Tag: zephyr teachout
‘Illegal Coordination’ Complaint Filed Against NY GOP Congressional Candidate

‘Illegal Coordination’ Complaint Filed Against NY GOP Congressional Candidate

A Washington D.C.-based watchdog group has filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission against Andrew Heaney, who is running for the Republican nomination in New York state’s 19th Congressional District. The complaint accuses Heaney’s campaign of illegal coordination with New York Jobs Council, a political action committee that appears to have been created by him.

The complaint, lodged by the Campaign for Accountability, focuses on a series of donations made to the NY Jobs Council, a PAC founded in June 2015, according to registration papers filed with the FEC. The committee has raised $60,000 to date, mostly during a two-week period last summer. But in financial disclosures available on the FEC website, $55,000 of those contributions have come from companies owned by Heaney or Skaggs Walsh, a fuel oil company now owned by his sister, Alison Heaney.

The National Memo reached out to the Heaney campaign for comment but so far none has been forthcoming.

Shortly after the donations were made, Heaney filed a statement of candidacy with the FEC in August, 2015. Since then, the report alleges, Heaney “almost certainly directed his companies to funnel at least $20,000 to a recently-created Washington, D.C.-based independent expenditure-only political committee called NY Jobs Council.” The committee has broadcast a total of 86 tweets, 21 of them attacking John Faso, former minority leader in the New York State Assembly and another of the Republicans currently competing for the party’s nomination in the 19th Congressional District.

“This is an obvious case where someone has some illegal coordination going on,” said Daniel Stevens, deputy director at the Campaign for Accountability. “Sure, the amount may be small, but breaking the law is breaking the law.”

The NY Jobs Council lacks a website or much description of its mission on its Twitter page, other than “supporting candidates for Congress who are dedicated to public policies that create jobs for our great state.” The committee is headed by Rob Cole, who also runs In The Field, a consulting firm that appears among a few recipients of funds filed by the NY Jobs Council. Cole, a well-known Republican political operative, heads the consulting firm with James “Jake” Menges, another Republican operative who once nearly choked a New York City Councillor in front of cameras in 1998.

Cole and Menges also run a firm called Crimson Public Affairs, and although their names or faces don’t appear on its site, the firm is registered under their names in Florida. The Heaney campaign has paid Mr. Menges and Crimson for consulting work, while NY Jobs Council has paid In the Field for consulting. In addition, both the Heaney campaign and NY Jobs Council paid the Jackson-Alvarez Group for research.

With Cole and Menges working for the Heaney for Congress campaign through Crimson Public Affairs, and NY Jobs Council through In the Field, it is difficult to determine whether or not those firms are providing NY Jobs Council with any information they also shared with the Heaney campaign.

Heaney presented himself as a small business owner who worked his way up via his family oil company in Queens. Since the Fifties his family has owned Skaggs Walsh, which donated $35,000 to the NY Jobs Council at end of June, 2015. His campaign’s biography page alludes to Skaggs Walsh without naming the company specifically. A further $20,000 came from Heaney Energy Corporation, Little Deep, and Submarine Rock, all businesses owned by Heaney, according to the Campaign for Accountability.

“There are laws against coordination and that appears to be what Heaney and the super PAC are doing,” said Stevens.

The FEC has the power to fine political parties and campaigns for violating its rules. The Ohio Republican Party was fined in mid-January for failing to disclose some $70,000 in political receipts. But with the advent of the Citizens United ruling, campaign finance laws have been hollowed out and enforcement comes late, if ever.

Yet the revelations could strengthen Zephyr Teachout, the Fordham law professor who recently announced she was running for the Democratic nomination in the 19th Congressional District. For now the local Republican nominating race looks much like the party’s presidential nominating process, complete with angry infighting and dubious practices.

Zephyr Teachout’s Candidacy Part Of The Rising Left In America

Zephyr Teachout’s Candidacy Part Of The Rising Left In America

After decades of political dormancy, the progressive left has again emerged as a powerful force in American politics. Leading the resurgence in New York is Zephyr Teachout, a Fordham University law professor who unsuccessfully challenged Andrew Cuomo during the 2014 gubernatorial race. Last week she announced that she will run for a congressional seat upstate where the Republican incumbent, Chris Gibson, will not seek re-election.

“Washington is broken. Big corporations are getting their way and it’s impossible to get things done for people,” Teachout told The National Memo. “Normal people lost their voice. I’m running for people whose voices have been locked out.”

Although she is running for the Democratic nomination in the state’s 19th Congressional District, Teachout’s candidacy goes beyond ordinary partisan politics. Her most important endorsement so far comes from the Working Families Party (WFP), a labor-backed, progressive party that supports left-leaning Democrats in the general election with an additional ballot line.

“‘A Democrat that can win is what we need’ — I think that resonates with the 19th district. Absolutely,” said Elliott Auerbach, the WFP-backed comptroller of Ulster County, which is in the 19th district.  “Not only is she a Democrat who can win, I take the stand that she is a Democrat that we need.”

The 19th Congressional District is home to 700,000 residents spread across 11 distinct counties; colleges dot the area, along with many farms and orchards; and New York City residents, who lean toward Democratic and progressive candidates, have been moving into the district in increasing numbers. “There’s been this huge migration of Brooklyintes and Manhattanites coming up here,” Auerbach said, explaining that the proximity of so many Republicans and Democrats in one area has led to a less polarized district compared to the polarization seen at the national level.

“Economic policy is central. These are areas that are really struggling. Broadband, transportation, healthcare, those are some universal demands and concerns throughout the district,” she said. “More broadly, support for small businesses and family farms is an issue.”

Teachout’s message bears a strong resemblance to that of Bernie Sanders (I-VT), even if she denies it — and they both hail from the Green Mountain State. Like Sanders, she is focused on fighting corporate influence and big donors. “I think the biggest thing is my history of standing up to big corporations, standing up, speaking my own mind and raising other people’s voices,” she said. “I think those are the most important qualifications.”

Ulster County legislator Jennifer Schwartz Berky, who was also backed by the WFP, praised Teachout’s qualities as a candidate. “She connects with people, is very personable, and explains her point of view without platitudes,” she said. “I don’t think [her popularity] was just because of discontent with Cuomo, although some of that was in play and she cuts through the nonsense, to use a safe term.” Berky said she voted for Teachout during the 2014 gubernatorial race.

Her Republicans opponents have attempted to portray her as part of the “looney left,” campaigning on ideas practically Marxist in nature. “She may be a fringe candidate, but she’s bold and I have a word of caution for Republicans of the 19th district: Don’t get Berned,” said Bob Bishop in a release posted on Facebook, a farmer and one of the Republicans vying for the nomination in the 19th District. “In today’s political environment, if we run a career politician or a candidate closely tied to Wall Street, Zephyr Teachout will win in November.” Bishop, who has been described as a political newcomer, is running against John Faso, minority leader in the New York State Assembly, and Andrew Heaney, a businessman.

Teachout was undaunted by the comments. “I think they are probably just replying to my funny name. I think you just need to look at my record,” she said. “I’m talking about pretty bread and butter issues.”

Teachout is also a political outsider. She has positioned herself as someone with ideas outside the political mainstream, namely advocating for publicly-financed elections and a tax on stock transfers to help pay for education funding. But she has to win election in a district that’s evenly split between Democratic and Republican voters.

Still, she may have an advantage in wooing voters with weak partisan loyalty. Many registered voters in the district have voted for the opposing party, which is one of the reasons Democrats think they can win the 19th district this year. “It’s a little more Republican-leaning, but I think Zephyr brings to the table an intelligent way of seeing the needs of the district and I think that will translate nicely in the general election,” said Auerbach.

Anti-Corruption Activist Zephyr Teachout, Who Once Faced Cuomo For NY Governor, Running For Congress

Anti-Corruption Activist Zephyr Teachout, Who Once Faced Cuomo For NY Governor, Running For Congress

Zephyr Teachout, the anti-corruption activist, author, and Fordham Law School professor Zephyr Teachout, announced this week that she is running for an open congressional seat in upstate New York.

Her announcement was issued in an email from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) and the Working Families Party, the progressive, labor-backed third party that was founded in New York and has branched out to at least nine other states. Teachout is running in New York’s 19th Congressional District, currently represented by moderate Republican Chris Gibson, who is retiring because of his belief in term limits. While the district has voted Democratic in recent presidential elections,  most of its Congressional representatives over the past 20 years have been Republican. A week ago, Teachout met with party leaders and got the nod from a majority of the Democratic county chairs in the district.

The 19th District is located in the Hudson Valley, a predominantly rural expanse that runs from Poughkeepsie to Albany, without incorporating either city into its jurisdiction. Teachout is hoping to capture the seat, riding on the same wave of anti-establishment politics that has powered the insurgent presidential candidacy of Bernie Sanders. Her criticism of American politics often sounds like the Vermont senator, focusing on corporate campaign financing, as some of her writing reveals.

“Private financing is an incredibly insane system…every private financing system leads to radical distortions of power,” she told The American Prospect last year. “You’re not an anti-corruption candidate if you’re not talking about public financing.”

While Teachout is concerned with the toxic consequences of big money in politics, she also understands the racial dimensions of the phenomenon. “If you want to understand why politicians are so unbelievably silent repeatedly, year after year, on serious and obvious issues of race — one of the reasons is that their donors are white, and pretty rich,” she said.

She has started off her campaign with support from the Working Families Party, whose nomination she lost to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2014, and the PCCC, which previously supported Teachout in that gubernatorial race.

She currently lives in Dutchess County, parts of which are within the 19th District.

In November, Teachout could face any one of a number of Republicans, including former Assembly minority leader John Faso, who leads the field. But it was Bob Bishop, a former farmer now running for the Republican nomination in the 19th district, who leaped to the attack. “With Dr. Teachout in the race, New York Republicans have the chance of a lifetime to expose the bankrupt ideas of the loony left. She advocates some of the craziest progressive ideas on record — from abortions at nine months to socialized health care to raising taxes higher than the Catskills.”

But Teachout has never advocated for third trimester abortions. She was simply uncompromising in the inclusion of an abortion clause in New York state’s Women’s Equality Act, not advocating for abortions at nine months. On taxes, she is for a “strong and fair financial services tax,” which could bring in at least $10 billion by expanding the stock transfer tax, revenue that she says could be used to plug the shortfall in state education funding.

Meanwhile, the Democrats haven’t named a candidate since Ulster County Executive Mike Hein decided he was not going to run for the seat. Even as she declared her candidacy, Teachout showed that she has sufficient name recognition and local support to launch a competitive campaign.

Photo: Zephyr Teachout speaks outside Tweed Courthouse, Manhattan in 2014. Flickr/Michael Johnson

A Deepening Democratic Party Divide

A Deepening Democratic Party Divide

For those pining for a Democratic Party that tries to represent more than the whims of the rich and powerful, these are, to say the least, confusing times.

On the presidential campaign trail, Hillary Clinton has been promoting standard pro-middle class rhetoric, yet also has been raking in speaking fees from financial firms. One of her potential primary challengers, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, has been sounding anti-Wall Street themes, but only after finishing up two terms in office that saw his state plow more public pension money into Wall Street firms, costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars in financial fees.

Similarly, in Washington, the anti-Wall Street fervor of those such as Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren sometimes seems as if it is on the ascent — that is, until big money comes calling.

Indeed, on the very same day Reuters reported on big banks threatening to withhold campaign contributions from Democratic coffers, Democratic lawmakers abruptly coalesced around Charles Schumer as their next U.S. Senate leader. CNN captured in a blaring headline how unflinching an ally the New York senator has been to the financial elite: “Wall Street welcomes expected Chuck Schumer promotion.” Notably, Democrats appeared ready to promote Schumer over Assistant Democratic Leader Dick Durbin, who once dared to publicly complain that “banks frankly own” Capitol Hill.

It would be easy to conclude that the status quo is winning Democratic politics — but a series of high-profile elections shows the trends are markedly different outside the national political arena.

Two years ago, the era of billionaire Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his Wall Street-worshiping city politics ended when populist Democrat Bill de Blasio and a slate of progressive city councilors backed by New York’s Working Families Party were swept into office promising to increase taxes on millionaires and fund universal pre-kindergarten. A year later, New York’s conservative Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his $40 million campaign war chest couldn’t muster two-thirds of the Democratic primary vote against an unknown progressive opponent named Zephyr Teachout. Though Cuomo was ultimately reelected, he was humiliated, and his future prospects have been significantly diminished.

Now comes Chicago, where Mayor Rahm Emanuel has shuttered schools, handed out big corporate subsidies, blocked a financial transaction tax and pushed for cuts to city workers’ retirement benefits. He made the old corporate Democratic assumption, betting that he could easily win reelection by simply spending opponents into the ground.

No doubt, Emanuel succeeded in the latter part of that equation. With six-figure checks from financial executives, he amassed $15 million and outspent his top challenger, Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, by a 12-to-1 margin. But because of a massive grassroots organizing campaign, Garcia got enough votes to force the first mayoral runoff in the city’s history. At the same time, voters added more progressive voices to the city council.

Lambasted as “Mayor 1 Percent,” Emanuel has been forced to champion more progressive policies to try to appease the Democratic base — he suddenly backed a $13 minimum wage and signed an ordinance compelling developers to pony up more cash for affordable housing. His underfinanced opponent Garcia still may lose the April 7th election, but in a city that has for decades been under the thumb of corporate Democrats’ political machine, a deeper victory for progressives has already happened.

“We’ve put every Democrat in America on notice that there’s a political price to pay for putting the demands of hedge-fund billionaires ahead of the needs of working families,” said Kristen Crowell, executive director of the grassroots Chicago group United Working Families, a sister organization of New York’s progressive Working Families Party.

As perplexing as the Democratic Party’s divide is, Crowell’s straightforward statement rings true. National Democratic politicians may not yet be hearing the message, but if they hope to hang onto power, they probably should start listening.

David Sirota is a senior writer at the International Business Times and the best-selling author of the books “Hostile Takeover,” “The Uprising” and “Back to Our Future.” E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com, follow him on Twitter @davidsirota or visit his website at www.davidsirota.com.

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