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Oregon the next to be sued over mask regulations .... Slidewaters Co-Owners: ‘The Outrage is Genuine’ ....
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Oregon, too, Inflating Its COVID death numbers .......
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SEPTEMBER 2020
LIVING LIBERTY A Publication of the Freedom Foundation
Shots fired at Freedom Foundation headquarters
Electronic Service Requested
Freedom Foundation PO Box 552 Olympia, WA 98507
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he Freedom Foundation’s ongoing struggle to expose the lies and misdeeds of the nation’s government employee unions — and, by extension, the unions’ irresponsible counterattacks — escalated to an alarming new level over the weekend of Aug. 1-2 when someone fired a bullet through the window of the organization’s Olympia office. The structure was deserted when the attack took place, and no one was injured. Olympia police are investigating. The obvious bullet hole was discovered in the window of the media storage room facing Pacific Avenue SE when the office opened on Monday, Aug. 3. Jennifer Matheson, a Freedom Foundation paralegal and former police officer, scoured the office and eventually found the spent slug. Fires and broken windows are an almost nightly occurrence in downtown Olympia, as roving mobs of violent protesters roam the streets with complete impunity. But the Freedom Foundation is nearly a mile from city center, and single shot isn’t consistent with the usual pattern of random violence. “We’re not far from downtown, but we’re not that close, either,” said Freedom Foundation CEO Tom McCabe. “If this was the work of protesters, you’d expect to see windows smashed and fires started in
By JEFF RHODES, Managing Editor
buildings between here and there. But there doesn’t seem to be any of that.” McCabe said until he sees evidence to the contrary, he’s considering this an act of retaliation on the part of government employee unions or one of their sympathizers. “Rioters smash windows and set fire indiscriminately,” McCabe said. “This was a targeted attack on the Freedom Foundation. The perpetrator knew who we were, where we worked and what we do. This was an attempt to intimidate us. And it won’t work.” McCabe said violence and threats to life and property are the logical outcome when union leaders make it a policy to eliminate their critics at all costs — even going so far as to create a dark money spinoff organization whose sole purpose is to generate anger among union members. “Read what they say about us sometime,” McCabe said. “It turns your stomach. Irresponsible people do irresponsible things, and they try to incite their followers to do irresponsible things on their behalf.” McCabe said the Freedom Foundation is working hard to protect its staff and supporters. “It’s a sad commentary on the world today that this is what passes for a ‘peaceful protest,’ and law enforcement is being ordered to care more about the rights of the shooters than those being shot at,” he said. “But when the unions align themselves with this criminal element and try to justify these kind of actions,” McCabe said, “it just proves conclusively which side has truth and reason on its side while the other has no other way to make its points than resorting to thuggery.”
VOLUME 31, ISSUE 9
Our mission is to advance individual liberty, free enterprise, and limited, accountable government.
Publisher: Tom McCabe Editor: Jeff Rhodes
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“Quote” ~ of the month ~
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LIVING LIBERTY
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A PUBL ICAT ION O F THE FREEDOM FOUNDATION
CONTENTS PAGE 3 LEADERSHIP MEMO By TOM McCABE Teachers’ unions happily exploit COVID fears to gain concessions they can’t win at the bargaining table.
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THE CASE FOR FREEDOM By LAURA ELDER Reprinted from the GALVESTON COUNTY DAILY NEWS
By IAN KULLGREN Reprinted from BLOOMBERG NEWS Complaint says Working Washington doesn’t follow transparency regulations.
COVID-19 bad enough without fudging numbers.
LITIGATING FREEDOM
By DANIEL VILLAREAL Reprinted from NEWSWEEK Freedom Foundation sues Oregon over its expanding mask directives.
By LINDSEY QUEEN OCSEA/AFSCME Local 11 settles suit, admits its opt-out window violated the spirit of Supreme Court’s 2018 Janus ruling.
What They Said & What They Meant
PAGES 6 & 7 By VALERIE RICHARDSON Reprinted from the WASHINGTON TIMES Waterpark owners fight ‘hypocritical’ order shutting them down but leaving state park lakes open. By BURKE & ROBERT BORDNER Reprinted from THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW Slidewaters: ‘The outrage is genuine and justified.’
PAGE 8 OREGON UPDATE
“(W)e noticed that every time the Freedom Foundation did another mailing, email or contact, there was an increase in membership withdrawals.”
By JASON DUDASH Internal documents paint an even bleaker picture than OSEA could have imagined. By BEN STRAKA Oregon’s official COVID-19 death tally inflated.
In the teacher’s union’s 2020 annual report.
Nothing in this publication should be construed as an attempt to aid or hinder the election of any elected official or candidate.
SPOTLIGHT ON CALIFORNIA By BOB WICKERS Teachers unions using COVID to gain leverage. By SAM COLEMAN Emperor Gavin fiddles away in the ‘House That Graft Built,’ as the rest of the state burns.
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FREEDOM IN ACTION By STEVE DELIE Reprinted from the WASHINGTON EXAMINER
VICKI POYSER,
Treasurer, Oregon School Employees Association (OSEA)
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Freedom Foundation’s Friends, Foes Weigh in On Our Actions.
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FREEDOM IN THE NEWS
Ruling in California forgery case shows why states need to pass laws that keep unions from violating workers’ rights.
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ACTION TIMELINE
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A PUBL ICAT ION OF THE FREEDOM FOUNDATION
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LEADERSHIP
Teachers’ unions happily exploit COVID fears to gain concessions they can’t win at bargaining table he Left loves to use the qualifier, “If it saves just one life …” to justify all manner of regulation and infringement of our rights. Count on hearing it a lot in the next few weeks in the debate over sending kids back to school. And unfortunately, too many administrators will succumb to it. In fact, that’s an impossible standard to meet, and in most other areas of life we’re pragmatic enough to recognize it. But teachers’ unions have built an empire out of deceitfully manipulating our emotions where our children are concerned. Why should they change tactics now? In March and April, America’s students were assured they’d simply get a longer spring break while the adults figured out how to re-open. By May, however, that promise had been broken and most schools had moved to online education with a predictably dismal outcome — canceled sports, proms and graduations, disastrous conference call classrooms, missed homework and increased depression and anxiety. It wasn’t the teachers’ fault, of course, but it didn’t take long for their union leaders to recognize the pandemic presented them with a golden opportunity to hide behind the threat of a deadly illness to win concessions they couldn’t otherwise secure at the bargaining table. Sure enough, America is seven months into the pandemic, approaching the end of what kids used to refer to as “summer break,” and not only is there no solid plan for getting students back to the classroom, but the teachers’ unions are increasingly erecting roadblocks to returning to some semblance of normalcy. In California, for example, the union representing teachers in the Los Angeles school district isn’t satisfied with asking for plastic shielding, regular testing and plenty of handwashing stations. The LA teachers’ union is holding off on opening schools until new laws are enacted abolishing charter and private schools, banning evictions for renters who won’t make payments, removing school resource officers and defunding law enforcement. One demand the LA teachers’ union did not make, of course, was to suspend tax collections from the property owners stuck looking at empty schools and spending their days trying to learn their children’s math lessons. Countries around the world have successfully re-opened their schools and, as a result, their societies are returning to their productive normal. But American teachers’ unions are playing obstructionists because there’s an election coming up and Leftists never let a crisis go unexploited. Northern Virginia schools are opening online-only — but only four days a week. Every Monday will now be a teacher “planning day,” with no formal instruction for the students. Oregon health officials are requiring counties to have 10 or fewer positive COVID cases per 100,000 residents over seven days before re-opening schools — but that’s not good enough for the teachers’ unions. Hundreds of Oregon teachers protested across the state to prevent in-person instruction until counties can report no new COVID cases for two full weeks. Two cities ravaged by riots, Portland, Ore., and Washington, D.C., have announced their schools will not open
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until the first week of November — after the 2020 election. An unelected health By TOM McCABE, CEO department bureaucrat in Thurston County, Wash., has ordered that even private and faith-based schools remain closed until at least Oct. 1. None of this is for the children. These teachers’ unions and their puppet politicians are holding America’s kids and parents hostage to a left-wing ideology in an election year. In the meantime, the unions’ goal is to eliminate all competition for their failed, cookie-cutter, one-size-fitsall, union-dominated education system. No more charter schools, no private schools, no choice at all. And yet when anyone questions their tactics, the full force of the unions and their enablers in the media is brought to bear and the critic is accused of not caring about the health and safety of teachers and children. Here’s a newsflash: COVID-19 will never be completely eradicated. It will always be around, just as every other virus is. And people — including students — will occasionally die from it, although much more rarely than their parents, grandparents and others with risk factors like a history of respiratory or heart disease. Unfortunately, it happens. But school children are injured and killed every year on the playground; must we do away with recess? Or they could be killed in a traffic accident on the way home from school. Is the answer to ban cars? Don’t laugh. If Washington Gov. Jay Inslee — and his fellow unhinged environmentalists in Oregon and California, to name just three states — thought for a minute they “...(I)t isn’t always the could credibly make that connection, they’d try it in a abuse of power and New York minute, pun ininfringement of tended. And that’s the other half of rights we can see the equation. Union leaders that worries us. aren’t the only ones shameThere’s also the less enough to use a health crisis — or at least the appotential for abuse pearance of one — to advance when corrupt actors an agenda that may have little or nothing to do with it. start considering Opportunistic politicians what else they can do who owe their offices to union money are using the with the ‘emergency same camouflage. powers’ they’ve At the Freedom Foundation, it isn’t always the handed themselves.” abuse of power and infringement of rights we can see that worries us. There’s also the potential for abuse when corrupt actors start considering what else they can do with the “emergency powers” they’ve handed themselves.
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THE CASE FOR FREEDOM
Complaint says Working Washington fails to meet transparency standards By IAN KULLGREN Reprinted from BLOOMBERG LAW August 3, 2020
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wo business-backed groups are mounting the latest challenge against worker centers, filing a complaint with the Labor Department asserting that Seattle-based Working Washington should be subject to the same federal disclosure requirements as unions. The Freedom Foundation and the Center for Union Facts filed the complaint in late July, urging DOL’s Office of Labor-Management Standards to investigate Working Washington, which has close ties to the Service Employees International Union. The 57-page complaint contends Working Washington meets the legal standard for being designated a “labor organization” under the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act, the federal law that requires private-sector unions to file annual reports disclosing their finances and membership numbers. Working Washington meets
the definition of a labor organization, the complaint argues, because it advocates for changes in workers’ wages, hours, and conditions of employment—making it little more than a “union front organization.” The complaint cites the nonprofit’s IRS disclosure forms, where Working Washington says part of its mission is to “dramatically improve wages and working conditions.” The complaint also points to a statement on the group’s website that it’s “guided by the vision of SEIU International’s leadership.” The complaint cites $15.5 million in payments to Working Washington from various unions. Many of those payments, detailed in the unions’ financial disclosures with DOL, had the stated purpose of “organizing” workers, the complaint said. Working Washington declined to comment. OLMS didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The business-backed groups are playing a long game that in all likelihood depends on President Donald Trump winning a second term. If DOL were to launch a probe, it would take time to develop; and if regulators were to determine that Working Washington meets the law’s definition of a labor organization, the process would shift to a prolonged litigation phase. OLMS career officials haven’t officially signed off on a conclusion that a worker center is in fact a labor organization subject to federal reporting requirements. However, preliminary findings last August from the agency’s investigation of Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en Lucha alarmed worker centers across the U.S., leading them to gird for a possible legal battle. The status of that probe isn’t clear. Pro-business interests want to keep the pressure on. “Without accountability, you find yourself in those situations of abuse and labor leaders taking advantage of employees,” said Max Nelsen, Freedom Foundation’s labor policy director and
the author of the complaint. “The LMRDA was passed to try and prevent and discourage that kind of activity,” he said, “and to make sure labor organizations are responsive and accountable to the workers they claim to represent.” Nelsen is also a Trump appointee to the Federal Service Impasses Panel, which adjudicates disputes between federal-sector unions and management. The Freedom Foundation and the Center for Union Facts are dark-money groups themselves. Both are 501(c)(3) nonprofits, meaning they don’t have to disclose their donors. (Working Washington is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit and, as such, can engage in more direct political activity.) The Freedom Foundation reportedly has financial ties to a number of conservative funders, including the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation, and the Koch-backed Donors Trust. After the Janus v. AFSCME ruling in 2018, the group launched a campaign to persuade public-sector workers to quit paying collective bargaining fees. The Center for Union Facts is headed by lobbyist Rick Berman, who has advocated against unions, public health protections, and other regulations on behalf of anonymous corporate clients.
COVID-19 is bad enough without skewing the numbers By LAURA ELDER Reprinted from the GALVESTON COUNTY DAILY NEWS July 28, 2020
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here’s no doubt COVID-19 kills people. But there is doubt about how many. And that doubt has been created and fomented by the very people charged with keeping the grim tally. Since the pandemic’s beginning, the system for counting those deaths has been messy. And that messiness has understandably led to serious questioning of the veracity of the death toll, which is dangerous in itself. This week, the Texas Department of State Health Services said it would now count deaths marked on death certificates as caused by COVID-19. Previously, the state relied on local and regional public health departments to verify and report deaths. State health officials said Monday the policy change would improve the accuracy and timeliness of their data. Texas law requires death certificates to be filed within 10 days. Consider this odd statement by the Texas Department of State Health Services: “This method does not include deaths of people who had COVID-19 but died of an unrelated cause.” We can only hope so. Because since the pandemic, health officials — locally and in the highest levels of government — have openly conceded that some people who died of other causes such as heart disease, kidney failure, influenza and pneumonia, to name a few, but were infected by the coronavirus were classified as COVID-19 deaths. Essentially, some people who died “with” COVID-19 have been included in the count with those who died “of” COVID-19. There’s a big difference. Some people — dozens, hundreds, thousands, nobody knows — who
were days away from death from other causes, but also contracted the virus while in hospice or hospitals, were classified as COVID-19 deaths. People who question death rates shouldn’t automatically be accused of fanning conspiracy claims “from the planet Pluto and not caring about the lives lost to COVID-19,” as Gov. Jay Inslee, governor of Washington state, accused the Freedom Foundation when it called out the Washington State Department of Health for including multiple deaths caused by gunshot wounds in the state’s COVID-19 fatality count. “We currently do have some deaths that are being reported that are clearly from other causes. We have about five deaths — less than five deaths — that we know of that are related to obvious other causes. In this case, they are from gunshot wounds,” Dr. Katie Hutchinson, health statistics manager for the Washington State Department of Health, said in May, according to reports. Extracting what we hope are isolated cases such as in Washington state but adding the sometimes questionable cause-of-death designations and lack of standardized methods of compiling causes of death, it’s remarkable that the state this week concluded it had undercounted COVID-19 deaths, raising Texas’ toll by more than 600. In Texas, 5,713 deaths have been attributed to COVID-19, according to the state health services department. If we can’t trust the numbers about counted deaths, how do we trust the speculation about undercounted deaths? It’s a simple question without satisfying answers. COVID-19 is bad enough. People are dying from it. Hospitals are dealing with influxes. We should all take precautions every day.
Falsely classifying deaths under COVID-19 might be derived from human error, governmental inefficiencies, chaos, confusion, politics, good intentions or all of the above. But the ultimate outcome is deception that fuels counterproductive anger and risky behavior. Questioning the numbers doesn’t necessarily make people crackpots or uncaring or deniers. It makes them truth-seekers. Likewise, overestimating the numbers and attempting to hoot down people who question them serve no good purpose. Both can feed a false narrative that forms the context in which policies are made that undermine our ability to lead productive, independent lives. One aspect of false narrative already has become a given, almost holy writ, in the national conversation about COVID-19 — it’s relatively worse in the United States than anywhere else. Not so, according to data about two key measures: deaths per 100,000 people and the observed case fatality rate, compiled by Johns Hopkins University. As of Tuesday, the U.S. deaths per 100,000 was 45.24; the case fatality rate was 3.4. Meanwhile, for example, in the United Kingdom deaths per 100,000 was 68.95 and the fatality rate was 15.2, and Belgium was 85.99 and 14.8. France’s deaths per 100,000 was slightly better at 45.10, but its case fatality rate was 13.7 — four times the U.S. rate. And many countries held up as examples of how to do it better have higher case fatality rates, at least so far: Canada, 7.7; Switzerland, 5.7; Denmark 4.5; Germany 4.4; Finland 4.4. The point is, we can’t successfully battle this pandemic by chasing numbers, and certainly not by hyping them. It comes down to this: If we’re to trust the science, we need to be able to trust the data.
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A PUBL ICAT ION OF THE FREEDOM FOUNDATION
LITIGATING FREEDOM
Freedom Foundation sues Oregon over its expanding mask directives By DANIEL VILLAREAL Reprinted from NEWSWEEK
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What They
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he Freedom Foundation, a conservative nonprofit legal group, has filed a lawsuit challenging Oregon’s Democratic Gov. Kate Brown’s executive orders requiring all state residents to wear face masks in public. The organization claims Brown and the Oregon Health Authority should have passed their order through the state legislature rather than the executive branch. “Governors in left-leaning states all over the country are making up the rules as they go — and ignoring the procedural rules their own state laws set up,” said Jason Dudash, the Freedom Foundation’s Oregon director in a statement. The Freedom Foundation filed the lawsuit on behalf of three Oregonians whose “medical conditions, past psychological trauma or strong political beliefs” make them opposed to wearing facial coverings despite the worsening COVID-19 epidemic. One of the complainants, Chester Mooney, said he doesn’t believe masks prevent the spread of the coronavirus — even though the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Medical Association have both said that numerous studies affirm this fact. Mooney also says that as an elderly person who has had heart bypass surgery, he believes the mask physically injures him. Another complainant, Shannan Pozzi, says that as a survivor of domestic abuse who survived an attempted murder by suffocation, she experiences “the fear of being smothered and suffocated again due to someone forcing me to wear a mask,” according to court documents. She adds that she has been denied entry into
food stores, restaurants and has been verbally assaulted and followed by others for refusing to wear a mask inside of a supermarket. The last complainant, Kevin Rubio, said being forced to wear a mask violates his political beliefs. “I do not want to be forced to express approval for the governor nor wear a mask covering my face and hiding who I am when there is no need for me to contain any virus,” Rubio wrote. “I do not have coronavirus.” Brown issued her mask orders for seven state counties on June 24, expanded the order to include public spaces statewide on July 1, included outdoor spaces in the order on July 15 and required children ages 5 and older to wear masks on July 24. “Face coverings save lives,” Brown’s spokesperson, Charles Boyle, told The Oregonian. “The virus is transmitted through droplets that come from your nose and mouth. Face coverings protect you, your friends and neighbors from contracting this deadly disease.” While the Freedom Foundation has filed a similar lawsuit in Washington state, it’s unclear if it has issued one in Texas or states with Republican governors that have mandatory mask orders. Editor’s note: If the reporter had done even minimal research for this article, he’d know the Freedom Foundation has no standing to file suit in Texas because it doesn’t have an office there. Of the five states where the organization has a presence, only Ohio has a Republican governor, and the Freedom Foundation would have no qualms about filing a lawsuit there.
Ohio AFSCME Local 11 settles lawsuit, admits creating unlawful escape window
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ajor relief has finally arrived for a number of Ohio’s public employees, and it couldn’t come at a better time. On July 14, Ohio public employees won a settlement in a federal class-action lawsuit charging American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 11 and the state of Ohio with enforcing illegal restrictions on their First Amendment right to cut off union dues deductions. The lawsuit, brought on by four state employees, challenged a union-created “escape window” as being unconstitutional under the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME. In Janus, the justices affirmed that mandatory union membership and dues in the public sector violated the workers’ First Amendment rights. The ruling made clear that union members have the right to opt out if they please, but unions were attempting to curtail this right by imposing an arbitrary annual limit to the number days it could be exercised. Since the settlement, the Freedom Foundation has been flooded with emails and phone calls from government employees expressing their gratitude: “Thank you and all those at Opt Out Today to help me resign from the union. I am no longer required to pay union dues, and I received a refund of my back dues from February to now. Thank you so very much for all your efforts — I appreciate it. I can use the extra money to pay for other living costs.” – Sarah “Just last week, I finally received my refunded
By LINDSEY QUEEN, Ohio Director
union dues and a notice of my resignation from union membership. I can also confirm that payroll deductions have stopped for further union dues. Thank you so much for your help with everything!” – Anna “I finally received my refund check since my request to opt out on Jan. 7, 2020. My new paycheck now reflects $0 OCSEA Union Dues. Yay!” – Teresa The Freedom Foundation has been working to educate government employees in Ohio and across the country since Janus and, although this settlement brings welcome news and savings for many, there is still a lot of work to do. Despite numerous settlements practically identical to OCSEA/AFSMCE Local 11’s, the majority of Ohio’s unionized government employees unfortunately remain trapped. The Freedom Foundation will not let government unions continue their abuse of its own members. We remain committed to serving as the watchdog of public employees through education and outreach and by holding government unions and the state accountable. Ohioans deserve better than what they’ve been dealt by their unions, and the Freedom Foundation will never stop fighting for their individual liberty and freedom.
What he said: “Union until death. To hell with the Freedom Foundation and anything they believe in.” What he meant: “On the
most lucid day of my life, I couldn’t begin to describe a single Freedom KEN BRANHAM The Dalles, Ore, Foundation poIronworkers Local 29 sition, let alone a Facebook post, sensible reason July 17, 2020 to oppose it. If I could, I might comprehend that the Freedom Foundation’s fight is with government employee unions, which have nothing to do with my private-sector unions like mine. I’m the perfect union member. I question nothing, I accept whatever my union tells me on face value, I mouth empty slogans and I think my dues are buying me something I couldn’t obtain on my own.” n n n What she said: “(The Freedom Foundation believes in) the right to be enslaved. The right to work with no protections.” What she meant: “What better definition of ‘slavery’ is there than being forced to surrender a portion of your LAURA LUCERO wages to an Silverton, Ore. organization Facebook post, that doesn’t June 31, 2020 represent your values? Meanwhile, my definition of ‘freedom’ gives me the right to take away your livelihood for the crime of standing up for your own values rather than rolling over for mine.” n n n What she said: “I would like to have all the home addresses of everyone that works for the Freedom Foundation and then go to their homes and convince them to ‘opt out’ of this government aid.” SHAWN NYMAN What she Longview, Wash. meant: SEIU 925 “Of course, our Facebook post ‘canvassers’ Aug. 1, 2020 wouldn’t be as polite as theirs --- or as persuasive. That’s why we desperately want to know everything about their donors but fight like hell to keep them from talking to any of our ‘members.’ ”
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Waterpark owners fight ‘hypocritical’ shutdown order that opens lakes By VALERIE RICHARDSON Reprinted from the Washington Times July 30, 2020
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ashington Gov. Jay Inslee’s coronavirus shutdown order has yet to deter fun-seekers from flocking to the public shoreline on Lake Chelan or protesters from descending on Seattle, but if Robert Bordner reopens his water park, he could go to jail. Faced with a choice of closing down or landing behind bars, Mr. Bordner shuttered two weeks ago the Slidewaters Waterpark on Lake Chelan, but he refuses to go quietly, waging a legal battle against what he calls a “hypocritical” state reopening plan that threatens to sink his family-owned business. “If the pandemic is too dangerous to open a water park, it’s too dangerous to protest,” Mr. Bordner, who owns Slidewaters with his cousin Burke Bordner, told The Washington Times. So far, he’s swimming against the legal tide. Attorneys for the Freedom Foundation took the case last week before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit challenging the governor’s authority to issue emergency orders in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. “Even if Plaintiff has identified a constitutionally protected interest upon which the emergency proclamation infringes, the infringement is justified by the ongoing public health emergency caused by COVID-19,” U.S. District Judge Thomas O. Rice said in his ruling. The day after the judge’s July 14 ruling, officials with the state Department of Labor and Industries arrived at Slidewaters with an “order and notice of immediate restraint,” hitting the company with a fine of nearly $10,000 and warning that the Bordners could face up to six months in jail. The Bordners, who had operated the park for 30 days under a safety plan approved by the Chelan-Douglas Health District, shut down Slidewaters on July 20 and furloughed their 150 employees. Freedom Foundation attorney Sydney Phillips argues that the governor’s emergency proclamations, including the Safe Start reopening plan, should not be allowed to determine “which businesses deserved to live and die.” “What we have here is a situation where local officials who are trained in this sort of science are satisfied Slidewaters is safe enough to reopen,” said Ms. Phillips. “But
the governor resents any challenge to his authority and made a political decision that the fate of a business that attracts tens of thousands of visitors and employs 150 local residents doesn’t matter.” As far as Mr. Bordner is concerned, state officials are guilty of a double standard. Not far from Slidewaters are two state parks and two city parks along Lake Chelan that continue to draw crowds. “You go there, their parking lots are overflowing, they’re parking on the streets, and then everyone congregates down lakeside, and it’s just a dense population of people,” Mr. Bordner said. “Especially on the weekends, all these parks are just overrun.” Meanwhile, Mr. Bordner said, Slidewaters was operating at 50% capacity under a 30-page COVID-19 safety plan approved by the county. “I have 40 employees working every day to help me implement it to keep the park safe, and I’m the problem,” he told KIROFM host Dori Monson. “So it’s just super-hypocritical of the governor to say, it’s OK for these government-run parks to operate, but this private-owned business can’t do it. And they have no dialogue with us.” At the same time, thousands of protesters have descended on Seattle in recent weeks, including those who set up the no-police-allowed “autonomous zone” last month in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, which has since been cleared. “That’s just a whole other level of hypocrisy,” Mr. Bordner said. “They’re turning a blind eye to these protests and then they’re restricting businesses and keeping them down, while over here people are running rampant.” Many of the protesters can be seen in video wearing masks, although there appears to be little in the way of social distancing. Inslee spokeswoman Tara Lee disputed Mr. Bordner’s description, arguing that state parks have restrictions in place and “do not have activities with long lines or large multi-household congregation, as water parks do.” “Lake Chelan and Wenatchee Confluence State Parks are very large parks, 139 and 194 acres respectively,” Ms. Lee said in an email. “While waterfronts are the most popular parts of the park, State Parks — system-wide — has taken specific measures to deter the sort of pinch points and gathering spots that you would see in a water park.” On Tuesday, Mr. Inslee placed an indefinite hold on his Safe Start plan, which will
prohibit counties from reaching the nexphase in the four-phase reopening process and require state parks to limit access to visitors. “In all of this, Gov. Inslee’s focus has been to slow the spread of the virus and protect the health of Washingtonians,” said Ms. Lee. “He is glad that almost all of our state’s businesses have chosen to comply and are active participants in protecting the health of both their customers and their employees.” In a July 16 statement, L&I said “Chelan County is in the modified Phase 1 of the four-phase state plan. That means waterparks should not be open.” Anne Soiza, assistant director in charge of the Department of Labor and Industries’ division of occupational safety and health, defended the state’s actions. She said Slidewaters “clearly knows what the Safe Start requirements are, but is choosing to ignore them, putting workers and the community at risk.” “It’s not right, and it is not fair to the thousands of businesses that are doing the right thing,” Ms. Soiza said in a statement. For Slidewaters, however, an autumn reopening may be too late. The season lasts only from Memorial Day to Labor Day, roughly 100 days, and 70% of the business is in July and August. Mr. Bordner said he has received strong community support, including supporters who have started a GoFundMe page for Slidewaters, but if his season ends now, it’s unclear whether the company would be able to hang in there until next summer. “I don’t know if we’ll be able to reopen this year,” Mr. Bordner said, “and I don’t know if we don’t reopen this year if we’ll be able to reopen ever.”
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Slidewaters: ‘The outrage is genuine, justified’ By BURKE & ROBERT BORDNER For the Spokesman-Review
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August 2, 2020
t’s easy for The Spokesman-Review columnist Jim Camden to dismiss outrage over the closure of Slidewaters water park as “hyperbole” (“Heated rhetoric about the shutdown orders doesn’t match reality,” July 19). But for those of us with actual skin in the game, this is no war of words. People’s livelihoods and reputations are at stake, and we believe that’s worth fighting for. Camden certainly wasn’t speaking for the 150 young people left unemployed by the closure of Slidewaters, our 7-acre water park nestled into the shoreline of scenic Lake Chelan. Nor is its demise simply a technicality for our suppliers or the hundreds of local business owners who consider Slidewaters an essential economic magnet in the tourist-dependent community we all call home; or for city and county government leaders, who will undoubtedly be forced to curtail public services without the hundreds of thousands of local tax dollars generated by the park every year. Come to think of it, this may only be good news for Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, inasmuch as it represents a tremendous (though Pyrrhic) victory in the war he’s been waging against private industry since early March, when he unlawfully assumed the near-dictatorial “emergency powers” he believes the COVID-19 pandemic entitles him to. Freedom Foundation spokesperson Ashley
Varner was quite correct in comparing Inslee’s actions to those of a tyrant. The fact that — for now, at least — we still have legal options doesn’t alter the fact that he’s making life-and-death decisions based on junk science and personal hubris, while taking it as a personal affront when his orders are defied. In his column, Camden cites flawed numbers from the state that suggest a spike in the number of COVID cases statewide and in Chelan County. But while the “reported” cases are up noticeably over what we saw in previous months, it’s also true there are vastly more test kits available these days, and vastly more people using them. Consequently, there are more cases being identified now, but the mortality rate is still quite low — and limited almost entirely to the elderly and those with prior health conditions that put them at greater risk. Speaking of hard facts, Camden neglects to mention that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website has concluded, “There is no evidence that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, can spread to people through water in (water playgrounds and hot tubs).” Slidewaters has become the poster child for what happens to those who dare resist Inslee’s heavy-handed, illegal, politically motivated COVID abatement effort. That strategy also includes a mandatory mask rule that is currently the subject of a lawsuit filed by the Freedom Foundation — the same group representing us in our fight with the state.
Small wonder the governor was booed off the stage in late June when he ventured beyond the urban Olympia-Tacoma-Seattle liberal comfort zone to tout his COVID strategy in rural Tri-Cities. Let’s be clear. No one is saying the COVID pandemic isn’t a serious problem. What we’re saying is that, like most problems, it’s better confronted on a local basis by those whose concern for doing the right thing is motivated by logic, sensitivity and hard science rather than wounded pride or political animus. Combined with the comprehensive “Safe & Clean” remediation plan adopted by the park, the clean bill of health we obtained following an inspection by the Chelan-Douglas Health District and the reality that not one guest or employee contracted COVID in the month Slidewaters was open this summer, we strongly believe the burden of proof should be on the governor to prove his arbitrary, onesize-fits-all approach makes more sense. We don’t know how this melodrama will all end, but we know God has a purpose for our lives and we pray it involves continuing to operate a business that offers clean, wholesome family recreation. But if it doesn’t, we’ll know why. If Slidewaters is gone for good, our business and countless others will have been sacrificed on the altar of one man’s insatiable desire for power and his party’s desperation to win the next presidential election – no matter how many lives have to be ruined in the process. Cousins Burke and Robert Bordner are co-owners of Slidewaters, in Chelan, Wash.
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Internal documents paint an even bleaker picture than OSEA could have imagined
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n the current economic climate, businesses across the country are uncertain of their future —with many governors wielding extra-constitutional “emergency powers” to determine which are essential and which must shutter their doors. New internal documents from an inside source at the Oregon School Employees Association (OSEA), reveal even government unions are not completely exempt from the reality the rest of us are facing daily. The Freedom Foundation reported in September that the school employees’ union had experienced one of the largest membership declines in the entire nation as highlighted in its federal filings. Now, internal documents from the union not only confirm our report, but also rightfully attribute the monu-
OSEA
Oregon Update
A closer look at the successes being achieved by the Freedom Foundation’s office in the Beaver State.
By JASON DUDASH, Oregon Director
mental decline to the outreach by the Freedom Foundation. An April 15 letter from Executive Director Rick Shidaker highlights some of the damage. “Immediately following the (Janus) decision, we immediately lost all public-sector fair-share feepayers (3,689) and went from 20,681 total dues-payers down to 16,992. Due to a combination of turnover and previously active member resignations of their membership, we have further dropped another 2,745 dues-payers as of March 31, 2020, to 14,247.” Vicki Poyser, the chair of the union’s finance committee and apparently one of the brightest of the dim bunch, knows exactly why the membership resignations keep pouring in. In her last committee report, Poyser states, “(W)e noticed that every time the Freedom Foundation had another mailing, email or contact, there was an increase in membership withdrawals.” These massive defections have obviously taken a toll on the failing union’s budget. Shidaker reports, “(W) e amended the 2018-19 budget to significantly reduce expenditures from the pre-Janus budget of $8,447,246 down to $6,792,881.” He further explains, “(W)e implemented a hiring freeze, closed field offices, cut phone lines, reduced travel and had management staff take a monthly furlough day.” According to the Department of Labor, Shidaker also took a $10,000 pay cut. Shidaker drafted the current operating budget with the rosy hope the union would only lose 25 percent of its membership. Thanks to the work of the Freedom Foundation, that number is now closer to 40 percent.
Oregon’s official COVID-19 death tally inflated
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mails obtained by the Freedom Foundation from the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) indicate the state’s count of COVID-19 deaths is overstated in more ways than one. The issue came to light after, back in June, Malheur County announced its “first COVID-19 death,” a man in his 70s whose positive test for the virus came back postmortem. While certainly tragic, though, it wasn’t a COVID-19 death — at least not in the way most people would think of it. That’s because the man apparently died from falling off a ladder. The local uproar caused by calling this accident a “COVID-19 death” was enough to prompt Oregon Rep. Mark Owens (R-Crane), whose district includes Malheur County, to reach out to OHA officials for clarification. The OHA’s response indicates the agency is overstating Oregon’s total number of COVID-19 deaths two ways: n counting all deaths of individuals who have previously tested positive for COVID-19 as “COVID-19 deaths,” even in situations where the virus was not the actual cause of death; and, n counting deaths of “probable” cases, or cases in which the individual who died was suspected to have COVID-19 but did not have a positive test. In a June 16 response to Owens’
By BEN STRAKA, Policy Analyst
inquiry, OHA Senior Policy Advisor Matthew Green stated that OHA’s methodology is to “record whether an illness is associated with a death, even if perhaps it is not the cause. Thus, the numbers we publish technically mean that there was a death of a person who had a COVID-19 infection.” Green went on to explain that: “Falling off a ladder or being in a car crash are fairly obvious cases where the infection might not be the cause of death. However, it gets more complicated if a person had, say, a heart ailment. Was the ailment or the infection the true cause? As I said, public health agencies leave that to the individual’s doctors and simply record it as a COVID-19-related death.” Despite the matter-of-fact tone about what “public health agencies” do, however, not all states inflate their COVID-19 fatality statistics. The Colorado Department of Health and Environment revised its methodology in May, lowering its COVID-19 death count at the time from 1,150 to 878.
More recently, the Freedom Foundation exposed a similar practice of overreporting COVID-19 deaths in Washington — the news of which ruffled the feathers of the state’s governor while simultaneously causing his own Department of Health to change the way it counts COVID-19 deaths. OHA’s methodology is similar to what the Freedom Foundation uncovered in Washington. Even within the definition’s parameters, the OHA’s methodology clearly has problems. Including the deaths of any individuals who have tested positive for the virus — and even some who haven’t — as “COVID-19 deaths” risks seriously inflating the state’s total number of fatalities from the virus. In Washington, for example, a similar methodology inflated the state’s total number of COVID-19 deaths by as much as 13 percent. And Green’s email suggests there are other cases like the one in Malheur County. The spread of COVID-19 is undoubtedly difficult to track. However, at a time of extreme worry and the imposition of heavy social and economic restrictions, the public should at least be provided with as much clarity as possible when it comes to the impact of COVID-19 in Oregon.
LIVING LIBERTY
Teachers unions using COVID to gain bargaining leverage
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f you were to ask yourself what a union, dominated by far-left politics, thinks we need to accomplish to safely re-open schools, what would that checklist would look like? Wonder no longer, as the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) — the largest local affiliate of the California Teachers Association (CTA) — recently published a study detailing all the necessary steps its school district must take in order to safely re-open schools. In this study, you see what you might imagine are general safety guidelines such as regular testing, cleaning, personal protective equipment (PPE) for teachers and students, increased air circulation in buildings and outdoor teaching where possible. You can read the full list in their study elsewhere, but we won’t subject you to the nearly three pages of health requirements they demand. Further down the list, however, patient get into the meat of what UTLA actually wants to gain from this pan-
By BOB WICKERS, California Director
demic — it’s what they’ve been spending millions of dollars on every year to accomplish anyway. This includes: n repealing Proposition 13, the much-beloved property tax cut, during a time when businesses are already struggling to make ends meet; n two new taxes; n $500 billion in new federal money — although it’s unclear how or where this money would be spent; n Medicare for all; n defunding the police — for some reason; n extending housing security measures, also known as eviction moratoriums; n a moratorium on charter
Emperor Gavin fiddles in the ‘House the Graft Built’ as the rest of California burns
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alifornia Gov. Gavin Newsom has a lot to say about the current situation in California, as things have changed in a big way over the last two months. Originally, the Golden State was hailed as the model for dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. With nearly 40 million residents, experts were perplexed by how California could manage to keep the virus so well contained for so long. But like many of the shiny, bright things in California that attract national attention, it turned out to be a fluke. California’s Bay area and Los Angeles County are now two of the largest epicenters for the virus in the country while many rural areas continue to effectively fight the virus. If you’ve been watching the news, you probably already know this — the California model for dealing with COVID-19 has fallen apart. What you may not have heard throughout all of this is that the governor’s shady dealings and personal trans fers of wealth that have eluded headlines. It turns out Newsom is a major shareholder in the PlumpJack Winery, located in Napa County. While about 80 percent of wineries around California have been
By SAMUEL COLEMAN, Outreach Director
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A PUBLI CATION OF THE FREED OM FOU NDATION
schools in Los Angeles County; and, n financial support for undocumented students and families. While reasonable people may debate the components listed above on their merits, there’s no disputing they have nothing whatsoever to so with when and how schools should be reopened. After all, as an article in the Washington State Labor Council’s house organ, The Stand, told us just two days before this study was published, facts and science need to guide the reopening of schools. For once, it would be nice to see unions practice what they preach. Instead of trying to turn the COVID-19 health pandemic into a political victory, our time would be much better spent trying to figure out how to teach our nation’s children again — not that there was much of that going on before the coronavirus scare in the state’s union-diminated classrooms How defunding the police helps that process along may make perfect sense in the alternate universe inhabited by unions, but here on the Mother Ship we’re looking for serious answers.
Spotlight on
California
shut down by the governor’s dictate, this particular enterprise was somehow spared. While that may be fishy on its own, a recent revelation by Jennifer Van Laar of the conservative news site Redstate really brings perspective to the issue. Newsom, after taking office, resided only briefly in the governor’s mansion before deciding the Victorian structure wasn’t really his style. He moved out to a sprawling estate in Fair Oaks, a suburb of Sacramento, with a price tag of $3.7 million. The home was registered to an LLC operated by Newson’s cousin and longtime business partner, Jeremy Scherer, who is also the co-president of PlumpJack Winery. A talking head for Newson claimed it was the governor himself who paid for the home, which was odd given that Newson was still paying on a $3.2 million mortgage for his previous home. Questions about where he got the money began to swirl. In October 2019, the LLC responded by simply gifting the home to Newsom, claiming the governor was a member of the LLC. Shortly thereafter, Newsom received a $2.7 million tax-free cash-out refinance on the home. Oddly, Newson’s yearly financial disclosure forms didn’t mention the LLC or the gifted home, which would have exceeded the $500 limit for gifts. And to the surprise of almost no one, Gov. Newsom was never listed as a member of the LLC, and the only listed member is his cousin. Nearly two years later, Newsom is still not listed as a member.
A closer look at the successes being achieved by the Freedom Foundation’s office in the Golden State.
This isn’t the first time Gavin Newsom has found himself in a pickle over unreported assets. In 2003, while still a San Francisco supervisor, Newsom failed to report more than $11 million in real estate and business loans over a four-year period. Newsom also failed to report the value of six months’ worth of rent the LLC gifted to him in 2019. The average rent, if Newson hadn’t been staying there free of charge as we now know, would have totaled $17,463 per month and again would have exceeded the $500-a-year gift limit. Depending on how you look at it, Gov. Newsom either has a deep-seated hatred for paperwork or is guilty of money laundering, tax evasion and concealing and receiving improper gifts. Either way, the connection to his business dealings with PlumpJack Winery and the apparent special consideration Napa County has been given with keeping their wineries open is extremely questionable.
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FREEDOM in ACTION
Ruling in California forgery case shows why states need to pass laws that keep unions from violating workers’ rights By STEVE DELIE Reprinted from the WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Emails:
JULY 31, 2020
“I heard your organization on KKLA - Frank Sontag. I am so fed up with this nonsense and this dictator taking over this crap hole of a state I live and work in ( or at least try to work in!!!) I am a believer, and this is complete and utter nonsense about we as Christians who want to worship and exercise our rights as citizens of the USA. Thank you for all you do.” – CAROL O., California n
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“I’m donating to support the Oregon face mask lawsuit. WILLIAM S., New Jersey n
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“Thank you for standing up for the one document everyone has seemed to forgotten, the one document that the United States of America was founded upon.” – SEAN R., Oregon. n
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“Covid19: mandatory restrictions go against my Religious Freedom to breath fresh air.
The methods being pushed like the six-foot distance and masks have never been studied and proven to be effective and even the box that the masks come in say they do not protect against a virus. What has happened? My rights as a US citizen have been infringed upon, What about Civil code 51? What about my 1st Amendment rights? What about the Color of Law? This order was fraudulent to begin with. This is negligence and possible criminal conspiracy by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the CDC and NIAID, and their associates. God bless You.” – TARA P. , Oregon
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mCalifornia union forged an employee’s signature on a dues check-off form. This incident, and the outrageous result of the court case it spawned, demonstrate why protections are necessary requiring employee opt-ins for paying union dues. A federal court in California has held that a union can keep dues it collected illegally by forging a membership card. Even though Maria Quezambra never authorized anyone to deduct dues from her paycheck, United Domestic Workers of America, AFCSME Local 3930, withheld dues from 2013 to 2019. The court has held that Quezambra cannot recover those dues, essentially stripping her of the ability to fully recover damages for the violation of her First Amendment rights. Quezambra may have a remedy in federal court, but that wouldn’t have been necessary if California had enacted state-level protections. Other states, though, have sought to secure the First Amendment rights of people like her. In Janus v. AFSCME, the U.S. Supreme Court made clear that an employee’s authorization for dues deductions must be freely given and demonstrated by “clear and compelling evidence.” The court also stated that “such a waiver cannot be presumed.” Some states have taken steps to comply with these requirements. Alaska, for example, requires unions to obtain an annual opt-in before allowing dues to be deducted. It also requires workers to be provided with a notice of their labor rights before dues deductions can occur. The attorneys general of Texas and Indiana have also issued opinions supporting such standards. Regulators in Michigan, too, have recently proposed rules which, if adopted, would prevent unions from taking advantage of workers through fraudulent means. Unfortunately, California has not followed in the footsteps of the states seeking to protect the First Amendment of public employees such as Quezambra. As a result, those workers remain at risk from predatory union practices. In 2012, Quezambra chose to become an in-home care provider to care for her adopted daughter who has mental and developmental disabilities. In California, in-home providers were unionized. Beginning in 2013, the state began deducting union dues from her paycheck based on the union’s claim that she had signed a membership card. In actuality, the union had forged her signature. California deducted union dues from her paycheck for years until she discovered the unauthorized deductions in 2019. After learning about them, she notified the union of her objections. The union acknowledged that she had not authorized dues deductions and stated it would “discontinue” dues deductions from 2015-2019. The union refused, however, to return the unauthorized dues from 2013-2015, citing the state’s 3-year statute of limitations on dues refunds. In response, Quezambra contacted the Freedom Foundation, which agreed to assist her in suing the union and the state of California. The legal theory of the case was straightforward: The U.S. Supreme Court case Janus v.
AFCSME affirmed that requiring public sector workers to support a union financially violates their First Amendment rights. Therefore, by deducting dues from Quezambra against her will, and by forging a membership card in her name, California and the union had violated her constitutional rights. Given that deductions were the result of California state law, she hoped a court would agree that California and the union were legally responsible for the illegal deductions. Unfortunately, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California disagreed. In examining the union’s liability, the court applied the “state actor” doctrine, which says a private party can be liable for violating someone’s constitutional rights only if it is acting with the authority of the government. The court rejected the contention that the union’s partnership with the state of California, the state would collect dues for the union, was enough to make it a state actor. The court concluded that the union could not be held liable for constitutional violations. The court also found that, since California was legally bound to accept a union’s report about which employees were union members, it could not be held liable for wrongful deductions. The court held that deducting the dues was a “ministerial” act and that California had no say in determining whether the deductions were authorized. This is despite the fact that California law is precisely what made the deductions “ministerial.” The effect of this ruling is simple: Unions can forge membership cards without facing the full consequences for doing so. Even a clear violation of First Amendment rights, perpetrated through fraud, can only be punished (if at all) under state law. Had California had legal safeguards in place, Quezambra would never have ended up in this situation. If California allowed her to consent to deductions by contacting the state directly, there would have been no unauthorized deductions. If the union had been required to obtain her consent on an annual basis, as several attorneys general around the United States have said Janus requires, she would have noticed the deductions in time to demand the return of all unauthorized dues. But California has no such safeguards. Instead, the state simply takes the union’s word on whether the deductions it calls for are authorized. Only employees, who are ill-prepared to act as investigators, are able to uncover fraud. The Quezambra case demonstrates the unfortunate consequences of a system where the First Amendment rights of workers are not adequately protected. Although the Freedom Foundation and Quezambra plan to appeal, there is no guarantee that they will succeed. To prevent such horrendous abuses from occurring in the future, states must pass laws that punish unions that rob workers through fraud. If they don’t, this unfortunate case isn’t likely to be the last. Steve Delie is the director of labor policy and Workers for Opportunity at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a Michigan-based research and educational institute.
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FREEDOM in the NEWS ON AIR
July 11, 2020
New Lawsuit Against Gov. Inslee Seeks Reversal of Masking Mandate
ON AIR
July 30, 2020
Oregon sued over governor’s mask mandate
“Shella Sadovnik, an attorney with the Freedom Foundation talks with KOHO Morning Show host Chris Hansen about a new lawsuit which is being brought against Gov. Jay Inslee which is attempting to overturn his recent mandate for all Washington citizens to wear a mask in public during the coronavirus pandemic.” ON AIR
ON
July 23, 2020
Oregon lawsuit seeks to toss Oregon’s face-mask mandate “It seems like the governor and her different agency heads think they get a magic wand they can wave around and do whatever they think is necessary,” said Jason Dudash, the group’s Oregon director. The Freedom Foundation, which is seeking an emergency stay of the order in the Oregon Court of Appeals, filed a similar lawsuit in Washington state on July 1. There has been no decision yet on the Washington case.”
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) has been sued by a conservative think tank over her mandate that people wear masks in public amid the coronavirus pandemic. The Freedom Foundation on July 30 announced it was asking the Oregon Court of Appeals for an emergency stay on Brown’s mandate to allow the court more to time examine the legality of measure.” IN PRINT
July 8, 2020
WSU Begins Analyzing COVID-19 Samples, as Testing Supplies Run Short and Results Lag “On the day the statewide mandate went into effect, the Freedom Foundation, a conservative organization, announced it was filing a lawsuit questioning the state’s authority to issue such an order. The face covering directive is the definition of government overreach,” Aaron Withe, the foundation’s national director, said in a news release.”
Rep. Newhouse stands up for home caregivers
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hey’re at it again. For at least the third time in a year, Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives are attempting to keep on life support the deduction of union dues from Medicaid payments to home caregivers in the face of efforts by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to reform the illegal practice. These caregivers provide in-home assistance with activities of daily living to Medicaid-eligible persons with functional disabilities. Often the caregivers are related to or have pre-existing close personal relationships with their clients. As Medicaid contractors, caregivers are protected by a decades-old federal law requiring that providers receive full payment for the services they give Medicaid beneficiaries. In open defiance of this law, at least eight states — including three in which the Freedom Foundation operates, namely Washington, Oregon and California — divert portions of caregivers’ Medicaid payments to labor unions. In Washington, tens of thousands of caregivers lose 3.2 percent of their wages to Service Employees International Union Local 775 in Seattle. Freedom Foundation research documented that, in 2017 alone, these eight states illegally deducted about $150 million in union dues from the Medicaid payments of 350,000 caregivers. While union dues payment is technically voluntary for home caregivers thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2014 decision in Harris v. Quinn, the dues deduction process remains incredibly coercive in practice, with unions even forging caregivers’ signatures on membership forms. Thankfully, last year HHS began taking action to stop states from continuing the illegal deductions. Unsurprisingly, the offending states and unions have filed a lawsuit against HHS in their preferred venue — the San Francisco-based U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California — to keep the deductions alive. But regardless of what happens at the District Court, the case will almost certainly reach the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals or even the U.S. Supreme Court. And the law is quite clear.
By MAXFORD NELSON, Labor Policy Director
Consequently, union-aligned lawmakers in Con gress are seeking to use the time bought by the lawsuit to keep the practice alive by other means. Section 247 of HR-7617 — which would fund HHS, among other agencies, for 2021 — would bar HHS from using any federal funds to stop illegal union dues deductions from Medicaid and enforce the law requiring direct payment to caregivers. For tHe second time, Rep. Dan Newhouse, a Republican representing the fourth congressional district in central Washington, spoke out against this special-interest giveaway. In a speech on the House floor on July 30, Newhouse urged his colleagues to support an amendment he introduced to remove Section 247 from the bill: “Mr. Speaker, one in five households with a disabled family member falls below the federal poverty line. These families rely on home healthcare providers — who are often family members of the disabled — to care for them and to improve their quality of life. These providers receive modest compensation for their efforts, provided by dedicated state Medicaid dollars. For decades, federal law has required that Medicaid providers be paid directly and in full for the services they provide. However, some states, including my own home state of Washington, have been withholding union dues via payroll deductions from payments to Medicaid-subsidized home caregivers. In many cases this is done without the knowledge or the consent of the caregiver, and it is a clear violation of the law. And this is no small problem. In 2017 alone, $150 million was diverted to unions for Medicaid payments to 350,000 caregivers. Fortunately, last year the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services finalized a rule to stop this predatory practice that takes money out of the pockets of in-home providers. However, language
Him? He’s with the State. he comes by like this whenever My check arrives to take out dues for SEiu. in the bill would defund implementation of this rule and allow states to continue to circumvent the federal law. My amendment strikes Section 245 of the bill to ensure that CMS can enforce the law and protect home health care providers from having their Medicaid payments diverted to third parties. Mr. Speaker, let me be clear. Ending this illegal deduction does not prevent caregivers from joining unions if they wish. Rather, it empowers them by giving them the choice to do so. My amendment gives them that choice.” Unfortunately, Newhouse’s amendment — offered as part of a package of Republican amendments to the budget bill — was rejected by majority Democrats and the bill passed the House along party lines. Nevertheless, at this stage the bill’s passage is primarily posturing by House leadership, and it remains to be seen what agreement the Democrat-controlled House and Republican-controlled Senate will reach to continue funding the federal government. Hopefully, thanks to Rep. Newhouse’s stand, the “predatory” practice of skimming union dues from caregivers’ Medicaid payments is a bit less likely to ultimately become law.
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ACTION TIMELINE SPOTLIGHTING SOME OF THE FREEDOM FOUNDATION’S NOTEWORTHY ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE PAST MONTH JULY 14
BY THE NUMBERS
Ohio public employees win a settlement in a federal class-action lawsuit charging American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 11 and the state of Ohio with enforcing illegal restrictions on their First Amendment right to cut off union dues deductions. The lawsuit, brought by the Freedom Foundation on behalf of four state employees, challenged a union-created “escape window” as being unconstitutional under he U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME. In Janus, the justices affirmed that mandatory union membership and dues in the public sector violated the workers’ First Amendment rights. JULY 23 The Freedom Foundation, which filed a lawsuit earlier in July challenging Washington’s mandatory mask rule, requests an emergency stay with the Oregon State
In one week in mid-July, SEIU 503 lost another 100 members from its already dwindling ranks among Oregon state employees. Payroll data obtained from the state of Oregon indicated SEIU 503’s public employee membership had dropped by an astounding 33 percent since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Janus v. AFSCME (2018). The decline is primarily a result of the Freedom Foundation’s ongoing campaign to inform public employees. Court of Appeals to prevent Gov. Kate Brown from imposing a similar edict in the Beaver State.“Governors in left-leaning states The Freedom Foundation filed the court action on behalf of three individuals who object to the mandate that they wear masks. In addition to Brown and the state of Oregon, the challenge names Oregon Heath Au-
thority Director Patrick Allen, who on June 30 issued the so-called “Statewide Mask, Face Shield, Face Covering Guidance,” which outlines the face covering requirements. JULY 31 Spokane’s Spokesman-Review publishes a guest opinion co-authored by cousins Blake and Robert Bordner, co-owners of Slidewaters, a popular water park in Chelan, Wash., that was forced into closure — perhaps forever — by Gov. Inslee’s COVID-19 precautions. Represented by Freedom Foundation attorneys, the Bordners fought the state in court over the edict and managed to remain open for a month, during which not one guest or staff member contracted the disease.
SARAH!
For two raucous years, from 2017 to 2019, Sarah Huckabee Sanders exposed the bias and corruption of the mainstream media as no presidential spokesperson ever had before.
For two eagerly anticipated nights, as keynote speaker for the Freedom Foundation’s annual Washington and Oregon annual banquests, she’ll recall her experiences and maybe take a swipe at the abuses of government-employee unions while she’s at it.
Be there for all the fun.
Oct. 9, 2020
Hyatt Regency Bellevue Bellevue, Wash.
Oct. 10, 2020 Location to be determined.
AUGUST 4 A new billboard campaign launched by the Freedom Foundation in California calls out Gov. Gavin Newsom for his hypocrisy. The first, erected in Fair Oaks just steps from the palatial mansion gifted to the governor by a wealthy businessman, showed up on Aug. 4 and admonishes “King Newsom” to remember that “Families are essential, too,” and demands he “Let us work!” “Gavin Newsom took an oath to represent the interests of all Californians, not just the ones whose political views align with his,” said Bob Wickers, California director for the Freedom Foundation, which purchased the billboards. “But rather than seeing the COVID outbreak as a problem to be solved, he considers it an opportunity to be exploited.”