All posts by Carole Lutness

California

Will Speaker John Perez Keep His Promise to Activists About Passing the California DISCLOSE Act?

Last month there was great news for AB 1648, the California DISCLOSE Act.  Speaker John Perez, who is a co-author of AB 1648, stood up in front of a couple of hundred activists at a Los Angeles County Democratic Party meeting and said, to a roaring round of cheers, that “we are going to get the DISCLOSE Act passed!”

This was fabulous news, because the California DISCLOSE Act is crucial to fighting back against Citizens United and unlimited anonymous spending in SuperPACS by making political ads in California clearly show their three largest funders.  Without it voters will be crushed by the Chevron’s and Koch Brothers of the world.

Speaker Perez really has to make it happen because unfortunately, with huge opposition from the California Chamber of Commerce and its big-money corporate allies who would rather keep voters in the dark, it doesn’t look like there’s any Republican Assemblymembers that will vote for it, denying it the 2/3 vote it needs as it currently stands.

Fortunately, Speaker Perez could amend the bill to be a majority vote bill to put it on the 2014 ballot, but he has to act quickly, because the legislative session is over August 31st and it still has to get through the Senate.

The good news is that the California Democratic Party will be fully behind him, since it just endorsed it.   As California Democratic Party Chairman John Burton said:

“The California Democratic Party strongly endorses AB 1648, the California DISCLOSE Act.  We agree with the overwhelming percentage of California voters who favor more disclosure of who is paying for political ads.  Our democracy is at risk when special interests can dominate politics while hiding their influence.”

Not to mention that AB 1648 has 44 Assembly co-authors, that over 65,000 people have signed petitions for it, and it has been endorsed by over 300 organizations and leaders, from the League of Women Voters to Courage Campaign to Sierra Club California.  Everybody knows how important it is to stop corporations and billionaires from buying elections by hiding when they pay for political ads!

Unfortunately, time is running out.  The good news is that at the CDP e-board two weekends ago, Speaker Perez told a number of Democratic activists again that he would get it passed.  One of them reported that “he said that he always gets a bill through after he promises he would do it, and that he has a good track record on doing it.”  He said DISCLOSE Act supporters “needed to concentrate on the Senate as we didn’t have to worry about the Assembly”.

It’s getting a little late, but with promises like that from Speaker Perez, I’m sure he’ll be a hero to Californians everywhere by getting it through — in which case, everybody be ready to help get it through the Senate!

In the meantime, sign the petition yourself at:  http://www.CAclean.org/petition

Carole Lutness

Member of the Legislative Committee of the California and Los Angeles Democratic Parties

Health Care

A Fellowship of Extraordinary People

John Dean will be visiting conservative Santa Clarita on August 15th which has gotten me to be thinking of other whistleblowers I have long admired.  These are generally ordinary people who are extraordinarily brave.  In corporate and governmental bureaucracies the culture promotes a “look the other way,” “It’s not my problem,” “I don’t want to make waves,” mentality. But whistleblowers generally take extraordinary risks to expose what is wrong, corrupts, illegal or harmful.

In the famous Pentagon Papers US intelligence analyst Daniel Ellsberg leaked to the New York Times and other newspapers a comprehensive study documenting the ‘secret history’ of US military and political activity in South East Asia . This revelation helped to enlighten the American public about Viet Nam and turn public sentiment against the war.  A couple of years later, “Deep Throat,” Mark Felt, former second-in-command at the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, supplied crucial information to reporters Woodward and Bernstein about the misdeeds of President Richard Nixon.

Dr Jeffrey Wigand disclosed questionable practice by tobacco companies.  After Wigand, a former Brown & Williamson head of research and development, told the US media in 1996 that cigarettes were the “delivery device for nicotine” he faced lawsuits and death threats but revealed in a television interview that tobacco companies knew nicotine was addictive, that carcinogenic material was knowingly added to cigarettes, that research exploring the dangers of cigarettes was suppressed and that attempts to develop a “safer” cigarette were axed.

Karen Silkwood gained attention for claims of malpractice by nuclear fuels group Kerr-McGee before coming to what was portrayed in the 1983 Hollywood feature Silkwood as a suspicious death. Other famous whistleblowers include Enron’s executive Sherron Watkins; WorldCom’s Vice President Cynthia Cooper and Duke Energy executive Barron Stone and Xerox Assistant Treasurer James Bingham who was fired in 2000 after publicizing creative accounting that had boosted the group’s reported earnings.

Pfizer vice president for corporate marketing Peter Rost claimed in 2003 that Pharmacia, acquired by Pfizer earlier that year, illegally promoted the sale of human growth hormone for unauthorized uses such as anti-aging therapy. The claim was followed by an often public disagreement, including criticism on 60 Minutes that Pfizer had sought to block US consumers from saving money by importing prescription drugs, and culminated in Pfizer firing Rost in December 2005.

The list of these heroes goes on and on.  The whistleblower often suffers ostracism, fierce reprimands, forced transfers, referrals to psychiatrists, dis­missal and blacklisting.  Retaliation for disclosing organizational wrongdoing/whistle blowing reinforces the “look the other way” corporate/governmental culture.

Now we have Wendell Potter. Last month, testimony in front of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation by a former CIGNA health insurance top executive insider named Wendell Potter made news even before it occurred: CBS NEWS headlined, “Cigna Whistleblower to Testify.”  After the Congressional testimony the industry has scrambled to do damage control by spending hundreds of millions of dollars on “Harry and Louise” ads, unrelenting Congressional lobbying, Internet e-mails full of lies and distortions, fake “citizen” rallies and disruptions of town hall meetings on Health Care Reform.

Potter told Bill Moyers why he left his successful career as the head of Public Relations for CIGNA, one of the nation’s largest insurers, and decided to speak out against the industry. “I didn’t intend to [speak out], until it became really clear to me that the industry is resorting to the same tactics they’ve used over the years, and particularly back in the early ’90s, when they were leading the effort to kill the Clinton plan.”

Potter began his trip from health care spokesperson to reform advocate while back home in Tennessee . After Potter attended a Remote Area Medical event, a makeshift health clinic set up at a fairgrounds for people without health insurance, he said, “It was absolutely stunning. When I walked through the fairground gates, I saw hundreds of people lined up, in the rain. It was raining that day. Lined up, waiting to get care, in animal stalls. Animal stalls.” (This event will be coming to LA from 8/11-18)

Potter believes that the health insurance industry is going in the wrong direction and taking the country in the wrong direction. Looking back over his long career, Potter sees an industry corrupted by Wall Street expectations and greed. According to Potter, insurers have every incentive to deny coverage – every dollar they don’t pay out to a claim is a dollar they can add to their profits, and Wall Street investors demand they pay out less every year. Under these conditions, Potter says, “You don’t think about individual people. You think about the numbers, and whether or not you’re going to meet Wall Street’s expectations.”

Thank God for whistleblowers like Potter.  Hopefully the American public will hear him over the din of the industries propaganda.  Plans are in the making to have him come to Santa Clarita soon.  Stay tuned.

Carole Lutness, Chair

Democratic Neighbors of the 38th AD

 

Uncategorized

Why I’m voting against all the Props

2 Comments

(Carole was an Assembly candidate in AD-38 last year, a red district, and she nearly took it. – promoted by David Dayen)

I was one of the activists who spoke against the Props on Tues night at LACDP.  I am from AFSCME, not SEIU although SEIU has also come out against the Props 1A, 1D & 1E.  I am responding to David’s blog on the LACDP’s courage not to succumb to the pressures of our Legislators to pass the May 19 election Props. In reviewing the responses to his Blog,  I wanted to make some points.  

(edited to put the rest on the flip for space)

Regarding Prop A, the worst part of it is the Constitutional amendment for Spending Caps and the Rainy Day Fund. Spending Caps and the Rainy Day Fund will be a permanent part of the constitution and even if we are able to overturn the 2/3rds it will take a proposition to undo Spending Caps  I do not fault our Democratic legislators for this deal.  As long as we have the 2/3rds, Repubs have the power. It’s like being on the playground and seeing your class leaders slammed up against the fence by some bully thugs with guns and our leaders calling to us to “give them your lunch money, give them what they want.”  My heart goes out to them and I know they are telling us that things are going to be a hell of a lot worse if 1A doesn’t pass but I will not/can not be bullied by those Repub thugs into voting for Props that so blatantly violate our Democratic values and that will institute permanent, structural changes to our constitution that will be extremely difficult to undo.

That’s why we need to let the chips fall where they may, as much as I hate to say it, about this budget/May19 election.  Look, the Props are based on a budget deal based on a $42 billion deficit.  We are now at $55 billion (I think that’s the figure) because we didn’t get the Stimulus $ projected, Income Tax revenues are way down, etc.  So even if the Props pass the Legislators are still to have to go back into negotiation.  These Props are horrible. And any deal that will be made will be horrible but we will not be approving a permanent structural change that we will live to deeply regret and we will not be going down the slippery slope of slowly dismantling Prop 10 and 63.(1D and 1E)

   Prop 1A – The structural changes with Spending Caps/Rainy Day Fund will hamstring us forever – especially if we don’t overthrow the 2/3rds.Just look at how Prop 13 has damaged us.  (BTW The 2/3rds is part of Prop 13 which is how the Right will fight us next June when we will have a Prop to overturn the 2/3rds) If our budget is frozen at a 10 year average, what happens if gas goes up?  Does that mean that there will not be gas for Social Workers to do home visits to protect children/the elderly?  Does that mean that governmental agencies won’t be able to buy toner much less replace equipment? And what about the deluge of Boomers entering old age?  Does that mean we won’t be able to provide services that will keep them in their homes? Much less continue to fund our schools.  etc, etc,etc.  Obviously this is just a way for the Repubs to “shrink government so small….etc”  Another ploy by the corporate forces to dismantle government.

Prop 1B – a pay off to CTA -( have you been hearing their ads?) to support the Props.  What a crock!  The CTA is putting in $1mil (or is it $2 mil? I’ve heard both) for media to get the Props to pass. This deal The Gov made w/ CTA.  The schools will get a bundle if 1A passes. Also the building trade unions who are desperate for work because of this economic Depression have come out for the Props. This ploy by the Gov to get CTA and the building trade unions to support the Props (and put money into the media campaign) is an effective way to split Labor.  Labor and the LACDP came out “neutral” on 1A because they can’t side with one big labor force against another (just like what happened with the Indian Gaming Prop and the Clean Money Prop a couple of years ago.)  The Gov is also looking for $25 mil from his corporate buddies to do a media blitzkrieg this month on a “Vote Yes” campaign.

Prop 1C- Ha, ha, ha – wanna buy some junk bonds on potential future earnings of the lottery when lottery revenue is down? And what about the high interest the State is going to have to pay to get people to buy these bonds??? (6.85%?)

Prop 1D – Repubs came in to negotiation with the intention of dismantling Prop 10 – the First 5 program, which has been very, very successful in early intervention, parent education and strong anti-tobacco info.  Paid for by a $.53? tax on cigs.  I wondered why the Repubs were getting so much money from the tobacco industry last year when I ran against Cameron Smyth. Now it’s very clear.  They intend to dismantle this program. Our Dems were able to keep it down to a small amount this year but unless we overturn the 2/3rds they will keep chipping away at this program as well as Prop 63 (1E) until they are both gone.

Prop 1E – The Repubs also wanted to totally dismantle Prop 63, the Mental Health Services Act, passed overwhelmingly by the voters in 2004 paid for by taxing 1% of their taxable income over $1million.  The MHSA is doing what then Gov. Reagan promised in the ’70s when he deinstitutionalized untold thousands of mentally ill people onto the streets and promised “the money will follow.”  Well, the money never did follow and that is one reason we have 73,000 homeless people – a large proportion of them mentally ill, sleeping on the LA streets.  The MHSA has 4 components – 1.homeless mentally ill, 2. elderly mentally ill, 3. TAY (Transitional Age Youth) mentally ill, and a strong Prevention components that works with the schools, etc to prevent mental illness.

It is VERY successful. For example the Skid Row Homeless Outreach program has an 83% success rate and they have seen a 40% reduction in incarceration.  That means the MHSA program which costs $16,000 a year for full services – meds/housing/day treatment/case management, etc. is saving the taxpayer millions because it costs about $94,000 to incarcerate a homeless mentally ill person in that largest of mental hospitals in the world – the LA County Jail!!  If the Repubs are able to dismantle this program little by little (see Prop D) we will have increased incarcerations, emergency services and hospitalization. A penny wise and pound foolish idea if there ever was one!

BUT the Repubs must do their corporate master’s bidding and work to dismantle this program as well at Prop 10.  Again, without overturning the 2/3rds they will succeed because THEY WILL CONTINUE TO CALL THE BUDGET/REVENUE SHOTS!  And do not be fooled by the contention that the pittance “borrowed” from 1E will be used for EPSDT Children’s Mental Health programs.  The money “borrowed” from 1E and 1D will go into the General Fund – there is no control about how it will be spent.  Also the pittance “borrowed” from 1D is 1/2 of 1% of the $42 billion shortfall and 1E is 1/4 of 1% of the $42 billion.  You have to wonder why the Repubs picked on these two programs !!!!!! (Duh! Just follow the money as always)

Prop 1F – actually it is a symbolic pittance and even most of our Legislators go along w/ it.

So this is why I cannot vote for these Props.  I won’t be blackmailed, bullied, extorted and threatened by the Republican thugs that must be laughing mightily  behind their closed doors smoking ceegars with the Gov that they have us over a barrel.

This is why we really have to push, scream and insist that CDP and Labor put the money up we are going to need to get the 2/3rds prop passed in 2010. (And also the Clean Money Prop that will also be on the June 2010 ballot)And get John Burton to lean on wealthy Dems to join the fight.

So please vote “NO” on the Props on May 19, especially 1A, 1D and 1E.  Also please see Dave Jones excellent article on the structural changes that need to be made to correct our budgetary problems. http://www.speakoutca.org/webl…

Regards,

Carole Lutness, LCSW CADC

AFSCME 2712

661-755-3772

P.S. BTW – My union, AFSCME Local 2712, the Psychiatric Social Workers is paying the LA County Department of Mental Health my salary to fight the Props.  I’m doing a lot of educating and organizing around LA if anyone would like me to speak to their groups or would like to join our Stop the Cuts and No on 1D & 1E coalitions. Please come to the “Stop the Cuts/Defeat the Props” rally on May 13 at the Gov’s office in LA at noon (300 S. Spring St).  Bring signs, etc.  Make sure he can hear us!! ([email protected], 661-755-3772) Thanks