MORE OBSERVATIONS FROM AUGUSTA

Legislative Blog Post # 8

Those new to this Blog may wish to scroll down and read up 

Bruce Gagnon with Taxation Committee co-chair Rep. Ryan Tipping 

I have been home in Presque Isle this past week, so I missed direct observation of legislative sessions, But I had updates coming at me via email. Especially about LD 1781, An Act To Encourage New Major Investments in Shipbuilding Facilities and the Preservation of Jobs.  Bruce Gagnon, Bath resident and member of Peaceworks and Global Network, emails nearly every day with updates on this bill. He has been on a hunger strike (water and juice) since February 12 to protest LD 1781, the bill to give a 60 million tax cut to Bath Iron Works owned by General Dynamics. He says, “when GD signs a contract to build ships at BIW all of their costs are covered by the tax payer funded Pentagon budget. Worker training, equipment, materials, wages, utilities and a healthy profit for the company are all included in the contract[. . .] . GD’s taxes owed to Maine are also reimbursed by the federal taxpayers under the contract” (emphasis mine). I have searched for any contradiction to Gagnon's claims and have found none. 

Protesters of the Bill showed up at the State House where the Taxation Committee held a Work Session and tabled the bill again Tuesday, February 27. Another work session is scheduled for Tuesday March 6.

This bill has bipartisan support and is expected to pass. One Democratic Candidate Representative I talked with said he will vote for it. He cited the reasons given by the bill's sponsor and by BIW Vice President Jon Fitzgerald  about supporting BIW workers, about the importance of BIW to the Maine economy, and about the threat that if BIW does not get the tax subsidy it cannot remain competitive with its costs and will lose out on contract bids. He said General Dynamics can readily buy up another ship builder with lower costs and abandon BIW.

There is push-back on these threats in the legislature as well as from concerned citizens and Global Network. LD 1781 was introduced in this special legislative session as an emergency following rules for what legislation can be introduced in the special second session. One Representative, responding by email to an inquiry about why the bill is considered emergency was enlightening to me about how corporate power works in the legislative process:

The requirements for acceptance of second session bills rests with the ten member Legislative Council (the Senate President, the Speaker of the House, and the floor leader and assistant floor leader of each major party in each chamber).  A look at their decisions shows that their interpretation of "emergency" is different from the vernacular meaning.

We have renamed a bridge, for an example of an emergency, or in our special session in October we overturned ranked choice voting.  But we have not addressed the opioid crisis. [. . .].

The courts have been very leery of intruding on legislative prerogatives and a US supreme court decision concerning recess appointments (wherein the nature of the recess was questioned) clearly showed that it is up to the legislature to determine its own rules and the interpretation of them.  The Legislative Council's executive director is a non-partisan staff member with no decision-making authority.

I think it useful to understand why the major party statehouse leadership is inclined toward supporting corporate welfare.  The leaders purchase loyalty from their caucus members through funds laundered by the leadership-PAC process, funds that mostly originate with "the lobby" which are primarily corporations.  Those members who are most loyal (and can be 'trusted' to follow instructions) become committee chairs, so it is not surprising that they are generally weak personalities.  (Remember that half of the 15 Democrats who flipped their votes to get rid of ranked choice voting were committee chairs.)

The most vulnerable statehouse leaders are those who are seeking higher elected office; the others are not accountable to anyone.

There is no emergency to warrant even considering this bill in this session.  According to MaineBiz, BIW has contracts extending at least 10 years into the future:

Bath Iron Works currently has under construction Zumwalt-class destroyers Michael Monsoor (DDG 1001) and Lyndon B. Johnson (DDG 1002), and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers Thomas Hudner (DDG 116), Daniel Inouye (DDG 118), Carl M. Levin (DDG 120) and John Basilone (DDG 122).

[. . . . . . . . . .]

General Dynamics, a global aerospace and defense company . . .  reported $3.1 billion in earnings in 2016 (on revenue of $31.35 billion), the highest earnings in its history, an operating margin of 13.7% and a company-wide backlog of work of $59.8 billion, according to its 2017 proxy statement to its shareholders. 

The influence of big corporate money in our elections and legislative process affects every other social justice issue: the environment, health care, education, poverty, income inequality. Some argue that there is nothing we can do about this short of a constitutional amendment since the Citizens United Supreme Court decision that corporations are people and money is speech.  In the case of LD 1781, our legislature could do something now. They could refuse to be bullied into granting the corporate welfare that is requested when there is no need for it.  

The only thing more powerful than corporate power over legislators is the will of the people with their voices and votes.  There is still time to contact your legislators about LD 1781.

Mary Speiss with union representative from BIW

Cynthia Howard with Taxation Committee co-chair 

Sen. Dana Dow