Brian Kanowsky

Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA), the ranking Democrat on the House’s Energy and Commerce committee, has sent a letter (PDF) to Indiana’s official lobbyist to inquire why Indiana is lobbying for the Keystone XL Pipeline project.

From the letter:

I have subsequently learned that in the fourth quarter of 2011 you received $50,500 in state taxpayer funds as a lobbyist for the State of Indiana, including for lobbying related to Keystone XL. This seems unusual as the State does not have an obvious interest in seeing the Keystone XL project constructed. The proposed route for the Keystone XL pipeline does not pass through the State of Indiana, nor does it come close to the State’s borders; the nearest the proposed route would approach would be hundreds of miles away in Nebraska and Kansas. Indiana facilities would not have access to the pipeline, nor would it appear that Indiana would particularly benefit from any economic activity associated with the construction of the pipeline.

The Keystone XL Pipeline is a project of a Canadian oil company, TransCanada.

The lobbyist in question is Deborah Hohlt, who frequently represents the state of Indiana. Her latest lobbying disclosure (PDF) shows a wide variety of topics, ranging from the Farm Bill to transportation issues to “Clean coal, carbon capture and storage (CCS), biofuels tax extenders, climate change, Keystone XL Pipeline”.

Deborah Hohlt is a former Deputy Chief of Staff for the Republican National Committee. She worked in public affairs for the Department of Health and Human Services, before swinging through the revolving door and working for Blue Cross/Blue Shield and Eli Lilly. (Hohlt was Director of Public Affairs at Eli Lilly from 1995-2001, where current Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels was Senior VP of Corporate Strategy from 1997-2001, and President of North American Operations from 11993-1997.)

Deborah Hohlt is the wife of Richard Hohlt, the powerful lobbyist and GOP fundraiser. During the trial of Scooter Libby, Robert Novak disclosed that he had revealed the identity of then-covert CIA officer Valerie Plame to Richard Hohlt before the infamous column hit the papers. Richard Hohlt confirmed to Newsweek that he had faxed a copy of the article to Karl Rove before it was published.

A tip of the hat to Marueen Groppe for tweeting about this news bit today.

Waxman has asked Indiana's lobbyist for a meeting "to learn about Indiana's interest."

February 2, 2012 11:56 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@mgroppe

Maureen Groppe

UPDATE: According to TransCanada’s own filings, the pipeline would increase the cost of oil across the Midwest.

UPDATE 2: Couldn’t find this link earlier, but here’s a blog post from January 26 by Josh Israel and Brad Johnson at Think Progress, which was the first I saw to note the lobbying disclosure.

Greg Sargent had a great post a week or so ago, hitting on the fact that all the untraceable outside money pouring into our elections isn’t only problematic on its own – it’s also that it is buying lie after lie:

And no one is talking about what’s in the ads themselves. No one is talking about how these ads are filled with multiple distortions and debunked falsehoods. In other words, no one is talking about what it is the voters themselves are seeing in these ads on an hourly basis. The discussion is largely a Beltway process argument about matters such as whether attack ads are effective and whether the Dem criticism of the secret cash is working politically for them.

None of this discussion does anything to undercut or challenge what the Chamber and Rove’s groups are actually up to here: They are flooding airwaves across the country with a massive, secret-donor-funded campaign that’s designed to tip control of Congress with a campaign of misinformation, distortions and falsehoods that have been widely debunked by independent fact checkers but nonetheless have attracted little to no notice.

Let’s look at some of the groups pouring money into Indiana races. Unfortunately, sites like Politifact and FactCheck.org haven’t specifically investigated most of the ads running in Indiana, but because similar versions of these ads are running in many districts across the country we can extrapolate some of these fact checks.

The 60 Plus Association has spent more than $5.8 million in this election, including more than $397,000 against Joe Donnelly in Indiana’s 2nd District. Like most of these outside groups, 60 Plus does not disclose its donors, but multiple reports have stated that their initial funding came from the nation’s largest pharmaceutical companies. The only 60 Plus ad checked by the nonpartisan PolitiFact – in fact, one of the same cookie-cutter ads they ran against Donnelly – registered a “Barely True” rating. FactCheck.org looked at the same ad, and called it a “Misleading Onslaught by 60 Plus.”

Americans for Job Security has spent more $7.8 million total from undisclosed donors, including $355,000 in Indiana’s 8th District, and . The highest rating they’ve managed from PolitiFact is a “Half True,” but that was an ad in Colorado. The similar ad they ran against Trent Van Haaften included the same line about a “job-killing energy taxes",” which PolitiFact dismisses, writing: “calling it a "energy tax" is not an accurate way to describe the measure.” There’s also the problem that the ad is 100% speculative – it tries to tie Van Haaften to Congressional votes, when Van Haaften has never served in Congress. He did not vote for any cap & trade bill, and in fact has said that he opposes that plan.

Karl Rove’s billionaire-funded American Crossroads and its related groups have spent more than $37 million in 2010, including more than $400,000 spent opposing Joe Donnelly in the 2nd District. The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent listed just a handful of the misleading or untrue ads American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS were running in Senate campaigns across the country. Factcheck.org dedicated a lengthy piece to a “blizzard” of ads from Crossroads, writing that their ads “contain a number of misleading and false claims.”

The US Chamber of Commerce has spent nearly $32 million in independent expenditures this year, including $250,000 into the Senate campaign between mega-lobbyist Dan Coats and Rep. Brad Ellsworth. The Chamber is also guilty of an aversion to the truth. In fact, two Pittsburgh-area TV stations went as far as pulling a Chamber ad off the air because it contained unsupported lies about Senate candidate Joe Sestak. Greg Sargent also looked at a number of Chamber ads running against House candidates across the country, and found that those ads “contain many claims that are demonstrable distortions or have been repeatedly debunked as false by independent fact-checkers.”

Former Senator Norm Coleman’s American Action Network is a more recent entry into Indiana’s election this fall. They’ve spent about $17.5 million total this year, including $319,000 opposing Joe Donnelly in Indiana’s 2nd District. The only AAN ad evaluated by PolitiFact earned their “Pants on Fire” rating for suggesting that Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) voted on a bill that never actually came up in the House. FactCheck.org mentioned that AAN was one of the groups promoting the “false statement that ‘jail time’ would be the punishment for not having insurance.” That ad was pulled by a Denver TV station after they determined the ad was false. American Action Network is a 501(c)(4) “action tank”, and does not disclose its donors.

Of course, the lies aren’t just coming from these shadowy groups. Dan Coats, a heavy favorite in the Senate race, is running his own ad that earned a “Pants On Fire” rating from PolitiFact. Coats’ ad claims that, thanks to Brad Ellsworth, senior citizens will be “forced” into Barack Obama’s healthcare plan. As PolitiFact wrote:

And if seniors are being forced into regular Medicare, a government-run health care program, it’s one they’ve collectively been forced into for 45 years. Ellsworth’s vote did nothing to change that. The ad is capitalizing on confusion about the nature of the Medicare program and making a ridiculous claim. Pants on Fire!

And in the 9th District, Fox 59 summed up the National Republican Congressional Committee’s ad in one word: baloney. This late in the campaign, I would probably be tempted use a less PG-rated term myself, but their analysis gets the point across:

Our rating of this ad aimed at Rep. Baron Hill and the others is baloney!

On Monday, the New York Times published an article addressing these same charges. Denise Bode, president and CEO of the American Wind Energy Association, was quoted, saying, "this program is a great example of ‘insourcing’ jobs to the United States by leveraging both foreign and domestic investment. It is the opposite of outsourcing."

Their organization is asking Republicans to pull the ads they say give the false impression that wind energy stimulus funds went to China.

When Hoosiers go to the polls on Tuesday, we can only hope they’re casting an informed ballot in spite of the lies saturating our airwaves.

This is the 4th entry in a series of posts looking at independent expenditures in Indiana elections. For previous entries, see:

• Who’s Buying Hoosier Elections – a look at the outside groups spending money in Indiana’s Congressional elections
• Which Hoosier Elections Are Being Bought – a race-by-race breakdown showing where the money is going, who it’s supporting, and who it’s opposing
• Buying Hoosier Elections, Then and Now – a district-by-district comparison of outside group independent expenditures from 2006-2010

Over the past several months, a nonprofit organization has pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into Indiana’s 8th District Congressional race.

According to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission, Americans for Job Security has spent more than $355,000 since August for TV ads, radio spots, and direct mail pieces opposing Trent Van Haaften. Here’s an example of their work:

Americans for Jobs Security claims to be a nonprofit, and even has a section of its website dedicated to Indiana. But while the logo reads “Hoosiers for Job Security”, the copy on the website reads differently:

Have you ever heard anyone who’s actually from Indiana refer to residents here as “Indianans?” I sure haven’t. But it doesn’t surprise me that a group like Americans for Job Security, headquartered at a PO box at a UPS store in Virginia, can’t even get their basic astroturfing vocabulary straight.

Americans for Job Security was started in 1997 with million-dollar gifts from the American Insurance Association and the American Forest and Paper Association. It’s technically organized as a trade group, and is not required to disclose its donors – it prefers to disguise its fundraising as membership dues. And while the group’s public address is that UPS store drop box, Americans for Job Security actually operates out of the same Republican shop as Crossroads Media, the team behind Karl Rove’s billionaire-funded “shadow GOP”, American Crossroads.

Last month, Eric Bradner wrote a story on the initial ad buy against Van Haaften in the Evansville Courier Press:

The ads, with a buy totaling $5 million behind them, are funded by Americans for Job Security and another Republican-allied group, The 60 Plus Association.

Van Haaften’s spokesman, Zach Knowling, called Americans for Job Security a "shadowy special interest group with big corporate backing."

"This group is spending big to elect Larry Bucshon, who has pledged in writing to support the same corporate tax loopholes that Whirlpool used to ship 1,100 jobs from Evansville to Mexico this summer," Knowling said.

And Americans for Job Security isn’t the only outside group pouring money into the Hoosier state in an effort to influence the 2010 elections.

The American Future Fund has spent more than a quarter of a million dollars trying to unseat Democratic Representative Baron Hill in Indiana’s 9th District. The AFF, which claims it was “formed to provide Americans with a conservative and free market viewpoint”, is organized as a 501(c)4 nonprofit and is headquartered out of a PO box at a UPS store in Iowa. Like other 501(c)4 groups, they do not have to disclose their donors. The AFF might be best known for hiring the producers of the racist “Willie Horton” ads to try and tie a Democratic Congressman in Iowa to plans to build a mosque “at Ground Zero”.

AUL Action, a DC-based arm of the anti-abortion group Americans United for Life, has spent more than $17,000 on radio ads against Baron Hill. But that’s a small expenditure next to the New Prosperity Foundation’s $50,000 radio buy in the 9th District. The New Prosperity Foundation is a Chicago-based organization formed by big-dollar fundraisers for former President Bush that is suddenly pushing into more races outside of Illinois.

Another shadowy group, billing itself as the Coalition to Protect Seniors, has spent thousands on TV ads opposing Baron Hill and Democratic Senate candidate Brad Ellsworth. The “Coalition” was only incorporated on June 30, 2010, and appears to be headquartered out of a PO box at a Delaware Mail Boxes, Etc. store.

In August, the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List, spent more than $20,000 on its bus tour opposing Baron Hill, Brad Ellsworth, and 2nd District Congressman Joe Donnelly – all pro-life Democrats.

Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), head of the Senate Finance Committee, has asked the IRS to look into whether these groups are abusing their nonprofit status. His letter specifically mentions Americans for Job Security, but his request would also cover other “nonprofits” that seem to have political campaign activity as their sole reason for existence.

The sad part is, these are just a handful of the independent expenditures here in Indiana since August. I haven’t included any of the thousands of dollars being spent by the national Republican committees, or looked back to see how much these groups and others spent earlier in the year.

Tomorrow, I’ll break down expenditures by candidate and show precisely which Indiana elections are the targets of these outside groups.

I’m thinking of starting a futures fund betting against Mitch Daniels’ predictions.

You see, Mitch Daniels has a problem with predictions. Given his famous “misunderestimations” of the cost of the Iraq War, the trends of health care costs, and the benefits of his FSSA privatization scheme, you’d think he’d give it up. But he just can’t help himself.

Back in 2008, when it became apparent that GM and Chrysler would become victims of the economic collapse, taking more than a million jobs with them, Daniels confidently predicted that efforts to save them would fail:

“Let’s give Congress a chance, but there’s nothing in recent history that suggests they have an answer for this,” Daniels said. “The only thing we know for certain is the way they’ve been doing business does not work and throwing taxpayer dollars after it won’t make it work.” (emphasis added)

And he was wrong, as President Obama told workers at a GM plant in Detroit yesterday:

Now, that was a tough decision and let’s face it, a lot of people were skeptical.  I don’t know if you all remember, but I remember how last year there were a whole bunch of folks who said, well, that makes no sense.  There’s the “just say no” crowd in Washington — they’re still saying no — who basically said, well, this is a terrible investment.  We should just let the market take its course, let GM, let Chrysler go bankrupt.  So there was a lot of skepticism out there. […]

And now here we are a year later.  And a year later, GM and Chrysler, along with Ford, are all posting a profit. The U.S. auto industry has hired 55,000 workers, the most job growth in a decade. And not only that, but you’re producing the cars of the future right here at this plant, producing cars that are going to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.  This car right here doesn’t need a sip of gasoline for 40 miles and then keeps on going after that. (Full transcript here)

While speaking to a crowd of workers at a Chrysler plant earlier in the day, Obama challenged critics of the plan to come and see the good that its done.

I wish they were standing here today. I wish they could see what I’m seeing in this plant and talk to the workers who are here taking pride in building a world-class vehicle.  I don’t think they’d be willing to look you in the eye and say that you were a bad investment.  They might just come around if they were standing here and admit that by standing by a great American industry and the good people who work for it, that we did the right thing. (Full transcript here)

And you don’t have to take Obama’s word for it. Washington Post business columnist Steven Pearlstein wrote of the auto industry plan’s “unqualified success”:

Perhaps none was more controversial than the decision to rescue Chrysler and General Motors, using $86 billion in taxpayer funds and an expedited bankruptcy process that wiped out shareholders, brought in new executives and directors, forced creditors to take a financial haircut, closed dealerships and factories and imposed painful cuts in wages and benefits on unionized workers. It was an extraordinary and heavy-handed government intervention into the market economy that left the Treasury owning a majority of both companies. […]

A year later, the auto bailout is an unqualified success. The government used its leverage to force the companies to make the painful changes they should have made years before, and then backed off and let the companies run themselves without any noticeable interference.

The results, which President Obama will tout on a visit to Michigan on Friday: For the first time since 2004, GM and Chrysler, along with Ford, all reported operating profits in their U.S. businesses last quarter. The domestic auto industry added 55,000 jobs last year, ending a decade-long string of declines. Auto sector exports are up 57 percent so far this year and, thanks largely to new government regulations, the industry is moving quickly to introduce more fuel-efficient vehicles. Most surprising of all, GM and Chrysler have already repaid more than $8 billion in government loans, while GM is preparing for an initial stock offering later this year that would allow the government to recoup most, if not all, of its investment.

And Ezra Klein posted this graph, illustrating the point more succinctly:

You can see the White House’s full report here, but you can really get a good picture of the scope of the investment by looking at the interactive map. There’s a nice cluster of dots trailing down from Lake Michigan, each representing a plant expansion, electrification, “supertruck”, or green vehicle project – you can hardly see an empty spot in the state of Indiana.

I was disappointed to see the usually-sharp Ed Kilgore fall into the trap of buying Mitch Daniels’ spin – in a recent piece on Mitch Daniels’ presidential prospects, Kilgore wrote that “his state’s positive fiscal record stands out sharply against a national landscape of state fiscal disaster.” Ed, if you believe that, I think Mitch has a bargain-priced $50 billion invasion of Iraq to sell you.

Far from being the “island of growth” that Mitch Daniels likes to pretend we are, Indiana is struggling just as much as the rest of the region. And it’s not just Daniels’ phony jobs announcements that are the problem – Indiana has a real problem with unemployment. And I don’t see any hope of fixing that when the party that controls the state executive branch and the state Senate won’t acknowledge that there’s a problem.

Indiana’s unemployment rate over the last decade:

Source: BLS.gov 

A cursory glance at Indiana’s unemployment rate gives you the outlines – 10% unemployment, using the standard U-3 measure. When you look at the bigger picture, it gets even worse. Using the broadest measure – U-6, which includes “marginally attached” workers and those working part-time who would rather be working full-time – more than 18% of Hoosiers can’t find a real job. That means Indiana is worse off than our neighbors in Illinois, Ohio, and Kentucky.

Just yesterday, the Indianapolis Star ran a piece on how Indiana’s job picture is worse than our neighbors. A recent study by the Brookings Institution’s Hamilton Project shows that Indiana ranks 6th-worst in the nation when they measure declines in employment from November 2007 to May 2010. It’s simply unacceptable for the Governor of the state that ranks 44th in employment growth to be celebrating our nonexistent jobs. The objective reality is that Indiana’s employment growth trails Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, and Kentucky (and almost every other state in the US).

It’s easy for Mitch to spin Indiana’s unemployment when our neighbors to the north in Michigan are facing the worst unemployment rate in the nation. But he shouldn’t get a free pass just because Hoosiers are marginally better off than the hardest-hit state.

But what about Indiana’s budget? It’s often asserted that Indiana has a “positive” budget and that we have a surplus. And that’s true – if you choose to selectively leave out a large chunk of Indiana’s finances.

Indiana is one of 26 states who are in debt to the federal government because they can’t afford to pay out their unemployment insurance benefits, according to ProPublica. Indiana’s Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund has been insolvent since at least 2008, and we currently owe almost $2 billion to the federal government for the state’s share of UI benefits. Just a couple of months ago, at Mitch Daniels’ urging, the state postponed a law that would raise UI rates to start paying off that debt.

March 2010 marked 17 straight months of Indiana’s revenues falling well short of projections. In April, we learned that:

Sales tax collections, though higher than April 2009, are lower than FY 2008, FY 2007 and even FY 2006 levels. Year to date sales tax collections are 5% below prior year. If the -5% trend continues for the full fiscal year it will be the worst performance in state history, exceeding FY 2009’s record of -4.7%. The budget as passed projected sales tax collections equal to prior year. April individual income tax collections are the lowest in five years. Year to date income tax collections are 11% below prior year—on top of an 11% decline for FY 2009. The budget as passed projected a 1% decline in individual income tax collections for FY 2010. (Source: Indiana State Budget Agency)

May’s monthly revenue report showed that “revenue collections through eleven months of the current state fiscal year are now $1.032 billion or 9% below the budget passed by the General Assembly.”

And too much of our state’s budget remains a mystery, even to those in charge of voting on it. When state lawmakers requested details on Mitch Daniels’ budget cuts, he released 476 pages of news clippings, but none of the actual information.

All this shouldn’t surprise Hoosiers. We elected – twice! – a man who oversaw record budget deficits when he ran the Office of Management & Budget for George W. Bush. We elected a man who rushed out to denounce critics in his own party by promising the Iraq War would cost only $50-60 billion. We elected a man who predicted that health care costs were done rising in 1994, so there was no need to address the issue. Given that record, it’s hard to believe anyone would buy Mitch’s spin about the Indiana economy.