(This is Doug Martin’s 3rd article in a series
on Hillary Clinton’s fundraising. See article one here and
article 2 here.)
Hillary Clinton has been busy this summer, working all of
her wealthy connections to gather money for her campaign. Two campaign
bundlers are lobbyists Heather
and Tony Podesta.
Heather Podesta is married to Tony Podesta, the brother of John Podesta, Bill Clinton’s former Chief of
Staff, once-keynote speaker at a Jeb Bush school privatization conference, and leader of the Center for American Progress.
As I detail in my
book Hoosier School Heist, the Center for American
Progress is NOT the democracy-promoting group liberals believe it is.
Backed up by a right-wing mouth piece claiming public schools have too much
nepotism, the Center for American Progress cooked up a plan to eliminate local
school boards across America which would have made the Koch Brothers’ father’s John Birch Society envious.
Heather Podesta was Edison School’s lobbyist in 2007. Her firm, Heather Podesta & Partners, has also
lobbied
for the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.
Last year, Heather Podesta &
Partners raked in $7 million
by working for, among others, Eli Lilly, a big
corporate school funder in Indiana, and Aramark Sports & Entertainment
Services, which
is part of the multi-national corporation Aramark whose Aramark Correctional Services profits from
the private prison
complex and has repeatedly given prisoners food laced with maggots.
Aramark also operates custodial
services for schools. In Chicago
in April, despite the promise to save money for CPS, Aramark over-budgeted
for $20 million, as principals complained of Aramark’s services leading to
filthy schools. One Chicago school cafeteria was closed because of
roaches and mice, although it is not clear whether this was under the watch of Aramark or SodexoMAGIC, the other company in contract with CPS.
Heather Podesta & Partners' relationship with
Aramark Corp. goes back to 2007.
Last year, Heather Podesta sat
on the DC Democratic Party’s Senate Majority PAC board. Hillary’s
supporters at the American Federation of Teachers donated at least $1.95 million to this super PAC last year.
And then there’s Tony, Heather’s
husband, who is also raising campaign funding for Hillary.
Dubbed as one of DC’s “biggest
players” by the New York Times,
Tony Podesta runs the lobbying firm Podesta Group. In 2013, one of the
Podesta Group’s largest clients was the Walmart Walton family’s WAL-PAC,
which funds politicians across America. It is no great secret that the
Walton family is a major financial backer of school privatization in the United
States. At the time of writing my
book, the Walton’s anti-public school funding had shattered the
billion dollar mark.
From this April to the end of June, the Podesta team of
Heather and Tony bundled a little over $100,000 for Hillary.
For more on the Podestas, Aramark, and Hillary, see Susan
Ohanian’s notes here.
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