The fall-out from the Cooper Vision phone bank scandal
The sad thing, of course, is that Minarik’s dirty trick with CooperVision worked and will continue to bear fruit. In the comments, Rotten says — and I think he’s right– that
Netting this out, it’s pretty clear that there won’t be many (any) local businesses wanting to provide phone banks for Democrats during the next election. That’s bad, it sucks, and it’s a reality.
You can read the comments below for a discussion of how problematic other options for phone banking are.
The local media — especially the D&C — will not cover the story aggressively. And in two years, they’ll most likely endorse the Republican incumbents in the county lej who are puppets of the man who perpetrated this trick. Some will even come up with half-assed “Democrats do bad things too” Broderisms.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
Related posts:
Funning thing is that phone banks are getting such a bad reputation anyway. In big election years–presidential, congressional etc, the number of phone calls and robocalls received by many is just monumentally annoying and when they are that annoying, they probably hurt more than they help.
However, phone banks are useful and probably necessary. If a candidate runs without the support of a local party, phone banks are difficult to set up. Many will be done with cell phones from someone’s house. Or if the candidate is lucky, they know someone with offices adequate to host a phone bank.
But what is really disturbing about the CooperVision incident is that it is an issue of free speech. If this issue isn’t resolved, will we be forced to “go underground”? By this I mean plan phone banks and keep the information secret. The last thing we want to do is harm someone’s ability to work at their job, but the companies involved in the phone bank shut down this year need to take a stand as well. We all need to take a stand.
As I said before, companies that open their doors for GOTV efforts should be praised, not bullied by the likes of Maggie and Steve. If we let the bullies win, we ruin our chances for future companies to join in the GOTV effort. If we let the bullies win, we are letting the likes of Maggie and Steve further trample our democracy.
We cannot let anyone silence us. That’s why I’ve spend the morning sending information about this issue to everyone who might want to listen….from the top all the way on down and everyone in between.
In comments on the original post, some hypothesized that the pressure applied to CooperVision was illegal. Is there an attorney reading with knowledge of election law who can comment?
If that is the case, who should file charges? Is that Mike Green’s responsibility? Does it fall under the purview of the US Attorney?
Who would be charged? Whomever made the phone call? On whose behalf the phone call was made?
For instance, if Minarik made the phone call but stated that he was doing it on Brooks’ authority (”the county executive will see to it you never see a dime of COMIDA money”), then can Brooks be charged? What level of proof would be needed– would it be enough for Minarik to say “Maggie and I talked about it and she told me to shut them down” in court?
I hope nobody minds if I post this from a prior comment I made, but I didn’t know how to link to it. It’s from Section 17-154 of the Election Law. Maybe this applies, if the threat of loss of financial benefit to the company is based on state aid? The way it’s written I can’t tell whether the legislative aid is related to work relief, or if it is more generally benefits conferred by legislative acts.
New York State Election Law Sec. 17-154. Pernicious political activities. It shall be unlawful for any person to: (I’m skipping subdivision 1)
2. Directly or indirectly, promise any employment, position,
work, compensation, or other benefit, provided for or made
possible in whole or in part by any act of congress or of the
legislature appropriating funds for work relief or relief
purposes, to any person as consideration, favor or reward for any
political activity or for the support of or opposition to any
candidate or any political party in any nominating convention or
in any election; or,
3. Deprive, attempt to deprive or threaten to deprive, by
any means, any person of any employment, position, work,
compensation or other benefit provided for or made possible in
whole or in part by any act of congress or of the legislature
appropriating funds for the work relief or relief purposes, on
account of any political activity or on account of support for or
opposition to any candidate or any political party in any
nominating convention or election; or
4. Solicit or receive or be in any manner concerned in
soliciting or receiving any assessment, subscription or
contribution for any political purpose whatever from any person
known by him to be entitled to or receiving compensation,
employment or other benefit provided for or made possible by any
act of congress or of the legislature appropriating, or
authorizing the appropriation of, funds for work relief or relief
purposes; or
5. Furnish or to disclose, or to aid or assist in furnishing
or disclosing, any list or names of persons receiving
compensation, employment or benefits provided for or made
possible by any act of congress or of the legislature
appropriating or authorizing the appropriation of, funds for work
relief or relief purposes, to a political candidate, committee,
campaign manager, or to any person for delivery to a political
candidate, committee or campaign manager, and it shall be
unlawful for any person to receive any such list or names for
political purposes.
No part of any appropriation made by any act of congress or
of the legislature, heretofore or hereafter enacted, making
appropriations for work relief, relief, or otherwise to increase
employment by providing loans and grants for public works
projects, shall be used, and no authority conferred by any such
act upon any person shall be exercised or administered, for the
purpose of interfering with, restraining or coercing any
individual in the exercise of his right to vote and to vote as he
may choose at any election.
Any person who violates any of the foregoing provisions of
this section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor
For the rest of the Election Law relating to violations of “elective franchise†(I don’t know it, just googled it) you can read:
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcode.pl?code=NY&ls=claws&law=31&art=46&frame=right2