SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan: “Most Expensive Loser in California Elections”

Dave Regan’s ballot-initiative bonanza has helped him secure the distinction of being the ‘biggest loser’ in California’s 2018 elections, according to CalMatters.

In an article this week, CalMatters -- a daily publication covering California politics -- reported that Regan’s ballot measure targeting the dialysis industry won “the distinction of being the costliest losing campaign of the year.”

SEIU-UHW “not only failed to shackle the profits of the state’s dialysis clinics as planned, they ended up spending more than any other losing campaign—$38 million or $8.49 per vote,” according to the publication. (Ben Christopher, “How much did interest groups pay per vote? The answer, as we break down the midterms with data,” CalMatters, November 26, 2018)

Way to go, Dave! 

Not everyone can claim to be the “most expensive loser” of California’s 2018 political season.

SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan Suffers $4.1 Million Self-Inflicted Blunder in Ohio Ballot Initiative

SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan

Just in case Dave Regan’s lopsided defeat on last week’s ballot measures wasn’t bad enough, he suffered an even more embarrassing ballot-initiative blunder in his home state of Ohio.

In a f*ck-up of interstellar proportions, Regan’s Ohio dialysis initiative was knocked off the ballot because, well, Dave forgot to have his signature-gatherers fill out a required state form.

Way to go, Dave!

It gets worse. Ya see, Dave didn’t happen to notice his mistake until he’d already spent upwards of $4.1 million on his Ohio initiative. D’oh!

Of course, we’ve all made mistakes, right? But have you ever made a $4 million mistake? And it wasn’t even Dave’s money!

Here’s what happened.

After Regan’s SEIU-UHW filed an initiative against the kidney dialysis industry in California, Dave then filed copycat initiatives in both Arizona and Ohio in an apparent attempt to "up the ante" on industry leaders.

Months later, Regan abandoned his effort in Arizona.

But in Ohio, Dave soldiered on like a preacher consumed by the holy spirit. He spent millions on signature gatherers in a fervent quest to qualify his initiative, called the “Kidney Dialysis Patient Protection Amendment.”

In fact, Dave paid $3.6 million to a California signature-gathering company called PCI Consultants (headed by Angelo Paparella) to run his Ohio effort, according to campaign expenditure records from the Ohio Secretary of State.

And he paid thousands to the law firm of his private Ohio attorney, Michael Hunter of “Hunter, Carnahan, Shoub, Byard, & Harshman.”

In late July, Regan triumphantly filed 296,000 signatures to try to qualify his constitutional amendment for the ballot. But he was 9,500 signatures short. Fortunately for Dave, the Ohio Constitution gave him ten more days to collect the missing signatures. One more chance!

Ten days later, after spending even more money on his signature-gathering campaign, Regan finally hit the target. Except for one important thing. Dave’s crack team forgot to have the signature gatherers sign a state-required form required before collecting voter signatures. Whoops!

Dave’s opponents, the Ohio Renal Association, leapt on Dave’s blunder like a pack of hungry wolves on a T-bone steak. They sued to block Dave’s initiative on the grounds that his signatures were invalid. In a 7-0 decision, the Ohio Supreme Court agreed, thereby knocking Dave’s multimillion dollar initiative off the November 2018 ballot. 

(Jackie Borchardt, “Ohio kidney dialysis ballot issue invalidated by state Supreme Court,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 13, 2018; Laura A. Bischoff and Kaitlin Schroeder, “Ohio Supreme Court kicks kidney dialysis issue off the November ballot,” Dayton Daily News, August 13, 2018.)

When the court’s decision was announced, it must’ve been quite a scene at the Renal Association… execs doing back flips, taunting Dave for his colossal blunder, etc.

It turns out that Dave’s self-inflicted failure is even worse than it first appears.

Why?

In 2016, Regan committed the same exact dumb-ass blunder in Arizona, which caused another one of Dave’s initiatives to be stripped from that state’s ballot.

How did George W. Bush put it? “Fool me once, shame on... Fool me twice, shame on...” Except, of course, George kinda garbled it all up. (Here’s the YouTube video.)

So what’s up with Dave?

Maybe his memory ain’t so good these days. Perhaps his fistfight in a Sacramento bar and his headline-grabbing assault on a process-server have resulted in the premature demise of a few of Dave’s brain cells.

But you gotta hand it to Dave. When he f*cks up, he really f*cks up big-time.

According to campaign disclosure records, Regan spent $4.1 million on his Ohio campaign. And in June, he loaned $1.7 million of SEIU-UHW’s funds to the Ohio campaign. That money has not been repaid, according to the Ohio Secretary of State. These figures don’t include all of the national TV advertising, which tallied millions more.

Regular people get fired if we make a $50 screw-up at work.

So why isn’t Dave held accountable for his repeated multi-million-dollar blunders? Shouldn’t he be fired?

To view campaign expenditure records, go to the Ohio Secretary of State’s website and retrieve records for Regan’s PAC: “Ohioans for Kidney Dialysis Patient Protection” (PAC Registration No. BI1793). The PAC’s address is: 777 S. Figueroa Street Suite 4050 Los Angeles, CA 90017.

Dave Regan’s Ballot Initiatives Are Routed despite Millions in SEIU-UHW Funding

On Tuesday, SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan suffered a severe drubbing at the polling place despite having spent upwards of $30 million on ballot initiatives this year.

Regan’s biggest measure -- California’s Proposition 8 targeting dialysis companies -- was defeated by a tally of 61.5% (“No”) to 38.5% (“Yes”), according to the California Secretary of State.

Ouch.

Regan dumped more than $20 million of SEIU-UHW’s budget into that campaign.

Why did Regan lose so badly?

He was vastly outspent by his opponents. Plus, Regan ran a sloppy and poorly designed campaign, say analysts.

The proposition also was poorly written and difficult for voters to understand, said Erin Trish, associate director of health policy at the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics.

(Ana B. Ibarra and Anna Gorman, “Measure To Cap Dialysis Profits Pummeled,” California Healthline, November 8, 2018.)

Gerald Kominski, a senior fellow at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, said Regan’s campaign, unlike his opponents’ effort, failed to deliver a clear message to voters about why they should support it.

In case losing wasn’t bad enough, Regan also helped deliver a giant payday to his multi-billion dollar opponents. The day after the election, the stock price of both DaVita and Fresenius soared. In fact, DaVita’s share price jumped by 9.9%, according to CNBC.

Way to go, Dave!

Regan’s loss on Proposition 8 wasn’t his only defeat.

In Northern California, voters delivered an even bigger thumping. 

Two city-wide ballot initiatives lost by a landslide. In Palo Alto, Regan’s Measure F lost by a margin of 77% (“No”) to 23% (“Yes”). Meanwhile, in Livermore, Measure U lost by a margin of 82% (“No”) to 17% (“Yes”).

Both initiatives targeted Stanford Health Care in an effort to pressure the healthcare system into giving Regan a special unionization deal. If the measures had been approved, they would have capped healthcare providers’ revenues.

SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan

Duane Dauner – the former CEO of the California Hospital Association and Regan’s one-time paramour --   led the campaigns to defeat the two initiatives. Meanwhile, Regan’s former pals at Kaiser Permanente contributed money to defeat Regan’s initiatives.

Will Regan finally hang up the towel on ballot initiatives?

This year, he doubled down on his so-called “innovative” strategy of using ballot initiatives to “rebuild” the US labor movement. And he circulated more initiatives than during the past six years combined. At the end of the day, however, not a single measure was successful.

As a result, Dave successfully flushed upwards of $30 million of SEIU-UHW members’ dues money down the toilet.

Has Regan finally learned his lesson?

It doesn’t look like it. Late on election day, Regan issued a press release announcing his plans to refile the same dialysis ballot initiative in 2020. WTF.

Will SEIU-UHW’s members allow Dave to flush millions more dollars down the toilet?

At SEIU Local 73, Controversy Follows Ballot Count

The results are in from the internal union election at SEIU Local 73 in Chicago. But the controversy is far from over… with allegations of election misconduct filed just days after the ballot count.

Here’s what’s happening:

On October 23rd, the votes were tallied in the mail-in balloting to elect the union’s top officers and 30-member Executive Board. The election came after a two-year trusteeship imposed by SEIU President Mary Kay Henry and a 2017 court battle launched by Local 73 members to bring an end to the trusteeship. SEIU’s trusteeship featured a cast of well-known characters, including Eliseo Medina.

Who won the election?

SEIU’s trustee, Dian Palmer. But by just 375 votes. Until recently, Palmer was the president of SEIU Healthcare Wisconsin. She’s also a member of SEIU’s International Executive Board. She beat out Remzi Jaos, a former staff member at Local 73. He’s part of a slate called “Members leading Members” slate, which pledged to return the union to local control.

As far as the election for Local 73’s Executive Board, the “Members leading Members” slate won eight of 30 seats.

Participation in the election was very low. Only 2,300 ballots were cast from the union’s 25,000 members, who work in the public sector in Illinois and Northwestern Indiana.

Just 6 days after the vote count, the “Members leading Members” slate formally appealed the election. It also plans to file charges with the US Department of Labor over alleged misconduct by SEIU officials during the election, including using the union’s resources to campaign for SEIU’s candidates.

For more details, check out a one-page leaflet from the “Members leading Members” slate as well as the election appeal it filed earlier this week.

   "Members leading Members" Leaflet on SEIU Local 73's Elections: October 2018 by tastysternburger on Scribd

   Election Appeal regarding SEIU Local 73's Officer Elections (10-29-2018) by tastysternburger on Scribd