Santorum & Terri Lynn Land's War on Women
It's fitting that the same day Michigan Senate candidate Terri Lynn Land released an ad attempting to repair her image after weeks of negative press stemming from her comments on pay equity, Rick Santorum's PAC is announcing its endorsement of her. Santorum is well known for his opposition to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and his extreme opposition to both birth control and abortion even in the case of rape. It's no surprise, then, that Santorum would support Land.
Why is Scott Walker so happy?
American Bridge today is kicking off a new Tumblr and officially welcoming Scott Walker to the Wisconsin governor's race with a series of GIFs asking - Why is Scott Walker So Happy? Could it be because his promise to create 250K jobs in his first term has fallen more than flat? Perhaps he's proud of his record of making the biggest cuts to education in Wisconsin's history. Or maybe Walker's just giddy from having rolled back provisions of Wisconsin's Equal Pay Enforcement Act, which he derided as a "gravy train" for trial lawyers. Check out AmericanBridge.Tumblr.com for the full litany of possible reasons why Walker could be so happy as he announces his re-election campaign today. [gallery link="file" ids="11505,11499,11500,11502"]
The Truth About GOP Opposition to Paycheck Fairness
As Senate Republicans today blocked passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act, supporting legislation to strengthen equal pay protections for women might seem like a no brainer for Republicans whose own party autopsy cited the need to improve outreach to female voters. But for the extreme conservative Republicans in the Senate - and the Republican candidates seeking to join them - no excuse for voting against this bill has been too low. Just yesterday, Mitch McConnell called the Paycheck Fairness Act a "bizarre obsession" of the left, while Marco Rubio said "I think we're just wasting time" holding a vote on this bill. These sad efforts to diminish the very real problem of pay inequality facing many American women are merely an attempt to distract from the fact that so many extreme Republicans, both current Senators and 2014 candidates, don’t support remedies to ensure women receive equal pay for equal work.
Unequal Pay Day
It’s 2014. Paying women the same as men for the same work should be a no-brainer, right? Not for many right-wing Republicans. The extreme conservatives highlighted in American Bridge's new website UnequalPay.com have gone to absurd lengths to block and even undo equal pay protections for women: voting against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, paying female employees less than their male counterparts, and arguing that women don’t really want equal pay anyway, so what’s all the fuss about? The list of these shameful tactics and faulty arguments goes on and on. In honor of this year's Equal Pay Day, check out American Bridge's new website and read below for a few highlights of Republican office holders and candidates whose opposition to equal pay protections should give female voters serious pause at the ballot box.
Rick Scott's History of Discrimination
Rick Scott's campaign has been facing increasing fire for its outreach to Latino Floridians since his top fundraiser quit last week and claims surfaced that Scott's campaign staff made racially insensitive comments. Unfortunately for Scott, his association with claims of discrimination extends much further back. Before he became governor, Scott co-founded a chain of walk-in health care clinics called Solantic. One former Solantic employee - Dr. David Yarian - accused Scott of discriminatory hiring practices when it came to Latinos. Yarian claimed Scott encouraged "mainstream" hires when faced with a Latino job candidate, and that Scott said "no" to hiring an otherwise qualified candidate based on his "slight accent." In addition to Yarian, Solantic came under fire from multiple other employees with similar claims. Between 2003 and 2005, five Solantic supervisors and two employees claimed the company prevented hiring based on race, age or weight. These seven employees filed a combined lawsuit in 2006, and Solantic settled for an undisclosed sum in 2007. Between Solantic, Scott's support for extreme Arizona-style anti-immigration law, and his recent campaign drama, the choice for Latino Floridians is clear: Rick Scott is bad for Florida.
The Truth About Koch Industries in North Carolina
The Koch brothers, now infamous with nearly half of Americans for the trail of dark money they use to influence elections, are spending heavily in contested Senate races this year. In North Carolina in particular, the Kochs have targeted Senator Kay Hagan with $7 million in attack ads - more money than they've spent on any other race in the country. So what does the Koch agenda look like in the Tar Heel state? As recently as last year, a Koch subsidiary laid off 100 workers from a Wilmington, North Carolina, chemical plant. Other Koch subsidiaries have done the same in North Carolina, including one subsidiary that laid off over 500 workers from two local lumber plants, and one that laid of hundreds of workers from two industrial polyester plants. North Carolina voters should take a hard look at the Koch agenda - and their clear record in the state - before casting their ballots in this critical election.
Bridge President Brad Woodhouse on Koch Brothers: Dark Money Fueling a Dark Agenda
Nearly half of Americans are now familiar with the infamous conservative donors the Koch brothers. Their trail of dark money funds a broad and complex political network that has one goal in mind: driving a conservative agenda that enriches the wealthiest Americans at the expense of the middle and working class. This agenda is nothing new. Charles and David Koch's political activism and their attacks on programs that support and bolster the middle class date back to a failed 1980 vice presidential run by David Koch on the Libertarian ticket, running to the right of conservatives' now revered icon Ronald Reagan. The brothers' policy agenda -- attacking Social Security, Medicare and the minimum wage, and protecting corporate tax breaks -- has barely changed since. Its newest addition: efforts to take America back to the days of insurance companies making decisions about patient care. Americans for Prosperity, the centerpiece of the Koch machine, spent $122 million in 2012, as detailed in Bridge Project's recent report on "Conservative Transparency," including a whopping $33.5 million on their failed effort to defeat President Obama. This cycle, AFP has already spent more than $30 million in states with competitive Senate races. As the Kochs work to advance their self-serving agenda, voters should keep a keen eye on the true motives behind their attacks.
Brown Can’t Hide From His People’s Pledge
Much as he may try, Scott Brown just can't hide from the people's pledge he devised and signed in his 2012 campaign for Senate in Massachusetts. Despite claiming in a recent radio interview that people in New Hampshire have only been asking him about "things that matter," Brown was asked about the pledge twice last weekend at a forum of College Republicans at Plymouth State University, and again at an event at a hospital in Rochester, NH, last week. In February, Brown himself talked up his past pledge during a speech at Cornell University. Sure sounds like Brown thought it was a thing that matters. Watch American Bridge's new video:
Scott dodges questions on his no good, very bad week
It hasn't been a very good week for Rick Scott. His top fundraiser/campaign co-chair quit and accusations that Scott's staff made racially insensitive comments soon swirled, further fueling his continued problems with Latino voters. At a photo op yesterday where Scott must have expected a reprieve from this week's drama, he was instead greeted by a barrage of questions about the scandal, none of which he wanted to answer. Watch Rick Scott dodge questions about his campaign scandal at an event in Davie yesterday:
A Million Bucks For This?
The report to exonerate Chris Christie in Bridgegate, for which he spent $1 million of New Jersey taxpayer dollars, dominated local news coverage in New Jersey yesterday. The general sentiment - we spent a million bucks for this? - comes as no surprise given Christie's taxpayer-funded attorneys did not even interview key players in the scandal, took the governor's claims at face value, and failed to release all of the evidence they reviewed for their report. See for yourself here in American Bridge's new video: https://youtu.be/n9ybvAzq8ck