlen Specter was never winning re-election as a Republican, and thus had no leverage to negotiate terms with the Democrats. And yet he was given seniority and an implicit protection from primaries, sticking Pennsylvania Democrats with Specter instead of someone who may be a preferred choice. It puzzles to see how much Democrats yielded, unless this is all about passing a health care bill.

When it comes to health care reform, Sen. Arlen Specter may be one of the few (former) Republicans open to negotiation. A co-sponsor of the Wyden-Bennett health bill, Specter has been a strong proponent of reforming the health care system. He supports allowing the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to negotiate Medicare’s prescription drug prices, drug importation and SCHIP expansion.

Specter demanded that the stimulus bill include an additional $10.4 billion for the National Institutes of Health, and has recently proposed establishing a new agency to “award grants to help develop new treatments through biotechnology.”

So what does all of this mean for health care reform and the recent debate over reconciliation? Democrats now have 60 votes (assuming that Al Franken is seated) to pass health care reform and some pundits may argue that reconciliation is no longer necessary. But this view overestimates the unity of the Democratic party. Blue-dog moderates like Sens. Evan Bayh (D-IN) and Ben Nelson (D-NE) are unlikely to support the price tag of comprehensive health care reform ($1.3 trillion over 10 years) or legislation that undermines the monopoly of private insurers. For this reason, reconciliation forces Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats to compromise with the liberal majority, not the other way around.

Specter supported most of those health care priorities as a Republican, and while he has no pressure to uphold a filibuster to win a primary this time around, I agree with Igor Volsky that moderates will still hold health care hostage, and Specter will likely fall in line with them. Reconciliation remains a tool to short-circuit that possibility. And with pressure coming from the left to shape health care reform as much as the center, I don't think Specter's party switch is actually all that impactful. He remains a conservative, and if Pennsylvania voters would rather have a mainstream Democrat, they ought to have that choice.

...I should add that Barack Obama seems to think that Arlen Specter is important to passing health care reform, and he probably knows more about that than I do.

Playing Politics With People's Lives

Well that sure was smart.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) was apparently unwilling to be seen as endorsing such "funny" sounding priorities as flu "preparedness" in an economic recovery package. Perhaps in an attempt to prove her fiscal conservative bona fides, Collins repeatedly insisted that (Rep. David) Obey's pandemic preparedness funding did not belong in the bill:

COLLINS: There's funding to help improve our preparedness for a pandemic flu. There is funding to help improve cyber security. What does that have to do with an economic stimulus package? [CNN, 1/31/09]

COLLINS: I think everybody in the room is concerned about a pandemic flu. But does it belong in this bill? Should we have $870 million in this bill? No. We should not. [MSNBC, 2/5/09]

After the funding was stripped, another moderate Republican attempting to appear tough on "unnecessary" spending in the recovery package, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), endorsed Collins' crusade against the pandemic preparedness funding on Fox News:

MS. KELLY: Okay. $780 million for pandemic flu preparedness, in or out?

SEN. SPECTER: Out. Very important projects, I took the lead along with Tom Harkin on some massive funding for pandemic flu, but it belongs in our regular appropriations bill.

The argument for putting flu preparedness in the stimulus was that an outbreak at a time of economic downturn would be devastating, not to mention the fact that anything that spends money to buy anything is stimulus, and the money is gone for state and local public health for flu pandemics:

Hamburg said there is no more pandemic preparedness money in the pipeline for state and local public health. "The $600 million that was made available in December 2005, in the fiscal year 2006 emergency supplemental bill, the last of those dollars went out the door this past August," he said.

In addition to the cutoff of pandemic flu funding, public health agencies have seen their "all hazards" preparedness funding drop about 25% since 2005, Hamburg said.

TFAH and its partners are advocating for another $350 million specifically for pandemic readiness and additional money for other public health emergencies, he said.

There is likely, especially now, to be additional funding in the FY2010 budget, and maybe even an emergency appropriation. But right now, we have no money in the pipeline for flu pandemics, DURING a possible flu pandemic (I don't want to get too hyperbolic, because the severity remains to be seen).

This outbreak is also occurring at a time when we have no Health and Human Services Secretary, thanks to:

The Service Employees International Union has launched an online petition criticizing Republicans for delaying the confirmation of a Health and Human Services secretary in the face of a swine flu outbreak.

The union accuses Senate Republicans of delaying the confirmation of nominee Kathleen Sebelius to “curry favor with extremist outside groups” and depriving the department of leadership as the nation confronts a potential flu pandemic.

“This is simply unacceptable,” the union says on its website. “This disease is spreading as we speak, but right now, a Bush-appointed accountant is running the department. We need an HHS secretary NOW. Sign the petition telling the Senate to vote immediately to confirm Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. If we don't act, the swine flu might just turn into another Hurricane Katrina.”

To Republicans, governance comes last. Winning a cable news debate comes first. The country suffers.

Sign the petition.

SEIU Money Drops Into No on 1A

The SEIU donated $500,000 to the No on 1A campaign, the first truly major expenditure by any group against the ballot measures on May 19. The No on 1A campaign now hold about $1 million in their bank account. While this is dwarfed by the money dumped into the Yes campaign by, among other groups, the CTA, billionaires like Jerry Perenchio, and Chevron, given the attitudes of the electorate even a little money on the No side could be enough to stop the onslaught and tip these measures. Politicos understand this fairly well:

"It just got a lot harder," said Dan Schnur, director of the University of Southern California's Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics and a former Republican strategist.

"The biggest advantage the proponents have had all along is the lack of a well-funded opposition," Schnur said. "Historically, you don't need to outspend ballot measures to beat them, and in a low-turnout election this is a decent amount of money." [...]

"Right now there's a tremendous tendency to reject anything out of Sacramento," said Republican strategist Dave Gilliard.

Good for the SacBee, by the way, for pointing out that Prop. 1A "has a long-term impact and would not directly alter the budget until 2011."

I've been speaking at a lot of grassroots Democratic groups against these measures, purely on the public policy merits, and the overriding sentiment I'm seeing out there lines up with what Dave Gilliard says there. The disconnect between the establishment and the grassroots is truly striking. People don't feel like their concerns have been met, either this year or for the last thirty, really. They see another layer of budget dysfunction forced upon the voters that fails to get at the structural problems. And now, they're starting to see their voices manifested with action, as well as the mother's milk of California politics, money.

SEIU, Other Top Unions Oppose Prop. 1A

I touched on this in Quick Hits, but Kevin Yamamura has now followed up. The SEIU state council, representing 700,000 workers in the state, has teamed with two other unions to oppose Prop. 1A.

Service Employees International Union's California State Council, which says it represents 700,000 workers, has teamed up with the California Faculty Association and the California Federation of Teachers to form a committee opposing Proposition 1A. The ballot measure would limit state spending in good fiscal years, diverting money to a "rainy-day fund." But it also would extend $16 billion worth of temporary tax increases on sales, income and vehicles to 2013.

"Prop 1A won't be able to do what its supporters claim," said Marty Hittleman, president of the California Federation of Teachers, in a statement. "This constitutional amendment, supported by the governor and legislators was developed with no public scrutiny and won't stop the budget chaos. Once voters read this proposal with their own eyes, they will see that it is flawed and overly complicated, and will give extraordinary new and unrestricted power to the governor and his political appointees, with no checks and balances."

The response from Budget Reform Now, the Governor's ad hoc group supporting the measures, is unintentionally hilarious, because it frames once again with the same tired doomsaying rhetoric:

"This is disappointing since those who we hurt the most should Propositions 1A thru 1F not pass will be teachers, schools and the hard-working families of SEIU," said Julie Soderlund, spokeswoman for Budget Reform Now, proponents of the six budget-related ballot measures. "During these tough economic times, it is unfair to do anything that will likely cost many people their jobs."

Way to advocate for your position, guys.

Deeply Unpopular Legislature Stumps For Their Unpopular Budget

The latest poll numbers for the Governor and the legislature are pitiful, although clearly the electorate has hit Schwarzenegger more over the recent budget crisis.

Overall, just 33% of California adults give Schwarzenegger a positive job rating, barely above the record low of 32% that he hit in 2005 after pushing a package of failed ballot measures in a special election. As recently as January, Schwarzenegger's favorable job rating was at 40%.

Faring worse is the state Legislature: Its 21% approval rating matches the record low it set in several previous polls.

There are a number of other questions in the poll regarding the right to choose and birth control, which you can see here (Short version: Californians still support the right to choose, though parental notification gets narrow support. I would imagine that how the question is asked accounts for that, although this will probably give hope to the forces that have lost parental notification on the ballot three times in a row to try yet again).

What I want to focus on for the moment is those appalling numbers for our political leaders. Given that, as well as the public tendency to vote down ballot initiatives, you'd think the last thing they'd want to do is put the public faces of lawmakers on the budget items in the May 19 special election. You'd be wrong.

Gov. Arnold Schwarznegger, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and ex-Senate leader Dave Cogdill will join hands today for the first campaign event before the upcoming budget special election.

The trio -- alongside other advocates for the package -- will host a press conference this afternoon at a Sacramento-area child development center.

Now, maybe Darrell Steinberg has some grand design where the limits in the spending cap part of the package can be overcome. Or maybe he's perfectly content with ratcheting down spending and making it impossible to revive it no matter what the economic situation. Whatever the reason, it seems like terrible strategy as well as bad policy.

On the flip side, SEIU editorializes against the spending cap in Capitol Weekly:

One of the most troubling aspects of the budget deal to us is the budget cap, which promises to make the cuts permanent by making it virtually impossible to restore them in better times. For SEIU members that translates into year after year of higher caseloads for social workers who help children endangered by neglect or abuse; ongoing cuts to healthcare for families struggling with unemployment or low-wage work; a future of shrinking support for families who have children with autism or cerebral palsy; ongoing cuts to hundreds of state services from parks to oversight of hospitals and nursing homes, and ongoing cuts to home care, higher education, K-12 schools, and other vital public services.

We know that we are not alone in our concerns. In fact, Californians do not support the inevitable result of a budget cap - each of these cuts is deeply unpopular; yet legislators have already voted for the cap without a single hearing on the cap’s effects, without explaining its effects to their constituents, and without asking for detailed analysis from the Controller, the Treasurer, or independent outside experts.

This is not the way such a serious measure should have been considered or passed. It reflects poorly on the Legislature as a deliberative and transparent body.

With the Governor trying to get in on the Constitutional convention, and offering a vision of reform that trades majority vote for the spending cap, essentially one horrible outcome for another, it's beyond clear that, if the spending cap passes, it will be locked in for a very long time no matter what other reforms are undertaken, and with a baseline spending level "established during one of the, if not the, worst budget crisis in the state’s history," as the author writes. This would cripple the state in a fundamental way.

Labor Finally Goes To The Mattresses For Solis

After waiting and waiting, labor groups are finally demanding that Hilda Solis be confirmed as the Secretary of Labor. Andy Stern of the SEIU made a short video:



Their action page has a petition.

And this is just the beginning:

"Enough is enough, the gloves are coming off on Friday," said one official with the AFL-CIO, outraged over the delays. "Labor, women's groups, Hispanic groups are opening fire. We worked with Republicans in good faith. Hilda Solis has answered all their questions but they continue to oppose her for partisan ideological reasons."

With Solis's nomination stalled again on Thursday after revelations that her husband had just settled $6,400 in tax leins against his business, unions are no longer willing to hold their breath for the sake of fewer dramatics.

"Our full efforts are being mobilized to fight back," the union official said. "Earned media and field campaign to generate calls, letters, and emails coming tomorrow. Depending on how things move paid media will be added on top of these efforts."

Good to see. Progressive groups like MoveOn should get Hilda's back, too.

UPDATE: Our old friend Hans von Spakovsky, vote suppressor extraordinaire, is writing anti-Solis screeds in places like The Weekly Standard.

UPDATE II: MoveOn jumps in with a letter to the editor tool.

Defining The Problem

Too often Democrats let Republicans define the debate, even during this era of epic conservative decline. In the traditional media, the debate over the Employee Free Choice Act has consistently been about whether or not unions want to "eliminate the right to a secret ballot election" for workers.

Now of course, this isn't true. In fact, even under EFCA, if 30% of the workforce calls for a vote, they get a vote. But this is not the real problem in labor-management relations. That argument is about the implications of EFCA passing. In fact, the current circumstances of labor elections is the problem that needs to be solved by EFCA. I finally found the best and most coherent argument around that at the AFL-CIO site (h/t Ezra). The truth is that the system for labor elections, the vaunted "secret ballot," is broken.

Today, CEOs get contracts that protect their wages and benefits. But some deny their employees the same opportunity. Although U.S. and international laws are supposed to protect workers' freedom to belong to unions, employers routinely harass, intimidate, coerce and even fire workers struggling to gain a union so they can bargain for better lives. And U.S. labor law is powerless to stop them. Employees are on an uneven playing field from the first moment they begin exploring whether they want to form a union, and the will of the majority often is crushed by brutal management tactics.

Cornell University scholar Kate Bronfenbrenner studied hundreds of organizing campaigns and found that:

Ninety-two percent of private-sector employers, when faced with employees who want to join together in a union, force employees to attend closed-door meetings to hear anti-union propaganda; 80 percent require supervisors to attend training sessions on attacking unions; and 78 percent require that supervisors deliver anti-union messages to workers they oversee.

Seventy-five percent hire outside consultants to run anti-union campaigns, often based on mass psychology and distorting the law.

Half of employers threaten to shut down partially or totally if employees join together in a union.

In 25 percent of organizing campaigns, private-sector employers illegally fire workers because they want to form a union.
Even after workers successfully form a union, in one-third of the instances, employers do not negotiate a contract.

If labor elections were legitimate, there wouldn't be the need for legislation. Instead, think of it as your "secret ballot" Presidential election marred by: mandatory pro-McCain training sessions held across the country, mandatory meetings where "Obama is a Muslim" propaganda is foregrounded, threats to take away your job if you vote for Obama, and threats to close your workplace entirely if Obama wins. There is nothing democratic about these one-sided farces characterized by intimidation and harassment. That's why we need a new system for determining whether workers want to collectively bargain, and majority signup is simply the best practice out there.

This week, hundreds of volunteers with SEIU fanned out to McDonald's restaurants across the country and asked them if they were comfortable with their CEO making 770 times what they make, while they oppose common sense steps to join unions for their workers. As a result, the company backed off its opposition!

After more than 500 activists visited nearly 100 McDonald’s locations nation wide to talk with workers and consumers about McDonald’s opposition to Employee Free Choice, the company released a statement saying their reported position against the bill was a “misrepresentation” and that they “try not to take sides in political issues.” [...]

This victory is a great start for our campaign to restore the middle class and protect workers’ rights to speak out for better wages and benefits. Standing together, we can make Employee Free Choice a reality!

The Employee Free Choice Act does not restrict workers' rights, it affirms them. We must make it a reality in 2009.

Small Victory

It looks like the workers who have occupied the building at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago may get what has been promised to them.

The creditor of a Chicago plant where laid-off employees are conducting a sit-in to demand severance pay said Tuesday it would extend limited loans to the factory so it could resolve the dispute, but the workers declared their protest unfinished.

The Republic Windows and Doors factory closed last week after Bank of America canceled its financing. About 200 laid-off workers responded by staging a sit-in at the plant, vowing to stay until getting assurances they would receive severance and accrued vacation pay [...]

Leah Fried, a spokeswoman for the union representing the workers, said Tuesday that it was too soon to know whether the sit-in will be called off. She said that workers would have to vote to end the action but that negotiations among the bank, the company and union representative continued.

I say "small victory" because it's not like the workers will have a job to go back to, and because this is the first of what are likely to be many strikes and worker actions as a consequence of the deep recession we're trapped in.

Still, the labor movement can be proud of their work on this. Now it's time to get that kind of representation at the banks:

(CNN) -- The powerful Service Employees International Union has decided that, because of the $700 billion financial-system bailout, it wants to organize bank workers.

Banks that get taxpayer money need to "ensure their workers have a voice," a union spokeswoman says [...]

"We believe there is special responsibility for companies who receive taxpayer dollars to ensure their workers have a voice on the job," SEIU's Lynda Tran said. "And those workers should have a seat at the table at the companies where decisions that impact the future of their families and the companies that employ them" are made.

"We are talking to workers really broadly in banking," she said.

Of course, Bank of America, the company that denied financing to Republic Windows and Doors, took billions in bailout money.

Nothing New From California's Yacht Party

On the first day of the legislative session there was an irrational burst of optimism that the roadblocks put forward by the Yacht Party on the budget and taxation would somehow be hurdled. It's true that Democrats have three more seats in the Assembly (though currently one less in the Senate, pending the filling of Mark Ridley-Thomas' vacant seat), lowering the amount of Yacht Party members they'd have to bring aboard for any solution. But the idea that these new Republicans represent any kind of fresh thinking or newfound moderation is a fantasy.

Though Democrats picked up an aggregate of three seats in the Assembly, Niello said, they still need at least three Republicans to cross over and vote for any legislation that requires a two-thirds vote, such as a state budget.

Because the GOP caucus is united around opposition to any new taxes and wanting to see reforms such as a state spending cap and improving the state's regulatory environment on businesses, Niello said, Democrats will have to give to get any of those crossover votes.

"We're still solid, still firm on the things that are priorities," Niello said.

Newly sworn-in Assemblyman Dan Logue (R-Linda) sounded a similar note.

"We've got to create wealth, and we've got to grow our way out of trouble, not tax our way out of trouble," Logue said. "Raising taxes will drive more jobs to Nevada."

Some of this could be bravado, and there are a couple legislators who were in close races - Steve Knight in AD-36, Bill Berryhill in AD-36, Tony Strickland in SD-19 - who would, in theory, do well to part ways with ideology and compromise to enhance their chances in the next election. But this would contradict the Iron Law of Institutions - "the people who control institutions care first and foremost about their power within the institution rather than the power of the institution itself." Republicans who give in on the budget will be primaried and feel far more fear from that internal challenge than from the opposition.

The only way to counteract this is to make the challenge from without more vital than the challenge from within, and to make the power inside the institution line up with the power of the institution. It means getting 2/3 and making anyone who rejects the will of the people pay. SEIU has the right idea with their new ad campaign about the budget, playing off of Obama's popularity in the state, and John Burton's curt response to Yacht Party efforts to roll back labor and environmental regulations as payment for a budget solution - "The Republicans are full of crap" - ought to be said a bit more often, maybe in less colorful language, to make clear who is causing this crisis.

I'm not sure any of it will be enough, though. The Yacht Party is still the Yacht Party.