We the People Lost; They the Corporations Won

The election results are in and I am very disappointed.  Not in who won and who lost, but in how few bothered to even vote.  Those who didn’t vote gave the election away to those who were determined to vote.  And many of those who didn’t vote, if they had voted, might have flipped the results the other way.  This is probably true of both those who normally favor Democrats and of those who normally favor Republicans.

Too many claim they don’t like to choose the lesser of two evils.  Well, guess what?  If you don’t choose the lesser of two evils you might get the “worser” of two evils.

Many in Duluth are proud that they had one of the highest turnouts in the country at a bit less than 60 percent.  I think it is not something to be proud of because a bit more than 40 percent of registered voters didn’t even bother to show up.

Who makes up these no-shows?  Are they people that don’t even care about politics?  Are they people who have other priorities, like Dick Cheney?  Are they people who don’t think their vote counts?  Are they people who don’t think their candidates have a chance?  To those who think their vote doesn’t count – of course it doesn’t, you didn’t cast it.  To those who think their candidates don’t have a chance – of course they don’t have a chance, you didn’t vote for them.

I hope that those who did win have a bit of humility by realizing that most registered voters didn’t support them.  Most registered voters didn’t support them?  Well if 40 percent didn’t show up and a candidate received 60 percent of the vote of those who did, then only 36 percent of the registered voters supported them.  Hey, that’s a lot better than Ronald Reagan’s “landslide” with the support of less than 30 percent of the registered voters.

Let’s look at two races familiar to many in Duluth – 8th District for the U.S. House and 7A for the Minnesota House.

Let’s take the closer race first - 8th District with Stewart Mills, Rick Nolan, and Skip Sandman.  Only 266,081 of the 389,425 registered voters showed up.  Less than four thousand votes separated Mills and Nolan.  Nolan had a plurality of 48.51 percent vs. Mills’ 47.11 percent.  Nolan did not win a majority of the votes cast.  But if we look at the candidates’ support among registered voters, the support is even less.  Nolan received the support of about 33 percent of the registered voters and Mills was close behind with a bit more than 32 percent of the voters.

Next let’s look at the more lop-sided race – District 7A with Becky Hall, Jennifer Schultz, and Kris Osbakken.  Less than 16 thousand of the over 23 thousand registered voters showed up.  Schultz had 62.1 percent vs. Hall’s 33.3 percent.  But Schultz did not have the votes of a majority of registered voters; less than 41 percent of the registered voters cast a vote for her.

You can find the data I used at on the Minnesota Secretary of State’s pages at http://electionresults.sos.state.mn.us/ENR/Home/20.

I didn’t go through all the Minnesota races, but I think you’ll find this lack of majority support in most, if not all races, in Minnesota and throughout the country.  For example, Sen. Al Franken may have had a clear majority of the votes cast, but he received the support of less than a third of the registered voters.

It is easy to blame corporate interests for the big gains by the Republicans across the country, especially when the New York Times has headlines like “Business Leaders Cautiously Expect G.O.P. Win to Open Some Doors” (2014-11-05).  Given the statements by some Republicans, one could expect a floodgate of legislation that favors corporations over the environment and public health.  It is easy to blame the Supreme Court for letting corporations have all the rights of people that led to huge amounts of money spent on attack ads.  It is easy to blame the Koch brothers for manipulating legislation and public opinion to their benefit.

It is hard to remember that this has been going on in politics for over two centuries. 

Newspapers in the early Nineteenth century often were libelous in their attacks on politicians they didn’t favor.  Corporations lobbied for their pet projects.  Remember “Honest Abe” was a railroad lawyer and, as President, even called for doubling the subsidy for building a transcontinental railroad, a corporate give-away if there ever was one.

For over 100 years the turnout of the voting age population has been “dismal” in presidential elections.  The high was 73.2 percent in 1900, the low was 48.9 percent in 1924, and average since 1900 have been 57.0 percent.  Interestingly, Bush I and Bush II had 50.3 percent turnout, Bush II did better in his second election with 55.7 percent turnout.  Then Obama did better and better: 57.1 percent and 59.3 percent turnout.  Hope does increase turnout.

Will the turnout continue to climb in 2016?  It depends on you.

Mel voted and hopes you did, too.

This article was published in the Reader Weekly, 2014-11-13 and can be found at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2014/11/13/4345_we_the_people_lost_they_the_corporations_won.

Corporations: sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander

"But now critics are pushing back [at proxy advisers], accusing the firms themselves of conflicts of interest and secrecy. Corporations are aiming to limit what they see as inappropriate influence."
– "Proxy advisers face challenge from corporate critics", Jim Spencer, Star Tribune, 2013-11-30.

Proxy advisers are firms that advise large institutional shareholders about voting for or against the management and boards of corporations.

I think the irony of this push back is that the large corporations don't consider being members of ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) or any of their own lobbying efforts or political contributions as "inappropriate influence" on "the government of the people, by the people, and for the people".

Different rules for private and public pensions (and organizations too)

I recently received the annual funding notice of a company pension plan, a large company I worked at for almost twenty years.  Among other things, a new federal law allows companies to use more favorable interest rate calculations, thus having a smaller projected funding shortfall and a smaller minimum required contribution to the pension fund.

This is called the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act ("MAP-21").  To me it looks like progress for corporate bottom lines and regress for retirees' pension security.

For example, my former employer would have a funding shortfall under the older law of $1.3 billion.  Under the new law the shortfall would be $0.6 billion, less than half.  The required minimum contribution would have been $152 million.  Now it is $56 million, almost two-thirds less!

On the other hand Congress has really socked it to the Postal Service.  Search for

"post office" pensions

One I read was "Background on the $15.9 Billion Loss by the Postal Service".  Be sure to read the comments.

The Postal Service was required to significantly increase its reserves in its pension fund.  The Postal Service may only put those reserves in government securities, which pay significantly less than the securities corporations may use for their pension fund.

In short, the best Congress money can buy gave its supporters a big break on pension funds and threw stones at its favorite scapegoat.

One of the commenters to "Background" pointed out that the Postal Service is a Constitutionally-mandated organization.  I would add that the Constitution doesn't even mention private corporations.

A progressive SuperPac?

Today we got a flyer "Take Down the Tea Party Ten: Credo Mobile fights Tea Party.  Does your phone company fund them?"

Credo has all kinds of teasers with 40% off for a year and contract buyout credit.

I visited www.credomobile.com/teaparty.  I found that Credo uses the Sprint network and has the usual rates.  I also found in the fine print "Brought to you by Working Assets".  If I remember correctly, Working Assets is a "socially responsible" investment company.

The big question is are your subscriber costs used for political contributions.  Or as a member of the network will you receive numerous appeals for donations?

If you are curious about this, I'll let you follow the links.  As for me, I'll stick with Verizon Wireless until such time as I think I can afford an iPhone with Sprint Virgin.  Big cost for the iPhone, really low cost for voice and data.

Illegal political contributions from multi-national corporations?

This little note was inspired by "Corporations can't pledge allegiance", Frances Moore Lappe, Huffington Post, 2012-08-16.

The Supreme Court "issued an order upholding prohibitions against foreigners making contributions to influence American elections", "Supreme Court Retains Ban on Foreign Campaign Donations", John H. Cushman Jr., New York Times, 2012-01-09.

This decision was against two individuals who were working temporarily in the United States.  Foreign nationals may not make contributions to candidates or parties and may not make independent expenditures in elections.

If corporations are people, then shouldn't this same ruling apply to many large corporations.  Corporations also have foreign nationals on their boards.  For example, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, Chairman of the Board of Nestlé, a Swiss corporation, sits on the board of Exxon.

In 2011 Exxon gave $226,700 to candidates and caucuses and its employee/retiree PAC gave more than $747,000.  See http://www.exxonmobil.com/Corporate/about_issues_political.aspx.  Before "liberals" get too smug, Exxon donated $117,946 to Obama's 2008 campaign and a lesser amount to McCain.  I guess they believed in equal bribery, er, covering all the bases.  See "Exxon, Chevron, BP Greased Obama's Campaign", Paul Bedard and Danielle Kurtzleben, US News, 2011-03-14.

So, if the Chairman of Nestlé, an Austrian citizen, is on the board of Exxon, wouldn't he have some say in how Exxon makes its political contributions?  If so, isn't that a foreigner "making contributions to influence American elections"?

Foreign money in U.S. politics? Wait a minute!

John McCain has claimed that foreign money is slipping into the presidential campaign, mainly through Sheldon Adelson's SuperPAC.  McCain's argument is that Adelson owns three casinos in Macau and that profits from these casinos are going into his SuperPAC.  See "McCain says foreign money influencing US elections, sneaking in through SuperPACs", Associated Press, 2012-06-15.

Let's see, if I owned thousands of shares of Nokia, the Finnish cell phone maker, and thousands of shares of CTRIP, the Chinese online travel company (don't I wish), and donated to a campaign the equivalent of the dividends from these companies (if they were paying dividends), would that be Finnish or Chinese money influencing the campaign?  I don't think so.

Since Adelson's SuperPAC promotes Romney and attacks Obama, I would doubt that the Chinese government is telling Adelson where his Macau profits should go.  After all, Romney wants to have the "strongest defense" in the world.  Is it in the interest of the Chinese government to enter into an escalating arms race?  Maybe the interest of the Chinese military.  But does the Chinese military have that much control that it can direct where the profits of a foreign country go?

No, I think it is just a question of the absurdity of the "Citizens United" decision, which McCain doesn't like, and of the wish of Sheldon Adelson to defeat President Obama.

Maybe we should just call Sheldon Adelson the drunken sailor of politics.

Lack of transparency of corporate political donations

A mutual fund recently asked its clients to petition the Securities and Exchange Commission for transparency in political contributions.  The fund included a website to do so.  The suggested message was long-winded and so I wrote my own very brief statement:

If corporations do not have the right to vote, then why do they have the right to contribute to political campaigns?

If corporations claim it is their right in a democracy, then why do they only present a single slate of candidates for their boards, pre-selected by who else but the current board?

If you haven't received a similar request through a mutual fund, you can send your own comment to chairmanoffice@sec.gov.

Follow the money follow-up

Rather than just blather here about issues, I did act on campaign contributions. Sen. Amy Klobuchar is up for re-election next year, and so I sent following to her campaign.

"I am seriously considering not voting for any candidate who accepts money from organizations and people who accept campaign contributions from those who have no right to vote for that candidate. The situation for Cravaack is pretty bad, see Coffee Party's call-in "Who's your Daddy?" The FEC does not provide as much details for Senators, but I'm disappointed with both of our Senators from Minnesota. See Follow the money - Minnesota's Democratic U. S. Senators."

Follow the money - Minnesota's Democratic U. S. Senators

On 9 November I wrote an analysis of Rep. Chip Cravaacks' contributions, "Coffee Party's call-in 'Who's your Daddy?'". I wrote that I didn't check on Minnesota's Democratic Senators, Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken. As I'm not too pleased with the contributions to any candidates, I finally found a round tuit to look at Klobuchar's and Franken's contributions.

It's not as easy as looking at Cravaack's. The Senate does not provide the nice summary that the House of Representatives does. Essentially, the only detail is in the scanned copies of the reports that the Senators have to provide. And Open Secrets http://www.opensecrets.org doesn't provide as much detail for the Senate as the FEC does for the House of Representatives. I limited my review to the top 20 contributions from industries.

For Klobuchar this is at http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/industries.php?cycle=2012&cid=N00027500&type=I.

The top industry was lawyers and law firms. Both PACs and individuals gave $754,054 of her $4,056542 contributions from the top 20 industries, or 18.59%. Labor unions are broken down into five types; the total of all five types was $399,549 or 9.85%. Next was "retired" with only individual contributions of $317,000 or 7.82%. Lobbyists were fourth with $229,455 or 5.65%. The remaining groups were five percent or less. My thought is to let her have the votes of these contributors in 2012, if they can vote, and to carefully consider the alternatives to the major parties, including voting for Wright In.

For Franken this data is at http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/industries.php?cycle=2012&cid=N00029016&type=I.

The top industry is again lawyers and law firms, and it is probably followed by unions and retired. I've been searching and writing on this long enough for today. I will jump back to Franken's top contributors. The top four are Time Warner, General Electric, University of Minnesota and Moveon.org. It is kind of hard to know what this means as these are mostly individual contributions; the contribution of a web designer at Time Warner would be considered in this total. Is that web designer in New York or Minneapolis. From the data available on OpenSecrets, I wouldn't know.

What I was looking for is how much Franken may be getting from the medical device industry, given that he has proposed legislation to speed up approval of devices. The first directly health-related company was United Health ranked 37 with $18,150 from individual contributors. However, my thought is the same as for Klobuchar, let him have the votes of these contributors in 2014, if they can vote.

Campaign contributions

On the Facebook page of the Coffee Party was an item "Ask every candidate running for office: who are your corporate sponsors?"

When I looked at the item 1,076 people liked the item and 113 commented. One of the comments was where do you find this as public information. Open Secrets is one web site that tracks this information from the Federal Elections Commission.

For example, Pres. Obama's campaign has raised over $89 million and 71% is from individual contributors. His one associated outside group is the Super PAC Priorities USA Action. The biggest contributor to that is Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of Dreamworks Animation, at two million, the next two are at $500,000 each, and then the others' contributions diminish quickly to $500, one of these being an executive of Solyndra.

On the other hand, Ron Paul has raised less than $13 million with 96% from individual contributors. He has two outside groups associated with his campaign: The Super PAC Revolution PAC and Nevadans for Liberty. The latter has spent $1,553 campaigning against Democrats. According to the former's website, it has raised over $125,000 and boldly states "No contribution limits!"

I think I may look a bit more into Americans Elect.   I do have to check on their financing:) And if that doesn't work, I can always vote for Wright In. But who should his running mate be?

Why is nuclear energy so popular among some politicians?

Because it is anti-free market.

Anti-free market?  How can that be?  We have legislatures dominated by free-market proponents.

How many large companies stand to benefit from nuclear power?  You don't need to use more than one hand to count them.

How many medium and small companies benefit from wind and solar?  Lots and lots.

A free market has many buyers and many sellers.  If you have a few sellers, the market is not so free.

It is the interest of ever-larger corporations to become even larger.  Larger corporations give larger donations.

Nuclear power companies probably have given some very large political donations.

Can the wind energy market give such large donations?

Now you know why the push for nuclear energy.

Coffee Party Yard Sign Contest

The Coffee Party is having a yard sign contest "To make us laugh and save America".  See http://www.coffeepartyusa.com/yardsigns.

My own lame offerings really can't compete with

THIS SIGN
COST MORE THAN
BANK OF AMERICA
PAID IN TAXES
LAST YEAR.

and

Keep your corporate hands off my governor!

Mine were inspired by the fact that in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and many other states the number of eligible voters who did not vote was greater than the number of voters who voted for the "winners".

Of course your vote didn't count!
You didn't cast it!
Now look where you got us!

Stop minority government!
VOTE!

Third party candidates aren't the spoilers!
No-show voters are the spoilers!

Whatever you think of the candidates, do not stay home on election day!

I posted the following, including the above title, on a U.S. News and World Report article republished by Yahoo!Finance, "How Republicans, Too, Can Botch the Economy", Rick Newman, 2010-10-19, http://finance.yahoo.com/news/How-Republicans-Too-Can-Botch-usnews-4118282348.html.  I don't know if it will be published.

If you are certain of your choices on November 2, be sure to go to the polls and vote for your choices, even if your choices are down in the polls.  The polls don't vote; you do.  Remember the Dewey "won" in 1948 while Truman slept.  The polls didn't consider that many Truman supporters didn't have telephones.  What false assumptions are the polls making now?

If you are uncertain of your choices on November 2, be sure to go to the polls and turn in a vote.

Here are some guidelines for the uncertain.

What kind of message are the candidates giving?  If they are more negative about their opponents than positive about themselves, vote for the opponent.

Who is financing the candidates?  If large sums are coming from out-of-state to candidates, vote for the candidates who are getting the least from out-of-state.  I wish I could say that a few candidates refuse to accept contributions from those who have no right to vote for them, but I haven't heard of any.

If a candidate is putting large amounts of his or her own money in the campaign, consider voting for the opponent.  Do you want the best candidates money can buy or the best candidates?

If some mysterious organization is putting out ads criticizing a candidate, consider voting for the opponent.  Where is the money for the ads coming from?  Do those who provide that money have any right to vote in that election?  Again, do we want the best candidates money can buy or do we want the best candidates?

If none of these suggestions provide any satisfaction and if you don't really care for any of the candidates, you still have two choices.  You can write somebody in, but that makes a lot of work for the election judges.  You can always leave any or all of the choices on the ballot blank.

People do this all the time.  How many people cast ballots for each judge position or for the commissioner of whatsit?  What's wrong with leaving a blank ballot for governor, representative, senator, or even President?

If you don't show, your choice is NOT counted.  If you show and leave a blank ballot your choice is OFFICIALLY counted.

If those of you who don't like any of the choices on the ballot cast blank ballots, consider that a candidate coming in second to "none of the above" will not have a "mandate".  That candidate might more carefully consider how he or she governs.

Just think, "Ronald Reagan won in a landslide in 1984 but he won with a low turnout.  In fact, only 27% of the eligible voters cast their votes for Reagan.  What if the 47% who didn't vote had showed up and cast blank ballots, would there have been a Reagan Revolution?"  - "Voting is not a horse race", http://www.cpinternet.com/~mdmagree.voting_2000-10-26.htm.

If Republicans are for the people, then why…

Are they opposed to a consumer protection agency?  Aren't consumers people and people consumers?

Could it be that Republicans are really for corporations and the people be damned except for their votes?  Come on, Mel, isn't that a bit cynical?  Oh, wait, corporations are now people with the right to make political contributions.  Of course, let's follow the money.

Do we have a democracy or a plutocracy? Follow the money!

It has long bothered me that the Republican Party has morphed from a "big-tent party" to a "lock-step party".  Instead of being a party that discusses ideas to reach some consensus that fits the party's ideals, the Republican Party has become a party of the checklist.  If you don't agree with each and every item on the checklist, then you are a RINO, Republican In Name Only.

A party with a definite agenda that gets many people to agree with it has an advantage of a party that has a wide range of opinions.  Not every Democrat gets up in arms to save the whales or feels that the world will end if gay marriage is not legalized.  But, because these "wafflers" belong to a party who has a large number of people who support these issues, they have more difficulty defending themselves against a party in lockstep.

It has also bothered me how quickly items can be added to the checklist.  This is not a hallmark of a grassroots movement.  A grassroots movement, at least in a democracy, would be discussing the issues and forming some consensus about them.  This doesn't happen overnight.

Of course, we do have the Glenn Becks and the Rush Limbaughs who have many of their fans at their beck and call.  But somebody has to have an organization that translates these ideas into action.  Or, maybe somebody has an organization that feeds ideas to Beck and Limbaugh.  That is, maybe Beck and Limbaugh are at some hidden figure's or figures' beck and call.

I was overwhelmed when I read "The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party" by
Frank Rich, New York Times, 2010-08-28.  He wrote about how the Koch brothers of Koch Oil have been founding and funding libertarian groups to promote their laissez-faire ideas.  Not only should we follow the money, we should follow the associations.  Some employees of Koch Oil sit on the boards of these "independent" groups.

When you have ten minutes, I suggest that you read Frank Rich's column.

When you have an hour, I suggest you read one of his references,  "Covert Operations: The Billionaire Brothers Who Are Waging War Against Obama", Jane Mayer, New Yorker,
2010-08-31.

When you have a week or two, I suggest you read one of her references, "Merchants of Doubt", Naomi Oreskes, which "chronicles various attempts by American industry to manipulate public opinion on science".  Hm!  Is "junk science" any science that is contrary to somebody's short term interests.

This all makes me think of Robert Heinlein's "The Puppet Masters", an alien race that attached themselves to the backs of human beings and made them do their will.  In this case we have a plutocracy attaching itself to people's minds making the people believe they are defending democracy.

Am I important or is a third party working harder?

I just had a personal call, not a robo-call, from Dean Barkley, the 2008 Minnesota Independence Party candidate for the U.S. Senate. He was asking for donations to the party.

I told him that I had been thinking about sending email to the party about having gimmicks in its party platform, namely instant run-off voting and unicameral legislature. He said he would pass my thoughts on.

I suggested that a key word to use was "appropriateness"; for example, the question is not that taxes are too high or too low, but are they appropriate for what we as a society need done. He said that he was a believer in infrastructure and that he thinks a bit before driving across a bridge.

What I didn't tell him that I had been the "Party of One" columnist for the Weekly Reader. For years I have sometimes donated to candidates I particularly liked, but I can't remember when I last contributed to a party. Maybe it was 1981 when my term ended as a precinct finance chair for the Republican Party in Plymouth MN. I had wanted John Anderson as the Republican candidate in 1980 and did contribute to his independent campaign. Too bad people threw their votes away voting for the "major" party candidates:)

Who on Wall St. is contributing to Obama's campaign?

Several critics have questioned the sources of contributions to Barack Obama's campaign, one of these criticisms being that many contributions are coming from Wall St. firms.

Contributors to political campaigns are required to give the names of their employers and their occupations. Is anybody breaking down these contributions from Wall St. firms into those from executives and those from others, say janitors, clerks, accountants, and brokers. Consider the following:

More generally, this year's registration tilt is part of a broader shift since 2004 away from Republican affiliation, particularly among younger and Hispanic voters and among college-educated professionals in former GOP strongholds such as New Hampshire, Colorado, and the suburbs of Philadelphia and Northern Virginia.

- "Registration gains favor democrats", Washington Post, 2008-10-06

Could it be that many of the donations from Wall St. are from these young professionals? Could it be that the sum of their donations to Obama exceeds that of their executive bosses?