Breaking: Leaked emails show New Mexico GOP shopping for fake right-to-work report and sugar daddy to fund it

A Progress Now NM spokesman not allowed
to testify about the emails during today's
 hearing

The vast right-wing conspiracy against workers is on the move in New Mexico, where a House committee today approved a right-to-work bill by a vote of 8-5.

'Right-to-work' is a deceptive name for laws intended to weaken unions by forcing them to represent workers who don't pay dues. Progress Now New Mexico exposed the thinking behind right-to-work. The pro-worker organization leaked emails among Gov. Susana Martinez's campaign account, Republican operatives and the Rio Grande Foundation, a stink tank funded by the Koch brothers.

Here's the report:

A ProgressNow NM investigation has uncovered a Republican plan – years in the making and involving some of Gov. Martinez’s closest operatives – that involved funding a fake report to “prove” right-to-work’s effectiveness while using this issue as a political bludgeon to defeat Democrats. 

A new review of secret campaign emails leaked from Susana Martinez’s campaign account by former staffers located emails between the Rio Grande Foundation and Republican operatives looking for a “sugar daddy” to pay for a fake report and new narrative designed to “win all close elections” against Democrats “dumb” enough to oppose it.

Paul Gessing, president of the Rio Grande Foundation, sent an email on Feb. 17, 2012 to fellow Republicans saying he wanted a 'study' to push right-to-work. The response:

"we need a sugar daddy willing to put up $S$ to push it"

Right-to-work opponents packed the hearing room in Santa Fe today.

Progress Now New Mexico characterized the strategy this way:

Pay an out-of-state academic to write a “scientific” analysis supporting their pre-determined conclusion, then find a sugar daddy donor to push that narrative through elections and use it to defeat Democrats.

There's a reason right-to-work supporters need fake studies to push their message. It's because the purpose of right-to-work is to enrich billionaires and CEOs at the expense of workers. Right to work is promoted by the same billionaires and CEOs who get tax breaks and ship jobs overseas.

It's a shame New Mexico lawmakers are wasting time on deceptive right-to-work legislation rather than creating good jobs. Even right-to-work supporters admit it lowers wages.

People make an average of $5,000 a year less in right-to-work states. Six of the top 10 states with high unemployment are right to work states.

You won't find that in the Rio Grande Foundation's phony report.

Stink Tanks exposed as front groups for Koch brothers

A national network of stink think tanks is quietly pushing the agenda of anti-worker groups with funding from Koch brothers-affiliated organizations, according to a report released today.

Today our friends at the Center for Media and Democracy exposed the State Policy Network, which claims to fund 'independent' think tanks in all 50 states. The State Policy Network, disturbingly, is tax-exempt and so are the stink tanks it funds.

SPN's stink tanks use 'dark money' from the Benedict Arnold Koch brothers and their ilk to push an anti-worker, anti-consumer corporate-empowerment agenda in the states -- while pretending to be nonpartisan.

If this is sounding a lot like the corporate dating service for state lawmakers known as ALEC, it is. Lisa Graves, executive director of the CMD, told Politico the SPN, like ALEC, is part of the Kochtopus.

According to CMD:

SPN has played a major role in supporting ALEC, serving as a "chairman" level sponsor of the 2013 and 2011 ALEC Annual Conferences and acting as a voting member of several task forces. SPN affiliates push parts of ALEC's agenda in their respective states, and ALEC is also an associate member of SPN. SPN and its affiliates have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to ALEC. 

Politico quoted Graves today:

“These aren’t just little think tanks that are doing nonpartisan research based on what’s happening in the state and really reflective of the culture of those states,” said Lisa Graves....“These are a lot of groups that put together pretty cooked books on the issues they are peddling and have been criticized in state after state for how shoddy their research has been.” 

In a press statement, Graves said,

The 'experts' of State Policy Network groups get quoted on TV, in the papers, or in the legislature as if they were nonpartisan, objective scholars on issues of public policy. But in reality, SPN is a front for corporate interests with an extreme national policy agenda tied to some of the most retrograde special interests in the country, including the billionaire Koch brothers, the Waltons, the Bradley Foundation, the Roe Foundation, and the Coors family.

Teamsters have tangled with these groups before. In Wisconsin, the MacIver Institute promoted job-killer  Gov. Scott Walker's union-busting Act 10 as good for the economy. It wasn't.

In Michigan, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy pushed job-killer Gov. Rick Snyder's right to work for less law with the same arguments and the same results. In Missouri, it's the Show-Me Institute. In Ohio, the Buckeye Institute. And so on.

If you're getting a whiff of foul odors from your state capital, check out the CMD's new website, www.stinktanks.org. If you think it's a stink tank, it probably is.

Today's Teamster News 4.03.13

No, American Corporations Aren’t Paying The World’s Highest Tax Rate  ThinkProgress   ...even as profits for American corporations hit a 60-year high in 2011, their effective tax rate hit a 40-year low, and the U.S. collects less in taxes as a percent of the total economy than every industrialized country in the world save Iceland...
Judge Questions Fairness Of Citigroup's $590 Million Settlement  Reuters   ...A Manhattan federal judge on Monday signaled he will not rubber-stamp Citigroup Inc's proposed $590 million settlement of a shareholder lawsuit accusing it of hiding tens of billions of dollars of toxic mortgage assets...
Factory Orders Rise 3%, Biggest Increase in Five Months  Transport Topics   ...The trucking industry relies on factory orders and shipments for much of its business....
Wal-Mart Customers Complain Bare Shelves Are Widespread  Bloomberg   ...More than 1,000 e-mailed complaints signal that Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s (WMT) restocking challenges are more widespread than the world’s largest retailer has said...
Eurozone joblessness stays at record high  FT   ...Unemployment in the eurozone remained at a record high in February, highlighting the human cost of the debt crisis and adding pressure on the European Central Bank to cut interest rates to stimulate growth across the 17-country bloc...
SB 213 may hurt Indiana Workers  kokomoperspective.com   ...Senate Bill 213 bans cities, towns, counties, and townships in Indiana from requiring employers within their jurisdictions to provide terms and conditions of employment or worker benefits that exceed the minimums established by federal or state law...
The Truth About the Mackinac Center  Michigan Education Association   ...One of its primary goals is to dismantle public education in Michigan, replacing traditional public schools with profit-making institutions...
Victory! The Stopping of Owlcatraz  The Nation   ...In a victory for social justice, human decency and those who stand against the private prison industry and its nihilistic agenda of mass incarceration, GEO Group will no longer hold naming rights of the football stadium at Florida Atlantic University.
GOP senators on proposed budget deficit: No way!  The Cap Times   ...the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau released a memo projecting a $664 million structural deficit resulting from Gov. Scott Walker’s budget proposal...
Teamsters weigh unfair labor charge  The Times Herald   ...Teamsters Local 214 (in Michigan) is on the verge of filing an unfair labor practices complaint against St. Clair County regarding contract negotiations for the juvenile detention officers...
Safety Study for all Commercial Drivers  IBT   ...Attention IBT members: Give your thoughts on distracted driving and enter to win an iPAD...
Upcoming Pipeline Trainings In April  IBT   ...The National Pipeline Training Fund has scheduled two CSA/Driver Safety Presentations for Teamster Pipeliners...
Teamsters Local 777 Overwhelmingly Ratifies Contract at RTS Packaging  Teamsters Joint Council 25 News   ...By an overwhelming margin of 5-to-1,Teamsters Local 777 members with RTS Packaging voted to ratify a new four-year contract on Saturday, March 23...
Outrage Over National Express  John’s Labour Blog   ...Pension fund overseers are concerned with National Express’s anti-worker behavior at its U.S. subsidiary, Durham School Services...