Fed Hawk Lacker to Retire Oct. 1, Successor Search Under Way
Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Jeffrey Lacker plans to retire Oct. 1, marking the exit of one of the U.S....
Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Jeffrey Lacker plans to retire Oct. 1, marking the exit of one of the U.S. central bank’s most steadfast inflation fighters at a time when the Fed is weighing how quickly to raise interest rates.
The Richmond Fed said Tuesday that a committee had been formed to find a successor for Lacker, who has led the regional Fed bank since 2004, and has engaged professional services firm Heidrick & Struggles to conduct the search. The head of the Richmond Fed will be a voting member of the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee in 2018.
Lacker, 61, was a voice of restraint in the use of monetary policy and the central bank’s balance sheet as the Fed deployed extraordinary powers to combat the financial crisis, the worst recession since the Great Depression as well as a sluggish recovery.
“He was consistent in terms of wanting a narrow Fed that stuck to the business of ensuring price stability because that would be the Fed’s best contribution to society,” said Vincent Reinhart, chief economist at Standish Mellon Asset Management Co. LLC in Boston. “Jeff Lacker kept the faith.”
Lacker dissented frequently in favor of tighter policy when he was a voter on the FOMC, including at every meeting in 2012. During the financial crisis he warned about channeling credit to specific sectors of the economy, inflation risks and government rescues of troubled banks.
Core Doctrines
One of Lacker’s core doctrines was that an expansion of Fed credit to other sectors of the economy would create expectations of further support and thus further destabilize markets in the future as investors tested the perceived safety net.
“The striking feature of central bank lending during the recent turmoil is the extent to which it has extended well beyond the boundaries that previously were understood to constrain such lending,” Lacker said in a speech in November 2008.
Lacker wasn’t alone in those views. Former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker said the bailouts had taken the central bank to “the very edge of its lawful and implied powers, transcending in the process certain long-embedded central banking principles and practices.”
Arguing for constraint when the entire financial system was at risk seemed overly cautious to some of his colleagues. Former Chairman Ben S. Bernanke noted that Lacker opposed a crisis-era innovation called the Term Securities Lending Facility, where the Fed loaned out its Treasury portfolio to primary dealers in exchange for mortgage-backed securities as collateral.
“Jeff Lacker spoke against the TSLF,” Bernanke wrote in his book, “The Courage to Act.”
Lacker will depart three years ahead of his mandatory retirement age of 65. He hasn’t lined up another job, according to Richmond Fed spokeswoman Laura Fortunato. “He does want to get back to writing and research,” she said.
The search for his successor, which gets under way as the Atlanta Fed is undertaking its own campaign to replace its president Dennis Lockhart, who retires Feb. 28, will be conducted nationally to “identify a broad, diverse and highly qualified candidate pool for this leadership role,” the Richmond Fed said in a statement on its website.
The Fed is under pressure to increase diversity among its leaders after criticism that it is dominated by white men. Janet Yellen, the first woman to chair the central bank, has said she’d like to see more diversity, though the Richmond Fed’s own board of directors will make the ultimate selection.
Jordan Haedtler, campaign manager for the Fed Up coalition, which has called for a more diverse leadership that includes more minorities and women, said the group will push for “a publicly inclusive and transparent process with the consideration of diverse candidates who will consider labor market conditions for all workers in weighing their decisions.”
Haedtler said Lacker was “always gracious” and toured low-income communities in Charlotte, North Carolina, with one of their member groups.
Given the Richmond Fed’s tradition of standing firm on price stability, “my guess is that the Richmond Fed will find a hawk,” said Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in Charlotte. “Part of this reflects the sentiment of businesses, residents and bankers located in this part of the country, who tend to take a more cautious view on what monetary policy can and cannot do,” he said.
Atlanta’s Vacancy
Lacker admitted in speeches that his forecasts for the recovery were at times too optimistic. His warnings about inflation were defused as shocks hit the economy. When the Fed decided to go forward with a second round of quantitative easing in November 2010, Lacker raised concerns that it could make it hard to restrain inflation.
“This poses unacceptable risks to price stability and to our credibility,” he said, according to the meeting transcript. “I fear today’s decision and the expectations it encourages will come back to haunt us.”
The Fed’s preferred inflation measure, the personal consumption expenditures price index, did rise above its 2 percent target in 2011 and for part of 2012. It then fell below 2 percent in May that year and has never risen above that level since, partly due to a tumble in oil prices that began in 2014.
By Craig Torres
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Campaign regulatory board stymied by Legislature
Minnesota’s campaign finance regulatory board heads into election season with its slimmest possible board membership...
Minnesota’s campaign finance regulatory board heads into election season with its slimmest possible board membership for taking action after the Legislature failed to confirm two appointees before adjourning its session.
Two appointments before lawmakers got hung up over concerns raised by Senate Republicans about the DFL political background of Emma Greenman. Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board appointments require confirmation from the House and Senate on a three-fifths vote; the House supplied sufficient votes to confirm Greenman and former Republican state Rep. Margaret “Peggy” Leppik during the session’s final day.
Board chairman Christian Sande said Friday that it could be August before the board is back to full strength. That’s because of the legal steps Gov. Mark Dayton must take to fill the slots, by which time election contests will be in full swing and campaign finance complaints will be streaming in.
“It means for the board to take any action the votes have to be unanimous,” Sande said. “I don’t know that it handicaps us. But it certainly does indicate that where in the past with six active members of the board it might be easier to arrive at four votes to achieve something.”
Absence of a single member would deprive the board of the quorum it needs to even meet.
The remaining members would have to be in complete agreement to impose any penalties, issue any advisory opinions or take other substantive action because state law requires four votes in favor when the typically six-member board makes decisions.
Campaign finance board appointments always have come with more political sensitivity and scrutiny than most agencies. In fact, state law dictates a specific political makeup and that some members be former lawmakers.
Greenman and Leppik had been serving on the board pending confirmation but their appointments were considered null when the Legislature adjourned without positive votes.
A Dayton spokesman says the governor plans to resubmit their names once the openings are posted, which would allow them to serve again until the Legislature returns next year and takes another look. It’s not clear when that could happen.
Sen. Scott Newman of Hutchinson said he and his Republican colleagues weren’t willing to confirm Greenman because of past and present political activity.
“Is this someone who would be able to set aside partisan politics and render judgment as to violations of campaign finance laws? We really doubted it,” Newman said in a phone interview. “We were very concerned about it because of the degree of involvement in political partisanship.”
He added, “This is not a personal attack on her. It is simply a realization of her past activities. She was a very politically active person.”
Greenman, a 36-year-old Minneapolis lawyer, is director of voting rights and democracy for the Center for Popular Democracy. Past stints include work for the Wellstone Action organization formed after the death of Sen. Paul Wellstone and for a Minnesota unit of the Service Employees International Union. In her appointment materials, she lists her political affiliation as with the DFL.
Greenman didn’t immediately return a call or email inquiring about her intentions moving forward said in an email Friday that the lack of a vote was disappointing. She said she is considering reapplying and has been encouraged to do so.
“I have had the pleasure of of serving on the board since January and believe it plays an important role in supporting and protecting Minnesota’s democracy,” she wrote.
In a packet compiled in connection with her earlier appointment, Greenman disclosed details about her past political involvement and her present job, which she said posed no conflict with a campaign board role and didn’t encompass campaign finance matters.
“At this point in my career I am able to serve on the board without any direct conflicts of interest. I do not work for any candidates or any political campaign committees. I do not currently represent the Minnesota DFL or any party official or political candidate,” she wrote in a November letter to Dayton seeking the appointment.
By Brian Bakst
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Watch the video for Death Cab For Cutie's new anti-Donald Trump song Read more at http://www.nme.com/news/death-cab-for-cutie/97016#EkDo9zizovyxV1uy.99
Watch the video for Death Cab For Cutie's new anti-Donald Trump song Read more at http://www.nme.com/news/death-cab-for-cutie/97016#EkDo9zizovyxV1uy.99
Death Cab For Cutie have released a new anti-Donald Trump song. The track, 'Million Dollar Loan', is one of...
Death Cab For Cutie have released a new anti-Donald Trump song.
The track, 'Million Dollar Loan', is one of 30 tracks being released over the next 30 days in the final run in to the US Presidential election. Watch the video below.
Other artists who will feature on the anti-Trump '30 Days, 30 Songs' compilation, include My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, Aimee Mann and Thao Nguyen. A previously unreleased live track by R.E.M will also feature.
"Lyrically, 'Million Dollar Loan' deals with a particularly tone deaf moment in Donald Trump's ascent to the Republican nomination,” said Death Cab For Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard. "While campaigning in New Hampshire last year, he attempted to cast himself as a self-made man by claiming he built his fortune with just a 'small loan of a million dollars' from his father. Not only has this statement been proven to be wildly untrue, he was so flippant about it. It truly disgusted me.
“Donald Trump has repeatedly demonstrated that he is unworthy of the honour and responsibility of being President of the United States of America, and in no way, shape or form represents what this country truly stands for. He is beneath us."
You can purchase 'Million Dollar Loan' here. All of 30 Days’ proceeds will go to the Center for Popular Democracy and their efforts toward Universal Voter Registration in America.
Earlier today (October 10), the music world reacted to the second US Presidential town hall debate with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
By DAMIAN JONES
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Richmond Fed Chief Pick Renews Debate on Shrouded Hiring Process
Richmond Fed Chief Pick Renews Debate on Shrouded Hiring Process
The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond’s decision to hire Thomas Barkin as its next president has renewed questions over...
The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond’s decision to hire Thomas Barkin as its next president has renewed questions over the cloaked process of selecting officials who set the most widely watched policy interest rates in the world.
After a nearly yearlong search, Richmond’s board of directors Monday confirmedthey had chosen the McKinsey & Co. executive to start on Jan. 1. Barkin will be a voter on the interest-rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee in 2018.
Read the full article here.
Hillary Clinton lays out sweeping voting fights vision
In a major speech on voting rights Thursday, Hillary Clinton ...
In a major speech on voting rights Thursday, Hillary Clinton laid out a far-reaching vision for expanding access to the ballot box, and denounced Republican efforts to make voting harder.
Speaking at Texas Southern University in Houston, Clinton called for every American to be automatically registered to vote when they turn 18 unless they choose not to be. She backed a nationwide standard of at least 20 days of early voting. She urged Congress to pass legislation strengthening the Voting Rights Act, which was gravely weakened by a 2013 Supreme Court ruling. And she slammed restrictive voting laws imposed by the GOP in Texas, North Carolina, Ohio, and Wisconsin, which she said affect minorities and students in particular.
“We have a responsibility to say clearly and directly what’s really going on in our country,” Clinton said, “because what is happening is a sweeping effort to dis-empower and disenfranchise people of color, poor people, and young people from one end of our country to the other.”
“We should be clearing the way for more people to vote, not putting up every road-block anyone can imagine,” Clinton added.
From a political perspective, forthrightly calling out Republican voting restrictions and advocating greater access to voting will likely help Clinton shore up key sections of her base – minorities and students in particular. And it could put the GOP on notice that further efforts to make voting harder may backfire by giving Democrats a tool to motivate their supporters.
Clinton, the prohibitive front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, called out by name several of her potential 2016 rivals – Rick Perry, Scott Walker, Jeb Bush, and Chris Christie – for supporting restrictive voting policies. She said Republicans should stop “fearmongering about a phantom epidemic of voter fraud.”
“Finally, a presidential candidate is acknowledging the rampant voting discrimination that has surged since the Voting Rights Act was gutted in 2013,” Wade Henderson, CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, told msnbc. “Voting is a cornerstone of our nation’s commitment to democracy, and Clinton’s acknowledgment of its importance is noteworthy.”
Clinton said relatively little about the most hot-button voting issue, voter ID – an approach that also appears politically savvy. Despite evidence that as many as 10% of eligible voters, disproportionately minorities, don’t have the ID required by strict versions of the law, polls show voter ID is generally popular.
Instead, Clinton sought to move the voting rights debate for 2016 toward more advantageous terrain for Democrats and voting rights supporters: expanding access to voting and voter registration, to make it easier to cast a ballot and bring more Americans into the process.
Noting that between one quarter and one third of all Americans aren’t registered to vote, Clinton called for an across-the-board modernization of the registration process. The centerpiece: universal automatic voter registration, in which every citizen is automatically registered when they turn 18 unless they affirmatively choose not to be, effectively changing the system’s default status from non-registered to registered. Oregon passed such a law earlier this year, and several other states, including California, are considering the idea.
“I think this would have a profound impact on our elections and our democracy,” Clinton said.
Clinton also said registration should be updated automatically when a voter moves, and called for making voter rolls more accurate secure. And she said Republican efforts to restrict voter registration, seen in Texas, Florida, and other states, disproportionately affect marginalized communities, and students.
Around 50 million eligible voters aren’t registered, according to a recent study by the Center for Popular Democracy, based on Census Bureau data. That’s three times as many as the number who are registered but stay home.
Clinton said the nationwide early voting standard of at least 20 days should also include evening and weekend voting, to accommodate those with work or family commitments.
“If families coming out of church on Sunday are inspired to go vote, they should be free to do just that,” Clinton said, in a reference to the Souls to the Polls drives that are popular in Africa-American communities, in which people vote en masse after church.
Wisconsin, Ohio, and North Carolina — all Republican-controlled states — have cut their early voting periods in recent years, with the latter two states also eliminating same-day voter registration. And a third of all states offer no early voting at all. Democratic efforts to create or expand early voting have been killed, or allowed to languish in committee, by Republicans in at least 15 states, eight of them in the south, according to a tally compiled by the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.
In addition, Clinton called for Congress to fully implement the recommendations of a bipartisan presidential panel on voting released last year, which included online voter registration and establishing the principle that voters shouldn’t wait more than 30 minutes. And she suggested that laws barring ex-felons from voting should be liberalized, adding her voice to a growing push against felon disenfranchisement laws.
And Clinton lamented the Supreme Court’s weakening of the Voting Rights Act.
“We need a Supreme Court that cares more about protecting the right to vote of a person to vote than the right of a corporation to buy an election,” she said.
Asked by msnbc on a call with reporters whether it was realistic to propose legislation, given the record of the Republican-controlled Congress, a senior official with the Clinton campaign pointed to ”encouraging signs” in the states, arguing that such changes could be implemented at the state level with federal support.
On voter ID, Clinton’s criticism of Texas’s law was centered on a provision that allows concealed gun permits but not student IDs, suggesting partisan bias. She didn’t offer the kind of broader condemnation of ID laws per se often voiced by voting and civil rights groups. And in criticizing Wisconsin and North Carolina’s slew of voting restrictions, she focused on cuts to early voting rather than those states’ ID laws.
Hours before Clinton spoke, a de facto arm of her campaign that provides pro-Clinton information to the media sent out an email documenting the GOP 2016 hopefuls’ records of supporting restrictive voting policies, which it contrasted with Clinton’s expansive approach.
Clinton’s speech comes less than a week after her campaign’s top lawyer, Marc Elias, filed suit to challenge Wisconsin’s voting restrictions. Last month, Elias filed a similar lawsuit challenging Ohio’s early voting cuts.
Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted called the lawsuit “frivolous” in a statement to msnbc and said Elias is wasting Ohioans’ tax dollars. “Hillary Clinton is calling for a national standard for early voting that is less than what Ohio currently offers,” Husted said. “Given this fact, I call on her to tell her attorneys to drop her elections lawsuit against Ohio.”
The Clinton campaign has said it’s not officially involved in the lawsuits but supports them.
In choosing to give the speech in Texas, Clinton was going into the belly of the beast. In addition to the ID law, which has been struck down as racially discriminatory and is currently being appealed, Texas also has the strictest voter registration rules in the country. And last week, a voting group alleged that the state is systematically failing to process registration applications, msnbc reported.
Clinton has long had a strong record on voting issues. As a volunteer for the 1972 George McGovern presidential campaign, Clinton worked to register Latino voters in Texas. And in 2005 as a senator, she introduced an expansive voting bill that would have made Election Day a national holiday and set standards for early voting.
At Texas Southern, Clinton received the Barbara Jordan Leadership Award, named for the crusading civil rights leader who was the first southern black woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
Source: MSNBC
Congressional Briefing Coming on the ‘Walmart Economy’
24/7 Wall ST - November 27, 2014, by Paul Ausick - U.S....
24/7 Wall ST - November 27, 2014, by Paul Ausick - U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Congressman George Miller (D-CA) are scheduled to appear as speakers at a congressional briefing on Tuesday, November 18, to discuss a business model that some are calling the “Walmart Economy.”
The term refers to a business model “where a few profit significantly on the backs of the working poor and a diminishing middle class.”
Also appearing at the hearing are employees of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) who are members of the OUR Walmart group, as well as Carol Joyner, Director of the Labor Project for Working Families; Amy Traub of research firm Demos; and Carrie Gleason, an organizer at The Center for Popular Democracy.
According to a press release from OUR Walmart, “The briefing will highlight Walmart’s low pay, manipulation of scheduling and illegal threats to workers who are standing up for Walmart to publicly commit to $15 an hour and full-time, consistent hours.”
Senator Warren was recently named to the Democratic leadership team that will be put in place next January. She becomes the strategic policy adviser to the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, a newly created position that the Democratic leadership probably thinks will serve as a bridge to the more liberal elements of the party. She was the driving force behind the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau following the financial crisis and has been a thorn in the side of the big banks ever since.
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Sexual assault testimony in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing triggers trauma, reports
Sexual assault testimony in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing triggers trauma, reports
The political became personal for many this week, as Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony of sexual assault reopened old...
The political became personal for many this week, as Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony of sexual assault reopened old wounds for other victims — including two women who dramatically confronted a key US senator Friday in a Capitol elevator.
Read the full article here.
Three Labels Control 80% Of The U.S. Music Industry. What Responsibility Comes With That Power?
Three Labels Control 80% Of The U.S. Music Industry. What Responsibility Comes With That Power?
In recent months, the music media has responded to the political climate by zooming in on artist behavior: Have or...
In recent months, the music media has responded to the political climate by zooming in on artist behavior: Have or haven’t they condemned Trump? Where do they stand? What do they suggest we do to resist? Publications including The FADER have increasingly looked to celebrities to provide a moral compass, to demonstrate what large-scale compassion looks like, and to show their peers what they’re doing wrong.
Read the full article here.
Coalition Calls for Fed Focus on Full Employment, Higher Wages
The Dallas Morning News - March 4, 2015, by Sheryl Jean - A coalition of community and labor groups in Texas is calling...
The Dallas Morning News - March 4, 2015, by Sheryl Jean - A coalition of community and labor groups in Texas is calling for the Federal Reserve to focus on full employment and higher wages for blacks and others in poor neighborhoods who have been left behind in the economic recovery.
The group also wants the board of the Fed’s regional bank in Dallas to keep that in mind as it searches for a replacement for Dallas Fed president Richard Fisher, who will retire March 19.
Liberal activists across the country on Thursday plan to protest outside seven Fed regional banks, including New York, Philadelphia and St. Louis, to highlight high unemployment among minority groups and to urge officials not to raise interest rates yet and instead focus on full employment and higher wages. A demonstration also was planned at the Dallas Fed’s office on the edge of downtown, but was canceled due to a forecast for bad weather.
Still, activists in Dallas plan to call attention to a new report showing that the nation’s economic recovery hasn’t reached many minority communities. Falling jobless rates maskhigh black and long-term unemployment and racial inequality in wages in Texas and across the country.
The 84-page report by the Center for Popular Democracy and the Economic Policy Institute shows that Texas’ average jobless rate was 5 percent in 2014, but it was 9.5 percent for blacks. In the Dallas metro area, the average rate was 5.1 percent last year, but it was 9.6 percent for blacks. Nationally, the black jobless rate was 10.3 percent, compared with a national average of 6.2 percent.
Wages also lagged. Texas’ median wage grew 3.9 percent from 2000 to 2014, but it rose 8 percent for whites and declined 0.8 percent for blacks, according to the report. Nationally, wages have been stagnant for most workers since 2000.
“If the Fed raises [interest] rates to banks, then our rates go up, but wages aren’t going up,” said Danny Cendejas, senior organizer in Dallas for the Texas Organizing Project, one of the groups in the coalition. “It’s something that is very concerning for most of our community. In the black and brown communities, where we know the unemployment rates are higher, how do we expect those people to pay their loans back?”
The Fed has kept interest rates near zero since 2008 to help spur business lending to create jobs and boost the economy.
Coalition members in Texas want a more open search process for Fisher’s replacement with more involvement by the community. Fisher, who was in El Paso on Wednesday, has been one of the most vocal advocates of raising interest rates sooner than later.
“Look around at all the construction cranes in Dallas,” said Becky Moeller, president of the Texas AFL-CIO. “I think the lower interest rates are spurring businesses to do work and then they’re hiring people. We just don’t want an interest rate policy that isn’t good for workers in the state.”
Moeller was among a group of 10 community leaders who met with three Fed representatives — general counsel John Buchanan; Alfreda Norman, head of community development and public affairs; and spokesman James Hoard — for about 90 minutes in January to discuss the search process for a new president, the timeline and the qualifications sought.
“We had a good conversation and thought we answered their questions,” Hoard said. The Dallas Fed put the name of the search firm and its email address on its website for anyone interested in nominating a candidate, he added.
Moeller has a different view of the meeting.
“We don’t have a candidate, but we felt like we had some input we wanted to share,” she said. “We don’t want it to be someone who wouldn’t be good for jobs in the future. We wanted to make sure they were looking at the economic factors that relate to real people in Texas, Louisiana and New Mexico. We have low-wage workers who can’t get their head above water. We have folks who are long-term unemployed.”
In addition to the Texas AFL-CIO, the groups that met with the Dallas Fed were the American Federation of Teachers, Communication Workers of America, Dallas Central Labor Council, Fort Worth Building Trades and Ironworkers, Harris County Central Labor Council, Jobs With Justice, Texas Organizing Project and Workers Defense Project.
Coalition members last summer protested the Kansas City Fed’s annual Jackson Hole, Wyo., forum and met with Fed chairwoman Janet Yellen in November.
Yellen and three other Fed officials met with about 30 workers and activists, including some from Texas, for an hour to hear their plights of being long-term unemployed and struggling to make a living. As a result, the Fed created the Community Advisory Council in January to provide different perspectives on the economy, especially the needs of low- to moderate-income families.
“She listened very carefully and was very engaged and was grateful to us for requesting the meeting,” said Ady Barkan, staff lawyer for the Center for Popular Democracy, who was at the meeting. “It’s the kind of response we would like to see from others.”
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Rockefeller Institute Hands over Final Scaffold Law Report Draft
Times Union - September 3, 2014, by Casey Seiler - SUNY’s Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government has released a...
Times Union - September 3, 2014, by Casey Seiler - SUNY’s Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government has released a second draft of its controversial report on New York’s Scaffold Law. According to the Institute’s Deputy Director for Operations Robert Bullock, it’s the last draft version of the report that was shared with the report’s funder, the state Lawsuit Reform Alliance.
The business-backed group, which opposes Scaffold Law, paid $82,800 to fund the report — sponsorship that has led critics to attack the study as advocacy in the guise of research. Its authors, however, insist the research was conducted in good faith.
Scaffold Law, which places “absolute liability” on employers for gravity-related workplace injuries, is supported by labor unions but opposed by business groups that claim it needlessly drives up construction costs. Opponents would like to see New York follow other states by adopting a “comparative negligence” standard that would make workers proportionately responsible when their actions contribute to an accident.
The Center for Popular Democracy, a labor-backed group that supports Scaffold Law, requested copies of all communications between the Institute and the Lawsuit Reform Alliance. That FOIL request produced a series of emails between researchers and LRA Executive Director Tom Stebbins, including Stebbins’ suggested edits to a June 25, 2013, draft copy of the report that was not initially released by the Institute.
The Center appealed to SUNY’s FOIL officer, who ultimately decided the June 25 draft — which had been appended to an email to Stebbins — should be released. A comparison of the draft and the final report suggested that some of Stebbins’ suggestions were reflected in the final version. Researchers, however, said any changes were the result of their efforts to sharpen their analysis, and not made due to pressure from the funder.
The newly released draft, dated Aug. 7, 2013, closely resembles the final report — which neither proves nor disproves the Center’s charges that the academics buckled under pressure.
Josie Duffy of the Center for Popular Democracy, however, claims the six-week gap between the first and second drafts suggests that the Institute moved quickly to follow the Alliance’s edits.
“When LRANY wanted changes, the report’s authors dutifully made them right away — inflating the report’s findings and taking out a key section that challenged how onerous the Scaffold Safety Law really is,” Duffy said in a statement, alluding to the second draft’s disposal of a two-page section on the construction of the Champlain Bridge that found little or no impact on the project from Scaffold Law.
“SUNY says it has now disclosed everything it has, but given that LRANY and the authors held weekly conference calls to discuss the report’s progress, we may never know the full extent of their influence over the final version,” Duffy said.
In an email, Bullock said the Institute “has been open and honest about its contacts with funders and its research has been and will continue to be immune from influence. It is unfortunate that a research organization known throughout the nation for the quality and character of its work should have to defend itself from accusations leveled by the Center for Popular Democracy, an organization well known for its partisanship.”
Update: Stebbins sent the following statement:
“Reform opponents are so terrified of the data that they can do nothing but attack the method of three researchers at two top universities. The Scaffold Law costs billions and causes injuries. If the Center for Popular Democracy wants to have a real discussion about how many billions wasted and how many injuries caused by the Scaffold Law, I will have that discussion all day.”
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