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.