Connection Between Wealthy Bauters Donor and Republicans Exposed
Emeryville City Council member John Bauters and conservative Republicans in Congress. What do they have in common? Besides not being fans of a living minimum wage for workers, they both attract lot’s of cash from cryptocurrency executives.
Councilman Bauters’ campaign for Alameda County Supervisor is packed with cryptocurrency cash heading into the final stretch of the 2024 election, with $40,000, the maximum legal amount, supplied by tech bro Jesse Pollak, of Coinbase cryptocurrency exchange that also is a major donor to some of the most hard right Republicans in Congress. Mr Bauters has been unabashed in courting the right wing in the county in his run for the Supervisor position and it has paid off with lots of money to fend off his rival in the race, Nikki Fortunato Bas. Ms Bas, a progressive who honors labor, has gotten donations from many East Bay labor unions and ordinary citizens in her race for Supervisor.
Trying to be everything for everybody, Council member Bauters has recently been attempting to soften his anti-labor reputation in the county, trying to siphon donations from progressives that would go to Ms Bas but he is alone in the race in attracting conservative donors. To the extent he has been successful casting himself as a pro-labor progressive across the county, it is attributable to the fact that Mr Bauters’ work as a politician has been in tiny Emeryville, outside the glare of the Oakland/Berkeley political spotlight. In this way, many progressives in the county are unaware of Bauters' anti-labor record, specifically when he led a drive to cut the wages of the poorest working poor people in Emeryville in 2019. The flood of cash from the right side of the spectrum to Mr Bauters’ campaign coffers, especially from tech bros, demonstrates the extent they have been paying attention however.
Attempting to expose the Bauters' anti-labor record, staffers at the Nikki Bas campaign have produced a website, ‘The Truth About Bauters’ to reveal the things he doesn’t want us to know about him. Things like the time when he attempted to roll back Emeryville’s Minimum Wage Ordinance and the people that appreciate that. People like the cryptocurrency whiz Jesse Pollak of Coinbase who took some time off donating to Republicans in Congress to give the maximum legal amount to Emeryville’s John Bauters.
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| From the website 'The Truth About Bauters' produced by the campaign for his rival in the Alameda County Supervisor race, Nikki Fortunato Bas. |
I think the point that many people don't realize is that labor unions are very much a special interest, and not just any special interests. They are a special interest that is sitting across the table from the very electeds they are giving money to during contract negotiation times. This has led to a very rich reward, especially for city of Oakland workers of which Bass overseas. The other issue is that do we want to bring the kind of chaos and mismanagement and dysfunction? Todd Bass has been the president of in Oakland to the rest of the county. She is the quintessential failed. Progressive leader and everyone in Oakland knows that, not sure why the rest of Alameda county would want to reward her with a promotion.
ReplyDeleteI think it’s well understood labor unions are a special interest group. Obviously, unions don’t represent the interest of management and business owners. Management and owners are about 3% of Americans. Labor unions represent the interests of most of the remaining Americans (except the independently wealthy). Even if you’re not personally in a union, they work to raise the bar for American labor, all labor. Unions represent the interests of average Americans. If elected officials are working to help unions, they are working to help average people. The majority. And that’s what politicians are paid to do. The special interest of labor unions is the interest that doesn’t include wealthy people and people that control corporations. Those people don’t need extra help. They’re doing just fine as they are.
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ReplyDeleteBecause some Bauters donors also donate to republicans doesn't mean Bauters is a republican. Sloppy journalism.
ReplyDeleteI did not assert John Bauters is a Republican. I didn't even hint that. I'm just following the money of his biggest donors and reporting it to the community. That's the job of a journalist.
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