“Toxic Tour” is targeting hedge fund contributions in NY politics

The Legislative Gazette – 3/15/18

Written by TOM McCARTHY

Coming to a local Senate district near you — the “Toxic Tour” featuring rock music, a 12-foot inflatable man in a hazmat suit and reformers looking to change campaign finance laws.

A group called the “Strong Economy For All Coalition” is hosting these events in five Senate districts to protest hedge fund money in politics. They are targeting the five most “egregious” cases of campaign donations coming from Wall Street sources.

The “tour” was announced outside the Capitol earlier this session and has been making stops in the Hudson Valley and Long Island so far.

“It’s a tour. It’s a literal rock and roll tour,” said Charles Khan, organizing director for the coalition.

Punk guitarist Samoa Moriki, rocking an all black outfit with golden shoes, plays a Les Paul at ear-deafening volume while, behind him, Cleanup Carl looms over the protesters, who often wear haz-mat suits and string yellow caution tape across lawmakers’ offices.

Protesters have been traveling to the districts of state senators who the coalition is accusing of taking the largest contributions from hedge fund donors. They are handing out flyers, posters and t-shirts with the senators’ names and districts resembling tour dates, and ranked them by their toxicity.

“Wall Street billionaires and rich corporate donors continue to flood our elections with money, drowning out the voices of everyday New Yorkers,” the flyer states.

A the top of their list is Sen. Elaine Phillips, R-Hempstead who reportedly took $2,680,753.60 from hedge fund donors. The second is Sen. Terrence Murphy, R-Jefferson Valley, who reportedly took $2,495,679.33 from hedge fund donors.

“We’re kicking off a toxic tour to expose the state senators who are taking millions and millions of dollars in hedge fund cash, and not listening to the needs of everyday people,” said Chris Tallent, who heads May Day US, the group who funds and organizes Cleanup Carl’s appearances. “That’s a ripoff for New Yorkers. We’re talking about the carried interest loophole. That allows hedge fund managers to pay lower taxes. It’s a rigged system.”

Third on the group’s list is State Senator Sue Serino, R- Hyde Park, who reportedly took $1,550,194.19 from hedge fund donors. The fourth most egregious case, according to the coalition, is Sen. Carl Marcellino, R-Oyster Bay, who reportedly took $930,221.60 from hedge fund donors. And the fifth is Sen. Tom Croci, R-Islip, who reportedly took $647,706.42 from hedge fund donors.

“We demand that the senators do the people’s work,” said Michael Kink, executive director for the coalition.

Sporting a suit and tie to contrast himself with the Cleanup Carl crew in yellow hazmat suits, Kink spoke through a megaphone at the event ushering chants and moshing with the clean-up crew.

“We won’t stand for it. Cleanup Carl won’t stand for it,” said Kink.

The Economy For All Coalition is made up of unions, community activists and good government groups such as Citizen Action of New York.

The coalition has the Senate GOP of blocking efforts to close the carried interest tax loophole.

Under current federal law, a portion of income earned by hedge fund managers, private equity investors, venture capitalists and certain real estate investors — known as carried interest — is treated as capital gains rather than ordinary income. This portion of income is then treated favorably with lower capital gains tax rates.

According to the Governor’s website, this costs the state $100 million a year in taxes.

Kink spoke in support of Cuomo’s 17 percent “Fairness Fix,” which is an attempt to close the loophole under the New York state tax code. That portion of income would be treated as ordinary income. The losses under the federal tax code would be compensated. The success of this plan is reliant on Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania passing legislation like Cuomo’s.

“In the Hudson Valley, in New York City, in Erie County, [these state senators] are trying to follow the footsteps of billionaires, of millionaires, of people who want to stop progressive politics,” said Stanley Fritz of Citizen Action NY.

“We want to put an end to hedge funds’ ability to buy their politicians. We want to stand up for working people…and the only way we can do that is to close the LLC loophole and to say no more to hedge funders purchasing Republicans or any other politicians.”

Activists call on Phillips to clean up ‘toxic’ campaign cash

The Island Now – 3/16/18

Union workers, a hazmat-suit wearing balloon and a punk rock guitarist walk into a state Senator’s office. What do they get?

No response.

At least not from state Sen. Elaine Phillips (R-Flower Hill).

Members of the activist groups, Clean Up Carl, Hedge Clippers and MAYDAY America, along with members of the Communications Workers of America – and a guitarist, Samoa Moriki – held a rally outside Phillip’s Mineola office on Thursday.

“Clean up Carl is traveling the country to take on the biggest corrupters and clean up their toxic mess,” said Chris Tallent, campaign director at MAYDAY America. “That is why we are here, that’s why we’re here at Senator Elaine Phillips office.”

The group is calling on Phillips to come out in support of closing the carried interest tax loophole.

The Democrat-controlled state Assembly budget proposal, which was released Monday, includes a measure to do so.

There are two weeks until the budget is passed.

The group went into Phillips office and asked to speak with her to ask her position on closing the carried interest tax loophole.

A member of her staff said Phillips was not around and he was not able to comment on her position.

In a statement shared with Blank Slate Media on Friday, Phillips said she strongly supports “transparency, accountability and stricter penalties for groups, organizations and individuals who violate election and campaign finance laws.”

She did not comment directly on the carried interest tax loophole, which does not violate campaign finance laws.

“‘Dark Money’ is another area where transparency, as to who is paying for political content, must be addressed,” Phillips said. “Integrity in our election process is critical to having faith and confidence in our electoral system. I stand ready to work to ensure that all of these issues and more are addressed.”

The carried interest tax loophole allows hedge fund managers to be taxed at about 20 percent, rather than the ordinary maximum income tax of about 39 percent.

In some cases, hedge fund managers are being taxed at rates lower than their secretaries, said Billy Easton, executive director of Alliance for Quality Education.

“Being a hedge fund manager is like running a scam operation,” Easton said.

Hedge fund managers invest other people’s money and get a cut of the profit, Easton said.

Their income is not considered income, and is taxed as a capital gain, he said.

“The pay I get at work is called my salary and I pay taxes on it,” Easton said.

Those investors, are taking their wealth to invest in politicians across the state for political influence, according to Tallent.

The group is on a Toxic Tour, addressing five state senators.

On Thursday, they also held a rally outside the office of state Sen. Carl Marcellino (R-Syosset).

The other senators are Terrence Murphy (R-Bronxville,) Sue Serino (R-Hyde Park) and Tom Croci (R-Bohemia.)

Of the senators, Phillips is the biggest recipient of “wall street, hedge fund, toxic campaign cash,” Tallent said.

Phillips received $2.6 million in hedge fund PAC donations since 2014, according to Tallent.

Marcellino took in $900,000 in hedge fund PAC money, according to the activist groups.

“In what world does it make sense that a state senator in Mineola, New York is accepting $2.6 million to get elected?,” Tallent said. “The only thing more unreasonable than that money? That these state senators think we know they are accepting it without expectations to give something back to those donors.”

CAPITOL PRESSROOM

February 23, 2018: Best of: Toxic Tour

Activists have kicked off their “Toxic Tour” which aims to highlight the donations made to legislators from hedge funds. We heard from Charles Kahn, Community Organizer at Strong Economy for All, and Chris Tallent, National Campaign Director at MAYDAY America, on the new effort.

Cleanup Carl Tour stops at NY Capitol

Workers rally against Trump’s stealing of their tips

People’s World – 2/6/18

Restaurant Opportunities Center of Washington DC Facebook page

WASHINGTON—The workers call it “tip theft.” And 346,135 people have protested to the Trump Labor Department about its stealth scheme to allow bosses to steal their tips.

The scheme is a new Department of Labor rule allowing managers and owners to take an up-front cut of the money tipped workers – restaurant servers and bussers, airline baggage handlers, taxi drivers and others get.

That’s the opposite of what’s supposed to happen under federal minimum wage law. That law, the Fair Labor Standards Act, says if a worker’s tips don’t equal the federal minimum wage of $7.25 the boss must make up the difference.

The tipped minimum is $2.13 an hour. It hasn’t risen in more than two decades.

But now Trump’s DOL, at the behest of the National Restaurant Association, wants to reverse that demand for owners and bosses to make up the difference. Instead it wants to let the bosses take a share right off the top, before the workers get even a cut of their earned tips.

And that sent the unionized Restaurant Opportunities Center, which speaks for low-wage restaurant workers in at least seven cities nationwide, and their allies into the streets. It also sent the 346,135 people to write to the DOL.

“This new rule would constitute legalized theft of restaurant workers’ hard-earned tips by the National Restaurant Association and President Trump,” ROC founder and Executive Director Saru Jayaraman said in a statement.

“The restaurant industry is the second largest and absolute fastest growing sector of the U.S. economy, but is also the lowest-paying, thanks to the lobbying prowess of the National Restaurant Association. The NRA’s greed has gone way too far. On top of lobbying for 80 years to keep the wage for tipped workers at a subminimum wage of just $2.13 an hour, they have also tried to get away with keeping their workers’ tips.”  The NRA has also vociferously lobbied against raising the regular minimum wage.

“Tipped restaurant workers in the United States are mostly women who struggle to make ends meet and suffer from the highest rates of sexual harassment of any industry in the United States because they must tolerate inappropriate customer behavior to feed their families in tips. Trump’s new rule would exacerbate sexual harassment as it would give employers extraordinary power over their workers’ tips,” added Jayaraman.

Calculations by the Economic Policy Institute, using federal data, show letting the owners and bosses skim from the workers’ tips could cost the workers – many of them in some of the lowest-paying occupations in the country – a minimum of $5.8 billion and a maximum of $13.2 billion yearly.

The DOL funded its own study of the negative economic impact of the new tip rule and

substituting the restaurant owners’ scheme, but Trump’s appointees have deep-sixed it so far, drawing sharp criticism from Jayaraman and a demand from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., that the DOL release its findings. “You acted to hide this information from the public,” Warren wrote Acosta.

The Trump tip rule and Acosta’s decision sent the workers and their allies into the streets in D.C., Chicago, New York, Seattle, Detroit and Springfield, Ill. The protest in D.C. was small, but dramatic.

There, ROC representative Jessica Yanez led supporters in piling several dozen boxes, representing crates of petitions, in front of the six-story Labor Dept. headquarters. “Tips belong to the workers, not to the bosses,” she declared.

“The Labor Department is supposed to protect the interests of workers,” Yanez said. Tip theft, she added, “is going to disproportionately affect women of color, single moms, LGBTQ people” and other victims of discrimination. Federal data show 85 percent of the nation’s “hosts, hostesses” and other restaurant workers are women.

Yanez and the others hung a sign on the boxes with the number of protests sent to the DOL against its “tip theft” rule by the Feb. 5 deadline. Standing beside was a giant inflatable puppet, “Corruption Cleanup Carl,” draped with a sign saying “Dept. of Labor Lies. Acosta: RIN235-M21” – the rule number — “is tip theft.” The “Acosta” is Alex Acosta, Trump’s Labor Secretary.

But that wasn’t the high point, literally. Somebody got onto DOL’s roof, and draped a 9-foot silver-and-black bedsheet banner down the front of the building, above its front door.

“Trump: Don’t steal our tips!” it read.

Indivisible’s “Merry Perry” protest

York Dispatch – 12/21/17

Gorsuch urges tolerance in address at Trump hotel

USA Today – 9/28/17

WASHINGTON — Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch urged fellow conservatives Thursday to “cherish the din of democracy” by tolerating other viewpoints in a speech delivered at the ornate hotel owned by the president who nominated him.

Gorsuch’s willingness to speak at Trump International Hotel sparked objections from some ethics experts but support from others, reflecting the diversity of opinion he said should be celebrated. Outside, a smattering of liberal demonstrators voiced displeasure with his appearance.

The address to The Fund for American Studies, a nonprofit educational organization that teaches “the principles of limited government, free-market economics and honorable leadership,” came a week after the newest justice spoke at a center named after Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell at the University of Louisville.

Gorsuch, 50, a veteran of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, owes his lifetime appointment to President Trump, who nominated him in January, and McConnell, who blocked President Barack Obama from filling the seat throughout 2016 following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

His 20-minute talk was not nearly as controversial as the debate surrounding it. Gorsuch spoke about “civics and civility,” recalling the 110 rules of civility handwritten by George Washington in an effort to improve his behavior.

“To preserve our civil liberties, we have to constantly work on being civil to one another,” Gorsuch said.

Nevertheless, his decision to speak at the Trump and McConnell locales, rather than declining the invitations or seeking other venues, “has offended the conflict-of-interest sensibilities of legal ethicists at several levels — and rightly so,” Gabe Roth, executive director of the watchdog group Fix the Court, wrote in a USA TODAY column Thursday.

Not so, said Ed Whelan, president of the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center, who attended the speech. He noted the sponsoring group booked the location before Election Day and asked, “Is a justice supposed to accept or deny an invitation based on the hotel the event takes place in?”

While Trump has ceded management of the Trump Organization to his elder sons during his presidency, he has not relinquished his stake in its properties and profits from whoever rents its rooms or conference spaces. Watchdog groups have charged that violates the Constitution’s emoluments clause, which blocks payments to federal officials from foreign governments, because Trump stands to profit from the hotel’s success.

“Justice Gorsuch speaking to a conservative group in the Trump Hotel, where the president continues to hold a financial stake, is everything that was wrong with his nomination,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said. “There’s a reason we questioned his independence during his confirmation hearings.”

Trump’s immigration travel ban targeting mostly majority-Muslim countries remains pending before the Supreme Court. While recent changes to the ban make it likely the case will be declared moot, Gorsuch ruled in Trump’s favor over the summer on several interim orders concerning which travelers and refugees were covered.

Trump’s Justice Department also has taken positions on most of the other major cases being heard by the court this fall, including those involving gay rights, voting rights, workers’ rights and privacy rights.

Gorsuch plans to be the keynote speaker in November at the conservative Federalist Society’s annual gala, which has hosted conservative justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito in the past. The group was instrumental in composing the list of 21 potential Supreme Court nominees from which Trump chose Gorsuch.