Lee Fang | The Nation

As a class of newly elected members of Congress prepare to swear their oath as public servants, another class, of those retiring this term, are taking private pledges in the office towers dotting downtown Washington, DC. Those pledges, employment contracts to lobby their former colleagues on behalf of corporate interests, have become an increasingly biennial traditional for both parties.

Yesterday afternoon, Duke Energy, the coal-fueled utility company based in North Carolina, sent out a press release stating that they are “pleased” to announce that Congressman Health Shuler will be “joining our team in Washington.” He will lead the company’s federal government affairs (i.e., lobbying) efforts.

It should be no surprise that Shuler, a prominent Blue Dog conservative Democrat who chose to skip re-election after Republicans gerrymandered his district, is among the first to reveal his new gig as an influence peddler. Another top Blue Dog, Representative Mike Ross of Arkansas, is one of the only other sitting lawmakers this year to already make public his plans to head into lobbying.

Earlier this year, I helped found the corruption watchdog blog Republic Report to keep an eye on the influence industry and its corrosive effect on policy. Back in July, following reports that Shuler had begun negotiating for a job on K Street while still serving in office, and setting policy that could impact his future employers, my former colleague Zaid Jilani, now the PCCC’s lead blogger at The Daily Change, and I asked him about his plans.

He bluntly told us that “no,” he is not seeking a job as a lobbyist. But, the former Redskins quarterback did inform us that he planned to “Have a better job than you guys” (emphasis added):

FANG: It’s been reported a month or two ago that you’re already negotiating for a lobby job because you’re retiring this year
SHULER: Ha! No, I’m on the phone with my wife.
FANG: But you’re not even negotiating with the Majority Group, or any of these other lobbying firms on K Street?
SHULER: Nope. You read it wrong, buddy. […] Rob worked for me; Walt was my colleague. I can have a conversation with them if I want to.
FANG: Are you planning to become a lobbyist?
SHULER: No.
[…]
JILANI: What do you plan to do after you retire?
SHULER: Have a better job than you guys have, that’s for sure.

Watch it:

Though Shuler has already accepted the position with Duke Energy, he is still helping to lead a bipartisan coalition, along with Representative Mike Simpson (R-ID), to deal with the “fiscal cliff.” Shuler has promised an “all options” approach, one that will undoubtedly affect his soon to be employer. Duke Energy benefits from a host of tax subsidies, so much so that Citizens for Tax Justice found that the company paid an effective tax rate of negative 3.9 percent from 2008–10 while making over $5.5 billion in profit.

The press release has a disclaimer that Shuler will abide by House Ethics rules and not vote on any legislation affecting Duke Energy. But those rules are laden with loopholes and Shuler can certainly craft legislation and vote on broad measures that impact tax policy affecting his future employer.

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Thousands of former congressmen, federal regulators and staff regularly head to K Street to collect high-paying salaries, often from businesses that have benefitted from their actions in government. There are dozens of high-profile examples of this form of corruption, from former Senator Tom Daschle to former Representative Billy Tauzin, all securing multimillion-dollar paydays from industries they cultivated while in office. A new report shows how military contractors routinely court retired generals, some with wide sway over weapon purchases, with lavish paydays.

The sum of this dynamic is that people in government have much bigger incentives to sell out to industry, even when doing so hurts the public interest. While it seems likely in some cases, behind the scene job negotiations for officeholders become little more than bribery; we haven’t seen federal prosecutors too eager to prosecute this type of corruption. Part of the problem is actually cultural. In Washington, the sell-outs, the men and women who make the most money as industry hacks, are the winners. From high society tabloids like Washington Life to the Beltway media, those who spin through the revolving door are adulated and celebrated.

Maybe that’s why Shuler seemed so certain of a gleaming post-congressional career path.

In his latest, George Zornick writes that Chairman “Mary Shapiro’s Departure Creates an Opportunity for a Stronger SEC.”

A picture of a sign posted recently inside a CONSOL Energy workplace.

In a bid to assert their influence on issues relating to climate change as well as environmental and labor regulations, fossil fuel companies are making an unprecedented election-season push. Documents obtained by The Nation reveal that oil, gas and coal companies are taking advantage of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision to not only blanket swing states with ads but also push their employees and contractors into voting GOP.

CONSOL Energy, a fracking and coal company active in Appalachia in key states like Pennslyvania and Ohio, announced this week that they will soon be laying off workers because of President Obama’s policies. As the company released the impending job cuts, CONSOL’s CEO, Brett Harvey, went on Fox Business Network to praise Romney, claiming that he “understands coal” and will move forward to create “red, white and blue jobs.”

Harvey’s company, like many in the fossil fuel industry, is also pressing its case directly to workers. Workers at CONSOL at its corporate headquarters in Washington, Pennsylvania are greeted with signs imploring them: “I pledge to vote for American Energy Coal & Natural Gas.”

CONSOL Energy has also mailed voter guides to its 8,800 employees located primarily in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio that endorse Mitt Romney for president. The guides, obtained exclusively by The Nation, state that “Obama’s environmental policy is frequently described as a ‘War on Coal’ ” and goes on to state how Obama’s environmental policies effectively bar the construction of new coal power plants. The CONSOL Energy Voting Guide also states that Mitt Romney “will implemented measured reforms of environmental statutes and regulations to strengthen environmental protection without destroying jobs, paralyzing industry, or barring the use of resources like coal.”

In a letter we obtained from Petroleum Helicopters Inc. CEO Al A. Gonsoulin to his 2,000 employees blasting Obama policies, Gonsoulin writes, “No credible or reasonable argument can be made to justify or defend the current administration’s negative attitude and undeniably abusive policies directed toward and against the oil and gas industry that we at PHI depend upon for our corporate or personal livelihoods.”

The Nation has also obtained a letter blasting the Obama administration sent recently to natural gas lease-holders in North Dakota. In the letter, Continental Resources CEO Harold Hamm urged recipients to elect Republican Rick Berg to the US Senate. Hamm, a billionaire who is credited with helping author Romney's energy plan, writes that Berg “has consistently fought for lower taxes for us” and warned that “your opportunity to receive royalty and bonus payments may also be impacted” by the election. The Citizens United decision liberated corporations to not only endorse candidates to their workers but also express similar election communications to their vendors and customers.

Last month, In These Times magazine revealed that Koch Industries, a company highly involved in the fracking industry, has incorporated almost every facet of electioneering into its campaign push. The company, which has chemical facilities and Georgia Pacific plants employing up to 2,000 in Ohio and Pennsylvania, has sent a letter advising its workers to support Romney.

The move underscores how partisan the coal and gas industry has become.

CONSOL’s voter guides have been distributed in conjunction with their lobby group, the National Mining Association, which has mobilized coal companies throughout Ohio to get out the vote. Alpha Natural Resources, Patriot Coal, Caterpillar and Rosebud Mining Company have also posted links for their workers to view the NMA’s “Mine the Vote” voter guide.

The stakes are high. The NMA, which has purchased 150 election-themed billboards in states like Ohio and Virginia, has made legislation to exempt coal companies from laws regulating coal ash in drinking water a top priority on Capitol Hill. Though coal firms have tried to portray Obama as simply “anti-coal,” lobby disclosures show that they have spent much of their money seeking to undercut an overhaul in safety standards. The NMA led the charge in defeating a bill to update mine inspection rules in the aftermath of the Upper Big Branch disaster.

One NMA billboard reads “Obama’s NO JOB ZONE” over a map of Appalachian states.

Workers are quickly learning that in this election, coal company executives will do anything it takes to elect the Romney-Ryan ticket. Earlier this year, the largest privately held coal company in the United States, Murray Energy—another NMA member company—was caught forcing its workers to stand behind Romney at a political rally. Now, the NMA has released a new campaign video featuring that rally to claim Romney supports coal jobs. A later investigation by The New Republic also revealed that Murray Energy’s CEO was calling out in e-mails employees who did not donate to his list of preferred GOP candidates.

Spend a day on the campaign trail in one of the swing states, and the influence of the fossil fuel lobby is hard to escape. A bus tour from a group called “FACES of Coal,” a NMA-backed organization, is touring Virginia and other states along with Republican candidates. NMA’s other publicity vehicle, “Count on Coal,” is using social media to spread the word about the election. And on CNN and major television networks, yet another coal lobby trade group, American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, has spent some $12 million so far.

Coal and gas companies are powering even the biggest Super PACs. Americans for Prosperity, a right-wing advocacy group financed by Koch that is spending over $140 million this year, just announced $3 million in television ads in Michigan and Pennsylvania, and has at least five field offices in the Keystone State. Six-figure donations from Oxbow Carbon, Alpha Natural Resources and Cumberland Natural Resources have allowed pro-Romney Super PACs American Crossroads and Restore Our Future to saturate states like Ohio with negative television ads.

The fossil fuel industry is expected to be working to overcome the revived sense of urgency to address climate change after the devastation of Hurricane Sandy. House Democrats are again urging hearings on the effect of global warming on extreme weather events. Next year, the Environmental Protection Agency will continue to develop regulations to curb carbon emissions. Corporations reliant on burning fossil fuels are hoping a change in administration, or more pro-polluter pressure from Capitol Hill, could overturn the EPA’s efforts.

Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, the lobbying group that represents CONSOL Energy and other companies pressuring their workers to support the Romney-Ryan ticket, may have the chance to orchestrate a major political payback if President Obama is defeated on Tuesday.

According to insider reports this week, Gerard is among the top contenders to be Romney’s White House chief of staff, or his secretary of energy. For Gerard to get the job, it may depend on efforts by fossil fuel companies to convince workers that they could lose theirs if Obama wins.

Murray Energy Corporation replies to the allegations in this post.

Two of the pivotal field offices in the country making phone calls to voters in swing states aren’t in Ohio or Colorado—they’re in Idaho Falls and Rexburg, Idaho.

Frank VanderSloot, head of a controversial “multi-level marketing” corporation that sells dietary supplements and cleaning supplies, is donating two of his company’s offices to Americans for Prosperity (AFP) to “create one of the largest call centers in the nation.” According to local reports, AFP is recruiting teenagers and others in Idaho with a promise of $10/hour to make anti-Obama calls to voters in key states. The combined efforts of VanderSloot, an avowed conservative billionaire and financier of the Romney Super PAC, and AFP, the dark money group led by the Koch brothers, may be Romney’s last hope in unseating President Obama.

The conventional wisdom, expressed by several media outlets in recent weeks, is that Obama’s campaign has an incredible advantage because of its “ground game.” The Obama team, the story goes, has more field offices than Romney, and will use these assets to better deploy get out the vote efforts through Election Day.

While it’s true that Obama has considerably more field offices than his opponent, especially in swing states, the campaign-versus-campaign comparisons belie a shift in resources on the right. Hundreds of millions of dollars—most of it from right-wing fronts that do not disclose their donors—are being spent to bring pro-Romney voters to the polls. Thanks to a loose interpretation of our disclosure laws, these electioneering efforts have gone largely undetected by the Federal Election Commission, making them even more secretive.

In recent years, Republicans have invested incredible sums to develop groups focused on grassroots organizing. American Majority, the dozens of State Policy Network institutes, Americans for Prosperity, FreedomWorks and American Action Network are among the new or recently expanded conservative nonprofits that spend a significant amount of their budget just on organizing. AFP, which has a $140 million budget this year, up from $14 million in 2008, has about 200 paid staff going into the election.

These groups, along with the unprecedented effort by large employers and trade associations to coerce their employees into voting GOP, might more than level the ground game between Romney and Obama.

Take Ohio, the state that is likely to decide the election. In the Buckeye State, Obama has 131 field offices compared to Romney’s forty. That may seem like a stark difference until you consider Romney’s outside-money allies.

American Majority has four offices in Ohio directing efforts to bring people door-to-door to “Fire Obama;” Americans for Prosperity has six offices in the state and at least four paid organizers; and FreedomWorks is coordinating with at least seven local Tea Party groups to GOTV. Other right-wing groups sending field staff to Ohio: Heritage Action, the NRA, the Susan B. Anthony List, the Republican Jewish Coalition, Crossroads Generation, True the Vote and the Faith and Freedom Coalition.

Ohio is also ground zero for a number of large companies that have pushed their employees towards the GOP. Murray Energy, the privately owned coal company based in Pepper Pike, Ohio, reportedly forced its workers to attend a pro-Romney rally without pay. Cintas Corporation, a Cincinnati-based firm, sent an election-related letter complaining about Obamacare.

The problem in comparing Romney and Obama’s campaign resources is one of transparency. Traditional campaign committees, like Romney for President or Obama’s Organizing for America, must report every expense; so we know how much each is spending on field operations—leading many in the media to proclaim that Obama is better prepared to mobilize his base.

There are other factors to consider. Many large evangelical churches in Ohio have indicated that they will distribute pro-Romney voter guides. Labor unions, which are subject to disclosure requirements from the Department of Justice and FEC, are deploying to augment the Obama campaign’s outreach to voters.

But it’s difficult to discern how much dark money groups like the US Chamber of Commerce or Americans for Prosperity are devoting to GOTV, or how much employers are spending to communicate with their workers on the election or even offer rides to the polls. At the end of the day, Romney appears to not only have an advantage on the airwaves through paid media; he’ll enjoy considerable support connecting to voters.

Lee Fang blogs about the intersection of money and politics. Read his previous dispatch on the corporate lobbyists who run our presidential debates.

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In recent weeks, a flurry of news coverage has focused on an undemocratic trend in workplaces around the country: employers telling their workers which politicians they should vote for. CEOs for Murray Energy, Koch Industries, ASG Software and Westgate Resorts have pressured their employees to vote for particular political candidates, like Mitt Romney.

The Nation has found that the phenomenon appears far more wide-ranging than previously known. Businesses throughout Washington State, along with a loose network of hundreds of coal and mining companies, are preparing to urge employees to vote for specific political candidates. Meanwhile, lobbyists in Washington are working furiously to encourage more corporations to adopt these tactics.

One of the lesser-known consequences of the Citizens United decision is how corporations gained the power to explicitly recommend candidates to their rank-and-file workers. Before, corporations were limited to mostly encouraging civic participation. Now, managers can make political appeals for a candidate in the workplace.

This November, corporations are testing their new Supreme Court–granted rights for the first time in a presidential election. The coal industry is a good place to observe this shifting landscape.

Since 2004, lobbyists for the coal and mining industry have promoted something called “Mine the Vote,” an effort to organize employees and get them to the polls.

The lobbyists, working for the National Mining Association, have taken advantage of their new freedoms to make that effort more aggressive. They have produced a voting guide website called “Mine the Vote,” which they are promoting to their 325-member companies as a means to encourage employees to vote for Mitt Romney. The same website also lists endorsements for Congress, which skew Republican and conservative Democrat.

Patriot Coal, Caterpillar and Rosebud Mining Company are among the mining industry companies that have posted links to Mine the Vote. “It is vital that we elect candidates that support American mining, so we have provided a guide to show you which candidates supported by NMA PAC’s,” a message with the effort explains. The National Mining Association has distributed get-out-the-vote posters featuring information about the voting guide website for managers to post in workrooms.

James Kahl, a corporate attorney advising a number of business associations, wrote in a memo for his clients that the Citizens United decision appears to legalize a number of workplace electioneering efforts. Corporations may now “express electoral preferences to employees” as well as distribute voter guides authored by executives, wrote Kahl.

It was the same conclusion reached by Karl Crow, a political operative who helped the conservative Koch brothers develop their “Themis” grassroots strategy this year. In an article published several months after the court decision, Crow approvingly cited another prominent Republican attorney, Cleta Mitchell, who argued that Citizens United opens the door for businesses to educate “their employees, vendors and customers about candidates and officeholders whose philosophies and voting records would destroy or permanently damage America’s free enterprise system.” Koch Industries had a head start. As Mike Elk and Mark Ames reported in The Nation, Koch began pressuring employees to vote GOP for the midterm elections two years ago.

The effort may spread like wildfire in offices and factories across the country. On Thursday, the US Chamber of Commerce, a lobbying association that represents companies like Dow Chemical and Prudential Financial, kicked off a campaign to have employers stuff payroll envelopes with explicit campaign propaganda. The first political mailer is being distributed in Massachusetts and in bold letters reads “Defeat U.S. Senate Candidate Elizabeth Warren.”

The Chamber, ABC News reports, says it hopes to reach 7 million people.

“The real concern here is…the inherent power dynamics between employees and their employers,” Adam Skaggs, a senior counsel with the Brennan Center for Justice, explained recently on Current TV. An official e-mail from the boss saying something like “your job could depend on who wins the race” could be interpreted as coercion or intimidation, said Skaggs.

Of course, not all employee electioneering benefits the Republican Party. In 2010, the casino company Harrah’s worked closely with Senator Harry Reid’s (D-NV) reelection effort. “Waking up to the defeat of Harry Reid Nov. 3 will be devastating for our industry’s future,” one Harrah’s executive wrote in an e-mail mobilizing employees to get to the polls.

Only weeks after his re-election, Reid introduced fast-tracked online gambling legislation, which many saw as a payback to companies like Harrah’s. The case of Harrah’s, though, differs from the other examples of workplace electioneering since the company worked in concert with their union, which was democratically elected as a representative of the employees.

More and more businesses seem to be jumping in the game, hoping to score future favors from other lawmakers, even presidents. And they have help.

The firm that helped develop Koch Industries’ pro-Romney employee advocacy effort is called DDC Advocacy. The firm is led in part by Sara Fagen, Karl Rove’s former deputy known for her innovative uses of consumer data in the 2004 Bush re-election effort. DDC Advocacy is part of a cottage industry of Beltway consultants who specialize in helping businesses activate their employees and customers into-mini lobbyists. Currently, DDC is working for Boeing, Aetna, Altria, Humana, Ernst & Young, and other Fortune 500 corporations.

Its not clear if DDC Advocacy is replicating the type of explicit candidate endorsements pioneered by Koch for these other companies.

Though the extent to which businesses will fully embrace employee coercion is yet to be seen, there could be wide ranging consequences up and down the ballot.

In Washington State, a lobbying association for the homebuilding industry recently distributed a sample letter for its member companies to give to employees. The sample letter was sent along with a voter guide instructing workers to support Rob McKenna, the Republican candidate for governor. Government is pushing “businesses like ours closer to shutting our doors,” the letter warns.

The letter also states that employees should review the voting guide “when filling out your ballot.” It sternly reminds them to use the guide “as you cast your vote in November.”

For more on the expanding effort to coerce employee political participation, read George Zornick’s report on how Herman Cain is training business owners to get active this fall.