It was inevitable. Fresh off of trying to bust the Writer's Guild union, Chris Lehane is moving on from that "success" to where he's always wanted to be - safe in the arms of his Republican pals.
With no end in sight to the state's flurry of ballot initiatives and the state likely to hold a special election this year, top Republican adviser Steve Schmidt and Democratic strategist Chris Lehane are among several California heavyweights forming a new firm solely designed to work on ballot-box campaigns.
Schmidt ran Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's re-election drive, while Lehane worked in the Clinton White House and defeated a GOP attempt to change California's electoral college system.
The new firm, LFM Campaigns, also will include:
-- Democratic consultant Ace Smith, who was Hillary Clinton's California presidential campaign chairman and serves as an adviser to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a potential gubernatorial candidate
-- Republican strategist Adam Mendelsohn, adviser to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the governor's former communications director
-- Mark Fabiani, Lehane's longtime business partner and a former communications aide to President Clinton
"If you look at the history of proposition work, the ones that have been most successful from a strategic perspective are those that have crossed party lines or have been seen as bipartisan," Lehane said.
There's a Murderer's Row of willing stooges.
And people wonder why the state is perpetually in crisis. With consultants like these...
Think about the timing, too. Right now, when ballot-box budgeting is crippling the state with unworkable burdens and all energies should be focused on untangling the structural traps that make the state ungovernable, Lehane and co. happily flit around, taking corporate money for "bipartisan" ballot measures that will do precisely the opposite.
The sickest thing is that these are the people Democratic lawmakers still think it makes sense to listen to. California Democratic Party money has poured into their pockets. The consultant class of hired guns in Sacramento may be the biggest contributor to the permanent crisis mode in which we find ourselves. Hope that "bipartisan" cash satisfies you while the state burns, fellas.
The Writers Guild of America has retained veteran Democratic political consultants Bill Carrick and Kam Kuwata to provide assistance on the strategic and PR fronts of the 8-week-old strike.
"We both have friends in the WGA," Kuwata told Daily Variety. "And we have landed a lot of times on the sides that are pro-labor."
The duo came aboard earlier this month at the guild's behest in the wake of the Dec. 7 collapse of negotiations between the WGA and the AMPTP, which insisted that the guild remove half a dozen proposals from the table as a condition of continuing to bargain. The WGA refused, and no new talks have been scheduled, while the Directors Guild of America is widely expected to set a start date for negotiations on its contract within the next week.
Kuwata said he and Carrick will work for the WGA for as long as needed.
Carrick ran the Angelides campaign and Kuwata has worked a lot with DiFi in the past. But at least that they understand that Democrats stand with workers, unlike Chris Lehane. I'd rather reject that corporate money and be on the side of those who just want their fair share.
Here is the problem with Chris Lehane going to work for the studios for me. Working for Democrats and Democratic causes means we are working to improve the lives of the many not the few. Going to work for these massive media conglomerates is the opposite. We are for people not profits. Unfortunately Chris Lehane has done this before and rather likes working for corporations. The huge piece of research on the Chris Lehane blog starts off with this quote:
"I like dealing with CEOs. I like taking strategies and tactics we used in the White House and applying them to the corporate world."
Chris Lehane decided that he was going to work for the huge movie studios and television companies and work to bust the union during a strike. You just don't do that as a Democratic operative. It is incompatible with Democratic values and impossible to justify. The studios were the ones who walked away from the negotiating table. Look, there is no way I and others would not be this riled up about a Democratic operative simply taking a gig working for any old corporation. It is the union busting that is an enormous problem. Undermining solidarity during a strike is the cardinal sin.
Now under Lehane's direction, the studios are attempting to divide the WGA membership and they are not being subtle about it. How else to describe the counters they have up on the newly redesigned AMPTP site. I first spotted them on a LAT banner ad. If you notice, the second banner is about the IATSE, whose leadership has not been supportive of the writers. They are modeled after the ones on the United Hollywood blog.
(Notice that the TNS survey they are crowing about on the top of the website is a "internet" survey and has absolutely no statistical value.)
This is part of a pattern of behavior from Chris Lehane, which Jane picked up on at Fire Dog Lake, but I want to pick up on the section titled: Lehane and the Bay Bridge Welders. It illustrates quite well Lehane's disregard of workers. This time it was not over being paid a fair wage, but over the worker's basic safety.
Last post on this today I promise. This is new information and California specific. Courtesy of Jane Hamsher of Fire Dog Lake I have this quote from Anastasia Ordonez at the California Labor Federation. Jane called them to inquire about the status of Chris Lehane's contract with the Fed on health care and passed it off to me, given the California angle.
He's been a close labor ally for many years, so we're looking into this but I'm not going to comment on what our relationship will be in the future.
Ordonez stated that their contract with Chris Lehane was terminated around Thanksgiving, because they were not sure what they were going to do with regards to health care. That makes sense, since the health care negotiations were ongoing, rather than completely falling apart and there was not a huge need to have a guy like Lehane around.
The California Labor Federation maintains a blacklist of contractors for situations like this one, where someone goes to work directly against the labor movement. They can only add someone to that blacklist if a Local requests it. WGA is not a member, therefore they cannot make that request.
SEIU has been much closer to the WGA than the members of the Labor Fed and AFL-CIO, thus it is not that surprising to see them moving more slowly than Change to Win and SEIU.
The California Labor Federation is the state AFL-CIO, with more than 1,200 affiliated local unions, representing 2.1 million union members in diverse communities and sectors of the state's economy. Manufacturing, service, retail, construction, public sector and private industry unions join together in the Federation to protect and advance the rights and interests of all California workers.
Having the Fed put Lehane on the blacklist would obviously be a pretty big deal. If they do, I will be sure to blog it up.
Change to Win had a general consulting contract with Chris Lehane. That contract was terminated upon discovery of his role supporting the studios in the writers guild strike. As you know, Change to Win and its affiliates stand solidly behind the writers in their struggle for fairness, so we did not think twice about this decision.
The studios hired Fabiani & Lehane, at a crisis fee of around $100,000 a month, to battle the WGA members driven PR machine. They did so early in the week, which was another telling sign that they had no intention of making a deal. You don't need "crisis PR" when you are doing the right thing. You hire "crisis PR" when you are going to walk out of talks and blame the other side for ruining Christmas. So, Lehane and Fabiani, longtime Democratic PR guys, have decided to switch sides and do some union busting. I guess they have come a long way since 2002.
No idea yet if they have lost more than they gained by signing this contract with AMPTP.
SEIU Local 99 in Los Angeles -- education workers who include teacher's aids, cafeteria workers and crossing guards -- have fired former Clinton spokesman Chris Lehane from a consulting contract in support of the WGA .
"By the end of the week, I believe Chris Lehane will have no union clients because of his work for the AMPTP," says SEIU President Andy Stern, who confirms that all Change to Win Unions are severing ties with Lehane. "His days are numbered in the labor movement."
Chris Lehane by opting to go to work for the studios made a choice between that contract and those from labor. SEIU has been working to support the writers, so it comes as no surprise that they are the first to fire him. The question now is how quickly the other unions follow suit. As noted here back in October, the California Labor Federation hired Lehane to work on health care reform, outside of the IOHC coalition. I do not know what other unions he is under contract with, though we should hopefully find out soon.
While Stern is not my favorite right now, given his meddling in health care and a power struggle at the SEIU State Council that Brian has documented, this is a very strong and useful statement by him.
SEIU Local 99 in Los Angeles -- education workers who include teacher's aids, cafeteria workers and crossing guards -- have fired former Clinton spokesman Chris Lehane from a consulting contract in support of the WGA.
"By the end of the week, I believe Chris Lehane will have no union clients because of his work for the AMPTP," says SEIU President Andy Stern, who confirms that all Change to Win Unions are severing ties with Lehane. "His days are numbered in the labor movement."[Link]
I'm glad to see some retribution taken against Chris Lehane. We need to hold Democratic consultants accountable when they go to work against progressive organization.
We learned yesterday that Chris Lehane used to do damage control for the corporation trying to limit PR fallout from massive health and safety violations while building the eastern span of the Bay Bridge in San Francisco. He's currently plying his trade as a paid shill for studios and networks who have the simple goal of busting the Hollywood labor movement.
In light Chris Lehane's recent hiring by the Film and TV Producers to work against the WGA, does anyone know the official position of the California Labor Federation on this? Back in October Lehane was brought on board to fight against Gov. Schwarzenegger's health care plan. According to the SacBee:
the campaign is being directed by a prominent Democratic political consultant, Chris Lehane, who was hired by the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO. The effort also includes the Service Employees International Union as well as consumer and faith-based groups.
Guess who just hired Chris Lehane, the former Gore aide and consultant on the official "Fair Election Reform" (the Stephen Bing funded push against the Dirty Tricks Initiative)? Well, if you guessed the Film and TV Producers, you're right:
Seeking to shore up its flagging public image, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers has turned to veteran political advisors from both sides of the aisle to guide its public relations battle with Hollywood's striking writers.
The alliance announced today that it had retained Mark Fabiani and Chris Lehane, who have served as senior aides and advisors to President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore and other Democrats across the country. The group also said it hired Steve Schmidt, a close advisor to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger who served as his campaign manager in 2006. (LA Times 12.05.07)
Apparently some Democratic consultants are willing to sell their services to the highest bidder regardless of the values wrapped up in those decisions. Fun times to be a Democratic consultant, huh?
While Democrats have been hyperventilating about Thomas Hiltachk's proposed June ballot referendum, the Presidential Election Reform Act, even going so far as to attempt to place a counter-initiative on the ballot written by Chris Lehane, hardly anyone seems to have noticed that not all Republicans are supportive of such a wholesale change in our nation's electoral system.
It seems like a central assumption for California Democrats has been that all Republicans, of course, would get behind a simple change that would increase their chances for holding onto the presidency in 2008. But apparently, some Republicans are capable of complex thought, even federalist ideology. Who knew.
Such an example would be Thomas Del Beccaro, the Vice Chair of the California Republican Party and the Chairman of the Contra Costa Republican Central Committee. Del Beccaro has recently written an interesting criticism of the current move to change California's electoral system:
For those interested in immediate gratification, that would mean that California's 55 electoral votes would not go in unison to Hillary in 2008 -- but as many as 22 would go to the Republican nominee -- thereby making it much easier for a Republican to win the Presidency.
However, before you blush with expediency, it may be worthy to pause.
Recall that the Electoral College is a rather unique American construct.
Our Founders were loathe to accept the wiles of direct democracy so they established our Republic. Amongst the compromises necessary to craft our Constitution were concessions to smaller states. Those concessions included two houses of Congress which featured a Senate giving each state, small and large, the same number of votes. That was designed to be a moderating force.
It also included the use of Electors to vote for our Presidents and Vice Presidents. The Electoral College, as it came to be known, was a bulwark against the prospect of large majorities in large states electing Presidents to the exclusion of the rest of We The People.
As a practical matter today, the Electoral College prevents the Democrats from winning the Presidency by the popular vote of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Seattle, etc. - all to the exclusion of the red, fly-over states.
This time, Moore is counting on the blogosphere to help promote his film and its "call to action" against the health care industry. Which might explain why when the movie opens in the United States over the July 4th weekend, Moore and his PR team are planning a premiere fundraiser in San Francisco benefiting -- what else -- the blogging community.
Kinda odd for Chris Lehane to release this to a newspaper, instead of...you know, the blogs. But we'll see who and what soon enough I'm sure.
Cross-posted from Calitics: the progressive community blog for California
Yesterday, KQED's Forum, ordinarily a program that I enjoy, had a program about the close of the legislative session. After a discussion of possible reforms, talk moved to the blogs. I have uploaded the clip here.
Apparently, Bill Whalen, of the Hoover Institution, is scared by me. Well, bloggers in generally I suppose. (The transcript is courtesey of Kid Oakland).
I don't worry so much as a Republican, but as a citizen, and there's one word: "the blogosphere" That's what scares me. There are angry people on the left and angry people on the right. And I'm not sure if I want to see that anger harnessed in reforming our government. I like the firewall, if you will. ... Among the leaders opposing [Prop 89] are the California Teachers Association and the California Chamber of Commerce. Why? They are very vested interests in Sacramento, they don't want the rules changed. But Direct Democracy, to me we have it in effect in the initiative process and I'd kind of like to keep it harnessed. (KQED Forum 9/1/06)
