Wade Rathke: Chief Organizer Blog » George Soros

John Lewis and the New Fight for Voting Rights

Mariehurt — Sat, 12 May 2012 16:07:49 +0000

Congressman John Lewis Speaking up for Voting Rights

Houston The lion in winter is still a lion, and John Lewis, a beacon for the civil rights movement in the 1960’s and now a longstanding Congressman from Atlanta, roared in the halls of Congress the other night about voting rights once again. The simple issue that pushed his button was the hater amendment from another Georgia Congressman Paul Broun trying to deny all funding to the Department of Justice for enforcement of the critical provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Broun, caught in the act, by Lewis, smartly apologized and withdrew his amendment, but that was tactical not sincere. The strategy of voter suppression continues to go unchallenged.

Broun’s amendment was meant to push back the Department of Justice, finally arising from its own slumber, and challenging Georgia and other states’ efforts to implement the Republican strategy of voter suppression through new voter identification methods. Sadly, not all states are subject to the Voting Rights Act prescriptions, and many from Wisconsin to Kansas that have emerged as the “new South” in denying citizen rights to access the democratic voting process can escape with their strategy untainted.

Lewis’ roar reminds us that we critically need a civil rights movement now about the rights of the disenfranchised among the poor and racial minorities to vote, since they along with the elderly are the key components of the millions likely to lose their ability to vote in November’s election. While the Obama campaign whined in the front pages of the paper this week that “they got this” on registration and turnout in answer to George Soros, the Democracy Alliance, and other consortiums of the rich stepping up to register and mobilize these voters, the truth is that we need a full court press with all players suited up and on the court. For my part I hope they are not coming into the game too late, because much of the damage is already done.

Let Lewis lead a new civil rights movement again right now on this issue!

In the absence of major efforts like the independent ones that ACORN led cycle after cycle to register and mobilize voters; we now have overtly partisan outfits like the California Republic Party contractor, Momentum Political Services, reported on this week by the Sacramento Bee, that was hired to overtly add Republican registrants in battleground areas. Seems they have some huge problems with bad cards, bad addresses, and overtly obvious changes in party registration to Republican. Voter registration is hard work and the Republican strategy is clear: suppress the likely Democratic voter base and enhance the Republican voter files.

Without a viable party or campaign strategy at least the rest of us can stand solidly for civil rights and the promise of democracy, even as John Lewis once again has reminded us, the practice of democracy is absent everywhere.

Marching in 1965

IRS Finally Moves on Advocacy Gifts and Taxes: Pike’s Analysis

dine — Sun, 15 May 2011 03:13:16 +0000

Tegucigalpa The front page of the times indicated that both George Soros and the Koch brothers, the Daddy Warbucks of the right and the left, were among a small handful asked to defend their gifts to advocacy 501c4 organizations and why they should be not be required to pay 35% gift taxes. After 30 years, the mouse seems to have finally roared.

I reached out for an expert in this area, Drummond Pike, the founder and former CEO of the Tides family of philanthropic organization to quickly pen an analysis of what this means and why it is important. Today in a special on-line offering on the Social Policy website (www.socialpolicy.org) and the Paladin Partners site (www.paladinpartners.org), Drummond offers the insight of what this really means, and in “Better than a Trifecta,” he makes the case that perhaps the corporations will be the only big winners.

Here’s Drummond’s cut on this critical issue affecting non-profits, politics, and a lot more inthis crucial season:

Better than a Trifecta!

Today’s NYT article about IRS interest in pursuing gift taxes on contributions from individuals to “advocacy” 501 c/4 organizations, such as Americans for Prosperity or Crossroads GPS, both decidedly conservative, completes the ascent of corporate interests to dominance in our political system. Written by Stephanie Strom, normally the ambulance chaser of journalists focused on nonprofits, this article reports on the surprising news that the IRS is finally considering enforcing a tax it declared in 1982 to apply to contributions from individuals to 501 c/4 advocacy groups like the NRA, NARAL, and the Sierra Club, organizations whose “primary purpose” cannot be electoral, but rather legislative and policy. Non-primary purpose activities CAN support or oppose candidates but must remain below 49% of total expenditures; under recent rulings, this has permitted large anonymous contributions for what are essentially independent expenditure campaigns for or against candidates.

The end result: contributions to this category of advocacy organizations, that can be made anonymously, may now (after 29 years of silence from the IRS) be subject to a 35% gift tax. The work around, however, is pretty simple: give to a 527 organizations that can do elections work but contributions to which are not subject to tax by statute. The rub, of course, is that contributions to 527’s are reportable. No more silent manipulation of the process.

But wait a minute…what about corporations? The hotly debated “Citizens United” decision issued last year by the Supreme Court reasoned that because the law had evolved to treat corporations as “persons” in certain ways, they were entitled to free speech, and under prior Court decisions, “speech” meant the ability to spend money in politics, including the ability to make anonymous contributions to 501 c/4’s.

But this is where it gets interesting. Corporations are treated as persons in only some ways. The tax system doesn’t treat corporations as people in other regards, so they aren’t subject to gift tax. Thus, the effect is that, now, untaxed anonymous political giving shall be the exclusive domain of corporations. Ta Da!!

That the Roberts Court is turning into the most activist Court in modern memory comes as no secret. But it is remarkable how quickly their well-chosen decisions are advancing the agenda of the free market, anti-government business interests. This is likely just the beginning – tilting the odds yet again in favor of corporate power and against individual rights and liberties. And looking into the near-term future, one has to like those odds for Republicans. The Tea Party folks are the wildcards, but somehow I’m not optimistic that they will unravel the unholy alliance between Big Business and the social conservatives. Meanwhile, get ready for one of the worst campaign seasons ever, fueled especially by anonymously given corporate contributions.

Soros Stepping up to Murdoch and Fox News

jstuart — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 14:51:16 +0000

ACORN Canada members Preeti and Pascal with Wade.

Vancouver At Douglas College in New Westminster, hard by Vancouver, more than 30 ACORN Canada members and friends, gathered to watch the Dharavi documentary, WASTE, on ACORN International’s organizing of waste pickers, and to dig deep in their pockets to support our organizing in Latin America, Africa, and Indian mega-slums. It was a special honor to be introduced by Pascal Apuwa, one of our British Columbia leaders, who it turned out was from Korogocho where ACORN Kenya is organizing and in fact knew some of our organizers and friends with COPA-Kenya from his own time there as a community organizer. It seemed we had our own kind of “globalism” of organizing working here!

The support helps us move forward on ACORN International’s campaigns around the Commonwealth Games impact in Delhi and the larger Remittance Justice Campaign we are preparing to launch in December to another level. Pascal confirmed that he pays $17 CN on a transfer of $100 CN to his family in Korogocho, plus they pay more to pick the money up in Nairobi as well.

Just as people were stepping up to help people all over the world, it was a pleasure to finally drag my whipped butt back to crash and see that billionaire George Soros strapped up with a million dollar donation to Media Matters to match some of the millions that Rupurt Murdoch and Fox have been pushing towards hate speech, Glenn Beck, and the Republicans. This was no pussy foot thing where he sent an anonymous note over to someone with a check. This was an “in-your-face, sonuvabitch” contribution directly aimed at supporting the accountability campaign directed at Fox advertisers who are supporting the madness – and violence – being advocated by Beck and the rest of their talking heads.

We won’t win this fight as some kind of “battle of the billionaires” between Murdoch and Soros (and no, my right wing buddies, I’ve never met Soros or raised a dime from him!), but leveling the playing field as this campaign gets ready to take some major steps forward is a good thing.

But just as we’re trying to link members in Canada and members in Korogocho and Dharavi to create power and a stronger fight, because that’s our strength, I wish Soros would really step up and contribute not just money but something from his strength. Given Soros legendary skills with currency and financial markets, I would love for him to spend a couple of days looking at the numbers behind the New Corporation and the Murdoch empire and seeing what it would take to give that tree a really hard shake.

That would hurt Murdoch where he sits on his wallet. A million dollar contribution provides good symbolism and real resources, but looking at how to hit Fox, Murdoch, and the New Corporation hard and heavy would be a global contribution to people and politics throughout the world.

Unspent Citizen Wealth Support

jstuart — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 16:32:19 +0000

San Francisco Sitting in the Tides Momentum conference, I couldn’t help taking some notes as Larry Mishel from the Economic Policy Institute showed his slides estimating that unemployment would rise to over 10% in 2010. More frighteningly, he said that when he added in underemployment the rates would be almost 18% then with 27,000,000 jobs – people! – impacted adversely. I tried to reconcile this impending “pain,” as Larry correctly called it with the headline in my lap from USA Today indicating that “States Say They Can’t Afford Costs Tied to $5 Billion Emergency Fund.”

The story furnished by ProPublica writers Michael Grabell and Chris Flavelle nailed the issue that almost half of the states in the US are going to walk away from the desperately needed money in the fund, because they are not willing – or able – to come up with their 20% share of this 4 to 1 federal to state match. This is money that goes directly to citizen wealth and survival and can be used as direct cash transfers, aid on expanding welfare caseloads, rent payments to forestall evictions, and even creating temporary jobs for the unemployed. The reporters highlight the plans and problems in a number of states like California, New York, and Tennessee. They also redlined Louisiana, which is already notorious for not taking stimulus money to help the unemployed, and now indicates that its budget crunch means that despite the fact that 20% of our citizens live in poverty, it doesn’t have the money to help them get out of poverty.

What the heck?!?

In the Alice in Wonderland upside down world in which we live and work, the Administration is going around to the states trying to convince them to find someone else to put up the match. New York State convinced George Soros, who has more money than god, to pony up for them, so now the government seems to think that’s the model. According to the reporters, they think Wal-Mart or Target might be good sources for example for school clothing. I have to go look out the window and see if this is in fact the day that pigs are going to fly!

Why are we not able to say to the states do this because citizen wealth makes your people richer and more secure, rather than advising the states in how to practice some weird form of grantsmanship with counties, cities, parishes, and corporations? If we are going to get that weird, why don’t we rebrand it as ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, calculate how much the state will get back in sales and other taxes for their expenditures since the money will be spent right at home in the blink of an eye, and finally have some economic development that actually works for people rather than for developers and fast talkers?