Public Hearing in Albany Is Held Without the Public

Even before the hearing began, government watchdog groups complained that Republicans who led the panel would not allow them to testify.

The Senate’s sergeants-at-arms went a step further: they would not allow members of the public into the hearing room, first saying that they needed to save space for legislative staff, then saying that the room had reached capacity. (At the same time, people in the room were posting images on Twitter of empty chairs.) Some reporters were also stopped from entering the hearing room; they were later allowed to enter.

The chaotic scene came during a particularly embarrassing period in Albany. On Friday, a former Democratic senator from Queens, Shirley L. Huntley, was revealed to have made secret recordings for law enforcement. Then on Monday, a former leader of the Democratic caucus, Senator John L. Sampson of Brooklyn, was charged with embezzlement and other crimes.

One of the top priorities for Democrats in the legislative session this year is a push to adopt a statewide system to provide public matching funds for candidates, modeled after the city’s system.

Republicans, who have partial control of the State Senate, oppose the idea. The chairman of the State Senate Elections Committee, Thomas F. O’Mara, a Republican from Big Flats, said he organized the hearing to provide a window into “what can go wrong when taxpayer dollars are used to fund political campaigns.”

The hearing was held in a stuffy conference room on the Capitol’s first floor, occupied by senators and invited speakers, and guarded by a clutch of sergeants-at-arms. About a dozen staff members were milling about, but there were a smattering of seats available, including several at the main table, where lawmakers shared space with a few members of the Capitol’s press corps.

During the hearing, protesters pressed up to a ground-floor window that had been opened to allow fresh air into the stifling room; the window was quickly closed after protesters found it.

Government watchdog groups — including the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, Common Cause New York, the League of Women Voters of New York State and the New York Public Interest Research Group — sent a complaint to the state’s Committee on Open Government while the hearing was still under way on Tuesday afternoon, alleging violations of the state’s Open Meetings Law.

“Despite the fact that we’ve seen this recent string of scandals, it seems the Senate is more interested in holding a star chamber than actually getting to the root of these problems,” said Bill Mahoney, the research coordinator for the research group. “Until they start proposing real solutions to the plague of corruption, they’re going to be just as much to blame for all the problems that New York is undergoing.”

Senate Republicans defended their handling of the hearing.

A spokesman, Scott Reif, said the groups that advocated public financing “say they support free speech, yet they attempted to disrupt a hearing and prevent members of the Elections Committee from taking testimony.”

“This hearing was webcast live and we made every effort to get as many people into the room as possible, including every reporter who wanted to attend,” Mr. Reif added. “As the room reached occupancy, we were instructed to close the room.”

The hearing also drew the attention of a group from the Occupy movement who staged a symbolic “corporate wedding” on the Capitol’s Great Western Staircase, with people portraying a money-loving politician, the Monopoly Man and a demonic pastor. Several people were dressed as bundles of $50 bills and an oil derrick.

While the performance seemed to be by amateurs, the show drew a small crowd. After all, it was open to the public.

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Democratic Hill staffers head to Maui on taxpayers’ dime for Senate Indian Affairs Committee field hearing (Daily Caller)

Senate Democrats are charging taxpayers for a trip to Hawaii, The Daily Caller has learned. The entire press staff of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee is in Maui, even though a field hearing there won’t happen until next Wednesday.

The committee’s oversight field hearing, scheduled for next Wednesday at 9 a.m. at the Maui Beach Hotel, will focus on “Strengthening Self-Sufficiency: Overcoming Barriers to Economic Development in Native Communities.”

Rick Manning from Americans for Limited Government, which first discovered the hearing, told TheDC it’s unbelievable that Hill staffers talking about fiscal responsibility would waste money on a trip to Maui.

“It’s outrageous that Senate Democrats have so little respect for the American taxpayer that in the same month they buried our credit rating, they’re heading to Hawaii to celebrate,” Manning said.

A committee staffer told TheDC that the reason the hearing will be in Maui is “mostly because it’s his [committee chairman Sen. Daniel Akaka’s] home state.” It’s unclear if the field hearing will focus on any issues relating at all to Hawaii, or if the reasoning for scheduling the trip there is only because Akaka will already be in Hawaii during the congressional recess.

The staffer said Akaka is the only senator who will attend.

The Democratic committee staffers used taxpayer funding to travel to Hawaii a full week before their committee’s hearing date. When TheDC called the committee’s Washington, D.C., office Thursday afternoon, a different staffer who answered the phone said all the committee’s communications staffers are already in Maui.

It’s unclear if other committee employees, in addition to communications staff, are also in Maui.

It’s standard practice for taxpayers to cover travel expenses for congressional committee staffers, but there’s no way to know at this point how much the trip will cost, unless staffers offer up the information.

Committee staff declined to answer specific questions about why the field hearing was scheduled in Maui, nor would they say how many of their colleagues were there, on their way there, or scheduled to travel there.

They deferred all questions to the committee’s press staff, which is already, in its entirety, in Maui.

No one among the press staff in Maui has returned the TheDC’s phone calls for comment.

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Maui madness: single GOP staffer to join Dems for Hawaii hearing (Daily Caller)

Democratic staff for the Senate Indian Affairs Committee scheduled a field hearing in Maui next Wednesday, and the Republican minority will send one GOP staffer to join them.

A spokeswoman for ranking member Sen. John Barasso, a Wyoming Republican, told The Daily Caller that because the Democrats scheduled a field hearing, the Republicans are forced to send someone.

“When the majority schedules a hearing, the minority staff has a responsibility to send one representative,” Barrasso spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore said in an email.

Unlike the Democratic staff, which is almost entirely in Maui a full week ahead of the hearing, Lawrimore said the single Republican staffer won’t head out there until next week.

“One minority staffer will cover the hearing,” Lawrimore said. “That staff person will arrive in Hawaii on Monday evening and will represent the minority on Wednesday at the hearing.” (RELATED: Dem. Hill staffers head to Maui on taxpayers’ dime for Senate hearing)

The committee’s entire Democratic press staff have already been in Maui for at least a day, even though the hearing isn’t until the middle of next week. The press staffers have not returned The Daily Caller’s requests for comment or more information about the trip, which is funded by taxpayers. Two regular office staffers in the committee’s Washington, D.C. office confirmed those original details for TheDC.

Senate Indian Affairs Committee Daniel Akaka, a Hawaii Democrat, is the only senator who will attend the hearing.

The hearing will take place at the Maui Beach Hotel next Wednesday at 9 a.m. According to the committee, it will focus on “Strengthening Self-Sufficiency: Overcoming Barriers to Economic Development in Native Communities.”

A staffer in the committee’s D.C. office said the reason for holding the hearing in Maui is “mostly because it’s his [Akaka’s] home state.” It is unclear if the field hearing will focus on any issues relating to Hawaii or if it has been scheduled there solely because that is where Akaka is already spending the congressional recess.

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Haley, Dems weighing in before SC Boeing hearing (AP)

COLUMBIA, S.C. – Republicans and Democrats jockeyed Thursday over plans for a congressional hearing in South Carolina on the National Labor Relations Board's suit against Boeing Co.

The board sued the Chicago-based aircraft manufacturer in April, saying Boeing broke the law when it built a non-union passenger jet assembly line in South Carolina, a right-to-work state, instead of Washington state. Most 787s there are assembled by members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers.

The NLRB says that decision was made to retaliate against unionized Washington state workers, and an administrative judge in Seattle began considering the case this week. Boeing has challenged the labor board complaint, saying no work was removed or transferred from Washington and that no union member lost a job.

The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is scheduled to hold a special hearing on the issue Friday in North Charleston. But two top Democrats called on Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., either to delay the hearing entirely while the lawsuit moves forward or at least to direct committee members not to ask NLRB general counsel Lafe Solomon about the litigation.

"You have every intention at the upcoming hearing of pressing the very kinds of questions that put the due process rights of private parties in jeopardy," U.S. Reps. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., and George Miller, D-Calif., wrote. "You seem to believe that, even if your conduct amounts to improper interference with constitutional rights, that should not be the Committee's concern and instead should be left to the parties to litigate later."

Solomon initially turned down Issa's invitation to testify, later acquiescing after the threat of a subpoena.

A spokesman for Issa's committee said Thursday the hearing would go on as planned and that it would be up to any witnesses to refuse to answer questions if they choose.

Republican Gov. Nikki Haley, meanwhile, praised members of South Carolina's congressional delegation Thursday, saying they have been helpful in showing President Barack Obama that the state is serious about protecting its employers.

"What we're doing is showing that this doesn't just affect us on the state level, but the federal delegation will step up as well and make sure that our voices are heard loud and clear from South Carolina that this bullying has got to stop, and that we're not going to allow them to attack Boeing the way they have," Haley said.

Haley, who has made no secret of her opposition to unions, is also a defendant in a federal lawsuit by the machinists and the AFL-CIO.

They want Haley and state labor department head Catherine Templeton ordered to remain neutral in union matters. When Haley nominated Templeton last December, she said her background would be helpful in state fights against unions, particularly at the new $750 million Boeing plant, the largest single industrial investment in state history.

U.S. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., a longtime union critic who sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the NLRB seeking documents including communications with senior union officials, spoke out Wednesday about the dispute. He noted that Boeing has actually added union jobs since the South Carolina plant's inception.

"This administration should be celebrating Boeing. Since Boeing decided to build a new plant in South Carolina, they've added 2,000 union jobs in Washington state and more than 1,000 jobs in South Carolina," DeMint said on CBS' "The Early Show."

Haley said Thursday she will continue to try to press the administration to step in and halt the lawsuit.

"The only thing that can right this wrong is for the president to tell the NLRB to back off," Haley said. "And until that happens, it is my job to be loud and annoying and in his face until he realizes that what they have done is wrong, and he did it to one of our own American companies, and this has got to stop."

Also Thursday, Boeing announced it would serve as a local sponsor of the newly renamed RBC-Heritage Classic golf tournament through 2016, further ensconcing the company as a corporate presence in South Carolina.

___

Kinnard can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/MegKinnardAP.

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Senate hearing: high debts from for-profit schools (AP)

Washington – Students attending for-profit colleges are subject to subprime mortgage-like loans that saddle them with thousands of dollars in debt and waste millions in taxpayer dollars, Democratic lawmakers and education experts said at a Senate hearing Tuesday.

The hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee came just days after the Education Department issued new rules to deal with the student debt problem at career colleges, rules that those at the hearing said did not go far enough.

"I believe it is going to take more than these rules," committee chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said, to do something about what he described as the "toxic mix" of companies trying to maximize their profits and vulnerable people taking financial risks to improve themselves.

Republicans on the committee, who say Harkin has unfairly singled out the for-profit college industry in a series of hearings, boycotted the event. Industry representatives, who take strong issue with the hearings' findings, said they had not been invited to testify.

"I think this is really the second coming of the subprime crisis," Harkin said, citing figures that nearly a quarter of students at for-profit schools default on loans within three years and that students at such career schools account for 47 percent of all student loan defaults.

Wade Henderson, head of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, also noted similarities to the housing meltdown, saying career schools are offering a panoply of financial support programs to people, often of lower incomes or minorities who are not educated in the consequences of defaulting. "It's the hijacking of the American dream. Offering promises that cannot possibly be met," he said.

Harkin also pointed out that large for-profits receive almost 90 percent of their revenues from federal taxpayer dollars, 23 percent of all federal student aid money. He said that in 2009, for-profit colleges received $18 billion in guaranteed student loans.

Meanwhile, 57 percent of students who enrolled in 2008-2009 departed without a diploma and with a high probability of debt. Students at for-profits make up about 10 percent of all college enrollment but account for almost 50 percent of all loan defaults.

The lawmakers heard from Eric Schmitt, who after obtaining a paralegal bachelor's degree at an Iowa career school found himself $45,000 in debt and without a job despite promises of a 100 percent placement rate in his field.

But Harris Miller, president of the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities, an industry group, told The Associated Press that Harkin "has always exaggerated the size and dimension of the problem" and "only invited witnesses who are ideologically opposed to what we do."

He said the default rate at career colleges is no different from that of other institutions serving low income people and minorities and that graduation rates surpassed those of community colleges. He denied that career colleges were making money by pressuring students to take out high-interest loans. "We don't want to be in the lending business," he said. "We don't make money."

Harkin, addressing Education Department undersecretary Martha Kanter, said the new rules issued last week were "better than nothing," but noted that the stock prices of the companies owning the schools soared after the rules were announced.

Under the rules, schools will only be able to receive federal money if at least 35 percent of their former students are repaying their loans. Under the original plan, schools could have lost their federal loan eligibility immediately for not meeting criteria, but the final rule was softened to give schools multiple chances over a four-year period to improve their statistics.

View the original article here

Senate hearing: high debts from for-profit schools (AP)

Washington – Students attending for-profit colleges are subject to subprime mortgage-like loans that saddle them with thousands of dollars in debt and waste millions in taxpayer dollars, Democratic lawmakers and education experts said at a Senate hearing Tuesday.

The hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee came just days after the Education Department issued new rules to deal with the student debt problem at career colleges, rules that those at the hearing said did not go far enough.

"I believe it is going to take more than these rules," committee chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said, to do something about what he described as the "toxic mix" of companies trying to maximize their profits and vulnerable people taking financial risks to improve themselves.

Republicans on the committee, who say Harkin has unfairly singled out the for-profit college industry in a series of hearings, boycotted the event. Industry representatives, who take strong issue with the hearings' findings, said they had not been invited to testify.

"I think this is really the second coming of the subprime crisis," Harkin said, citing figures that nearly a quarter of students at for-profit schools default on loans within three years and that students at such career schools account for 47 percent of all student loan defaults.

Wade Henderson, head of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, also noted similarities to the housing meltdown, saying career schools are offering a panoply of financial support programs to people, often of lower incomes or minorities who are not educated in the consequences of defaulting. "It's the hijacking of the American dream. Offering promises that cannot possibly be met," he said.

Harkin also pointed out that large for-profits receive almost 90 percent of their revenues from federal taxpayer dollars, 23 percent of all federal student aid money. He said that in 2009, for-profit colleges received $18 billion in guaranteed student loans.

Meanwhile, 57 percent of students who enrolled in 2008-2009 departed without a diploma and with a high probability of debt. Students at for-profits make up about 10 percent of all college enrollment but account for almost 50 percent of all loan defaults.

The lawmakers heard from Eric Schmitt, who after obtaining a paralegal bachelor's degree at an Iowa career school found himself $45,000 in debt and without a job despite promises of a 100 percent placement rate in his field.

But Harris Miller, president of the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities, an industry group, told The Associated Press that Harkin "has always exaggerated the size and dimension of the problem" and "only invited witnesses who are ideologically opposed to what we do."

He said the default rate at career colleges is no different from that of other institutions serving low income people and minorities and that graduation rates surpassed those of community colleges. He denied that career colleges were making money by pressuring students to take out high-interest loans. "We don't want to be in the lending business," he said. "We don't make money."

Harkin, addressing Education Department undersecretary Martha Kanter, said the new rules issued last week were "better than nothing," but noted that the stock prices of the companies owning the schools soared after the rules were announced.

Under the rules, schools will only be able to receive federal money if at least 35 percent of their former students are repaying their loans. Under the original plan, schools could have lost their federal loan eligibility immediately for not meeting criteria, but the final rule was softened to give schools multiple chances over a four-year period to improve their statistics.

View the original article here