Louisiana Voice

As we move toward the Nov. 4 election, we felt it important that our readers should know just who is backing each candidate. Because we have long been opposed to the dominance of big money in the electoral process, particularly on behalf of the best politicians money can buy, we decided to basically ignore the individual contributions in favor of shining the bright disinfecting light of sunshine on Political Action Committee (PAC) money.

It is, after all, PAC money that reduces the role of the individual voter to that of insignificant pawn even though it is that same individual voter/insignificant pawn who must ultimately go to the polls and pull the lever for these instruments of the special interests. In effect, we vote not for a particular candidate, but for the special interest or lobbyist of our choice when we cast that ballot. And yet, because we must, in the final analysis, be the ones who actually go through the process of voting, we delude ourselves into believing that our form of corrupt democracy actually works.

If you really believe that, can it be mere coincidence that the more that big money makes its way into our political structure, the more gridlocked Washington becomes? Now ask yourself this: who loses in this scenario? And who wins? A hint: have you heard a defense contractor, for instance, complain of being left out of the political process? An oil company? Wall Street? We didn’t think so.

If that lowers your self-esteem and destroys your belief in the democratic process, we’re sorry. We just report what we find. How many times have you placed your faith in a candidate only to see him sell his soul to those who, unlike us, can afford to buy influence? Need we even remind you of the pontifications on the “gold standard of ethics” by candidate Bobby Jindal as contrasted to the actual practices of post-election politician Bobby Jindal once in office?

And if the candidates we profile in the coming days and weeks (and we will make a sincere attempt to get to every candidate for each U.S. House District and each candidate for U.S. Senate) are offended or embarrassed by our revelations of the baggage those PAC contributions bring to their campaigns, so be it.

All we can say in response to your annoyance is: You took the money; you should’ve known better.

As promised, here are select PAC contributions, the good, the bad and the ugly, to U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu ($2.6 million total):

AMERICA WORKS PAC: $2,500

Affiliated with U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio)

• In 2013, Brown proposed to break up consolidated banks and finance industry conglomerates, ending “too big to fail” by restoring the Glass-Steagall Act.
• Brown opposed the Iraq War and voted against the Iraq Resolution as a House Representative. He voted against the $87 billion war budgetary supplement.
• In 2008, Brown joined 91 other senators in voting for the Iraq and Afghanistan War Funding, Unemployment Benefits Extension, and GI Bill, which required the Department of Defense to provide a timetable for achieving security in Iraq.
• Brown was the co-author and sponsor of a bill that would officially declare China a currency manipulator and require the Department of Commerce to impose countervailing duties on Chinese imports.

AMERIPAC: THE FUND FOR A GREATER AMERICA: $5,000

Affiliated with Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland)

• In March 2007, the Center for Public Integrity reported that Hoyer’s political action committee “raised nearly $1 million for congressional candidates [in the 2006 election cycle by exploiting what experts call a legal loophole.” The Center reported the following:
• Campaign finance disclosure records show that the Maryland Democrat used his leadership political action committee—AmeriPAC—as a conduit to collect bundles of checks from individuals, and from business and union interests. He then passed more than $960,000 along to 53 House candidates and another quarter of a million to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, data compiled from the Center for Responsive Politics Web site show. Federal law generally prohibits political action committees, including leadership PACs, which are run by politicians, from receiving more than $5,000 each year from a single donor or giving more than $10,000 to a single candidate ($5,000 each for the primary and the general election). But Hoyer collected as much as $136,000 from one labor union committee and distributed more than $86,000 to a single Congressional race.

BLUE HEN PAC:  $1,000

Affiliated with Sen. Chris Coons (D-Delaware)

• Coons ran in the 2010 special election for the S. Senate seat then held by Ted Kaufman, who was appointed after Joe Biden resigned. During the campaign, a controversy arose surrounding an article Coons wrote in 1985 for his college newspaper, entitled “Chris Coons: The Making of a Bearded Marxist”. In it, he describes his transformation from a Republican to what Fox News described as a “Democrat suspicious of America’s power and ideals.”
• Coons introduced the Victims of Child Abuse Act Reauthorization Act of 2013 (S. 1799; 113th Congress), a bill that would reauthorize the Victims of Child Abuse Act of 1990 and would authorize funding through 2018 to help child abuse

DAKOTA PRAIRIE PAC:  $5,000

Affiliated with Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-North Dakota)

• Heitkamp was attacked in commercials for accepting campaign contributions from a trial lawyer, Jack McConnell, Jr., assigned by her to help North Dakota implement its settlement with tobacco companies when she served as state attorney general.
• Heitkamp said she would support a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution “with exceptions” that included wartime spending, Social Security, Medicare, and a ban on tax cuts for those making more than $1 million per year.
• Heitkamp supports implementing the Buffett Rule via the Paying a Fair Share Act, which would require those making a gross income of $1,000,000 or more to pay at least a 30% federal tax rate.
• Heitkamp said she supports the Keystone XL pipeline because it will create jobs, decrease America’s dependence on foreign oil from the Middle East, and help drive down the national debt. She also said many who oppose hydraulic fracturing have been exposed to “junk science” and do not know what it really is.

DEMOCRATS FOR EDUCATION REFORM PAC:  $8,740

• Democrats for Education Reform claims that it “leads efforts to frame the fight that is playing out within the Democratic Party on education issues.” It tries to accomplish that by pushing aside teacher unions as education spokespeople or even as informed practitioners. The organization advocates for nonunion charter schools, vouchers, merit pay, test-based teacher evaluations, curbs on tenure and removing teacher unions from almost any role in shaping curriculum or determining working conditions.
• In just three years, DFER directed more than $17 million into political and grassroots advocacy for its version of education reform and for what Joe Williams, the group’s executive director and a former Daily News education reporter, credits as “creating momentum which has the potential to dominate education policymaking for years to come.”

FOLLOW THE NORTH STAR FUND: $2,500

Affiliated with Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.

• The Winona Daily News described her as a “rare politician who works across the aisle.” Walter Mondale stated “She has done better in that miserable Senate than most people there.”

FRIENDS OF CHRIS DODD: $1,000

• As chairman of the Senate Banking Committee Dodd proposed a program in June 2008 that would assist troubled sub-prime mortgage lenders such as Countrywide Financial in the wake of the United States housing bubble‘s collapse. Dodd received mortgages from Countrywide at allegedly below-market rates on his Washington, D.C. and Connecticut homes. Dodd had not disclosed the below-market mortgages in any of six financial disclosure statements he filed.
• On August 7, 2009, the Select Committee on Ethics said it found “no credible evidence” that Dodd knowingly sought out a special loan or treatment because of his position, but the panel also said in an open letter to Dodd that he should have questioned why he was being put in the VIP program at Countrywide. Dodd has since been called Wall Street’s “biggest booster, the most Machiavellian of United States Senators…” in Jeff Connaughton’s book, The Payoff: Why Wall Street Always Wins.
• Dodd was involved in issues related to the federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis. At the time, it was estimated that the federal government would need to spend $25 billion on a bailout of the firms. During this period, Dodd denied rumors these firms were in financial crisis. He called them “fundamentally strong,” said they were in “sound situation” and “in good shape” and to “suggest they are in major trouble is not accurate.”
• Dodd is the number one recipient in Congress of campaign funds from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
• From the fall of 2008 through early 2009, the United States government spent nearly $170 Billion to assist failing insurance giant, AIG. AIG then spent $165 million of this money to hand out executive “retention” bonuses to its top executives. Public outrage ensued over this perceived misuse of taxpayer dollars.
• Dodd has received more than $223,000 from AIG employees for his political campaigns. Additionally, Dodd’s wife is a former Director for Bermuda-based IPC Holdings, a company controlled by AIG. Dodd’s wife served on a number of corporate boards, including the CME Group and could be earning as much as $500,000 annually for her service on said boards. On March 30, 2009, it was reported that former AIG Financial Products head Joseph Cassano personally solicited contributions from his employees in Connecticut via an e-mail in fall 2006 suggesting that the contributions were related to Dodd’s ascension to the chairmanship of the Senate Banking Committee.

FRIENDS OF SEN. CARL LEVIN (D-Michigan):  $2,000

• He is a strong advocate for cost controls regarding military procurements.^[22] He has also pushed for less secrecy in government, working to declassify many documents, particularly where claims of ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda are concerned.
• Levin grew critical of the Bush administration’s handling of the Afghanistan War, saying in 2005 that they “took their eye off the ball when we decided to go after Iraq instead of al-Qaeda, the people who had attacked us on 9/11, and their leader.
• Levin was an early opponent of using U.S. military force in Iraq, saying in August 2002 that “if Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, he wouldn’t use them,” and that “he’s a survivalist, not a suicide bomber.”Levin was one of 23 Senators who voted against the Iraq Resolution. Levin has strongly argued that the War in Iraq was a diversion from the War on Terror. On CNN on November 14, 2005, Levin said that “before the war, the President was saying that you cannot distinguish between Saddam Hussein and Iraq. As a matter of fact, he said that so often that he tried to connect Saddam Hussein with the attackers on us, on 9/11, so often, so frequently and so successfully, even though it was wrong, that the American people overwhelmingly thought, because of the President’s misstatements that as a matter of fact, Saddam Hussein had participated in the attack on us on 9/11. That was a deception. That was clearly misinformation. It had a huge effect on the American people.”

GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. PAC:  $1,000

• According to the New York Times story, GE reported U.S. profits of $5.1 billion in 2010 (and $14.2 billion worldwide). “Its American tax bill?” asked the Times. “None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion,” an amount GE balanced out against other tax obligations. The company accomplished this, the story said, due to “an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore.”
• Earlier this year, GE filed suit seeking a $658 million federal tax refund. That sum represents the $439 million in taxes and $219 million in interest GE coughed up in 2010 after Internal Revenue Service auditors disallowed a $2.2 billion loss it claimed from the 2003 sale of a small subsidiary, ERC Life Reinsurance Corp., to Scottish Re Group for $151 million.

GOLDMAN SACHS GROUP PAC: $5,000

• A federal appeals court upheld the conviction of former Goldman Sachs Group Inc director Rajat Gupta, one of the biggest successes in federal prosecutors’ long-running probe to stop insider trading on Wall Street.
• Federal prosecutors and Securities and Exchange Commission officials also investigated whether a senior Goldman investment banker, Matthew Korenberg, fed inside information to a Galleon Group portfolio manager named Paul Yook, according to separate reports in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

GLAXOSMITHKLINE PAC:  $1,000

• In July 2012 GSK pleaded guilty to criminal charges and agreed to a pay $3 billion to settle the criminal charges as well as civil lawsuits in the largest settlement paid by a drug company at the time. The criminal charges were for promoting Paxil and Wellbutrin for unapproved uses and failing to report safety data about Avandia; GSK paid $1 billion to settle the criminal charges. The remaining $2 billion were part of the civil settlement over unapproved promotion and paying kickbacks, making false statements concerning the safety of Avandia; and reporting false prices to Medicaid. GSK also signed an agreement which obligated it to make major changes to the way it did business.

GREEN MOUNTAIN PAC: $7,500

Affiliated with U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont)

• On September 21, 2005, Leahy announced his support for John Roberts to be Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. On January 19, 2006, Leahy said he would vote against Judge Samuel Alito to be a justice on the Supreme Court. He has a mixed record on gun control, being one of the few Senate Democrats to vote against the Brady Bill. He voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and is in favor of phasing out farm subsidies that are supported by the populist wing of the Democratic Party. He voted against the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Leahy voted for the Defense of Marriage Act
• Leahy was one of two Senators targeted in the 2001 anthrax attacks. The anthrax letter meant for him was intercepted before it reached his office. In 2004, Leahy was awarded the Electronic Privacy Information Center‘s Champion of Freedom Award for efforts in information privacy and open government. Leahy is regarded as one of the leading privacy advocates in Congress.

HALLIBURTON CO. PAC: $2,000

• Following the end of Operation Desert Storm in February 1991, the Pentagon, led by then defense secretary Dick Cheney, paid Halliburton subsidiary Brown & Root Services more than $8.5 million to study the use of private military forces with American soldiers in combat zones. Halliburton crews also helped bring 725 burning oil wells under control in Kuwait.
• In 1995, Cheney replaced Thomas H. Cruikshank, as chairman and CEO.
• In the early 1990s, Halliburton was found to be in violation of federal trade barriers in Iraq and Libya, having sold these countries dual-use oil drilling equipment and, through its former subsidiary, Halliburton Logging Services, sending six pulse neutron generators to Libya. After pleading guilty, the company was fined $1.2 million, with another $2.61 million in penalties.
• From 1995 to 2002, Halliburton Brown & Root Services Corp. (BRS) was awarded at least $2.5 billion to construct and run military bases, some in secret locations, as part of the Army’s Logistics Civil Augmentation Program. This contract was a cost plus 13 percent contract and BRS employees were trained on how to pass GAO audits to ensure maximum profits were attained. Any mention in the Balkans of Cheney’s being CEO was grounds for termination. BRS was awarded and re-awarded contracts termed “noncompetitive” because BRS was the only company capable of pulling off the missions. DynCorp actually won the competitively let second contract, but never received any work orders in the Balkans.
• In May 2003, Halliburton revealed in SEC filings that its KBR subsidiary had paid a Nigerian official $2.4 million in bribes in order to receive favorable tax
• On January 24, 2006, Halliburton’s subsidiary KBR (formerly Kellogg, Brown and Root) announced that it had been awarded a $385 million contingency contract by the Department of Homeland Security to build “temporary detention and processing facilities” or internment
• On May 14, 2010, President Barack Obama said in an interview with CNN that “you had executives of BP and Transocean and Halliburton falling over each other to point the finger of blame at somebody else” when referring to the congressional hearings held during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

HOLDING ONTO OREGON’S PRIORITIES: $5,000

Affiliated with U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon)

• Wyden was one of 23 Senators to vote against the authorization of military force in Iraq in 2002. In 2003, Wyden voted to bar excessive overseas deployments of members of the National Guard and Reserves. In 2006, Wyden was one of 13 Senators to vote to require the redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq by July 2007, and was one of 39 Senators to vote to call on the President to begin withdrawing forces from Iraq and establish a timeline for withdrawal.
• In 2003 Wyden joined with Senators Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Trent Lott (R-Mississippi) to help pass the Bush Administration’s Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act. The Bush Administration is alleged to have forced officials to hide its true cost, which later was triple its original claim. The bill has been criticized as favoring pharmaceutical companies, as it prohibits the federal government from negotiating prescription drug rates.
• During the global financial crisis of 2007-2010, Wyden voted against the financial bailouts backed by the Bush administration. He did not vote on the automobile industry bailout, though he said he would have voted for cloture if he had been present. Wyden added, “While I continue to have concerns about ensuring that taxpayers are protected if this loan is to occur, I believe that if the President can unwisely provide $750 billion of taxpayer money for the investment banks who took horribly unacceptable risks and helped trigger an economic collapse, we certainly have a duty to attempt to preserve a cornerstone domestic industry and the jobs of hundreds of thousands of working people whose personal actions are in no way responsible for the current economic crisis.”
• Wyden was among several moderate Democratic senators who in early January 2009 criticized President-elect Barack Obama‘s stimulus plan, calling for a greater emphasis on “tangible infrastructure investments” and warning that an effort had to be made to differentiate it from the Bush bailouts Wyden had opposed.

HOOSIERS FIRST PAC: $4,000

Affiliated with U.S. Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Indiana)

• As a member of the House before his election to the U.S. Senate, Donnelly was a member of Blue Dog Coalition, a group of moderate In March 2007, he was recognized as “Blue Dog of the Week” for his work on helping small businesses. He broke with the Democratic leadership on several budgetary issues, including the 2008 fiscal budget proposal. In June 2007, he was ranked as one of the ten most independent Democrats by a Congressional Quarterly report.

KELLEY DRYE & WARREN PAC:  $1,000

• The Kelley Drye Law Firm played a leading role in defense of the Agent Orange litigation and defended Union Carbide following the Bhopal disaster. In 2002, the firm represented P. Morgan Chase in a lawsuit against insurance carriers seeking $1 billion in compensation for its Enron-related losses. In 2003, Kelley Drye negotiated a settlement on behalf its client and obtained nearly 60% of the $1.1 billion demanded.

LOBO PAC: $7,500

Affiliated with U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich

• Heinrich opposed legislation that would have re-instated the expired Federal Assault Weapons Ban. He supported bills that would create a national standard for the concealed carrying of firearms across state lines, and co-sponsored legislation that would ease the restrictions on the sales of firearms across state lines. The National Rifle Association endorsed Heinrich during the 2010 congressional election.
• Heinrich has maintained strong opposition to the war in Iraq, and supports a swift end of combat operations in Afghanistan.
• In 2011, he voted against the National Defense Authorization Act conference report because he objected to language requiring that suspected foreign terrorists be taken into custody by the military instead of civilian law enforcement authorities.

LONGLEAF PINE PAC: $5,000

Leadership PAC of U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.)

• Hagan opposed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. Lorillard Tobacco Company is based in her hometown of Greensboro, North Carolina. Hagan was the only Democratic senator to oppose the bill when it came to a vote in the Senate. The bill passed by a 79-17 vote.
• On April 17, 2013, Hagan voted to expand background checks for gun purchasers, but also voted not to reinstate the Feinstein ban on “assault weapons” nor to ban “large capacity ammunition feeding devices” Hagan has been assigned an ‘F’ rating by the National Rifle Association.

MERCK & CO.:  $5,000

• A US Justice Department fraud investigation began in 2000 when allegations were brought in two separate lawsuits filed by whistleblowers who alleged that Merck failed to pay proper rebates to Medicaid and other health care programs and paid illegal remuneration to health care providers. In 2008, Merck agreed to pay more than $650 million to settle charges that it routinely overbilled Medicaid for its most popular medicines. The settlement was one of the largest pharmaceutical settlements in history. The federal government received more than $360 million, plus 49 states and Washington, DC, received over $290 million. One whistleblower received a $68 million reward. Merck made the settlement without an admission of liability or wrongdoing.
• From 2002 through 2005 the Australian affiliate of Merck sponsored the eight issues of a medical journal, the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, published by Elsevier. Although it gave the appearance of being an independent peer-reviewed journal, without any indication that Merck had paid for it, the journal actually reprinted articles that originally appeared in other publications and that were favorable to Merck. The misleading publication came to light in 2009 during a personal injury lawsuit filed over Vioxx; 9 of 29 articles in the journal’s second issue referred positively to Vioxx. In 2009, the CEO of Elsevier’s Health Sciences Division, Michael Hansen, admitted that the practice was “unacceptable”.
• In December 2013, Merck agreed to pay a total of $27.7 million dollars to 1,200 plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit alleging that the company’s osteoporosis drug had caused them to develop osteonecrosis of the jaw.

MISSOURIANS FOR ACCOUNTABILITY & CHANGE PAC: $2,500

Affiliated with U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri)

• McCaskill has consistently been named by the National Journal as one of the ten most moderate Senators. In 2011, she was ranked exactly 50th on its scale of most-liberal to most-conservative. The Washington Post reported in 2012 that she was the second-most-likely Democratic Senator to vote against her party.
• McCaskill has made herself known for being aggressive by questioning officials in the Department of Defense on their “loose” spending habits. McCaskill grilled top officials of the military’s auditing agencies for rewarding KBR for their Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) contract, a contract now valued at over $20 billion, despite audit reports indicating extreme contractor mismanagement and expansive overcharging of the U.S. government.^[
• As a member of the Senate Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery, McCaskill supported Republican U.S. Representative Joseph Cao and fellow Democratic U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu in their insistence on corrections of mismanagement of the New Orleans office of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
• On March 16, 2011, McCaskill told reporters that she was “embarrassed” about revelations that her office had used taxpayer money for the senator’s use of a private airplane she co-owned with her husband and friends. The plane was used for 90 flights taken between Washington, D.C., and her home in suburban St. Louis, as well as to numerous sites around the state of Missouri. According to McCaskill’s Senate office, all but 1 of the 90 flights in question were within Senate rules. As soon as the story broke, McCaskill sent a check for $88,000 to the S. Treasury as reimbursement for the flights. On March 21, 2011, Politico reported that McCaskill had failed to pay more than $280,000 in property taxes on the plane and was planning to sell it.

MONSANTO CO. CITIZENSHIP FUND:   $2,000

• In 2003, Monsanto reached a $300 million settlement with people in Alabama affected by the manufacturing and dumping of the toxic chemical polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).
• In 2004, Monsanto, along with Dow and other chemical companies, were sued in a US court by a group of Vietnamese for the effects of its Agent Orange defoliant, used by the US military in the Vietnam War. The case was dismissed.
• In 2005, the US DOJ filed a Deferred Prosecution Agreement in which Monsanto admitted to violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and making false entries into its books and records. Monsanto also agreed to pay a $1.5 million fine. The case involved bribes paid to an Indonesian official.
• In 2011, Monsanto spent about $6.3 million lobbying Congress and the S. Department of Agriculture about regulations that would affect the production and distribution of genetically engineered produce.
• US diplomats in Europe have worked directly for Monsanto.
• Monsanto gave $186,250 to federal candidates in the 2008 election cycle through its PAC.
• Monsanto spent $8.1 million opposing the passage of Proposition 37 in the US state of California, making it the largest donor against the initiative. Proposition 37, which was rejected by a 53.7 percent majority in November 2012, would have mandated the disclosure of genetically modified crops used in the production of California food products.
• The Monsanto Company Citizenship Fund has donated more than $10 million to various candidates since 2003.
• More recently, as of October 2013, Monsanto and DuPont Co. are backing an anti-labeling campaign with roughly $18 million so far dedicated to the campaign.

MORGAN STANLEY:  $2,000

• In 2003, Morgan Stanley agreed to pay $125 million in order to settle its portion of a $1.4 billion settlement brought by Eliot Spitzer, the Attorney General of New York, the National Association of Securities Dealers (now the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA)), the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, (SEC) and a number of state securities regulators, relating to intentionally misleading research motivated by a desire to win investment banking business with the companies covered.
• Morgan Stanley settled a sex discrimination suit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for $54 million on July 12, 2004. In 2007, the firm agreed to pay $46 million to settle a class action lawsuit brought by eight female brokers.
• In July 2004, the firm paid NASD a $2.2 million fine for more than 1,800 late disclosures of reportable information about its brokers.
• In September 2004, the firm paid a $19 million fine imposed by NYSE for failure to deliver prospectuses to customers in registered offerings, inaccurate reporting of certain program trading information, short sale violations, failures to fingerprint new employees and failure to timely file exchange forms.
• The New York Stock Exchange imposed a $19 million fine on January 12, 2005 for alleged regulatory and supervisory lapses, the largest fine ever imposed by the New York Stock Exchange at the time.
• In 2005, a Florida jury found that Morgan Stanley failed to give adequate information to Ronald Perelman about Sunbeam thereby defrauding him and causing damages to him of $604 million. In addition, punitive damages were added for total damages of $1.450 billion. This verdict was directed after the firm’s attorneys infuriated the court by failing and refusing to produce documents, and falsely telling the court that certain documents did not exist. The ruling was overturned on March 21, 2007.
• Morgan Stanley settled a class action lawsuit in 2006 by both current and former Morgan Stanley employees for unfair labor practices instituted to those in the financial advisor training program. Employees of the program had claimed the firm expected trainees to clock overtime hours without additional pay and handle various administrative expenses as a result of their expected duties. A $42.5 million settlement was reached and Morgan Stanley admitted no fault.
• In May the firm agreed to pay a $15 million fine after the Securities and Exchange Commission accused the firm of deleting emails and failing to cooperate with SEC investigators.
• FINRA announced a $12.5 million settlement with Morgan Stanley in 2007 over charges that the firm’s former affiliate, Morgan Stanley DW, Inc. (MSDW), failed on numerous occasions to provide emails to claimants in arbitration proceedings as well as to regulators. The company had claimed that the destruction of the firm’s email servers in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York’s World Trade Center resulted in the loss of all email before that date. In fact, the firm had millions of earlier emails that had been retrieved from backup copies stored in another location that was not destroyed in the attacks. Customers who had lost their arbitration cases against Morgan Stanley DW Inc. because of their inability to obtain these emails to demonstrate Morgan Stanley’s misconduct received a token amount of money as a result of the settlement.
• In July 2007, Morgan Stanley agreed to pay $4.4 million to settle a class-action lawsuit for incorrectly charging clients for storage of precious metals.
• In August 2007, Morgan Stanley was fined $1.5 million and paid $4.6 million in restitution to customers related to excessive mark-ups in 2,800 transactions. An employee was charged $40,000 and suspended for 15 days.
• Under a 2008 settlement with New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, the firm agreed to repurchase approximately $4.5 billion worth of auction rate securities. The firm was accused of misrepresenting auction rate securities in their sales and marketing.
• In April 2010, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced the firm agreed to pay $14 million related to an attempt to hide prohibited trading activity in oil futures.
• The Department of Justice sought a $4.8 million fine from Morgan Stanley for its part in an electricity price-fixing scandal. Con Edison estimated that the crime cost New York state consumers about $300 million. Morgan Stanley earned revenues of $21.6 million from the fraud.
• Morgan Stanley agreed to pay a $5 million fine to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and an addition $1.75 million to CME and the Chicago Board of Trade after employees improperly executed fictitious sales in Eurodollar and Treasury note futures contracts.
• On August 7, 2012, it was announced that Morgan Stanley would have to pay $4.8 million in fines in order to settle a price fixing scandal, which has been estimated to have cost New Yorkers $300 million. Morgan Stanley made no admission of any wrongdoing; however, the Justice department commented that they hoped this would “send a message to the banking industry.”

NARRAGANSETT BAY PAC: $7,600

Affiliated with U.S. Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.)

• Reed has generally followed the Democratic line by supporting increased Medicare funding, enrolling more Americans into programs that help the uninsured, allowing prescription drugs to be imported from Canada, and negotiating bulk medication purchases for Medicare in order to lower costs.
• Reed has supported fair trade policies over similar ones advocating free trade. He has also been a strong supporter of unionizing workers, and he has criticized government and business interference with these groups. He also supports increasing the minimum wage and unemployment compensation.
• Reed supports limiting American oil use and expanding alternative energy. He opposes Arctic National Wildlife Refuge drilling and federal subsidies for oil exploration, while favoring a 40 percent reduction in oil use by 2025 and funding for hydrogen automobiles.
• Reed has continuously voted against limiting lawsuits on gun manufacturers and has favored expanding gun control. He voted against loosening background checks at gun shows. The NRA has given Reed an F rating on gun control.
• Reed has made it a point to maintain liaisons within his office specifically to interact with discharged veterans of the Armed Services. These liaisons often help veterans enter the Department of Veteran Affairs, ensuring that these former servicemen and servicewomen can receive medical care.
• Reed was one of 23 US senators to vote against the use of force against Iraq in 2002. In 2007, Reed elaborated on his sentiments, saying, “It was a flawed strategy that diverted attention and resources away from hunting down Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network.”

NEW MILLENNIUM PAC: $2,500

Affiliated with U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.)

• Menendez, who is described as very close to Republicans on foreign policy, voted for the failed Kosovo Resolution, authorizing the use of military force against Yugoslavia in the Kosovo War. He was an early advocate of preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear capabilities, sponsoring the Iran Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Act of 1998.
• Menendez voted in favor of authorizing the President the use of military force in Afghanistan in response to the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks.
• In the 105th Congress, Menendez voted in favor of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, repealing provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, repealing provisions that limited Investment banks from acquiring Insurance companies or other Commercial banks, and voted in favor of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. After the 2001 Enron scandal, Menendez voted with 333 other members of the House in favor of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act.

NEWS AMERICA HOLDINGS, FOX PAC: $1,000

• In 1999, The Economist reported that NewsCorp, parent company of News America, paid comparatively lower taxes and NewsCorp Investments specifically had made $20.1 billion in profits over the previous 11 years but had not paid net corporation tax. It also reported that after an examination of the available accounts, NewsCorp could normally have been expected to pay corporate tax of approximately $350 million. The article explained that in practice, the corporation’s complex structure, international scope and use of offshore tax havens allowed News Corporation to pay minimal
• In July 2011, NewsCorp closed down the News of the World newspaper in the United Kingdom due to allegations of phone hackings. The allegations include trying to access former Prime Minister Gordon Brown‘s voice mail, and obtain information from his bank accounts, family’s medical records, and private legal files. Allegations of hacking have also been brought up in relation to former Prime Minister Tony Blair, and the Royal Family.

NISOURCE, INC. PAC: $6,500

• In December 2011, the non-partisan organization Public Campaign criticized NiSource for spending $1.83 million on lobbying and not paying any taxes during 2008-2010, instead getting $227 million in tax rebates, despite making a profit of $1.4 billion, and increasing executive pay by 33 percent to $11.2 million in 2010 for its top 5 executives.

OPPORTUNITY & RENEWAL PAC: $2,500

Affiliated with U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon)

• Merkley has accumulated a progressive record during his Senate career. In late February 2010, Merkley again made headlines when he unsuccessfully tried to persuade Republican colleague Jim Bunning of Kentucky to drop his objection to passing a 30-day extension of unemployment benefits for jobless Americans.
• Merkley became the first Democratic member of the Senate to announce that he’d vote against the confirmation of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, citing Bernanke’s failure to “recognize or remedy the factors that paved the road to this dark and difficult recession.” As a member of the Senate Banking Committee, Merkley helped pass the Wall Street reform bill. Along with Michigan Senator Carl Levin, he successfully added an amendment which banned high-risk trading inside commercial banking and lending institutions.
• Merkley and Carl Levin have led an effort to crack down on proprietary trading at depository banks and other critical financial firms. The Dodd-Frank Act included the Merkley-Levin amendment to implement the Volcker Rule. The rule is premised on the notion that banks should not make risky, speculative bets while enjoying government deposit insurance.^[
• In March 2008, Merkley endorsed the Responsible Plan to End the War In Iraq.^[

OXBOW CARBON & MINERALS: $5,000

• Oxbow CEO William Koch—the “other” Koch brother along with David and Charles—was recently sued by a former senior executive at his Oxbow Carbon for false imprisonment. The allegations are that Koch lured the former executive to his Colorado ranch and then held him against his will to intimidate him from going public with concerns over an illegal tax avoidance scheme being pursued by Oxbow.
• Koch denies that such an event took place, claiming instead that the executive was part of a scheme to defraud Oxbow, by taking bribes from competitors and participating in various other unsavory business practices.
• So either William Koch held an executive hostage in order to intimidate him from exposing an illegal tax scheme…or…a substantial number of Oxbow executives were taking bribes and colluding with competitors. Either way, there’s some shady business going on at Oxbow.
• The product it sells is the dirtiest of the dirty; its business practices are unsavory at best, dangerous and illegal at worst; and they use their money to buy politicians to allow them keep making obscene profits doing all of the above.

PAC FOR A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD: $2,600

Affiliated with U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)

• Warren voted as a Republican for many years in the belief “that those were the people who best supported markets”. In 1995 she began to vote Democratic because she no longer believed that to be true, but she says that she has voted for both parties because she believed that neither party should dominate.
• Warren is a champion of a beleaguered middle class that she says “has been chipped, squeezed, and hammered. People feel like the system is rigged against them. And here’s the painful part: They’re right. The system is rigged.” Warren said that Wall Street CEOs “wrecked our economy and destroyed millions of jobs” and that they “still strut around congress, no shame, demanding favors, and acting like we should thank them.”^[
• To no one’s surprise, Warren has encountered significant opposition from business interests. In August 2012, Rob Engstrom, political director for the United States Chamber of Commerce, claimed that “no other candidate in 2012 represents a greater threat to free enterprise than Professor Warren.”
• In May 2013, Warren introduced her first bill, the Bank on Student Loans Fairness Act, which would allow students to take out government education loans at the same rate that banks such as Goldman Sachs and P. Morgan Chase pay to borrow from the federal government. Suggesting that students should get “the same great deal that banks get,” Warren proposed that new student borrowers be able to take out a federally subsidized loan at 0.75 percent, the rate paid by banks, compared with the current 3.4% student loan rate. Endorsing her bill days after its introduction, Independent Senator from Vermont Bernie Sanders stated: “the only thing wrong with this bill is that [she] thought of it and I didn’t.”

PEOPLE’S VOICE PAC: $2,500

Affiliated with U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin)

• On August 1, 2007, Baldwin cosponsored bills proposing articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. “Although some constituents say I have gone too far, others argue I have not gone far enough,” she said of her effort to hold the Bush administration accountable for its actions.
• Baldwin lent her support to such initiatives as the Equal Pay Act (EPA) and the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act which criminalized and outlined prosecution guidelines and punishments for wage discrimination based on sex. She received a grade of 100 from the League of Women Voters as of 2007.
• Baldwin has advanced what she sees as stronger enforcement of laws against sexual violence and violence against women. She is a supporter of the Violence Against Women Act, which allowed victims of sexual violence and other sexual crimes to take their cases to federal courts and provided funding for various anti-sexual violence initiatives and programs.

PFIZER, INC. PAC: $4,000

• In September 2009, Pfizer pleaded guilty to the illegal marketing of the arthritis drug Bextra for uses unapproved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and agreed to a $2.3 billion settlement, the largest health care fraud settlement at that time. Pfizer also paid the U.S. government $1.3 billion in criminal fines related to the “off-label” marketing of Bextra, the largest monetary penalty ever rendered for any crime. Called a repeat offender by prosecutors, this was Pfizer’s fourth such settlement with the S. Department of Justice in the previous ten years.

PHARMACEUTICAL RESEARCH & MANUFACTURERS OF AMERICA (PhRMA): $2,000

• Former Congressman Billy Tauzin (R-Louisiana) resigned from Congress and began work as the head of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, a powerful trade group for pharmaceutical companies.
• Two months before resigning as chair of the committee which oversees the drug industry, Tauzin played a key role in shepherding through Congress the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill, a bill which had been criticized by opponents for being too generous to the pharmaceutical industry. The switch from regulator to lobbyist was widely noted.
• This link was explored at great length in an April 1, 2007 interview by Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes. The report, Under the Influence, pitted Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-N.C.) and Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) against Tauzin and accused him of using unethical tactics to push a bill that “the pharmaceutical lobbyists wrote.” Along with Tauzin, many of the other individuals who worked on the bill are now lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry.

SEARCHLIGHT LEADERSHIP FUND: $5,000

Affiliated with U.S. Sen. Harry Reid

• Fugitive fundraiser Norman Hsu donated $1,000 to the Searchlight Leadership Fund, a political action committee associated with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. On the same day, Searchlight received a $1,000 contribution from Winkle Paw, described by Hsu’s lawyer as a business associate of Hsu. Also donating $1,000 to Searchlight that day was Paul Su of Dilini Management Group, a company Hsu listed on a form while making a political contribution to Senator Dianne Feinstein.
• These donations to Searchlight expose a funding conduit reaching to the heart of Harry Reid’s political machine. The financial trail stretches back to Reid’s hometown, his longtime business associate Jay Brown, and his Nevada gambling industry patrons; and it connects the Hsu affair to scandal-ridden lobbyists William Oldaker and Jack Abramoff, Reid’s financial consigliore Claude Zobell, and a political action committee targeting freshmen Congressmen.
• While continuing to receive support from its initial gambling patrons, Searchlight soon sought donors outside Nevada, striving to tap the rich vein of the lobbying channels flowing through Washington, DC.
• Oldaker had a history of scandal dating back to 1973, when he was demoted and suspended for falsifying records submitted to US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission officials. Despite this setback, he worked his way up to general counsel to the FEC from 1976 to 1979. At the FEC he was supposed to be investigating a complaint by President Carter against Senator Edward Kennedy, but instead he used his position to get a job as general counsel and treasurer to Kennedy’s 1980 Presidential campaign, setting what became a characteristic pattern of using insider status to gain leverage with his employer’s political opponents.
• Like Abramoff, Oldaker applied his lobbying leverage to numerous Congressmen and Senators. For instance, he lobbied for appropriations-related interests while collecting $30,000 for Washington Democrat Patty Murray, who sat on the Senate Appropriations Committee.
• However, the Searchlight Leadership Fund continued to maintain Oldaker as an unpaid “trusted adviser.”
• April 2007 FEC documents list Searchlight Leadership Fund as having an address of 607 14th Street NW, Suite 800 in Washington, DC, the same Perkins Coie addresses used by the Democratic Freshmen PAC.
• Thus, when Hsu, Paw, and Su made their donations to Searchlight in May 2007, they had singled out a fund with a pipeline to one of the most powerful lobbying networks in Washington, connected directly to the keeper of Harry Reid’s personal pocketbook.

BOEING CO. PAC.: $2,000

• In 2003, Lockheed Martin sued Boeing for industrial espionage to win the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) competition. Lockheed Martin claimed that the former employee Kenneth Branch, who went to work for McDonnell Douglas and Boeing, passed nearly 30,000 pages of proprietary documents to his new employers. Lockheed Martin argued that these documents allowed Boeing to win 19 of the 28 tendered military satellite launches.
• In July 2003, Boeing was penalized, with the Pentagon stripping seven launches away from the company and awarding them to Lockheed Martin. Furthermore, the company was forbidden to bid for rocket contracts for a twenty-month period, which expired in March 2005. Boeing settled with the U.S. Department of Justice for $615 million.
• On September 15, 2010, the World Trade Organization ruled that Boeing had received billions of dollars in illegal government subsidies.

TO ORGANIZE A MAJORITY PAC: $5,000

Affiliated with U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa)

• Harkin has faced criticism for claiming that he had flown combat missions over North Vietnam. In a 1979 round table discussion with other Congressional military veterans, Harkin said of his service as a navy pilot: “One year was in Vietnam. I was flying F-4s and F-8s on combat air patrols and photo-reconnaissance support missions.” After subsequent inquiries by The Wall Street Journal, Harkin clarified that he had been stationed in Japan and sometimes flew recently repaired aircraft on test missions over Vietnam.
• Harkin has also been active in combating the worst forms of child labor.

UBS AMERICAS, INC. PAC: $2,500

• In early 2007, UBS became the first Wall Street firm to announce heavy losses in the subprime mortgage sector as the subprime mortgage crisis began to unfold. UBS announced in April 2008 that it was writing down a further US$19 billion of investments in subprime and other mortgage assets.

VALERO ENERGY PAC: $7,000

• Valero was the biggest financial backer of the failed 2010 California Proposition 23, and contributed more than $4 million by August 2010. Had it passed, Proposition 23 would have delayed action on greenhouse gas emissions in the state of California, by delaying current implementation of the California’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 until the state attained an unemployment rate of 5.5% for one full year.