Originally published in The Intercept on January 11, 2019.
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ON JANUARY 1, Illinois became the 11th state in the U.S. to legalize recreational marijuana, raking in nearly $3.2 million in revenue on the first day of sales. The legislation, enacted by the state’s Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker, includes “social equity” provisions to give dispensary preference and extra funding to areas that disproportionately bore the impact of the war on drugs — those with higher-than-average rates of marijuana-related arrests, convictions, and prison sentences.

Decatur, the largest city in Macon County, Illinois, has a population that is 20 percent black and is eligible for these reparative measures. But in September, by a vote of 6-1, the Decatur City Council voted to prohibit an adult-use cannabis dispensary from opening in the city. The council also voted 4-3 against allowing cannabis-related businesses, like cultivation and processing centers, to set up shop in Decatur.

At the center of the city council’s position is the indirect influence of Howard G. Buffett, the eldest son of billionaire Warren Buffett, who has lived in the city since the early 1990s. Howard Buffett is remarkably close to local police (even serving a recent stint as interim sheriff) and has poured tens of millions of dollars into law enforcement programs and drug rehabilitation efforts.

Most elected city officials appeared to be set in their opposition to allowing a recreational dispensary in Decatur even before a scheduled public meeting on September 30 to deliberate the issue, according to internal city council communications obtained by DPL Watchdogs, a grassroots transparency group, and shared with The Intercept.

“The push to opt out is gaining some momentum. Stay tuned!” Decatur Mayor Julie Moore Wolfe, who was one of the six no votes, wrote in an email to a constituent on August 21.

“I am a firm opt out vote,” wrote Council Member Lisa Gregory in August, according to another one of the emails. A week before the September study session, Gregory emailed a constituent urging them to “Please apply pressure to [Council Member] David Horn as he intends to vote yes.”

The emails, which were obtained through a public records request, also show Wolfe and Council Member Patrick McDaniel planning how to avoid backlash for limiting public comment at the September study session. McDaniel suggested there be one half-hour segment for public comment “or we will never hear the end of it,” and that speakers “should only be allowed one minute to very briefly state their views.” Wolfe responded that she agreed. She pledged to “make sure we’re ok limiting time” and added that she’d “like a big clock on the monitors.”  Reached for comment, Wolfe told The Intercept that speakers at council meetings typically get three minutes, and that she remembers wanting a clock to help track that. She added that some residents spoke multiple times throughout the September meeting.

Buffett’s financial contributions to the city, as well as his foundation’s work on addiction treatment, influenced at least two city council members’ opposition to the opening of a dispensary in Decatur. At the September study session, Council Member Chuck Kuhle stated bluntly that his opposition was tied in part to his desire to respect Buffett.

“I personally can’t think of a more flat-out rejection of our former sheriff and his foundation than to approve the sale of recreational marijuana without a wait-and-see approach,” Kuhle said, referring to wanting to see how marijuana legalization plays out in other parts of the state before allowing a dispensary to open in Decatur.

More recently, Wolfe pointed to a drug rehabilitation center that opened last year thanks to a $60 million donation from the foundation as justification for her opposition to the sale of marijuana. “It’s kind of counterintuitive to say, OK, we have this wonderful facility to deal with drug addiction, on one hand, and on the other say, Oh, here, come buy your marijuana downtown.”

IN RECENT YEARS, Howard Buffett has cultivated a close relationship with local police and taken a particular interest in curbing the domestic and international drug trade. Buffett, his senior executive assistant, and a spokesperson for the Howard G. Buffett Foundation did not return requests for comment.

In 2012, he received his “auxiliary sheriff” certification from the Macon County Sheriff’s Department, a volunteer police position and by 2014, was given the title of “civilian undersheriff” for which he continued to log thousands of hours as a volunteer, patrolling the streets and undergoing training. In 2016, Buffett’s foundation donated $15 million to build a new law enforcement training center in the county, and $2.2 million to support K-9 units across the state. In the spring of 2017, his foundation donated $350,000 so the Macon County Sheriff’s Office could purchase new patrol vehicles. Four months after that, the elected county sheriff, Thomas Schneider, unexpectedly announced that he’d be retiring early from his job. To the surprise of many, Schneider, a Democrat, named Buffett, a Republican, as his interim successor. The Democrat-majority Macon County board approved Buffett’s appointment, and within six months, Schneider was working a top job at the new Buffet-funded law enforcement training center.

Buffett served as sheriff until December 2018, and during that time, he also published a book arguing for stronger border security to weaken the power of drug cartels. Last year, he announced that he would be investing up to $200 million in Colombia over the next seven years to help the country transition from its drug-based economy.

His fixation on the drug trade has also led to more than $20 million in investments in the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office in Arizona, near the U.S.-Mexico border, where he is also part of a private volunteer group that assists in policing. As the Phoenix New Times described it, Buffett has “purchased the loyalty of — and influence over — the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office … through a steady stream of gifts and grants totaling tens of millions of dollars, used to buy guns, vehicles, surveillance equipment, helicopters, and other toys.” The Howard G. Buffett Foundation purchased more than 2,000 acres of ranch land in Cochise County, including a property that is 300 yards from the U.S.-Mexico border fence.

Buffett has even enlisted the help of his law enforcement allies from Illinois. In 2016, he was photographed with Macon County Sheriff’s Office Deputy T.W. Houk and Decatur Police Department Detective Chad Larner posing with firearms in the dark of the Arizona desert.

Their joint excursion to the southern border had been several months in the making, according to the Phoenix New Times investigation. In October 2015, Buffett emailed four Illinois law enforcement colleagues about potential smugglers crossing his ranch property in Arizona, according to correspondence the Phoenix New Times obtained from the Decatur Police Department. “You need a rag tag group of macon county sheriff vigilantes to show up and kick some ass,” wrote one Macon County Sheriff Deputy in response. “Bring Chad, need his enthusiasm!” Buffett replied.

Buffett has also taken to criticizing marijuana legalization efforts. His foundation’s 2016 annual report describes legalized pot as “only rais[ing] the stakes” of the U.S.’s drug trade problems and cites that as a reason why Mexican drug cartels have shifted production to drugs like heroin and fentanyl. “Legal sales of marijuana have reduced marijuana seizures crossing the Mexican border; however, Mexican cartels have stepped up their presence and operations in states like Colorado, where marijuana is legal, and have shifted their drug smuggling and production operations to more dangerous and addictive drugs,” the report states.

As Illinois lawmakers were discussing marijuana legalization in 2018, Buffett told a local news outlet that doing so would mean law enforcement agencies would need to replace all their K-9 dogs. “It’s a giant step forward for drug dealers,” he told The Pantagraph, “and a giant step backwards for law enforcement.”

JACOB JENKINS, a community activist who testified in support of allowing a dispensary at the council’s study session described the elected officials as sounding like characters from “Reefer Madness,” a notorious film from the 1930s featuring high schoolers who suffer a range of tragedies after trying marijuana.

“Not only did [the council] turn down a dispensary but also any transporting of marijuana, any processing plants which could have really helped minority businesses in the area,” Jenkins told The Intercept. “Right now, outside of a couple food places, there aren’t many black-owned businesses in town, but with there being state social equity funding and waivers for applications, it would have been possible to actually undo some of the hardships minorities have faced by giving them an opportunity to operate legally with various cannabis businesses.”

Lisa Kendall, co-chair of the Central Illinois Democratic Socialists of America chapter, argued that the council’s vote — and the fact that two voting members cited the Buffett Foundation’s donations to the city — was not sitting well with local residents. “People are waking up to this stuff, and it’s pissing them off,” she said.

David Horn, who was the sole member of the city council to vote for allowing a dispensary in Decatur, told The Intercept that he did so because he heard from more residents who supported it than opposed it. He said he felt the city could use the additional revenue and that whatever negative impacts there are from cannabis, “there is no evidence it will be worse with a regulated dispensary.” He also said he didn’t like the idea that medical marijuana users would have to drive outside the city to get their drugs, even though a recreational dispensary could have administered medical pot and that recreational users in the city would be effectively stigmatized for using a legal product.

“I will say there has been no issue that I have received more contact from citizens over the 2.5 years I’ve been on the council than this one,” Horn said.

Following the September vote, Kendall, Jenkins, and other local activists formed the Decatur Dispensary Project, to campaign against the council’s decision.

“DSA believes in cannabis justice and reform, and so when the issue came to Decatur, our chapter got very vocal about it and showed up to the study session with signs,” Kendall told The Intercept. Justin Weaver, the chapter’s other co-chair, said the group also strongly supports allowing a dispensary from a revenue standpoint, pointing to Decatur’s dwindling population and industries that have relocated out of the city.

“We’re a shrinking city, we’re having budget issues, and over the past seven years, my property tax has gone up by a third, and our utility taxes have gone up,” he said. “This is an undue burden.”

Activists are working to get two nonbinding resolutions on the ballot to demonstrate their displeasure. The first referendum, which has already been approved for the March 17 state primary, will be for all residents of Decatur Township, which covers about 70 percent of Decatur city. The question will read: “Should the city of Decatur allow the sale of recreational cannabis and cannabis-infused products to adults 21 and over?” The second referendum, which activists are still collecting signatures for and poses a similar question, would be for all Decatur residents in November.

But on January 3, Wolfe, the city’s mayor, said even a vote decidedly in support of allowing a dispensary in Decatur would not change her mind, and she’d still prefer to wait and see how legalization plays out in other parts of Illinois. Chicago, the state’s largest city, has opted in, and even two smaller towns in Macon County voted to allow recreational dispensaries.

As Decatur has been mired in debate over marijuana legalization, the city council also voted in December to approve the creation of a new position for a law enforcement officer who would dedicate “100 percent of his time to DUI enforcement,” according to a city council report on the agreement. The position would be primarily paid for by a four-year grant from the Howard G. Buffett Foundation.

Under the terms of the agreement, which went into effect on January 1, the Buffett Foundation will pay $500,000 to fund this officer’s salary and benefits over four years. The city will be contributing an additional $148,000 to cover the remaining cost and is required to submit annual reports to the Buffett Foundation summarizing what happened with each arrest, as well as what the underlying violation was.

Decatur Police Chief James Getz Jr. and Deputy Chief Shane Brandel did not return requests for comment.

John Phillips Jr., a community activist who has supported cannabis legalization for the last several decades, said while he backs general DUI enforcement, the idea that an officer should spend all his time dedicated to it raises serious questions and concerns, particularly given Decatur’s history of racially disparate policing. A 2018 study by the Illinois Department of Transportation found that although African Americans comprise 21 percent of Decatur’s population, they were subject to 46 percent of all police traffic stops, and 58 percent of all car searches.

“At the end of the day,” said Phillips, “prohibition doesn’t work, Marijuana has proven to be less dangerous than alcohol, and you cannot legislate morality.”

Originally published in The Intercept on January 9, 2019.
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IN AN UNUSUAL show of frustration, 76 Democratic members of the House, led by freshmen serving in swing districts, sent a letter on Thursday to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and Majority Whip James Clyburn urging them to bring a popular and comprehensive labor reform bill to the floor for a vote. The Protecting the Right to Organize Act — or the PRO Act, as it’s commonly referred to — passed the House labor committee on September 25, but progressives and union leaders were frustrated that it wasn’t brought to the floor for a full vote before the holiday break.

The letter suggests that rank-and-file Democrats were worried that little progress had been made in that direction. In response to a request for comment on the letter, Mariel Saez, a spokesperson for Hoyer, said that the majority leader wold bring the measure to the floor sometime an upcoming February recess. “Mr. Hoyer strongly supports the bill and looks forward to bringing it on the Floor before the President’s Day district work period,” Saez said, in what represents a win for advocates of the bill. Henry Connelly, a Pelosi spokesperson, concurred: “Protecting the right to organize is a cornerstone of securing bigger paychecks and better benefits for America’s workers. We hope to have the PRO Act on the floor before Presidents’ Day.”

The lead signatories on the letter are freshman Democratic Reps. Jared Golden of Maine and Max Rose of New York, both of whom flipped their congressional districts from red to blue in 2018. Other signatories include Rep. Cheri Bustos, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee; Conor Lamb of Pennsylvania; and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, signaling that support for the pro-labor measure spans the ideological spectrum within the party.

The letter praises House Labor Committee Chair Bobby Scott, D-Va., for getting the bill through his committee in the fall. “It is unfortunate that since then, no date for floor consideration has been announced,” the letter reads. “We believe the PRO Act should be brought to the House floor swiftly. It has 219 sponsors and cosponsors, including several Republicans, indicating that it would pass the House with bipartisan support. We can and should pass it now.”

The lack of movement on the PRO Act was feeding frustrations among Democrats that even with a robust majority, in a situation where passage is merely symbolic — Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would never allow the bill to pass — House leadership had come up short. The caution is reminiscent of the modest approach to drug-pricing legislation that frustrated the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and is visible in the reluctance to vote on Rep. John Larson’s bill to expand Social Security benefits, which has 208 co-sponsors.

The PRO Act would represent the most comprehensive rewrite of U.S. labor law in decades. It would eliminate right-to-work laws, impose new penalties on employers who retaliate against union organizing, crack down on worker misclassification, and establish new rules so that employers cannot delay negotiating collective bargaining contracts.

In December, despite pleas from the Congressional Progressive Caucus and multiple labor unions to bring the PRO Act to a vote, House leadership focused its energies on passing Donald Trump’s new United States–Mexico–Canada trade agreement, passing a bill to lower prescription drug prices, and voting on impeachment. Rep. Mark Pocan, co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, acknowledged then that efforts to hash out labor compromises in the trade agreement meant “there’s probably some limited bandwidth” for the PRO Act. Now that the House passed the USMCA, as the trade agreement is known, in December, Democrats, including vulnerable representatives in red-leaning districts, are evidently facing even more pressure to move the legislation through.

Labor unions praised the letter Thursday afternoon.

“The PRO Act is a critical legislation that will empower America’s working people by allowing us to join a union without fear or intimidation and collectively bargain for a fair return on our work,” said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka in a statement. “At a time when working people are on the rise and fighting for justice and equality, it is vital that this bill is brought to the House floor and passed without any further delay.”

Tom Conway, the international president of the United Steelworkers union, said in a statement: “Rep. Golden and other advocates of the bill should be commended for their continuing effort to ensure all workers have a stronger voice in the workplace.”

Originally published in The American Prospect on December 4, 2019.
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Baltimore, Maryland, is on the verge of passing a landmark water bill, which would set a new water affordability standard in the United States. The Water Accountability and Equity Act, as it is known, would cap water bills for low-income residents at 3 percent of household income, provide a more reliable pathway out of water debt, and establish a new office to help resolve customer billing disputes.

The bill was introduced last December by City Council President Jack Young. Young is now serving as mayor, after Baltimore’s previous mayor Catherine Pugh resigned in the wake of a corruption scandal, and he’s said he’s eager to sign the popular legislation into law.

Philadelphia passed similar legislation in 2015. Philadelphia residents earning up to 150 percent of the poverty line are eligible for the city’s billing discount, while Baltimore’s legislation applies to those earning up to 200 percent. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot recently expressed support for an income-based water billing program in her city, and Detroit lawmakers may also follow suit.

When politicians discuss upgrading the nation’s crumbling infrastructure, attention is generally paid to roads, bridges, and tunnels. Water systems, despite their often deteriorating condition, tend to remain out of sight, out of mind. But the costs to repair them are formidable, not to mention the unprecedented strain that climate change has wrought on the nation’s sewage and water infrastructure. And as federal water regulations have grown stronger—without commensurate federal investment—that too comes with additional expense.

In Baltimore, as in many older cities, water rates have grown much faster than household income. The higher rates are intended to help finance needed infrastructure improvements to the city’s aging water and sewage systems. Advocates point to a standard set by the United Nations, which stipulates that water bills should not exceed 3 percent of a household’s income if they are to be considered affordable. With an average monthly water bill of $79.26 in 2018, many Baltimore residents paid well over 3 percent.

“Communities of color often have higher water burdens, which is driven both because their water bills are higher or high, and because their incomes are lower,” says Mary Grant, the Public Water for All Campaign Director at Food & Water Watch.

In May, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund published a study reporting that from 2010 to 2018, the cost of water in Baltimore increased by 127 percent. From 2014 to 2018 alone, annual Baltimore bills for water and wastewater service jumped 37 percent, from an average of $517.26 annually to $787.58. And the increases aren’t over yet. At the beginning of 2019, Baltimore approved yet another 30 percent increase over the next three years.

As rates have gone up, so has debt owed by water customers. According to a study published by an independent utility consultant in 2017, the number of neighborhoods in Baltimore where water bills are considered unaffordable has dramatically spiked across the city. Low-income households in more than half the city were projected to pay more than 10 percent of their income on water and sewer bills by 2020.

“Water has been a huge problem in the city for years, it is the thing that elected officials hear from constituents about the most,” says Molly Amster, the director of Baltimore Jews United for Justice, which supported the legislation. “It’s been so bad, so terribly mismanaged.”

In 2018, Baltimore became the first major city to pass legislation banning the privatization of the city’s water system. More than 77 percent of voters approved a charter amendment that declared Baltimore’s water system to be a permanent, inalienable asset of the city. Corporations had long sought to take control of the city’s water, and one company named Suez had recently been lobbying for a 50-year lease. City leaders can be tempted into selling off water systems and other public infrastructure by the prospect of a cash infusion that can paper over other funding needs.

Selling off all or some of Baltimore’s system would only exacerbate the water affordability crisis, advocates argued. A 2016 survey conducted by Food & Water Watch found that privately owned water systems charged 59 percent more than large publicly owned ones.

The idea for a new office to address consumer disputes as part of the Water Accountability and Equity Act was conceived of because customers have been subject to so many water billing mistakes, which sometimes amount to hundreds and thousands of dollars in erroneous charges. In 2018, for example, hundreds of Baltimoreans received bills of over $50,000. In 2012, the city had to refund nearly $9 million it overcharged residents and companies for water bills. Getting those mistakes corrected has proven to be a byzantine nightmare for many residents.

While advocates for the bill wanted the new Office of Water Customer Advocacy and Appeals to be completely independent from the city’s Department of Public Works, in the end local lawmakers decided that the new office would be housed within the existing public works agency. The goal is for the new office to take responsibility for handling water billing problems; prevent them from happening in the first place; and offer guidance on water rules, regulations, and policies.

The main opposition advocates faced was from the Department of Public Works, which initially resisted the legislation entirely and then unsuccessfully tried to water it down with last-minute amendments.

“Our only opposition to the bill was the Department of Public Works, which to put it bluntly didn’t see it as their responsibility to address this crisis and didn’t want to be legislated,” says Grant of Food & Water Watch. “We tried to meet with them for over two years, to try and bring them along and find common ground, but every time we tried reaching out we were met with resistance.” A spokesperson for the agency told The Baltimore Sun in late October it would no longer oppose the water billing reforms.

Though water costs for residents and local governments have gone up, federal support has gone down. An analysis from the Value of Water Campaign found combined federal investment in drinking water and wastewater infrastructure declined from 63 percent of total capital spending in 1977 to 9 percent today. One study published in 2017 estimated that the cost of water could rise by 41 percent over the next five years, with the percentage of U.S. households with unaffordable water bills potentially tripling.

To address the crisis on the federal level, advocates are organizing around a bill, the Water Affordability, Transparency, Equity, and Reliability Act of 2019. This legislation would dedicate $35 billion for water infrastructure improvements across the country, and was introduced by U.S Senator Bernie Sanders in the Senate, and Representatives Brenda Lawrence and Ro Khanna in the House. It would be paid for by rolling back some of the Trump administration’s tax cuts.

While local bills like Baltimore’s can help provide much-needed immediate relief to struggling residents, advocates know they will not really be able to tackle the crisis without federal action.

Originally published in VICE on December 10, 2019.
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On Saturday, surging Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg released his plan for K-12 education, a wide-ranging 20-page document that offers just one paragraph on charter schools.

Up to this point, Buttigieg’s comments on charters, the publicly-funded, privately-managed schools that educate about 7 percent of public school students, have been minimal. He didn’t respond to the Washington Post’s candidate questionnaire on the topic, and he missed an NEA-sponsored public education forum that ten candidates participated in in July. In April, at a Northeastern University event in Boston, he reportedly dodged a charter school question, but then responded to a follow-up by saying they “have a place” as “a laboratory for techniques that can be replicated.” In May, he said on the trail that he supported Sen. Bernie Sanders’ call to ban for-profit charters.

The problem is that charter schools have become something of a flashpoint in the 2020 primary, as many candidates have criticized them for things like taking resources away from traditional public schools and privatizing education. In doing so, these candidates have been largely distancing themselves from the pro-charter school policies embraced by the Obama administration. The media has not pressed Buttigieg much on charters, or even on public education, perhaps because he was polling relatively low for much of the race.

But Buttigieg, who is now leading in some Iowa caucus surveys, has been holding private fundraisers with a number of prominent charter school supporters, according to invitations reviewed by VICE. While his education plan was enthusiastically endorsed by American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, who has praised all the leading candidates’ education platforms, Buttigieg’s financial ties with the charter school community raise questions about what policy positions he might adopt if ultimately elected president.

Buttigieg’s plan for charters itself is relatively uncontroversial, which is to say vague. For example, he calls for “equal accountability” between charter schools and traditional public schools, though a few lines later he softens this to a more non-specific standard of “comparable levels” of accountability. While the South Bend mayor says he would “take action” against authorizing entities that produce low-quality charter schools, and that he would work with states to ensure charter school innovations “can be subsequently shared to strengthen the traditional public school system,” he doesn’t provide details on how he would do either of those things.

Notably, his plan steers clear of the Charter Schools Program (CSP), an annual pot of federal money that finances the growth of new charters across the country. Elizabeth Warren has called for an end to funding that program under her administration, and Bernie Sanders said he would put a moratorium on federal funds for new charters until a national audit could assess the impact of charter growth in each state.

(A campaign spokesperson told Chalkbeat this weekend that Buttigieg would stop CSP dollars from going directly to for-profit schools, though a 2014 federal guidance already prohibits this. The spokesperson declined to tell Chalkbeat who advised Buttigieg on his education plan, and did not respond to VICE on that question either.)

While Buttigeig’s standing in the polls has recently improved, especially in the early states of Iowa and New Hampshire, his ability to win over black voters remains a daunting stumbling block between him and the Democratic nomination. Black voters favor charters at higher rates than white voters, though still only 47 percent of black Democrats support them, according to an annual education opinion survey.

There aren’t many charter schools currently in South Bend, though that might be changing soon. Enrollment in the city’s public schools dropped by almost 700 students in the last year, and the South Bend superintendent is considering the adoption of a so-called “innovation school” strategy—where the traditional school district would run charter schools but those teachers couldn’t join the citywide teacher union. Two other Indiana cities use this strategy: Indianapolis, where 28 percent of students attended charters in 2015-16 and Gary, where 43 percent did, according to a report by the State Department of Education. The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, a prominent pro-charter advocacy group, has ranked Indiana as having the best state law for charter schools in the country for the last four years in a row.

Linda Lucy, who has served as the president of the South Bend teachers union since June 2018, told VICE she had never met with Pete Buttigieg, and had “nothing to add” about the union’s relationship with the mayor. “Politicians have hijacked the teaching profession in our public schools,” she said.

Buttigieg does appear to have made time for Heather Willey, one of Indiana’s top charter school lobbyists, who co-hosted a fundraiser for Buttigieg in Indianapolis on October 4, according to an invitation obtained by VICE.

Willey served on the board of the Institute for Quality Education, an Indiana school choice advocacy group, for years, and co-chairs her law firm’s “Charter School and School Innovation” group. In 2019, the Institute for Quality Education, Teach for America Indianapolis, and Charter Schools USA, Inc., a for-profit charter company, all listed Willey’s firm, Barnes & Thornburg LLP, as a hired lobbyist. According to her professional biography, Willey “has been intimately involved in the charter school and school reform movements since the inception of the laws in Indiana in 2001.” She did not return repeated requests for comment.

In Silicon Valley, meanwhile, Buttigieg has also had fundraisers with several prominent charter school supporters.

Satya Patel, a venture capitalist who formerly worked as a vice president of product at Twitter, co-hosted an event for Buttigieg in the Bay Area in late August. Between 2007 and 2017, Patel served on the board of KIPP Bay Area Schools, part of the nation’s largest charter school network, which has received tens of millions of dollars in federal grants. He did not return requests for comment.

Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix and one of the nation’s most prominent charter school funders, co-hosted a Menlo Park fundraiser for Buttigieg in late July and maxxed out to his campaign in April.

In an email, Hastings told VICE that he had not spoken with Buttigieg about charter schools, saying, “[I] don’t know where he stands.” The federal role for charter schools and education generally, Hastings added, “is quite small.” In 2018, Hastings spent millions of dollars to unsuccessfully elect a pro-charter state superintendent in California, and this past year he donated $143,000 to 73 Republicans in Missouri to build more support for charter schools in that state.

Camilo Acosta, another San Francisco tech executive, held two fundraisers for Buttigieg—one on October 17, and another on July 24. According to his Crunchbase profile, when Acosta is not working at his start-up, he “does fundraising and advocacy work for education reform efforts, a cause” he “fervently support[s].” Another online bio for an appearance on the Bright Ideas podcast says he “hosts fundraisers for education reform organizations such as KIPP, and political candidates that support the cause.”

Acosta told VICE that he had talked to Buttigieg personally about charters at fundraisers, adding, “The reason I got involved with the campaign and started going to fundraisers and hosting them is because I’m a Latino immigrant and I wanted to be a voice for those inner-city kids and parents who can’t be in those rooms.” Acosta praised Buttigieg’s newly-released K12 plan, saying, “It’s what I had hoped to see, I think it took a very nuanced approach.”

In recent weeks Buttigieg faced criticism over his campaign’s lack of transparency around donors and fundraisers—before the campaign reversed course on Monday and indicated it would open high-dollar fundraisers to the press. (At least until that announcement, the Buttigieg campaign had stopped listing the names of hosts on its fundraiser invitations, making it more difficult to learn who was organizing those events.)

The Buttigieg campaign declined a request for an interview on his approach to charter-school policy. When asked if the campaign wanted to comment on the charter backers who have hosted fundraisers—and whether Buttigieg has spoken about charters at any of these fundraisers—spokesperson Sean Savett referred VICE to a June article published in NBC. That piece quoted Buttigieg saying, “I think the expansion of charter schools in general is something that we need to really draw back on until we’ve corrected what needs to be corrected in terms of underfunded public education.”

His rivals aren’t having as much success laying low on the issue. Warren, whose education plan calls for limiting charter school expansion and holding charters to the same transparency and accountability standards as traditional public schools, was protested by charter school activists at a November campaign event in Atlanta, as the New York Times reported. This past weekend in New Hampshire, Warren who has sworn off high-dollar fundraisers, called on Buttigieg to open his three upcoming fundraisers in New York to the press and said she was concerned about presidential candidates who “sell access to their time to the highest bidder.”

Buttigieg, Warren, and at least six other presidential candidates are expected to appear at a public education town hall hosted by MSNBC in Pittsburgh next weekend.

Originally published in The Intercept published on December 2, 2019.
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HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI has made no secret of her desire to pass the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement by the end of the year, telling reporters recently that it would be her goal for the House to vote on it before Christmas. Centrist Democrats have been insisting privately that a quick passage for the trade deal is necessary for moderate members of Congress to win their competitive reelections in 2020, to show they can “do something.” Unions have made clear, though, that from their perspective, USMCA lacks real labor enforcement mechanisms, which could undermine the whole deal, further drag down wages, and eliminate more jobs.

Meanwhile, a top priority for labor has been sitting quietly on Pelosi’s desk and, unlike USMCA, already commands enough support to get it over the House finish line. The Protecting the Right to Organize Act would be the most comprehensive rewrite of U.S. labor law in decades. It would eliminate right-to-work laws, impose new penalties on employers who retaliate against union organizing, crack down on worker misclassification, and establish new rules so that employers cannot delay negotiating collective bargaining contracts. Introduced by Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., in May, it already has 215 co-sponsors in the House and 40 in the Senate.

The PRO Act passed the House Committee on Education and Labor on September 25 on a party-line vote. But two months later, Pelosi has still not moved to bring the bill to the House floor, nor has she given any indication of when she would. Her office did not return requests for comment.

“I don’t know exactly what the holdup is — it is taking longer than it should given the number of co-sponsors that we have,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, co-chair of the House Progressive Caucus. “Many other bills have come to the floor with fewer co-sponsors than this one.”

Jayapal told The Intercept that she believes that House leadership remains committed to the bill and that she and the Progressive Caucus have been pressuring them to bring it to the floor. “I think it is really critical for us as Democrats,” she said. “And anyone on the Democratic side who is wary of expanding collective bargaining I think should be thinking really clearly about why that would be.”

Rep. Mark Pocan, the other Progressive Caucus co-chair, said they’re working hard to make sure the bill gets calendared, but acknowledged that “there’s probably somewhat limited bandwidth” for the PRO Act given the intense focus on hashing out labor provisions in the trade deal, and the House’s desire to finish passing the drug-pricing bill.

“Because of that, we’re probably having a more difficult time getting an exact date. There’s a lot of work happening right now,” he said.

Dan Mauer, director of government affairs for the Communications Workers of America, told The Intercept that the delay to bring the vote to the floor has been “very frustrating” and that his union has made it clear to House leadership that members would be “very unhappy” if the House does not prioritize the bill by the end of the year.

“We get it’s hard, there’s a lot of stuff on people’s plates, and at the same time, this bill already has a lot of demonstrated support,” he said.

Originally published in The Intercept on November 15, 2019.
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For as long as anybody in Maryland can remember, any effort to pass progressive legislation in this deeply blue state began with one vexing question: What do we do about Mike?

Thomas “Mike” Miller, the longest serving state Senate president in U.S. history, has been a formidable barrier to progressive action for decades. A member of the Maryland Senate since 1975, the conservative Democrat has been the chamber’s top leader for the last 32 years, wielding unparalleled and deft power over politics, careers, and how or whether bills move forward in Annapolis. Allied with the state’s top lobbyists, he is who progressives have blamed over the years for stalling, thwarting, and watering down top legislative priorities like raising the minimum wage, guaranteeing paid sick leave, and reforming marijuana laws. “Why does Maryland punch below its weight class in terms of progressive legislation? It’s because of leadership,” said Kim Propeack, the political and communications director for CASA de Maryland, an immigrant rights group. “People want to honor Mike Miller’s legacy, and I think that’s appropriate, but there’s a whole lot of stuff that we have the most conservative versions of, and that’s in large part because of him.”

In theory, Maryland could be passing model legislation in the same way New York, Massachusetts, California, and Washington state have been doing. Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans 2 to 1, the state has not cast its votes for a Republican president since 1988, and even with Republican governors sometimes at the helm, Democrats have retained a decadeslong veto-proof majority in the state Senate.

Progressives tried to take down Miller in 2018, mounting a primary challenge under the banner of “Take a hike, Mike.” While Miller ultimately won his reelection, unions, the Maryland Working Families Party, and other statewide left-wing organizations did manage to unseat a handful of other powerful incumbents tied to Miller. Among those ousted included the Senate Finance Committee chair, who many thought would eventually succeed Miller as president; the Senate Health and Environmental Affairs Committee chair; and the president pro tempore, the Senate’s second most powerful Democrat. Despite those wins, progressives’ ability to influence change in Annapolis remained limited, as Miller still controlled committee assignments and how legislation moves forward.

Maryland’s political landscape, however, drastically changed late last month, when Miller announced his resignation as Senate president due to complications from his cancer treatment. Come next year, he will continue to be a rank-and-file senator, but the state Senate will instead be led by Bill Ferguson, a 36-year-old progressive lawmaker from Baltimore, and one of the most vocal advocates for public education funding in Annapolis.

“It’s revolutionary, honestly,” said Propeack.

Larry Stafford, the executive director of Progressive Maryland, celebrated.“Now there’s more hope for finally having a more just and fair system of taxation in Maryland,” he said, “something that Mike Miller has not been supportive of in terms of the wealthy paying their fair share.”

FERGUSON’S ASCENSION TO the Senate presidency was something of a coup for progressives in Annapolis. Even with several of Miller’s closest allies having lost their seats in 2018, the expectation was that a more senior-level, establishment-friendly Democrat would take the reins.

Four prominent senators had been gunning for the role in a behind-the-scenes battle last month, but none were proving they could win the 17 votes necessary to win the nomination. Then, as the Baltimore Sun reported, the influential Senate Finance Committee chair, 83-year-old Delores Kelley, approached Ferguson and asked him to consider jumping into the fray. She liked his budgetary expertise, said his age shouldn’t deter him, and thought he could help break the succession impasse.

Miller was simultaneously applying pressure on the candidates to come to a nominating consensus, to avoid an acrimonious succession squabble. Some of the chamber’s more progressive senators began feeling nervous that the leading contender for the Senate presidency appeared to be Sen. Douglas J. J. Peters of Prince George’s County, an anti-abortion Democrat who also voted against same-sex marriage. “We played a role in backing up the message that someone who is anti-choice shouldn’t be the next senate president in Maryland in the year 2020,” said Stafford. After several weeks of campaigning around the state, Ferguson won out as the unanimous choice. Kelley played a key role shoring up votes for him too.

As Maryland Matters politics reporter Josh Kurtz noted, “While it’s not going to happen overnight, the culture in the Senate is going to change dramatically — more so, most likely, than if any of the other contenders to succeed Miller had prevailed.” Miller leaving his post is also expected to be a blow to the top lobbyists in Maryland, many of whom either served as Miller’s own political aides at one point or worked previously in the state Senate alongside him. Ferguson also accepts lobbyist and corporate donations, but Gerard Evans, a lobbyist who served as Miller’s top legislative assistant in the early 1980s, told the Washington Post he expects Ferguson to be more “participatory” in his legislative style and less reliant on a “key core” of people.

Ferguson’s new role will also help shift the balance of power in Annapolis from the D.C. suburbs — where Miller lived — to Ferguson’s home in Baltimore, which is much more heavily dependent on state assistance for basic municipal needs. Since May, the Maryland House of Delegates has also been led by someone from the Baltimore area: Adrienne Jones, a Democrat from Baltimore County, was elected speaker of the House in May to replace the previous speaker, who was from Anne Arundel County and had led the chamber for 17 years until his death in April.

Ferguson did not return requests for comment, and he’s been careful in recent weeks to give thanks and credit to Miller for his years of public service. “I have been humbled to learn such a great deal about leadership from Mike Miller in the last 9 years,” he wrote in an October 26 email to supporters. “As I transition into this new role, we will continue to work side by side as the Senate reaches new progress for all Marylanders.”

Stafford, of Progressive Maryland, says that immediate priorities for progressives next year will be campaign finance reform and passing a more equitable public education school funding formula.

“I’m most excited about the prospect for a small-dollar fund matching program and getting the influence of money out of politics in state-level elections,” he told The Intercept. “We’ve been able to win campaigns to pass public financing in Howard County, Prince George’s County, Montgomery County, and Baltimore City, and we believe this shift with Miller will enable us to have more success in pushing that type of policy forward, which could further change the makeup of the state’s political landscape.” A study released this past September by the Maryland Public Interest Research Group found that candidates who participated in Montgomery County’s new public financing program attracted far more donors in the 2018 election than those who didn’t.

Maryland activists are also hoping to advance paid family leave and to remove the exemptions from their watered-down minimum wage law. They are also bracing for intense fights next session over public education. Lawmakers plan to convene next year over new school funding recommendations issued this past September by a 26-member state commission.

The Kirwan Commission, as it’s known, was established in 2016 by the state legislature (and named after William Kirwan, the former chancellor of the University of Maryland) to rewrite the state’s long-standing school funding formula. After several years of deliberations, the Kirwan Commission recommended a $3.8 billion increase in school spending over a decade, with about half of that money coming from county and city governments, and the other half from the state. The commission also included recommendations for how the new money should be spent, like raising teacher salaries, expanding pre-K, and investing more in schools with high concentrations of poverty. Activists are calling next year a “once-in-a-generation” opportunity to fix the state’s inequitable education system.

According to a recent poll by Goucher College, about 70 percent of Maryland adults think the state spends too little on public schools, and nearly three-fourths said they would be willing to spend more on improving education. But Republican Gov. Larry Hogan has already made clear he plans to fight hard against the Kirwan Commission’s recommendations, vowing to oppose any major tax increases that would be necessary to implement the plan.

While Miller has said he would fight to move public education forward, his friendly relationship with the governor, and his own centrist track record, had progressives feeling wary about getting a strong school funding formula through the grinder next year. Ferguson, by contrast, was actually on the Kirwan Commission himself, previously taught in Baltimore with Teach for America, and now works a day job at the Johns Hopkins School of Education.

“He has a history in education, is very knowledgeable on the state budget, and we believe he will be more willing to go toe-to-toe with the governor over this,” said Stafford. “We’re ready to go.”