AROUND NEW HAMPSHIRE
1. Upcoming Event
RECEPTION HOSTED BY LISA DIMARTINO
Wednesday, October 14th at 6:00 PM
The DiMartino Home
23 Williamsburg Avenue, Gilford, NH View the card
Wednesday, October 14th at 6:00 PM
The DiMartino Home
23 Williamsburg Avenue, Gilford, NH View the card
2. Changing the Redistricting Process
Too important to leave to politics
Editorial, nashuatelegraph.com, October 7, 2015
Legislative Service Requests are the seeds from which bills are sprouted in the New Hampshire lawmaking process, and there's one we think merits special attention
LSR 2016-2010, sponsored by Rep. David Cote, D-Nashua, calls for "establishing an independent redistricting commission" to replace the current system by which political districts in the state are redrawn every 10 years.
The purpose behind redistricting, in theory, is to adjust the districts so that our elected officials represent roughly the same number of constituents. In practice, the process has evolved into nothing less than naked political opportunism at its worst.
Under the present setup, whichever party wins a legislative majority during a year ending in zero has a chance to reconfigure the state's House, Senate, Executive Council and congressional districts in a way that's most favorable to the party in power.
The 2012 redistricting map - drawn up by Republicans - marked a new low in New Hampshire gerrymandering. Towns that had natural geographic, economic and political affiliations dating back to the 18th or 19th centuries were torn asunder to create districts designed to give Republican candidates an advantage.
(Had Democrats been in a similar position, they undoubtedly would have done the same thing, just with the opposite result.)
Some Senate districts were set up to make sure that traditionally Democratic towns were isolated in the same districts so that Republican-leaning towns could be concentrated in reworked districts to give GOP incumbents a better shot at winning.
The most striking result was the reconfiguration of an Executive Council district that created a meandering monster - some have likened its shape to a dragon - which now stretches from the Connecticut River to the Atlantic Ocean.
Then-Gov. John Lynch vetoed that plan, but his veto was overridden and some towns sued, claiming it was unconstitutional. The New Hampshire Supreme Court upheld the plan because, in the court's opinion, it conformed to the federal principle of one-person/one vote.
Which is not to say that the process or the result put voters ahead of partisan interests.
The fact that it was the second time in a row that a redistricting plan ended up in the Supreme Court's lap suggests that the state could benefit from the changes an independent redistricting commission could bring.
The Supreme Court of the United States upheld the use of such commissions earlier this year in an Arizona case in which a majority found that such commissions were in keeping with "the core principle of republican government ... that the voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around."
What a radical concept.
Redistricting is too important to be left to politicians - of either party - who have a self-interest in the outcome and a track record of putting party politics ahead of the interests of voters.
Depending on the specifics, Rep. Cote's proposal for an independent redistricting commission is a concept that voters should take an interest in and encourage their representatives to support.
3. Latest Poll on Gaming
WMUR poll: Granite Staters still support casino gambling
by John DiStaso, wmur.com, October 6, 2015
DURHAM, N.H. —Despite repeated failed attempts by proponents to pass casino gambling in the New Hampshire Legislature, it continues to have the support of more than half of Granite Staters.
The latest WMUR Granite State Poll shows that 51 percent of 587 New Hampshire adults polled Sept. 24-Oct. 2 favor casino gambling in the state, 32 percent strongly and 19 percent “somewhat.” Casino gambling is opposed by 37 percent – 25 percent strongly and 12 percent “somewhat” – while 12 percent are neutral or unsure.
Support for casino gambling dropped since October 2013, the last time the University of New Hampshire Survey Center polled the issue. At that time, 59 percent favored it while 33 percent expressed opposition.
According to the survey center, support for gambling is similar across party lines, as 58 percent of independents, 50 percent of Republicans and 49 percent of Democrats support it.
The margin of error for the WMUR Granite State Poll is plus or minus 4 percent.
The latest attempt by supporters to pass casino gambling failed in April, as the House voted 208-156 to kill a bill that would have legalized two casinos. Like earlier bills, the 2015 measure had passed the state Senate.
Gov. Maggie Hassan supported casino gambling and was prepared to sign the bill into law if it had reached her desk.
[Casino gambling was most recently on the legislative agenda in April, when it was shot down in the House. There are currently no 2016 bill requests related to casinos, making it unclear whether the issue will be brought up again next year.--LFDA Highlights, October 7, 2015 ]
4. Shaheen's VA Court Bill
Shaheen Introduces Bill To Strengthen Veteran Court Programs
by Peter Biello, nhpr.org, October 7, 2015
Senator Jeanne Shaheen has introduced legislation that aims to help the Veterans Administration support veterans' courts.
The Veterans Justice Outreach Act would codify the support that the VA already gives to veterans' courts. That support comes in part in the form of case managers, who work as liaisons for veterans in the local courts and jails.
Through these courts, military veterans accused of non-violent crimes can be diverted away from jail and towards treatment programs.
Shaheen says some veterans get in trouble with the law because of problems that stem from their military service, like PTSD.
“So looking at ways that we can support them that keep them out of the criminal justice system and help them get back on their feet, become productive citizens again, is something that I think most people agree is what we should be trying to do,” Shaheen says.
New Hampshire has two veterans courts—in Nashua and Lebanon—and work is underway to set up a third in the North Country.
The bill has been referred to the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Shaheen says she’s hopeful the committee will pass it out favorably.
5. 'Nuff Said
NH forum on environment cancelled due to 'lack of candidate participation'
by Margaret O'Donnell, nh1.com, October 7, 2015
MANCHESTER - A republican presidential forum on energy and the environment scheduled for Thursday was cancelled because there were not enough candidates willing to attend.
The National Wildlife Federation announced Wednesday the event would not be held at Franklin Pierce University due "to a lack of sufficient candidate participation."
The forum aimed to generate conversations about protecting our air, land, water and wildlife.
In a press release, the National Wildlife Federation said the organization plans to "press all candidates from all parties to put forward their plans to address American's conservation challenges."
6. NH TinFoil Hatters: What Facts?
by William Tucker, miscellanyblue.com, October 6, 2015
Within hours of the Oregon school shooting that left ten dead and seven injured, Granite State gun rights advocates lined up on social media to blame authorities for banning guns on the campus.
“Yet another tragic shooting in a ‘Gun Free Zone’ by crazed killer,” wrote Rep.Max Abramson (R-Seabrook).
“When will America say enough is enough and allow guns ‘BACK’ on school grounds?” asked Rep. John Burt (R-Goffstown). “They use to have guns in schools back in the day and they had crazies back then like they do to,” he wrote on Facebook. “But back then the crazies knew the school had guns and went to other easier targets.”
Former Speaker Bill O’Brien (R-Mont Vernon) joined the chorus. “Stating the obvious truth that is completely ignored by the left: ‘Gun-free zones are the problem. Let’s repeal them.’ “ he wrote.
They were wrong.
Guns are not banned on the Umpqua Community College campus. A 1989 Oregon law prohibits public bodies from banning firearms carried by individuals who have a concealed carry license. In 2011, a state court ruledthat the law prohibits public colleges from banning guns on campus. Anyone with a valid license is allowed to have a gun on the Umpqua Community College campus.
In fact, there were armed students on campus when the shooting rampage took place. “John Parker, a 36-year-old Army veteran studying to become a drug and alcohol counselor, is among the UCC students who hold weapons permits and bring guns to campus,” the Oregonian reported. “He had his gun and his license with him on campus Thursday when the shooting took place.”
“He was in the college’s veterans center, just a few buildings away from Synder Hall, with some other students who were similarly permitted and armed, he told The Oregonian/OregonLive.”
Parker and the others were talked out of attempting to intervene. "If we would have run across the field, we would have been targets,” he told the Oregonian. “We made a good choice at the time.”
Even when presented with the fact that Umpqua Community College is not a gun-free zone, Rep. Leon Rideout (R-Lancaster) refused to believe it. “U R not Bing honest,” he tweeted in response.
AND NATIONALLY
7. Who Doesn't Want a Strong Economy?
How Weak Economic Growth Serves the Wealthy...and the GOP
by J.P. Green, thedemocraticstrategist.org, October 6, 2015
Jeff Spross's "You know who likes lackluster economic growth? The rich" at The Week explains why "many economic elites actually have a vested interest in anemic job growth and a slack labor market." This is the kind of unflinching analysis that drives Republican meme-mongers crazy, for they depend to a great extent on the public embracing wholesale one of their most treasured economic myths -- that the super-wealthy want shared prosperity for everyone.
After all, the argument goes, the mega-rich have to live in the same world as the rest of us, right? More to the point, broadly-shared prosperity is good for the wealthy too, isn't it, since they will benefit when consumers have more money to buy their products, correct?.
"Not so fast," writes Spross. "A dark and unpleasant truth is that many economic elites actually have a vested interest in anemic job growth and a slack labor market." Spross adds:
To many observers, this probably sounds crazy. Tight labor markets -- when the demand for workers has caught up with the supply -- are part and parcel of a booming economy. And a bigger pie benefits everyone!...Tight labor markets -- when the demand for workers has caught up with the supply -- are part and parcel of a booming economy. And a bigger pie benefits everyone!But this leaves out the crucial issue of worker bargaining power. When labor markets are as tight as they can get -- a.k.a. full employment -- workers can quit jobs they don't like and find ones they do like with ease, while owners of business and capital become ever more desperate for adequate labor. This gives workers much more leverage to demand wage increases, so they claim a bigger share of all the income generated in the economy. Which means, by definition, the elite's share must shrink.
Spross observes, further that "after 1970, full employment disappeared, and inequality took off. The one exception was the boom in the late 1990s -- for that brief period, the incomes of the top 5 percent of households, the bottom 20 percent of households, and everyone in between, rose in lockstep.
However, explains Spross, "The main channel is the flow of money through individual companies. Higher wages mean the costs of labor go up, so profit margins shrink and businesses have to operate on much tighter finances. Conversely, after full employment went away, corporate profits boomed. Companies obviously prefer the second scenario. It also means the CEOs, management, shareholders, and investors who own stakes in companies get much bigger payouts from those capital gains." And,
Full employment also takes power over the business away from owners and management and gives more of it to workers instead. Unions grow and labor movements ferment. Workers suddenly can demand all sorts of stuff, from paid leave to ergonomic work stations to different schedules to better treatment and conditions and on and on. The people at the top lose a fair amount of creative control over the nature and direction of the enterprises they view as theirs. Pride is a thing with human beings, and there's a reason unions are so hated in certain quarters of our society.Finally, there's a lifestyle issue at play. If the incomes of everyday workers go up, then elites' real incomes must go down. The labor they're buying is more costly. This completely changes where and how the elite can spend their money, and what they can and can't consume. The rising "servant economy" rests on a wide relative gap between high and low incomes. Again, we're talking about sinful, fallen, prideful humans here, who like being able to buy bigger, hipper, posher stuff than everyone else, and who like being able to go to high-end cultural events and work creative jobs and eat nice food while other people do the shopping and cleaning and cooking and driving and child care. Full employment and its impact on inequality has a profound effect on the fabric of our shared lives as they're actually experienced.
Spross cites key "data signals for gauging the tightness of the labor market. Wage growth is still flatlined at around 2 percent annually, when it should be at least 3.5 percent. Labor force participation is way down, and underemployment is still quite high." Even more significantly, says Spross,
But maybe the best metric is the percentage of the prime-age work force -- too old to be students and too young to retire -- that's employed. That number still hasn't recovered to where it was before 2008, and that peak was still below where it was before the 2001 recession. The late 1990s boom, while better, was also less impressive that what went on mid-century.
This decline, he argues "is the primary tool by which the American elite gobbles up ever more wealth and power from everyone else. Recessions in the last few decades have been the inflection points for ratcheting up that effect...The supply of work is a collective accomplishment, driven by the feedback loop between consumers and businesses. It's a question of ecological stewardship and managing aggregate demand, and it implicates macroeconomic policies from monetary policy to taxes to the welfare state to unions."
Republican economic policies, therefore, are designed to serve their elite contributors who really want "to slow the supply of jobs to a trickle" and keep workers "desperate and forever on the ropes."
Of course, elaborates Spross, "Elites obviously don't want to completely tank the economy. But it certainly works for them if it stays modestly stagnant, maximizing the growth of the pie while minimizing worker bargaining power."
"It's the Goldilocks principle, concludes Spross. "Don't run the economy too hot or too cold. Run it just right."
For the Republicans, cultural wars provide a convenient distraction from this cynical economic strategy. Confuse the public about who the elites really are with peripheral "issues," so they won't focus on the GOP's grand economic strategy, which is to enrich the already wealthy even further by screwing working people of all races. It has served them well and they can not be expected to give it up.
Every election is important to the GOP for consolidating the gains of their strategy. But 2016 looms as a particularly critical watershed year for them, and for America. If they carry the day, they will be able to lock up the Supreme Court for decades, disempower unions and workers even further and elevate the privileges of the wealthy to ever-increasing heights, while expanding the misery index for everyone else. This is why Democrats must unify and bring their 'A' game in 2016 -- or there won't be much of a middle class to talk about in 2020.
8. Another Gun Myth
The Myth of the Good Guy With the Gun
by Matt Valentine, politico.com, October 5, 2015
Last Thursday afternoon in Austin—in the shadow of the clock tower from which a sniper shot four dozen people in 1966—students, faculty and staff gathered to demonstrate their opposition to a newly passed law that will allow the licensed carry of concealed handguns in college classrooms. A smaller group of counter-protesters was there, too, waving signs proclaiming “self defense = human right” and “feeling safe means being armed.” The confrontation was sometimes tense, but not humorless—one topless woman hoisted a sign that read, “These 38s won’t kill students!”
As the rally ended and the crowds dispersed, students checked their smartphones to see what they had missed on social media. That’s when they learned about the gunman who had shot 16 people in Oregon, killing nine before taking his own life.
Almost immediately, gun rights advocates pointed to the Umpqua Community College massacre as an illustration of why campus carry is the antidote to school shootings.
It’s an intuitive and appealing idea—that a good guy with a gun will stop a bad guy with a gun. We can imagine it. We see it in movies. At least 80 million Americans have gone into the gun store, laid money on the counter, and purchased that fantasy. And yet it rarely plays out as envisioned. Is it because there aren’t enough guns? Is it because the guns aren’t allowed where they are needed? Or is there something else wrong with our aspirations to heroism?
Speaking Friday on CNN Newsroom with Carol Costello, perennial gun rights advocate John Lott said, “My solution for these mass shootings is to look at the fact that every single time, these attacks occur where guns are banned. Every single time.”
That’s neither true in general nor true in this instance. The FBI tells us that active-shooter scenarios occur in all sorts of environments where guns are allowed—homes, businesses, outdoor spaces. (In fact, there was another mass shooting the same day as the Oregon massacre, leaving three dead and one severely wounded in a home in North Florida.) And Umpqua Community College itself wasn’t a gun-free zone. Oregon is one of seven states that allow guns on college campuses—the consequence of a 2011 court decision that overturned a longstanding ban. In 2012, the state board of education introduced several limitations on campus carry, but those were not widely enforced.
School policy at UCC does ban students from carrying guns into buildings except as “authorized by law,” but at least one student interpreted his concealed handgun license as legal authorization.
John Parker Jr., an Umpqua student and Air Force veteran, told multiple media outlets that he was armed and on campus at the time of the attack last week. Parker and other student veterans (perhaps also armed) thought about intervening. “Luckily we made the choice not to get involved,” Parker told MSNBC. “We were quite a distance away from the actual building where it was happening, which could have opened us up to being potential targets ourselves.”
Parker’s story changed when he spoke to Fox News' Sean Hannity. Instead of saying he “made the choice” not to get involved, Parker said school staff prevented him from helping. Breitbart and other right-wing outlets are making the case that, if only there had been more armed students on campus, one of them might have been able to make a difference. Ideally, there would be so many guns on campus (one in every classroom? one for every student?) that gunmen wouldn’t even attempt a school shooting.
Parker is just one of many armed civilians who have been present or proximal to a mass shooting but was unable to stop it. The canard of the armed civilian mass-shooting hero is perpetuated by exaggerations and half-truths.
There’s the story of Joel Myrick, an assistant principal who “stopped” a shooting at Pearl High School—but only after it was already over and the shooter was leaving.
There’s the story of James Strand, the armed banquet-hall proprietor who “stopped” a shooting at a school dance he was hosting—but only after the student gunman had exhausted all of his ammunition.
There’s Nick Meli, a shopper who drew his weapon in self-defense during an attack at Clackamas Mall—but Meli’s story has changed repeatedly, and local police say that his role in causing the shooter’s suicide is “inconclusive” and “speculation.”
There’s Mark Kram, who shot a gunman fleeing on a bicycle from the scene of a shooting. Kram also ran down the gunman with a car.
There’s Joe Zamudio, who came running to help when he heard the gunfire that injured Gabby Giffords and killed six others in Tucson. But by the time Zamudio was on the scene, unarmed civilians had already tackled and disarmed the perpetrator. Zamudio later said that, in his confusion, he was within seconds of shooting the wrong person.
There’s Joseph Robert Wilcox, who drew his concealed handgun in a Las Vegas Walmart to confront gunmen who had executed police officers nearby. Wilcox was himself killed by one of the two assailants, both of whom then engaged police in a firefight.
And then there are the fifth wheels—armed civilians who have confronted mass shooters simultaneously with police, such as Allen Crum, who accompanied three law enforcement officers onto the observation deck of the UT Main Building to end the 1966 sniper attack.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t also instances of legitimate civilian gun use. The NRA points to phone surveys from the 1990s that suggest Americans might use their guns defensively millions of times every year, though even the mostcharitable efforts to actually document such incidents come up with fewer than 2,000 per year. We’re told that defensive gun use is difficult to document, because guns are such an effective deterrent that—without firing a shot—the mere presence of a weapon can prevent a crime.
I asked Dr. Peter Langman, a clinical psychologist and author of the book School Shooters: Understanding High School, College, and Adult Perpetrators, whether the presence of guns is a factor rampage shooters consider when they plan their attacks.
“I don’t think it is. Many of these shooters intend to die, either by their own hand or by suicide by cop. There was an armed guard at Columbine. There were armed campus police at Virginia Tech. The presence of armed security does not seem to be a deterrent,” Langman said. “Because they’re not trying to get away with it. They’re going in essentially on a suicide mission.”
Langman points out another reason shooters might attack places like schools, theaters and churches. It’s not the absence of guns, but rather the abundance of victims. “If you’re going to do an act like this, you need a certain number of people in one space.”
9. ALEC and the Corporate Buying of States
How SPN "Think Tanks" Will Spin ALEC's 2016 Agenda
by Brendan Fischer, prwatch.org, September 30, 2015
This week, a shadowy network of state-based, right-wing think tanks and advocacy groups will convene with Koch operatives and other big donors in Grand Rapids, Michigan to coordinate their 2016 agenda for all 50 states.
The State Policy Network (SPN) is a network of state-branded groups, like the Civitas Institute in North Carolina and the Goldwater Institute in Arizona, which appear to be independent yet actually are operating from the same national playbook. SPN plays a key role in driving the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) agenda, particularly by providing academic-like cover for ALEC's corporate-friendly policies.
Union-busting, attacks on the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan, privatization of higher education, and other items are on the SPN meeting agenda this week, offering a preview of the right-wing state legislative strategy for 2016.
The importance of the sprawling SPN network cannot be understated. SPN and its affiliates take in more than $80 million cumulatively each year, and documentsprovided to The Guardian in 2013 show that SPN coordinates fundraising for the supposedly "independent" groups, from Maine's Heritage Policy Center to Kentucky's Bluegrass Institute.
A significant chunk of the funding for SPN and its affiliates flows through Donors Trust and Donors Capitol, which are "donor-advised funds" that give funders an added layer of anonymity. Known funders of SPN and its affiliates include a number of usual suspects, such as the billionaire Koch brothers and the Wisconsin-based Bradley Foundation, as well as big tobacco companies like Altria/Phillip Morris and telecommunications players like AT&T and Time Warner. SPN's president, Tracie Sharp, has noted that "grants are driven by donor intent," and that "the donors have a very specific idea of what they want to happen."
This week's meeting will take place at a resort named for Amway, the company that fueled the enormous wealth of the DeVos family, which has underwritten parts of the SPN-ALEC agenda.
Coordinated, National Effort Advances ALEC Agenda
ALEC and SPN are, for the most part, interconnected, which is little wonder, given that SPN was housed with ALEC at the Heritage Foundation when it was founded in the late 1980s. Indeed, the topics discussed at this week's SPN meeting overlap significantly with the agenda at ALEC's annual meeting in July.
Where ALEC connects lobbyists with state legislators and promotes corporate-drafted model legislation, SPN affiliates provide the ground support. After an ALEC bill is introduced in a state, the SPN affiliates create the appearance of in-state support for the effort, generating "studies" or "news" stories purporting to show the benefits of the legislation or drumming up a façade of grassroots support.
The enactment of right-to-work in Wisconsin this year provides a good example of this coordinated effort.
Wisconsin ALEC politicians introduced a word-for-word copy of the ALEC "Right to Work Act" in early February. A week later, one of the SPN affiliates, the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (WPRI), published a "study" from ALEC Scholar Richard Vedder purporting to show that right-to-work would be great for Wisconsin's economy. (The study was very similar to reports that Vedder penned for SPN affiliates in Minnesota and Ohio).
David Koch's Americans for Prosperity - an SPN associate member - dropped at least $1 million in pro-right to work TV ads. Groups associated with SPN, like Michigan's Mackinac Center and the Heritage Foundation, testified in favor of the Wisconsin bill. And SPN member the MacIver Institute was "a leading voice during Wisconsin's battle to become the 25th Right to Work state in the country," according to a recent SPN publication.
And throughout the Wisconsin right to work debate, the Koch-connected Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity - an SPN associate member that operates state-based "news" sites on the Watchdog.org platform - published stories on its "Wisconsin Watchdog" website boosting right to work and deriding protesters.
All of those same groups - ALEC, WPRI, AFP, Mackinac Center, Heritage, MacIver Institute, Franklin Center/Watchdog.org - will be represented at this week's meeting, as will representatives of the funders that backed these policies, like the Charles G. Koch Foundation and Koch Industries' lobbying arm.
Right to work in Michigan followed a similar pattern in 2013, with the SPN member in the state, the Mackinac Center, playing a key role in laying the groundwork for the measure and promoting the word-for-word ALEC right to work act. Later that year, SPN singled out the Mackinac Center's president, Joseph Lehman, for its highest award, the "Roe Award," for his group's role in making Michigan a right to work state. (Notably, despite being credited for this legislative victory, Mackinac told the IRS it did zero lobbying in 2013.)
As the failure of Scott Walker's presidential bid indicated, bashing unions may havelimited resonance among the electorate - but it remains a top priority for big donors, and in turn, remains a top priority for SPN and ALEC.
SPN has several anti-union sessions at this week's meeting, including one called "Labor Unions in the Modern Workplace" featuring Rebecca Friedrichs, the plaintiff in the upcoming US Supreme Court case Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association that could eviscerate public sector unions.
Attacking the EPA Clean Power Plan
A major priority for ALEC and SPN in recent months has been pushing back on the Environmental Protection Agency's "Clean Power Plan," which is a set of ruleslimiting carbon dioxide pollution from coal plants.
This week, SPN will hold two separate sessions attacking the Clean Power Plan rules, with presentations from groups like the Koch-backed Independent Women's Forum and the coal industry front group American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity.
SPN member the Beacon Hill Institute has been central to the anti-Clean Power Plan effort, generating studies purporting to show the costs of the EPA plan - but without actually analyzing the plan. In February, The Guardian revealed that the notorious PR flak Richard Berman (called "Dr. Evil" by 60 Minutes) was secretly funding the Beacon Hill Institute studies, which were released and promoted by SPN member think tanks.
So far in 2015, Beacon Hill has released seven "studies" purporting to show the impact of the Clean Power Plan rules in seven states, in partnership with seven SPN member think tanks. As Media Matters has described, those include:
- Iowa: Public Interest Institute, February 2015
- Louisiana: Pelican Institute for Public Policy, February 2015
- New Mexico: The Rio Grande Foundation, January 2015
- North Carolina: The Civitas Institute, January 2015
- South Carolina: Palmetto Promise Institute (formerly Palmetto Policy Forum),February 2015
- Virginia: Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy, March 2015
- Wisconsin: MacIver Institute for Public Policy, January 2015
ALEC has also been organizing a state-level campaign against the rules. The group organized legislators to press their state attorneys general into joining litigation backed by the energy industry that challenges the regulations, adopted a model resolution attacking the plan, and adopted a model bill that would create new hurdles for the Plan's implementation. At its most recent meeting, ALEC adopted the "Environmental Impact Litigation Act," a bill that effectively allows corporate interests to hire a state's Department of Justice as their own private attorneys. The bill creates a corporate-backed fund for states to sue over federal environmental laws - such as the Clean Power Plan - guided by an "environmental impact litigation advisory committee" made up of political appointees and representatives of "individuals representing agriculture and energy trade commissions."
Privatizing Higher Ed
Another session, called "Winning the War of Ideas in Higher Education: a Toolkit for State Reformers," is sponsored by the Pope Center for Higher Education, one of the many North Carolina-based institutions founded and funded by billionaire discount store magnate Art Pope, a close associate of the Koch brothers and an ALEC alum. Pope is credited with flipping North Carolina's legislature to Republican control in the 2010 elections, and bankrolling Governor Pat McCrory's win in 2012 (for which Pope was rewarded by being appointed budget director). Pope is also on the board of the Bradley Foundation and previously chaired David Koch's Americans for Prosperity Foundation.
This session is described in the SPN agenda as informing attendees "how your state can improve higher education- by limiting spending, fostering competition and protecting students' civil liberties. Successful reforms in North Carolina can be a model for your state."
By most measures, North Carolina is hardly a model for higher education policy. Since 2008, the state has cut its higher education spending per-student by 25 percent, according to the Center on Budget and Public Priorities, and tuition has gone up by nearly 35 percent over the same period. The state and university have additionally limited financial assistance for low-income students.
Yet according to those leading the presentation - Jay Schalin and Jenna Robinson of the John W. Pope Center - the crisis in higher education isn't cost or access. As The Nation reported earlier this year, Schalin says the main problem with higher education "has to do with the ideas that are being discussed and promoted," those being "multiculturalism, collectivism, left-wing post-modernism."
North Carolina is a "model" for SPN because it is ground zero for the right-wing attach on academia. Art Pope's network has led the charge not only to slash education funding in North Carolina - under the theory that higher education is an economic good, and that "subsidized" low tuition distorts the market - but also to shut down programs housed at the university that advocated for the poor and promoted civil engagement, and to instead create privately-funded education programs that advance the ideology of billionaire donors like Pope.
Earlier this year, the Pope Center for Higher Education released a report entitled "Renewal in the University" celebrating privately-funded centers that promote "the morality of capitalism" in order to balance "academia's gradual purging" of courses dedicated to "liberty, capitalism, and traditional perspectives."
It looks an awful lot like a calculated quest for power: cut public funding for universities, creating a financial shortfall, making it impossible for universities to turn-down funding from billionaires like the Popes and Kochs - even when strings are attached. It is a slow means of privatizing universities, of giving billionaires the ability to pull the strings at public universities, and to reshape academia in order to advance a personal ideological agenda.
Freeing the Poor and Learning From Amway
Other sessions include:
- "The Lessons from Amway for Nonprofits," modeled after the multi-level marketing scheme that made the DeVos family billionaires. The DeVos' are big funders of some SPN member organizations as well as school privatization efforts, and Betsy DeVos herself will be speaking at SPN on how "to revolutionize the country's antiquated education model."
- A workshop attacking municipal broadband (a longtime ALEC priority) sponsored by telecom industry front group "Coalition for the New Economy." The session will be moderated by a representative of the "news" site Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity/Watchdog.org.
- "Freeing the Poor from the Government Poverty Trap through Policy Solutions and Private Services," which will include a presentation from the Foundation for Government Accountability, the Florida-based group best known for promoting welfare drug testing laws that critics say humiliate the poor.
- A session highlighting a purported "lack of respect for job creators in many state policies," and a discussion of "how to build respect for job creators, remove barriers to employment and address this foremost concern of Americans."
- "Case Studies in Effective Executive Branch Outreach," with presentations from groups like the Illinois Policy Institute and Ohio's Buckeye Institute.
- "Free Market Approaches to Lowering Health Care Costs and Improving Access," with a presentation from the Cato Institute's Michael Cannon, who developed the challenge to the Affordable Care Act that was rejected by the US Supreme Court in King v. Burwell.
FINALLY
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