Campaign News

Trump’s own lawyer compares him to a mob boss, McConnell helps open the door for Trump to fire Mueller, Beto O’Rourke closes in on Ted Cruz, and Mike Pompeo meets Kim Jong Un. Then activist Ady Barkan joins Jon and Dan to talk about the special election in Arizona and his new project, beaherofund.com.

Listen to the conversation here.

Dear presidential candidates:

As you seek election to the highest office of the country, we are asking you to pledge allegiance to the American people. 

Our democracy is in crisis. Today, Americans have fewer protections to their right to vote than when the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965. Never before have corporations and special interests wielded so much power at the expense of ordinary Americans.

Each one of you has the opportunity to shape a new kind of government, where we address issues on the people’s terms — not the terms of corporations and the 1 percent who are trying to buy our elections.

We want you to prove that you will work for the people by rejecting fossil fuel money and speaking up for democracy on the campaign trail, so that we know your platforms come from your conscience and not from your biggest donors. Some of you have already pledged to reject money from fossil fuels, which we applaud; some of you have yet to take that important step.

Now, we’re asking you to sign The Pledge to Fix Democracy:

The Pledge to #fixdemocracy

I pledge allegiance to a democracy of, by, and for the people.

If elected, I pledge to fight for a people-powered democracy where every voice is heard, by defending the right to vote for all, and supporting common-sense measures like public funding for campaigns and overturning Citizens United, to ensure a government by and for the people, not the biggest donors.

And I will prove that I work for the people by refusing money from fossil fuel interests and by championing these solutions for a people powered democracy on the campaign trail.

Republicans or Democrats, we can all agree that the role of the president is to represent the people. We’re asking you to protect the right to vote for all Americans and to fight for commonsense measures to make sure that every voice is heard, not every dollar. In short, we’re asking for you to join us in making America the democracy it should be.   

Signed,

Greenpeace; 350.org; Center for Biological Diversity; Center for Popular Democracy; Climate Justice Alliance; Climate Parents; Common Cause; Democracy Initiative; Energy Action Coalition; Food and Water Watch; Friends of the Earth; Indigenous Environmental Network; Labor Network for Sustainability; Oil Change International; People for the American Way; Public Citizen; Rainforest Action Network; SumofUs; US Rebel Alliance; US Student Association; Colin Beavan, author of “No Impact Man” and “How to Be Alive”; Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream and head stamper at StampStampede.org; columnist and author Jim Hightower; Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org; Gus Speth, former dean, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

Source: The Hill

NEW YORK—A group of activists lobbying the Federal Reserve to hold off on raising interest rates is pressing its campaign amid signs from the central bank that it is moving closer to lifting borrowing costs.

Members of the Fed Up Coalition, a left-leaning organization affiliated with the Center for Popular Democracy and connected with labor unions and community groups, met with Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen and other central bank governors late last year.

They recently have met with the leaders of the Boston, Kansas City and San Francisco Fed banks, and are scheduled to meet next with Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockharton Aug. 12 and with New York Fed President William Dudley on Aug. 14.

Most Fed officials, including Ms. Yellen, have indicated they expect to start raising short-term interest rates this year if the economy keeps improving. They have held their benchmark rate near zero since December 2008 to bolster the economy.

The activists say they want the Fed to hold off a bit longer to ensure the expansion benefits all Americans, not just the wealthiest.

They also want the Fed to become more open about its actions and how it selects the presidents of the 12 regional reserve banks.

And they want the Fed to engage with banks to promote affordable housing.

“Over the last few weeks we’ve had a lot of success engaging with Fed officials,” said Ady Barkan, who leads the Center for Popular Democracy Fed campaign. His group is “seeing that [Fed officials] are really being responsive” to the case they are making, he said.

Mr. Barkan said a recent meeting with St. Louis Fed President James Bullard was particularly fruitful. Mr. Bullard said in an interview with the Journal Friday the Fed has a balancing act when it comes to setting interest rate policy.

He favors raising interest rates this year and says the central bank’s September meeting is likely a good time to start.

“I think I have the better policy for the type of people they want to help,” Mr. Bullard said. “If you go for too much in monetary policy you can get some sort of financial bubbles and imbalances that fall apart and cause a recession,” and modest rate rises soon will help reduce those risks.

The activist group also is calling for greater representation on regional banks’ boards of directors for noncorporate interests. By law, the regional Fed directors are drawn from a mix of financial industry professionals, community and business leaders. Each board oversees individual reserve bank operations, and the directors from outside the financial sector manage the selection of new reserve bank presidents.

Mr. Barkan said Fed boards are dominated by the perspectives of leaders from large institutions. While he welcomes union and nonprofit representation on the boards, Mr. Barkan said the diversity should extend further and include a more ground-level perspective on how the economy is functioning.

Jean-Andre Sassine, age 48, of New York City, plans to attend the group’s meeting with Mr. Dudley. Mr. Sassine, who said he works on television and advertising productions, became interested in the Fed when his family ran into difficulties during the recession. He said that led him to ask questions about the role the central bank was playing to help everyday people.

When he went with the group to the meeting with Ms. Yellen, Mr. Sassine said he walked away with “the sense they aren’t used to dealing with people. It seems like they just get reports” and work off that data, and little else, to make their decisions, Mr. Sassine said.

“We are supposed to have input and recognition and we don’t have it,” Mr. Sassine said. “It can’t all be corporate heads and bankers…We’ve got to have real people who buy groceries” on the Fed’s various advisory boards, he said.

The Fed has tried to broaden its public outreach in recent years. The central bank this year has been recruiting people to serve on a new Community Advisory Council, which will meet twice a year with Washington-based Fed governors. Ms. Yellen last year visited a job-training program in Chicago and a nonprofit in Chelsea, Mass., that helps unemployed people find work.

Mr. Dudley has conducted a number of public tours of the New York Fed’s district, in which he has met with business leaders, academics, community groups and others. In a Wall Street Journal interview in March 2014 he explained he had been using the tours to make the Fed seem less abstract. And he also said the visits had in particular deepened his understanding of the housing crisis and sharpened his response to those troubles.

Staff at the regional Fed banks who have met with the activists say their meetings are part of regular efforts to engage with their communities, and can offer valuable insight into the state of the economy.

In a statement, the Atlanta Fed said it regularly meets with community based interest groups “through its various outreach programs including community and economic development, economic education, and supervision and regulation.”

Source: The Wall Street Journal

In the face of the Janus case, local elected officials across the country are renewing our efforts to help workers organize—in traditional ways, and in new ones. Brad Lander is a New York City Council Member from Brooklyn and the chairman of the board of Local Progress, a national association of progressive municipal elected officials. Helen Gym is a Councilmember At Large from Philadelphia and Vice-Chair of Local Progress, a national network of progressive elected officials.