Democrat Strategy to Take Back the Senate: Attack the Koch Brothers

Written by  Bob Adelmann

Upon learning that the Koch brothers, Charles (shown) and David, and their network of conservative donors, were planning on spending upwards of $750 million over the next two election cycles, Harry Reid, the Senate minority leader and harsh critic of the Kochs, enlisted the help of two hard-left political strategists to respond. David Brock, the founder of Media Matters in 2004 and the super-PAC American Bridge in 2010, joined with Geoff Garin, president of Hart Research Associates, to build a plan for Democrats to take back the Senate in 2016.

Brock investigates strategy via focus groups while Garin digs up dirt on Republican opponents. Combined with lots of money, attack ads then are constructed to sway low-information voters in Democrats' direction.

The task of taking back the Senate in 2016 is manageable for the Democrats: 34 Senate seats are up for reelection and Democrats need only four or five victories to return control to their party. By tying the 24 Republican candidates to the Kochs, Reid, Brock, and Garin are predicting success.

For Reid, it’s personal. He repeatedly excoriated the Koch’s influence on the floor of the Senate, with attacks like this one:

     “We’ve proven in the long run that [the Koch brothers] are interested in one thing: their bottom line. They’re trying to buy the country. They want to be America’s oligarchs.

For Brock and Garin, it’s redemption. Attack ads attempting to tie Republicans to Koch money failed almost completely in 2014, with only one contested seat going to the Democrats while nine others went Republican. But they say that their strategy is long-term, that results from focus groups show the strategy works, and that last year's victory in Michigan proves it.

First, the focus groups. Six of them were held around the country in August, where “swing” voters were exposed to anti-Koch rhetoric for an hour and then asked if any of them had made up their minds about whom them would support next November. The rhetoric included “evidence” that the brothers want to cut Pell grants and reduce environmental regulations. The implication was that the brothers were anti-student and pro-pollution, implying that the Kochs wanted more freedom to pollute the air and water in order to help their bottom line.

By the time the brainwashing sessions were complete, so was the transformation of these swing voters into rabid anti-Koch activists. Some of them, following the sessions, called the brothers “whores,” “bullies,” and “Nazis.” Said one: “They’re rich white guys who want rich white guys to succeed.” Said another: “Anyone who spends that much money to get somebody elected wants something back what that person is elected.”

Senator Heidi Heitkamp, a Democrat senator from North Dakota whose seat isn’t up until 2018, disagreed that the strategy will necessarily work: “When you start making [the Kochs] front and center, you are losing sight of what you need to do. We need to be more mindful of what the message is, not who the messengers are and who’s paying for them.”

Brock and Garin are touting their success in destroying the Republican candidate in the contest for Senator Carl Levin’s seat in Michigan last year. According to Guy Molyneux of Hart Research, their exposure of Terri Lynn Land’s Koch brothers funding did her in, by 14 percentage points, when she lost to now-Senator Gary Peters.

A closer look reveals that the victory was not nearly that simple. First, the race would have been tough for any Republican to win because Republicans haven’t elected a U.S. senator in Michigan in 20 years.

Second, Land was the runt of the Republican litter. After Representatives Dave Camp and Mike Rogers bowed out of the contest, Land was the only one left. Even Republicans admitted they had a weak candidate, one who lacked sufficient public persona or panache to carry the day. In its review of Land’s cratering, Chris Gautz, in Crain’s Detroit Business, wrote:

Poor decisions included the near-invisible nature of Land’s campaign.… [It] rarely, if ever, announced where it would be ahead of time. Land only did a handful of appearances with statewide media, and declined to debate Peters.

The few times she did talk with reporters, her lack of a grasp on national issues was apparent.

The focus groups upon which Reid, Brock, and Garin are relying also show that the strategy might be flawed. In one focus group/brainwashing session that gathered middle-aged Latinos in Las Vegas, some of them said that Democrats were equally guilty of the Koch’s alleged sins, with many of them mentioning one name repeatedly: George Soros. Said a bartender after the session: “The only difference between him [Soros] and them [the Koch brothers] is that they [the brothers] are out there. [Soros] is more of a behind-the-scenes puppet master, like the Wizard of Oz.”

Said another coming up for air after one of the sessions: “They all do it. They’re all going to ask for money from someone, some billionaire. Just like the Koch brothers have all this negative stuff, so do a bunch of other ones.”

Aside from Soros, would some of those “other ones” include John Tyson, chairman of Tyson Foods, who has been helping to fund Hillary Clinton’s campaigns for years? What about David Stevens, the CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association? Or Richard Parsons, former chairman of Citigroup and Time Warner? Or how about Goldman Sachs, which, between 1999 and 2016, has given $711,000 to Clinton? Or JPMorgan Chase, with gifts of $620,000? Or Morgan Stanley, unloading $543,000 into Clinton’s coffers? Or Time Warner — $411,000?

If Reid, Brock, and Garin are relying on these focus group results and electoral “victories” to win the necessary four to five Senate seats in November for the Democrats, it is, as Alex Roarty, writing in the National Journal, expressed it, "a strategy that Democrats will have to repeat several million times over if they want to succeed."

A graduate of an Ivy League school and a former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at www.LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at badelmann@thenewamerican.com .

Democrat Strategy to Take Back the Senate: Attack the Koch Brothers

New Filings Show Koch Brothers Give Millions To Anti-Gay, Anti-Choice Groups | ThinkProgress

 

New Filings Show Koch Brothers Give Millions To Anti-Gay, Anti-Choice Groups

by Josh Israel Nov 18, 2015 9:27am

CREDIT: AP Photo/Paul Vernon

David Koch at an August Americans for Prosperity conference

 

Over the past year, petrochemical billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch have gone to great pains to change their public image and sell themselves as social moderates who “don’t want the federal government in your pocketbook” or “in your bedroom.”

But IRS filings released on Tuesday by Freedom Partners, the Kochs’ secretive tax-exempt organization that serves as the ATM for their anti-government activism, show they also continued to help distribute millions of dollars to anti-choice and anti-gay organizations in 2014.

Last December, ABC’s Barbara Walters interviewed David Koch and noted that he was “not well-liked, primarily because of [his] very conservative politics.” She asked him why a supporter of LGBT equality and abortion rights supports social conservatives. Koch, not disputing her characterization of his own public standing, responded, “Well that’s their problem. I do have those views… I want these candidates to support a balanced budget. I’m very worried that if the budget is not balanced, inflation could occur and the economy of our country could suffer terribly.”

Earlier this year, Politico Magazine suggested Charles Koch might now be labeled a “liberal crusader,” based on his work on criminal justice reform, including a partnership with the Center for American Progress (ThinkProgress is an editorially independent news site associated within CAP). After he and his wife hosted MSNBC’s Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough at a closed-to-the-public GOP candidate forum, the former Republican Congressman raved that the Kochs were mainstream social moderates with little patience for those who want “huge bloody battles on social issues.”

On its own website, Freedom Partners reprints a USA Today article that identifies the 501(c)(6) organization (curiously registered under the section of the tax code for chambers of commerce and similar groups) as “the center of the Koch’s expansive operation.” Politico called it the Koch Brothers’ “secret bank,” though as the group does not disclose its donors, it is unclear how much of its hundreds of millions came from the Kochs themselves.

Where did the money go? In addition to going to an array of other Koch network groups like Americans for Prosperity ($16 million), Generation Opportunity (more than $14 million), and the Libre Initiative ($6.5 million), a good chunk of it went to the very anti-LGBT and anti-abortion groups from which the duo has sought to disassociate themselves.

Freedom Partners gave $5,745,000 to Evangchr4 Trust, a Koch-tied Evangelical Christian pastoral outreach organization that itself gave more than $1.3 million in 2013 to Focus on the Family’s CitizenLink and $375,000 to the anti-LGBT hate group Family Research Council Action.

The group also gave $885,000 for advocacy and another $125,000 for general support directly to CitizenLink — which describes itself as “deeply concerned about the hearts and souls of those who identify themselves as gay, lesbian, bisexual or ‘transgendered.'” It also sent $225,000 to Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion and anti-contraception organization, and $150,000 to Heritage Action for America.

Freedom Partners reported giving $0 to socially progressive organizations in 2014.

Above is from:  New Filings Show Koch Brothers Give Millions To Anti-Gay, Anti-Choice Groups | ThinkProgress

Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar » Rauner: The least popular freshman governor

 

Friday, Nov 20, 2015

* Morning Consult…

While only a small percentage of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, the average governor’s approval rating is a healthy 54 percent. An average of 34 percent disapproved.

Running for president appears to be a good path to a lousy approval rating in one’s home state, the surveys show. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker – both of whom have an approval rating of just 40 percent — join Jindal near the bottom of the rankings (Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who sports a 59 percent approval rating, is the lone exception).

On the other hand, voters appear to give the benefit of the doubt to governors who have only recently won office: Less than a year into their terms, Baker, Hogan, Alaska’s Walker, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R), Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts (R) and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) all have approval ratings north of 59 percent. Hawaii Gov. David Ige (D) and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) both have approval ratings over 50 percent.

Only one new governor – Illinois’s Bruce Rauner (R) – is seen in a negative light: His approval rating, 42 percent, is three points lower than the percentage who disapprove of the job he’s doing.

Rauner never really had great numbers during the campaign, and these are 2016 voters, so it’s a more Democratic sample. I seriously doubt this poll would cause any sort of panic on Team Rauner.

But it’s nothing to be proud of, for sure.

The Illinois survey had a very large sample size, by the way.

Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar » The least popular freshman governor

Boone County sets $25.7M budget; slight property tax increase expected - News - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

 

By Adam Poulisse
Staff writer

Posted Nov. 20, 2015 at 2:02 PM
Updated at 8:48 PM

BELVIDERE — Property tax bills are expected to increase slightly in the Boone County budget that goes into effect Dec. 1.

The county anticipates a 1.26 percent tax rate, although the actual rate won't be set until spring. That would increase the property tax bill of the owner of a $100,000 house by about $4 next year for the county's portion of the bill. The county's share would be $345 for a $100,000 home, depending on the exemptions. The county's tax rate makes up 11 percent of a total residential bill.

Board members approved the $25.7 million budget Wednesday, 10-2, making several cuts and tapping into cash reserves to balance it. On Oct. 21, the board voted 9-3 to use $800,000 of public safety sales tax revenue to balance the budget, a controversial move that resulted in debate between board members and residents.

"Our revenue and expenses are going opposite directions," Chairman Bob Walberg said. "We have real concern (with) payments from the state. We put them in the budget anticipating we will get them. With this five-month process of trying to get a state budget, we're not assured we'll get those revenues."

General fund revenues are projected at $16.2 million, and spending to be about the same, Boone County Administrator Ken Terrinoni said. The general fund was $14.9 million this year and $15.3 million in 2014. General funds pay for daily operations, including salaries. The increase can be attributed to increase costs in health insurances, wages, juror pay and new positions with the county, and to afford two sheriff's deputies and two corrections officers to help staffing and reduce overtime.

Major funds in the budget include $4.8 million for bridge work. A significant repair to the bridge on Pleasant Street near the Green Giant plant will cost about $3 million.

The budget includes $740,000 for the new Animal Services building, plus $266,000 for one year of bond payments. Bids for construction will go out Dec. 1, Walberg said. "I'm hopeful they'll (be) in line with what we anticipate the building will cost."

the county also used to earn daily payments to house inmates from DeKalb County. But a 50 percent increase in inmates at the Boone County Jail has left no more room to house outsiders, costing about $400,000 in lost revenue, Walberg said.

Budgeting has been difficult for some time, Terrinoni said.

"We never got over the recession of '09," he said. "Our revenues never got better, then add into that the state (budget) problem, then the local prisoner population took off ... ."

In other business, the board approved changes to the wind turbine ordinance, 9-3 vote, following approval Nov. 4 by the Planning, Zoning and Building Committee. The revised ordinance says wind energy conversion systems must be at least 2,640 feet, or 5½ times the height of the turbine tower, away from a property line; the previous distance was 1,000 feet. It also would allow property owners to waive setback conditions if an agreement is made with neighboring property owners.

Boone County sets $25.7M budget; slight property tax increase expected - News - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

State: Budget deal coming together? | The Rock River Times

 

Several media outlets report a bipartisan group of lawmakers is working behind the scenes on a package of compromises that address reforms, spending and revenue.

Politico Illinois reports the compromise includes proposals for taxing retirement income over $50,000, allowing all school districts to bargain for 3rd party contracting, layoffs, class size, and more, and substantial workers compensation reforms along with property tax freezes.

Meanwhile, Crain’s Chicago Business reports a political consultant released proposals including suggested spending and budget reforms, business and regulatory reforms, revenue, local control and pension reform, among others.

Illinois is now more than four months into the current fiscal year and there’s still no budget.

ICPR to governor: Drop first hour of introductions

A group of civic and reform organizations are urging Illinois’ governor to drop the hour of introductory statements at next month’s meeting between the chief executive and legislative leaders.

The latest in a series of letters from the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform about the meeting, which has been postponed to December 1 in Springfield, urges the governor to quote “dispense with the hour of individual statements and proceed directly to a public and open discussion of the various comprehensive bipartisan budget proposals that have been recently released.”

The letter says the groups believe their requested approach will enable all participants to collectively discuss their priorities. The governor’s office said they had quote “no comment on this one.”

Unfunded mandates and government consolidations task force

A list of ten proposals to be considered Thursday during an Unfunded Mandates and Government Consolidation Task Force hearing features mergers, a constitutional amendment ending future unfunded mandates and more.

According to an agenda for the afternoon meeting in Springfield, task force members are expected to vote on proposals ranging from school consolidations, to merging downstate and suburban public safety pension funds, and merging certain general township and road and bridge districts. Other proposals include eliminating minimum manning from collective bargaining, using the federal definition for catastrophic injury for the Public Safety Employee Benefits Act and allowing arbitrators to use existing financial parameters of local government as a primary consideration during interest arbitration.

The task force was created by Governor Bruce Rauner and is chaired by Lieutenant Governor Evelyn Sanguinetti.

BGA: Consolidating governments will cut down on corruption

Consolidating some of the thousands of units of local government in Illinois can help cut down on corruption. That’s according to the Better Government Association, which plans to testify at Thursday’s Unfunded Mandates and Government Consolidation Task Force hearing. Andy Shaw of the Better Government Association tells WMAY Springfield the BGA plans on testifying on the issue because it’s critical to helping Illinois battle corruption.

“Every unit of government has an opportunity to engage in nepotism, cronyism, graft, corruption of one sort or another and it’s very hard to call it out because there are so many of them.”

Another barrier to government consolidation that Shaw says the state must overcome is the necessary legislative action allowing for mergers. Thursday’s meeting is the second-to-last meeting scheduled this year before a final report with recommendations is due to the governor.

Phelps and Rauner square off on Olive Branch

The governor’s office and a downstate Democratic representative are squaring off over a measure filed just this week to free up money from the Capital Development Fund.

Democratic Representative Brandon Phelps filed House Bill 4339 Tuesday he says would give $5 million dollars from the Capital Development Fund — a fund separate from the General Revenue Fund — to the Department of Natural Resources to help relocate residents from Olive Branch, a community rocked by floods four years ago. Phelps said Olive Branch residents aren’t just his constituents, they’re also Governor Bruce Rauner’s constituents.

Phelps says he’s simply fighting for his district: “I’m just doing this because I see things that are happening. Hardin County, I did this just because I heard the governor wants to shut it down by January the first. So I’m just doing everything I can, using every bullet in the gun so to speak.”

The Hardin County Work Camp is also in Phelps’s district and he filed a bill earlier this month that would keep the facility open. Phelps says he hopes targeting the work camp and holding relocation money isn’t political.

Governor Rauner’s office says Phelps is choosing to politicize a project Democrats failed to include in an out-of-balance budget. The governor’s office says the Olive Branch relocation project was included in two bills of Rauner’s introduced budget, neither of which were called for a vote in committee.

Above available on line at:  State: Budget deal coming together? | The Rock River Times

Ceroni Piping Co. construction postponed to summer - News - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

Posted Nov. 6, 2015 at 6:00 PM
Updated Nov 18, 2015 at 8:44 PM

 

By Adam Poulisse
Staff writer

Posted Nov. 6, 2015 at 6:00 PM
Updated Nov 18, 2015 at 8:44 PM

CHERRY VALLEY — Construction of a metal fabrication shop that would bring about 25 jobs to the area has been postponed until summer.

Ceroni Piping Co. is planning a $5.5 million, 25,000-square-foot warehouse at the intersection of U.S. 20 and Interstate 90 in Cherry Valley. It was originally scheduled to break ground this month. However, approval for a final plat that would allow President/CEO Steve Ceroni to subdivide and sell two lots — one 4 acres and the other 13 acres — on the property has taken longer than expected.

"It's somewhat disappointing," Ceroni said. "We were hoping to do something this fall. We understand it's all part of the approval process."

The plat received the last of eight required approvals by the Cherry Valley Village Board on Tuesday.

The delay was a result of presenting the final plat at meetings that were already scheduled, according to Natalie Hyser Barber, an attorney with Tobin & Ramon in Belvidere representing Ceroni.

Construction was also postponed to avoid doing work in inclement weather, Ceroni said.

The final plat requires eight signatures. Typically, a plat must be approved by the county engineer, county recorder, adjoining municipalities and a representative from the planning department, said Kathy Miller, interim planning director for Boone County.

"Every plat requires certain signatures," she said.

In June 2014, Ceroni Real Estate, a division of Ceroni Piping, closed a deal on almost 23 acres of farmland at 974 U.S. 20. The County Board in February approved a special use permit to allow outdoor storage.

On Oct. 21, the Boone County Board approved the final plat despite some concern from two board members.

District 3 board member Sherry Branson lives near the property. During the meeting, she referenced documents from Boone County Soil and Water Conservation District that stated the Illinois Geological Survey found the future business site is a high potential for aquifer contamination, and that it would be in the best interest of Boone County to require a groundwater protection plan.

"It concerns me because, I think, as a board we owe it to the neighbors to protect their wells," Branson said. "I would feel better about this if we had a ground water protection plan implemented and it was on file."

Barber told the board at the meeting that Ceroni has worked with the health department to ensure his proposed well and septic system is feasible.

Sheriff Dave Ernest said he didn't believe traffic was a concern for that expanding business district.

"We have accidents all over the county," he said. "I don't think this is any greater of an area than ... the areas that are connected to Bypass 20 as it drives through our county."

Ceroni Piping is the second-largest contractor in northwest Illinois between Belvidere and the Mississippi River, according to Register Star archives. It hires about 45 union members to do field work each year.

District 3 board member Ken Freeman said he had concerns about the traffic that area will generate.

"I'm all for business in Boone County," he told the board, "but that area ... is an accident waiting to happen, and I will not be supporting it."

Freeman and Branson voted against the plat.

Above is from:  Ceroni Piping Co. construction postponed to summer - News - Rockford Register Star - Rockford, IL

 

An earlier RRStar piece on the Ceroni project is available at:  http://www.rrstar.com/article/20150403/NEWS/150409767/0/SEARCH

Workers to get UAW vote at Volkswagen plant in Tennessee - Yahoo News

 

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The National Labor Relations Board on Wednesday granted the United Auto Workers' petition for a union vote for skilled-trades workers at the German automaker's lone U.S. plant in Tennessee.

 

The workers responsible for maintaining and repairing machinery and robots at the Chattanooga facility are now scheduled to hold a two-day vote on representation by the United Auto Workers starting on Dec. 3.

There are about 162 skilled-trades workers at the plant, making up about 12 percent of the total blue-collar workforce. Volkswagen had argued that they shouldn't be allowed to negotiate union agreements separately from the remaining 1,200-member production team, and that the union was seeking to carve out a group of workers more likely to vote for the UAW after it lost an acrimonious election among all hourly employees on a 712-626 vote last year.

Volkswagen also questioned the timing of the effort to hold an election amid the fallout of the diesel emissions cheating scandal that has engulfed the company.

But the UAW argued that the maintenance workers share unique sets of interests, including enhanced electrical and mechanical skills and training requirements, varying shift schedules, and even different uniforms than their colleagues working in assembly, body welding or the paint shop.

Gary Casteel, the secretary-treasurer of the UAW, criticized Volkswagen for trying to block the vote by skilled-trades workers.

"Volkswagen's attempt to sidestep U.S. law was a waste of employees' time and energy, and a waste of government resources," Casteel said in a statement. "Looking ahead, our hope is that the company now will recommit to the values that made Volkswagen a great brand — environmental sustainability and true co-determination between management and employees."

Volkswagen Chattanooga spokesman Scott Wilson said the company is reviewing the decision and "considering its options."

Groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce decry efforts by unions seeking to create smaller collective bargaining units as being the labor equivalent of political gerrymandering, where the most favorable lines are drawn to gain entry into businesses where the total workforce might lean against union representation.

But recent NLRB decisions have gone in favor of such "micro units," including by cosmetics and fragrance workers at a Macy's department store in Massachusetts and certified nursing assistants at a nursing home in Alabama.

Former NLRB member John Raudabaugh, who was appointed by Republican President George H. W. Bush, said he disagrees with the move away from requiring "wall-to-wall" bargaining units for all workers. Should the Volkswagen maintenance workers succeed, they could gain undue influence at the plant, he said.

"If they don't get what they want, they could go on strike and shut down the whole facility," said Raudabaugh, a law professor at Ave Maria University.

The UAW has been thwarted for decades in its bid to represent workers at a foreign-owned auto plant in the South. The February 2014 vote at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga was seen as the union's best chance because of strong labor influence on the German automaker's board.

But anti-labor groups and Republican officials raised concerns that a successful union vote could hurt future expansion plans at the plant, imperil a lucrative state incentive package and dissuade other manufacturers and suppliers from investing in the state.

The UAW dismissed those statements as scare tactics, but was unable to stem the tide against the union in the election. Following that crushing loss, the union created Local 42 in Chattanooga to renew efforts to represent all blue-collar workers at the plant.

Richard Hurd, a labor relations professor at Cornell University said if the UAW is successful in gaining representation for the maintenance workers at Volkswagen, it may try a similar approach with other foreign autoworkers' plants in the region.

"It certainly would be a reasonable strategy for them if they want to use this as a way to try to gain a foothold," he said.

Workers to get UAW vote at Volkswagen plant in Tennessee - Yahoo News