Commentary
Starbucks CEO's pledge to withhold political donations looks like a PR stunt
By William Schlitz
Recently I have watched in amazement the large number of people falling all over themselves to praise Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz for his call to stop providing political contributions to elected officials. Since sending out his letter, Schultz has received praise from many for being willing to take on the political beast in Washington, D.C.
What is amazing about this "pledge" is not what Schultz has promised but what he has left out. In his letter, Schultz writes the following:
"This is what so many common-sense Americans want. That is why we today pledge to withhold any further campaign contributions to the President and all members of Congress until a fair, bipartisan deal is reached that sets our nation on stronger long-term fiscal footing. And we invite leaders of businesses - indeed, all concerned Americans - to join us in this pledge."
This sounds wonderful to many in our country, as frustration grows at the inability of our elected officials to put aside their political differences and address serious issues. But by writing this pledge to deal only with "campaign contributions to the President and all members of Congress," Schultz and his fellow CEOs have left themselves a loophole big enough to fund the entire 2012 election cycle.
Let me explain. Most big money contributions are not made to the campaign committees of individual candidates. There are limits on what each individual person can give to a specific candidate each election cycle. For example, each person can provide a maximum of $2,500 to a candidate per election in 2011-12. The really big contributions flow to the 527s, political action committees (PACs) and political parties (national and state). In particular, 527s have no limits on the contributions they can receive, and in the 2010 election cycle they spent over $590 million.
I have reached out to POP, the public relations firm operating the Upward Spiral 2011 website and Facebook page in support of the Schultz effort, asking for clarification on this contribution loophole. I asked whether the pledge applies to all campaign contributions, including those to 527s, PACs and political parties.
This should produce a simple yes or no answer. Unfortunately, the answer that I have received is far from that. Here is the answer I received, via Facebook:
"In his letter, Howard Schultz asked all concerned Americans to pledge to withhold campaign contributions to the President and all members of Congress. The pledge is a thing that concerned Americans can do -- not the only thing."
Being unable to provide potential supporters with an answer as simple as, "Yes, this includes all campaign contributions," demonstrates to me that this pledge is nothing more than a PR stunt.
The simple way to clear this up is for Schultz and his 100 CEOs to issue a new, clear pledge that simply states they will make no local, state or federal political contributions during the 2012 elections. Until then, "common sense Americans" should pledge not to take Schultz and his PR stunt seriously.
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William Schlitz worked in California political campaigns and government from 1989 to 2009. He is currently a full time stay-at-home Dad in Keller, Texas.
Comments (7)
You neglected to include the complete response POP provided to your question:
"The pledge is intended to encourage businesses and citizens to stop making any contributions to the President or our elected officials in Congress, "...until they reach a fair, bipartisan deal on our country's long-term economic future." Although it is not specifically stated in the pledge, the spirit of the pledge implies that supporters would discontinue donations to any entity (including PACs) that could directly or indirectly provide those funds the President or elected official in Congress."
To be clear: the pledge covers ALL donations, including those to PACs and SuperPACs.
- Bill Predmore, POP
@Bill
You prove my point. Why does it have to be the "spirit" of the pledge. The pledge should say what it means and be clear so there are no "loopholes".
So will you change to pledge to say "no contributions" or are you and the CEOs going to leave this loopholes open?
Thanks for the discussion.
What burns me up is that I received the Starbucks CEO email because I'm registered with Starbucks.com for "news and promotional" emails.
What I told my local Starbucks manager today was that I was unhappy my subscription with them was used in this manner and I'd not be back till October.
This is neither news nor a promotion by my reckoning. Isn't it against the spam laws to do this?
It may be PR stunt but our family has decided it is the beginning of getting the word out. Money is power to greedy political officials seeking a career in politics or re-election.
As of the release of the Starbucks letter we along with out business will no longer provide any political contributions to any side of the aisle until our situation turns around. If any business we have or are to associated with are found to provide political contributions, we will no longer conduct business with them. A letter of intent has been sent to each of our personal representatives.
This is America, not Politicians R Us where the only public servants on the payroll or those seeking office are there to public serve themselves.
JE
Just a few things *not* said but to be considered:
- campaign funding laws and reform need to be enacted in order to prevent those with money from determining the outcome of an election. More outside money is spent in local elections than ever before... thank you Citizens United.
- Politicians with a cause and no money do not win an election. They don't survive a negative campaign.
- You won't tolerate it in politicians, why then with corporations furthering their agendas? And for the ones who do care? They stop their "giving" while Koch brother funded organizations who do not sign up for the pledge continue?
- I applaud Mr. Schultz for trying. I believe he will not stop his giving either. I believe he recognizes that it is much too important to stop giving to those politicians who are trying but are unable to garner bipartisan support.
- Making a deal with the devil does not make a good deal, but it does make it bi-partisan. The only way we are going to make a difference is if we become more aware and more knowledgeable of the dynamic around us. Demand news and facts from organizations who claim to be bring us the "news". Understand the facts in detail.
Bi-partisan deals may not work right now, and the results as we see are less than what we need as a country.
We, the voters...or non-voters, created this political environment. We can fix it too. Vote and vote smart. Perhaps then we may expect more from our politicians?
Thank you for asking these questions and posting the reply. One caution: As Richard Tumbek points out, when we are in a downward spiral, there are high costs for swimming against the tide, and risks of losing our ability to influence. So, we need to recognize partial efforts, without accepting them as full solutions. With that in mind, I applaud Schultz' willingness to come forward on this -- though now we need to raise the bar and exclude the PACS as well.
Another unaddressed area in Mr. Schultz' letters is that one critical driver of electioneering and lack of political backbone among our elected officials is the amount of corporate funding needed to get elected. Individually, corporate leaders are unlikely to see themselves as representative of that category, but as a category it is having a significant distorting effect. So, I would also encourage Mr. Schultz and other concerned citizens to look deeper to the root causes and consider supporting efforts to separate commercial interests from democratic processes.
Along those lines, here is a summary of the effect of the Citizens United case: http://www.southernstudies.org/2011/01/institute-index-citizens-united-by-the-numbers.html
Thanks for your writing.
All the best,
Elizabeth Doty
WorkLore.com
Author of The Compromise Trap
@Bill
So this latest story showing that Starbucks execs and Starbucks lobbying firm are still giving large donations should be taken as what "the spirit of the pledge". This whole PR stunt is nothing but a bad attempt at raising Howard's profile.
Here is the AP story on the donations.
http://www.wfaa.com/news/politics/134455143.html
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