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Who's Really Behind Proposition 226?
Or, Since When Have Workers Been Able to Count on Newt Gingrich, the Business Roundtable and the Heritage Foundation?
The Coors Brewing Co., Paul Weyrich, the Heritage Foundation, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Newt Gingrich and his pal Grover Norquist, the Business Roundtable, Indiana insurance executive J. Patrick Rooney — these are some of the biggest backers of Proposition 226, the measure designed to keep working Americans from having a voice in California politics.
Notice anything about this line-up? First, there’s not a single Californian in the bunch. All these individuals and organizations live and operate outside the state, but they want to set the rules for working people in California.
Second, this group claims to be on the side of working people and union members. But a closer look at the issues and positions these groups have taken in the past demonstrates how far from the truth that claim really is.
The major financial supporters of Prop 226 are spending big — raising some $149 million — to get this measure by citizens in California and other states. Let’s look closer at the players in this game.
Indiana Insurance Tycoon
Nearly two-thirds of the funds being used to promote Prop 226 — more than 60 percent — are from people who don’t live in California. Case in point — J. Patrick Rooney, an Indiana insurance company executive. Rooney founded the Golden Rule Insurance Co., which lobbies Congress regularly for the right to sell “medical savings accounts” for individuals, as well as for changes in Medicare that could undermine the entire system.
Golden Rule’s often deceptive practices have resulted in a $2.8 million fine levied by the Michigan Insurance Commission and continuing investigations by other authorities. Rooney’s idea of medical insurance is to issue policies only to those people “it deems healthy and unlikely to file a claim,” according to a 1994 investigation by a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee.
Rooney is very close to pals Newt Gingrich and Grover Norquist (more about him shortly) and this trio has had quite a relationship over the past years. Rooney contributed $1 million to the GOP in the 1996 elections and half-a-million to the Republican National Committee in 1994. He gave another $117,000 to GOPAC in 1993 (then controlled by Gingrich) and has poured millions into right-wing efforts nationwide to replace quality public education with a voucher scheme that would benefit very few students. Most recently, he’s dropped another $100,000 into a California ballot initiative to de-fund public education.
So far, he’s given $49,000 to defeat Prop 226 — just below the reportable limit of $50,000, claiming that he doesn’t “need the publicity.” Another Rooney-connected group, the American Education Reform Foundation, contributed an additional $48,325.
California is just the first stop on Rooney’s tour. Last November, he met with members of the Republican Governors Association to talk up this initiative and outline his 11 other target states.
Gingrich’s Gadfly
Grover Norquist has been a player among right-wing circles in Washington, D.C. for years. A member of Newt Gingrich’s “kitchen cabinet,” Norquist has set up a number of extreme organizations, including Americans for Tax Reform and the “Leave Us Alone” Coalition (whose members include the NRA, Christian Coalition and National Federation of Independent Business.)
Among the other positions he’s staked out, Norquist believes social security should be replaced with individual investments in the stock market. “If you privatize social security, if you voucher-ize education, if you sell $270 billion worth of airports and wastewater treatment plants, eliminate welfare, and so on, you can cut the government to basically half its present size,” Norquist believes.
Norquist is busily raising money — he said he plans to raise at least $10 million — to promote similar initiatives on next November’s ballot in at least eight states and to lobby for passage of such bills in every state where legislatures meet in 1998. Norquist adds: “Incidentally, there’s an added bonus. It also de-funds the GOP’s best-financed and most implacable opponents.”
This is a message California Gov. Pete Wilson has carried as well, to the Republican Governors Association and a meeting with members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Wilson’s anti-union sentiment is no surprise to California workers. Back in the 1970s, as mayor of San Diego, Wilson was constantly fighting with unionized bus drivers, fire fighters and other employees.
Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform has done much of the heavy lifting on this initiative, paying for a 1.5-million-piece mailing to get the proposition on the June ballot. This group and Norquist have contributed $441,000 to the campaign. Not surprising, given the Norquist connection, Americans for Tax Reform is pressing hard for medical savings accounts as a key to “Medicare reform.”
Extreme Right Pantheon
The American Legislative Exchange Council is the group working on getting initiatives like this introduced in state legislatures and on the ballot in other states. The major sources of funds for ALEC include Golden Rule Insurance Co., Coors Brewing Co. and major tobacco and oil interests. ALEC, a project of the Heritage Foundation, drafts and pushes “model” legislation wherever it can.
Other big contributors who want to keep working Americans from having a voice in California politics:
The Coors Brewing Co., Paul Weyrich, the Heritage Foundation, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Newt Gingrich and his pal Grover Norquist, the Business Roundtable, Indiana insurance executive J. Patrick Rooney — these are some of the biggest backers of Proposition 226, the measure designed to keep working Americans from having a voice in California politics.
Notice anything about this line-up? First, there’s not a single Californian in the bunch. All these individuals and organizations live and operate outside the state, but they want to set the rules for working people in California.
Second, this group claims to be on the side of working people and union members. But a closer look at the issues and positions these groups have taken in the past demonstrates how far from the truth that claim really is.
The major financial supporters of Prop 226 are spending big — raising some $149 million — to get this measure by citizens in California and other states. Let’s look closer at the players in this game.
Indiana Insurance Tycoon
Nearly two-thirds of the funds being used to promote Prop 226 — more than 60 percent — are from people who don’t live in California. Case in point — J. Patrick Rooney, an Indiana insurance company executive. Rooney founded the Golden Rule Insurance Co., which lobbies Congress regularly for the right to sell “medical savings accounts” for individuals, as well as for changes in Medicare that could undermine the entire system.
Golden Rule’s often deceptive practices have resulted in a $2.8 million fine levied by the Michigan Insurance Commission and continuing investigations by other authorities. Rooney’s idea of medical insurance is to issue policies only to those people “it deems healthy and unlikely to file a claim,” according to a 1994 investigation by a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee.
Rooney is very close to pals Newt Gingrich and Grover Norquist (more about him shortly) and this trio has had quite a relationship over the past years. Rooney contributed $1 million to the GOP in the 1996 elections and half-a-million to the Republican National Committee in 1994. He gave another $117,000 to GOPAC in 1993 (then controlled by Gingrich) and has poured millions into right-wing efforts nationwide to replace quality public education with a voucher scheme that would benefit very few students. Most recently, he’s dropped another $100,000 into a California ballot initiative to de-fund public education.
So far, he’s given $49,000 to defeat Prop 226 — just below the reportable limit of $50,000, claiming that he doesn’t “need the publicity.” Another Rooney-connected group, the American Education Reform Foundation, contributed an additional $48,325.
California is just the first stop on Rooney’s tour. Last November, he met with members of the Republican Governors Association to talk up this initiative and outline his 11 other target states.
Gingrich’s Gadfly
Grover Norquist has been a player among right-wing circles in Washington, D.C. for years. A member of Newt Gingrich’s “kitchen cabinet,” Norquist has set up a number of extreme organizations, including Americans for Tax Reform and the “Leave Us Alone” Coalition (whose members include the NRA, Christian Coalition and National Federation of Independent Business.)
Among the other positions he’s staked out, Norquist believes social security should be replaced with individual investments in the stock market. “If you privatize social security, if you voucher-ize education, if you sell $270 billion worth of airports and wastewater treatment plants, eliminate welfare, and so on, you can cut the government to basically half its present size,” Norquist believes.
Norquist is busily raising money — he said he plans to raise at least $10 million — to promote similar initiatives on next November’s ballot in at least eight states and to lobby for passage of such bills in every state where legislatures meet in 1998. Norquist adds: “Incidentally, there’s an added bonus. It also de-funds the GOP’s best-financed and most implacable opponents.”
This is a message California Gov. Pete Wilson has carried as well, to the Republican Governors Association and a meeting with members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Wilson’s anti-union sentiment is no surprise to California workers. Back in the 1970s, as mayor of San Diego, Wilson was constantly fighting with unionized bus drivers, fire fighters and other employees.
Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform has done much of the heavy lifting on this initiative, paying for a 1.5-million-piece mailing to get the proposition on the June ballot. This group and Norquist have contributed $441,000 to the campaign. Not surprising, given the Norquist connection, Americans for Tax Reform is pressing hard for medical savings accounts as a key to “Medicare reform.”
Extreme Right Pantheon
The American Legislative Exchange Council is the group working on getting initiatives like this introduced in state legislatures and on the ballot in other states. The major sources of funds for ALEC include Golden Rule Insurance Co., Coors Brewing Co. and major tobacco and oil interests. ALEC, a project of the Heritage Foundation, drafts and pushes “model” legislation wherever it can.
Other big contributors who want to keep working Americans from having a voice in California politics:
- Carl Lindner, top officer at Chiquita Banana, who dropped $100,000 on the initiative.
- Brothers David and Charles Koch of Koch Industries, a Kansas-based oil company, who are major supporters of ALEC and other anti-union groups. As a vice-presidential candidate in 1980 (on the Libertarian ticket), David Koch called for the abolition of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
- The US Justice Foundation, $20,000.
- Texas businessman James Leininger, involved in many right-wing projects, $45,000.
- Mountaire Corp., an Arkansas food processor whose CEO routinely gives to GOP candidates, $20,000.
- David Brennan and the Brenlin Group, Akron, Ohio, $49,000. Brennan has been a major contributor to Gingrich’s GOPAC and a backer of school vouchers.