A new ad by a group which claims to be interested in campaign finance reform attempts to reignite the non-issue of Bob Schaffer’s fact-finding trip to the Marianas Islands in 1999.

The group, Campaign Money Watch is funded by unions and acts on their behalf. Here’s a USAToday story demonstrating this group’s ironic claim to be against the influence of money in politics. They’re taking millions from unions and using it all to attack Republicans. Basically, their argument is that 527 groups should be able to raise and spend as they wish while candidates should be substantially restricted.

Campaign Money Watch is a project of another left-wing 527 called the Public Campaign Action Fund (which keeps their donor list secret) and has taken money from a liberal PAC founded by a co-founder of MoveOn.org as well as recently receiving $150,000 from one apparently very wealthy donor who gives large amounts to large numbers of Democratic candidates and organizations.

It’s interesting to see this union front group bring up these bogus claims again just days after the appearance of the should-be-convict Allen Stayman at Schaffer’s campaign office.

This is nothing more than a push by labor unions through their surrogates to get Mark Udall elected because of the two candidates’ differing positions on “card check”, a legislative proposal which would eliminate the secret ballot currently required for unionization. Udall supports the measure which would let unions intimidate workers into signing unionization cards. Even George McGovern is adamantly opposed to the Orwellian “employee free choice act”. So is Bob Schaffer. I believe that unions are supporting efforts by their henchmen to attack Schaffer with anything and everything.

So, let’s look at the letter which the union and Democrat front group, Campaign Money Watch, sent to Bob Schaffer:

They ask Schaffer “To which sweatshop are you referring and what evidence do you have that it was shut down?”

I’ve probably done more research on this issue than almost anyone else, so I will respond to their question.

The sweatshop was called Little MGM, and if the union henchmen had done a little homework, they would have seen that Schaffer testified about that sweatshop before the House Committee on Resources in 1999: (See page 183 of the printed document, page 187 of the PDF file.)

And I have to tell you, Mr. Chairman and Committee, of one of the most amusing things we saw. The worst factory we went into was the Little MGM, as it’s called. After we went through the tour, the manager there was kind of annoyed that we were there. We
kept him off to the side and didn’t let him follow us around and that’s where some of the worst pictures you’ll see in here are in his factory.

Schaffer said (on the prior page) that it was Chinese (Hong Kong)-owned, though he didn’t name the owner.

Schaffer’s seriousness about his investigation and the fact that he was not turning a blind eye as his political opponents are claiming was made clear in his testimony:

My experience was not the same as those who said they had been there and found things to be wonderful. I found a number of specific factories and specific incidents that I found to be offensive and believed they need some attention, clearly. Those issues I’ve discussed with a number of people and, for my part, my five-day investigation is not over. This hearing is certainly part of it and there’s still a lot of documents that we’ve requested that we have yet to receive.

In my research for my series of articles called “Bob Schaffer and the real CNMI story”, I had two conversations which confirmed Bob Schaffer’s assertion that he was a contributing factor to the closing of Little MGM.

One conversation, with a source who agreed to be interviewed on the condition of his name not being used, works for the CNMI government and has been involved in garment industry issues for many years.

He told me that Little MGM had been the subject of other complaints and visited by other politicians and federal government officials. He said that Schaffer’s complaint was the strongest offered by any visitors from Washington D.C.. He concluded by saying that while Little MGM would probably eventually have been closed by the government in any case, Schaffer’s complaint definitely sped up the process. Schaffer’s complaint ensured that the factory was closed, or at least got it closed much faster than it otherwise would have been.

Later, I interviewed Ben Fitial, the Governor of the CNMI who told me the same story of Schaffer’s far more thorough and serious investigation of Saipan’s garment factories than any other federal official had ever conducted as well as the influence of Schaffer’s criticism of Little MGM in forcing the government to act to close it down.

Campaign Money Watch claims that they “have not been able to find evidence that (Schaffer) had any involvement in helping to shut down any sweatshop…” I wonder just how hard they tried to find such evidence. Anyone want to wager on that?

[That said, I admit I do not have “proof” other than the words of those two men that the factory was closed. For now, that’s good enough for me.]

They also try again to use the Abramoff bogeyman to tar Schaffer although it’s been shown that Schaffer’s staff did everything possible to verify that Schaffer’s fact-finding trip was NOT paid for by Abramoff, including submitting the trip for clearance to the House Ethics Committee prior to Schaffer’s going on the trip. Yes, Abramoff was working for the CNMI government as a hired lobbyist. But trying to tie Schaffer to that is without basis in fact. There is no evidence that Schaffer had or wanted to have any connection with Abramoff or his firm. Did Campaign Money Watch not notice that it was Mark Udall, not Bob Schaffer, who received campaign contributions from Abramoff, and who supported Abramoff’s position regarding casinos on Indian reservations…until the contributions from Abramoff stopped?

(These two articles reference the Udall-Abramoff connection:
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/apr/16/udall-accepted-money-firms-associated-abramoff/
and http://www.denverpost.com/ci_8952964?

The letter from Campaign Money Watch and its accompanying television commercial are lies disguised as questions. Indeed the whole group is just union thuggery disguised as concern for clean elections. Is there nothing that unions and their surrogates won’t stoop to in their quest for power? (Don’t answer that…the answer is too obvious for you to get credit for getting it right.)

If Mark Udall were our Senator, he would be doing the bidding of these reprehensible groups rather than standing up for taxpayers, workers, free trade, and economic liberty in general So, ironically, this attack on Bob Schaffer demonstrates one of the most important reasons to vote for Schaffer next month.