Reclaim Democracy!

Leaked Agreement Shows Candidates View CPD Events as Joint Campaign Appearances, Not Real Debates

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Each year, lawyers representing the Republican and Democratic Parties’ presidential nominees meet to detail how their televised debates will proceed. We say their because the Commission on Presidential Debates, despite its official-sounding name, was created and is controlled by those two parties.

Thanks to an insider leaking the 2012 agreement, we see once again the degree to which the candidates themselves control nearly every detail to avoid any hint of spontaneity or unpredictability. Some of the dictates, such as describing camera angles and details of stools, come across as harmless control freak obsessions. But read closer, and one can see a large part of the purpose is to ensure the CPD events resemble joint campaign appearances, not real debates. As CBS journalist Dan Rather said, “This will not be a debate in the sense the word is often used in the English language because all of this is so tightly controlled by the candidates themselves and their managers.”

Among the terms dictated by the nominees and executed (to the degree they can control) by the Obama and Romney campaigns in 2012:

Re: the “town-hall” style debate

  • “The moderator will not ask follow-up questions or comment on either the questions asked by the audience or the answers of the candidates…”
  •  “Prior to the start of the debate, audience members will be asked to submit their questions in writing to the moderator… The moderator shall approve all questions to be posed by the audience members to the candidates. The moderator shall ensure that the audience members pose to the candidates a balance of questions on foreign policy and national security, on the one hand, and domestic and economic policy on the other.”
  •  “If any audience member poses a question or makes a statement that is in any material way different than the question that the audience member earlier submitted to the moderator for review, the moderator will cut-off the questioner and advised the audience that such non–reviewed questions are not permitted.”
  •  “The audience members shall not ask follow-up questions or otherwise participate in the extended discussion, and the audience member’s microphone shall be turned off after he or she completes asking the questions.”

Elsewhere

  • “The candidates may not ask each other direct questions during any of the four debates.”
  • “At no time…shall either candidate move from his designated area behind the respective podium.”

Note this extreme level of control is what led the League of Women Voters to walk away from sponsoring the debates in 1988.

When the campaigns of George H. W. Bush and Michael Dukakis handed the League their privately negotiated memorandum of understanding, the League’s trustees voted unanimously to pull out of the debates and issued perhaps the harshest press release in its history, stating:

“… the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter. It has become clear to us that the candidates’ organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and answers to tough questions. The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public.”

The CPD has controlled every nationally televised debate since and likely will do so until enough citizens demand this essential function be controlled by an independent and non-partisan body.

Go to overview of the presidential debates, the need for reform, and resources

Walmart CEO Memo on Meeting with Obama “Equal Parts Arrogance and Ignorance”

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By Al Norman
Published November 19, 2012

Was it Bill Clinton who inserted Walmart on President Obama’s short list for Fiscal Cliff discussions at the White House recently?

Clinton promotes Walmart CEO Mike Duke like the late Sam Walton used to push Moon Pies. But it’s hard to imagine Barack Obama suffering through a meeting with Duke, who personifies the 1% corporate power-broker, and whose store managers warned Walmart “associates” in 2008 that a Senator Obama in the White House would favor the unions. Ironically, now its Duke who is in the White House.

After meeting with the President, Walmart’s CEO issued a 216-word statement that was equal parts arrogance and ignorance. The Walmart Statement on Fiscal Cliff Meeting with President Obama included the following dictums:

“In many ways, Walmart’s customers are at the center of this debate.” Why? Because there are 19 million of them every day? Discount shoppers represent no social movement or coherent vision of America—but because they are the only people who can move Walmart’s stock price–they are the focus of everything Walmart says.

“Walmart Moms tell us their confidence in the economy is shaped by whether they believe Washington is working for them.” Walmart loves it that political pollsters have created this demographic that bears the retailer’s name. But everydemographic group in the country thinks that more Congressional gridlock is intolerable, and that the government is not “working for them.” But ask these same people if the Walton Family is working for them?

Walmart Moms might not be pleased to learn that according to the Economic Policy Institute, the U.S. trade deficit with China, between 2001 and 2006, eliminated 1.8 million U.S. jobs—and Walmart’s trade deficit with China alone eliminated nearly 200,000 U.S. jobs. Walmart was responsible for 11% of the growth in the U.S. trade deficit during this period.

“Our customers are working hard to adapt to the ‘new normal,’ but their confidence is still very fragile. They are shopping for Christmas now and they don’t need uncertainty over a tax increase.” In other words, don’t ruin the holiday spirit for our shoppers with all this talk about falling off a Cliff. Sure, customers are “fragile,” because many have had to trade down a decent-paying job for a Walton Job. A recent study by the Investigative Reporting Workshop notes that U.S. factory jobs dropped by 44% from 21 million jobs in 1979, to 11.7 million manufacturing jobs in 2011.

Walton Jobs lock hundreds of thousands of workers at the poverty level. Walmart needs an underclass of workers who are financially desperate enough to work part-time for $8.90 an hour. These people aren’t worried about the Fiscal Cliff—they have already gone over it by working at Walmart.

A 2011 research brief by the Center for Labor Research and Education at UC Berkeley concluded that “jobs created by Walmart in metropolitan areas pay less and are less likely to offer benefits than those they replace…Walmart workers earn an estimated 12.4% less than retail workers as a whole, and 14.5% less than workers in large retail.”

The same report concluded that if Walmart paid its workers $12 per hour and passed on the entire cost of that wage increase to customers, the average Walmart shopper would pay 46 cents more per shopping trip. The workers would receive as much as $6,500 in an average annual pay increase–which they would no doubt spend in their local economy to pay their rent, food and utility bills.

Part of the ‘new normal’ in a Walmart economy is that fewer people are working, and they are working for less. The National Bureau of Economic Research found that a Walmart store opening reduces county-level retail employment by about 150 workers, and each Walmart worker replaces approximately 1.4 retail workers at other merchants.

“We encourage the White House and Congress to work together on an approach that includes additional revenue, comprehensive tax reform, and spending cuts, including entitlement reforms, to get our fiscal house in order while creating economic growth.” Keep in mind that the man writing this was paid $18.1 million by Walmart in 2011, not counting the use of a company plane—a perk valued at around a $100,000.

What kind of “entitlement reforms” would Walmart want? They certainly don’t want to shrink Medicaid, because in states that have published data on corporate use of Medicaid, Walmart consistently places at the very top of private companies with the most employees and dependents who rely on taxpayer-supported Medicaid health care. Similarly, cutting Medicare and forcing elders to pay more out-of-pocket for health care is going to reduce their discretionary spending at Walmart.

Social Security should not be on Walmart’s entitlement reform list, because it’s a Trust Fund. That distinction is likely to be lost on Mike Duke, who, because of the cap on Social Security wages subject to the payroll tax, contributes based on only 2.6% of his $4.18 million in base salary and cash performance bonus. His $13.1 million in stock awards is not subject at all to the payroll tax. Duke pays the same FICA tax as someone earning $110,100. In the first 10 days of the year, Mike Duke hits the cap on Social Security taxable income—the rest of his work year is tax free. So any “reforms” on Social Security should start with people like Mr. Duke (and the much richer Waltons, whose unearned income is not taxed by Social Security) paying their fair share to help today’s retired workers.

“Washington needs to find an agreement to avoid the fiscal cliff.” Walmart could help that agreement by changing its business model from one of rampant exploitation of its workers and vendors, to one that keeps product sourcing and jobs in America, offers a liveable wage to its workers, and calls upon families like the Waltons to pay their fair share in taxes.

If America goes over the Fiscal Cliff, we will find Walmart waiting or us at the bottom with a check-out register.

Al Norman has been helping communities fight big box sprawl for 19 years. He is the founder of Sprawl-Busters. His most recent book is Occupy Walmart. You can follow him on Twitter: @SprawlBusters.

Win for environmental law, loss for Walmart

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By Will Evans
First Published Nov. 16, 2012, in California Watch

A California appellate court has dealt a blow to Walmart’s strategy of using petition drives to push through approval of new superstores while avoiding California’s environmental law.

In a cookie-cutter pattern documented by California Watch, the mega-retailer bankrolled local signature-gathering efforts to build superstores or repeal restrictions on big-box stores in five California cities last year. Once 15 percent of local voters signed the petitions, city councils had to either approve the projects or hold a special election, which can be costly. Wal-Mart then urged cities to approve the petition rather than send it to voters, angering some officials who felt bullied.

Wal-Mart has said the strategy is necessary to avoid politically motivated lawsuits under the California Environmental Quality Act.

Voter-approved ballot measures that stem from petitions are exempt from environmental review and protected from CEQA lawsuits. Wal-Mart argued that when a city approves one of its petitions without an election, the project would be protected, too.

But in a strongly worded opinion, a three-judge appellate panel ruled late last month that the landmark environmental law still applies.

“The legal issue is important and calls for speedy resolution,” the opinion stated. “Developers’ strategy of obtaining project approvals without environmental review and without elections threatens both to defeat CEQA’s important statutory objectives and to subvert the constitutional goals of the initiative process.”

The Fresno-based 5th District Court of Appeal disagreed with a 2004 ruling by a different appellate court, setting up the possibility that the issue will ultimately be resolved by the California Supreme Court. Since the company carbon offsetting is being regularly tracked by the professionals from carbon click, this issue  will resolved in no time

The Fresno court held that a petition signed by 15 percent of a city’s voters doesn’t carry the same power as a majority-approved ballot initiative. “To hold otherwise would authorize rule by a few – the antithesis of democracy,” it said.

The case centers on a Wal-Mart expansion project in the small Gold Country city of Sonora. Attorneys who often target Wal-Mart with environmental lawsuits have sued over its use of the initiative process there, as well as in the San Bernardino County town of Apple Valley and the Silicon Valley suburb of Milpitas.

The city of Sonora argued in court filings that its citizens supported the proposed superstore so there was no point in holding an election. Wal-Mart argued that it would be unfair to “force city councils to incur unnecessary and unwanted expenses to hold elections.”

The city’s and company’s positions reveal “their failure to appreciate the importance of elections in the initiative process,” the court stated. “The results of an election represent the will of the people. A petition signed by 15 percent of the voters does not.”

The legal battle slowing down Wal-Mart’s expansion frustrates Sonora Mayor Hank Russell.

“These people just want to delay a process that should be part of a free market economy,” he said. “I don’t think it’s the city’s role to decide who can compete.”

Wal-Mart spokeswoman Delia Garcia said the existing Sonora store “has served customers faithfully and made a positive impact on the local economy.”

“We are committed to providing customers the broadest selection of products to meet their family’s needs and will evaluate all options for moving forward,” Garcia wrote in an email.

The court’s ruling goes beyond Wal-Mart, said Brett Jolley, the attorney who brought the suit.

“The opinion closes what could have been a major loophole in the CEQA process which would have allowed the wealthiest developers … to avoid CEQA and public elections by utilizing the initiative process,” he wrote by email.

Jolley quoted California Watch’s story in his opening brief, but Wal-Mart objected, moving to strike that part of the petition. The judges decided that the reference to the article did not alter their conclusions and denied Wal-Mart’s motion.

San Diego-based lawyer Cory Briggs, a longtime thorn in the side of Wal-Mart, said he would use the ruling to revive a similar lawsuit he is pursuing in Apple Valley. Briggs, who filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the Sonora case, heralded the decision as “a victory for the rule of law and for true majority rule.”

“Any developer who thinks that they’re going to buy their way to the ballot box is now going to have to do the work of actually persuading a majority of the voters,” said Briggs.

Wal-Mart has had mixed success at the ballot box. Voters in Inglewood shot down the company’s proposed superstore in 2004. But the residents of Menifee, in Riverside County, approved a Wal-Mart ballot initiative last year.

For more on this topic, see:

photo courtesy Brave New Films

Debating the Presidential Debates

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One of our board members debated an apologist for the Commission on Presidential Debates on Canada’s most popular radio show (2.5 million listeners). (The debate starts at 3:29 in the audio linked below.)

Three Sponsors Dump the Presidential Debates While Citizen Groups Call for Disclosure of Agreement

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October 1, 2012

Reclaim Democracy is among 18 groups that called on the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) to release the secret debate contract negotiated between the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates.

Spearheaded by Open Debates, the call also is endorsed by Common Cause, Judicial Watch, FairVote, Demos, League of Rural Voters, Rock the Vote and others.

In a press release, Open Debates reported: “Robert F. Bauer of the Obama campaign and Benjamin L. Ginsberg of the Romney campaign negotiated a detailed contract that dictates many of the terms of the 2012 presidential debates, including how the format will be structured. The Commission on Presidential Debates, a private corporation created by and for the Republican and Democratic parties, agreed to implement the debate contract. In order to shield the major party candidates from criticism, the Commission on Presidential Debates is concealing the contract from the public and the press.”

The contract still may be under negotiation.

Philips Electronics recently became the third entity to drop sponsorship of the debates in the face of criticism for its deliberate exclusion of all but Democratic and Republican candidates and its ongoing neglect of critical issues — especially those on which the
two dominant parties are united (at least in their disinterest to address the topic).

The YWCA and BBH New York (an ad firm) also recently dropped their sponsorship, meaning the CPD has lost 30% of its sponsors before the first debate. The remaining sponsors are Anheuser-Busch Companies, The Howard G. Buffet Foundation, Sheldon S. Cohen, Esq., Crowell & Moring LLP, International Bottled Water Association (IBWA), The Kovler Fund, and Southwest Airlines.

Mark A. Stephenson, the head of corporate communications at Philips North America, said, “We respect all points of view and, as a result, want to ensure that Philips doesn’t provide even the slightest appearance of supporting partisan politics. As such, no company funds have been or will be used to support the Commission on Presidential Debates.”

The news was applauded by advocates of independent, non-partisan debates and by former New Mexico Governor, Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate for President. Johnson, the highest polling “third party” candidate thus far in 2012,  recently sued the CPD for what his campaign calls illegal election activity.

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein also appears on enough state ballots to win the electoral college votes necessary to win the election, but the CPD creates qualification criteria that has excluded all third party or independent candidates from the debates since 1996.

This year, the CPD provided candidates a list of debate topics ahead of time — an unprecedented step that ensures even less opportunity for voters to see candidates thinking and responding, as opposed to recalling and reciting.

Voters of every ideology lose when our choices are dictated by the two dominant parties. Reclaim Democracy has long called for ousting the bi-partisan CPD in favor of a non-partisan and independent Citizens Debate Commission. For a more detailed account of the problems with the CPD and the need for democratic debates, see our past commentaries, such as Replace Bi-partisan Shows With Real Debates or visit the Open Debates website.

Update, October 1

Please help persuade more sponsors to withdraw their support of the CPD.  Contact one or more of following companies and foundations and express your desire for them to withdraw sponsorship.

Crowell & Moring LLP
The Chairman is Kent A. Gardiner: kgardiner@crowell.com

Anheuser-Busch, Inc., St. Louis, MO
800-342-5283
E-mail Contact Form: http://contactus.anheuser-busch.com/Contactus/email.asp

Southwest Airlines, Dallas, TX
Contact form: https://www.southwest.com/contact-us/contact-us.html

The Howard G. Buffet Foundation, Omaha, NE
Contact form: http://thehowardgbuffettfoundation.org/media/media-relations
Since the Buffet Foundation says its primary mission is to improve the standard of living and quality of life for the world’s most impoverished and marginalized populations, you might ask them to consider this chart.

Sheldon S. Cohen, Esq. at the firm of Farr, Miller & Washington, Washington, DC
800-390-3277 or 202-530-5600. Fax: 202-530-5508
Email: sscohen@farrmiller.com

International Bottled Water Association, Alexandria, VA
703-683-5213, Fax 703-683-4074
Email: ibwainfo@bottledwater.org

The Kovler Fund aka Marjorie Kovler Research Fellowship, Boston, MA
617-514-1624, Fax: 617-514-1625
Email: kennedy.library@nara.gov

Go to overview of the presidential debates and the need for reform.

NY Times’ National Editor Says It’s Not His Job to Distinguish Truth from Fiction

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No doubt there are many days when editors, even at the largest news outlets, have too many articles to read thoroughly and let a mistake slip through. Perhaps even a serious mistake like that made last Monday in the New York Times.

Only this was on the front page. And instead of correcting obviously bad reporting, the Times’ national news editor doubled down and claimed he has no responsibility to distinguish fact from fiction.

Here’s the scenario. National reporter Ethan Bronner wrote “A Tight Election May Be Tangled in Legal Battles,” (free sub. required) a story reporting on allegations of voter fraud and disenfranchisement. Well, reporting may be an overstatement. In classic “he said, she said” style, Bronner noted that some groups are concerned about voter fraud while others are concerned about voters being unable to vote due to restrictive new ID requirements. No attempt was made to weigh the relative credibility of the claims he portrayed.

Of course, it’s been well-documented that in-person voter fraud has been nearly non-existent in the U.S., while mail-in fraud, among others, is more common.

It also is well-documented that several new state Voter ID laws will render millions of Americans unable to vote without spending time and money (even if there is no fee for the actual ID), in many cases, lots of time and money to obtain “official” voter ID. Inarguably, the only kind of voter fraud could prevent is in-person fraud.

Of course, more than a few people complained to the Times, prompting their Public Editor, Margaret Sullivan, to run a follow-up column online, He Said, She Said, and the Truth. Most readers probably expected a “sorry, we’ll do better next time” mea culpa. Instead, the national editor, Sam Sifton, rejected the argument and defended his role as a stenographer.

 “There’s a lot of reasonable disagreement on both sides,” he said. One side says there’s not significant voter fraud; the other side says there’s not significant voter suppression.

“It’s not our job to litigate it in the paper,” Mr. Sifton said. “We need to state what each side says.”

The Times response to a national editor declaring himself unwilling to do his job will be telling.

Update: hundred of readers have excoriated Mr. Sifton and Ms. Sullivan in the comments section of the public editor’s column. Ms. Sullivan’s contact information is included with her column.