Consultants Pocketed Millions from Dave Regan’s Ballot Initiatives

Tasty earlier reported how SEIU-UHW spent more money in 2018 on ballot initiatives than it did on organizing and representing its own members on the job.

So where did SEIU-UHW spend all of the $37.5 million that went to “political activities and lobbying”?

According to the union’s financial report, six political consultants and ballot initiatives walked away with three-quarters of the total. Here they are.

• $14.9 million to Waterfront Strategies (Washington DC)
• $4.6 million to the Fairness Project (Washington DC)
• $2.5 million to Kimball Petition Management (Thousand Oaks, CA)
• $2.1 million to Ohioans for Kidney Dialysis Patient Protection (Ohio)
• $1.2 million to Savvy Communications (Rancho Mirage, CA)
• $2.2 million to Greenstripe Media, Inc. (Newport Beach, CA)

The biggest winner, Waterfront Strategies, is an advertising purchasing firm that places media tons of media buys for PACs. The firm’s parent company is headed by Jim Margolis, a former media strategist for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.

The Fairness Project is an organization founded by Dave Regan and principally funded by SEIU-UHW to run ballot initiatives in states outside of California. The head of the organization’s board of directors is Steve Trossman, one of Regan’s staffer who was also wrapped up in the Tyrone Freeman scandal.

Kimball Petition Management, or KPM, is a petition drive management firm owned by Fred Kimball, who founded the company in 1984 with his brother, Kelly. Fred Kimball was profiled in a 1998 article, "Collecting Signatures for a Price" in the Washington Post, according to Ballotpedia.

Regan set up Ohioans for Kidney Dialysis Patient Protection to run a 2018 ballot initiative in Ohio. Altogether, Reagan spent $4.1 million on an effort to collect signatures, but forgot to have his signature-gatherers fill out a required state form. As a result, the Ohio Supreme Court voted unanimously to knock Regan’s initiative on the ballot.

Savvy Communications appears to be another name for her Stones’ Phones, a consulting firm specializing in phone strategies for campaigns.

Greenstripe Media, Inc. is an advertising purchasing firm headed by David Takara.

And here’s the punchline: Despite pouring tens of millions of dollars into political spending in political spending, Regan has no victories to show for it as far as winning organizing rights for workers and expanding the union’s membership.

Dave Regan's Ballot Initiatives Push SEIU-UHW into the Red

Like a snake-oil salesman, Dave Regan continues to hawk his ballot initiatives to SEIU-UHW’s Executive Board despite their ineffectiveness and colossal cost.

How costly are Dave's ballot initiatives?

Last year, SEIU-UHW's spending on lobbying and political activities tripled to $37.5 million from the prior year.

Regan's ballot initiatives were so expensive they caused SEIU-UHW to experience a $17.5 million loss for the year, according to the union's annual financial report to the US Department of Labor. (The union took in revenues of $114.7 but spent $132.2 million.)

Excerpt from SEIU-UHW's DOL Form LM-2 for 2018

This may help explain why SEIU-UHW is now charging its members a maximum dues rate of $168 per month.

Regan's spending also helped SEIU-UHW surpass a disturbing threshold: the union spent more money on “political activities and lobbying” ($37.5 million) than it did on “representational activities” ($36.3 million).

How does this spending compare to other unions?

Tasty took a look at the spending patterns of similar unions during the same year and using the same data set (DOL Forms LM-2). Check out the table below. As you can see, SEIU-UHW’s spending is ass-backwards.

	Representational Activities	Political Activities and Lobbying	Ratio of Spending on Representation to Pol/Lobbying
SEIU 2015 (CA Longterm Care Wkrs)	$16.5 million	$5.1 million	3.2 to 1
SEIU Local 1021 (Northern Cal)	$11.5 million	$2.0 million	5.8 to 1
SEIU 1199NY	$57.0 million	$14.5 million	3.9 to 1
SEIU Local 49 (Oregon)	$3.4 million	$0.5 million	6.8 to 1
NUHW	$6.0 million	$0.7 million	8.6 to 1
SEIU-UHW	$36.3 million	$37.5 million	0.97 to 1

Here’s another interesting comparison.

Last year, SEIU-UHW spent almost three times more money on lobbying and political activities than did SEIU 1199NY… even though 1199NY had far more members (273,599) than SEIU-UHW (99,268).

In fact, if you tally up the political spending of the five other unions in the table above, it doesn’t even come close to what SEIU-UHW spent.

Hmmm, what do you call a union that spends more money on lobbying and political activities than representing its own members on the job? Good question.

A political consulting firm?

Apparently, that's Regan’s innovative strategy for “rebuilding the US labor movement.”

California Hospital Workers Try to Bolt SEIU-UHW due to Bad Contracts

Dave Regan’s relentless spending on ballot initiatives is not only producing repeated losses at the ballot box for SEIU-UHW, it’s also generating decertification efforts by the union’s own members.

Two weeks ago, workers at 158-bed USC Verdugo Hills Hospital in Los Angeles filed a petition to dump SEIU-UHW and work without a union because they say SEIU-UHW has failed to win improved wages and health insurance for 230 workers there, according to NLRB records and the Glendale News-Press. (Lila Seidman, “Vote on keeping USC hospital union could come within weeks, employee says,” Glendale News-Press, January 8, 2019.)

Regan’s multi-million-dollar spending on ballot initiatives has left SEIU-UHW’s members with fewer resources for workplace organizing and representation... and weaker contracts. According to the worker who filed the petition at USC Verdugo Hills Hospital, a majority of employees signed the decertification petition and are backing the effort to bolt from SEIU-UHW.

 “A vote on whether or not to keep a healthcare workers’ union at USC Verdugo Hills Hospital in Glendale could come as early as the end of the month,” the Glendale News-Press reported last week. 

Last October, workers at the same hospital submitted an identical request but SEIU-UHW’s attorneys blocked it, saying the request was filed two days late. SEIU-UHW has made no such claims about the current filing, although SEIU-UHW’s lawyers are filing “unfair labor practice” charges in an effort to stall the vote.

The decertification effort offers a stark counterpoint to what’s happening at USC’s other two acute-care hospitals.

More than 1,100 workers at 401-bed USC Keck Medical Center and 60-bed USC Norris Cancer Center are represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW). During recent years, they’ve waged a series of aggressive negotiating campaigns, including strikes and pickets, that boosted workers’ wages, health insurance, and retirement benefits.

Last spring, NUHW forced the two hospitals to in-source more than 100 subcontracted food service and housekeeping workers, leading to pay increases of up to 80%. One group of recently in-sourced workers had been members of SEIU United Service Workers West for years and were paid just above the minimum wage. After they voted to leave SEIU, NUHW successfully pressured the two hospitals to dump Sodexo, USC’s subcontractor, and to hire the workers directly.

Due to NUHW's success, hundreds more USC workers have voted to join NUHW through NLRB elections.

If workers at USC Verdugo Hills Hospital vote to decertify SEIU-UHW, it will put an even brighter spotlight on Regan’s decision to pour tens of millions of dollars of the union’s funds down the toilet in Dave's illusory quest for unionization via ballot initiative.

Stay tuned.

Price Soars for Dave Regan’s Ballot Initiatives

Dave Regan’s famously unsuccessful “ballot initiative” strategy just got a lot more expensive in California.

If you’re a member of SEIU-UHW, heads up. Diamond Dave will now be able to waste your dues dollars much faster than before.

Regan’s unquenchable thirst for ballot-initiative failure isn’t mere speculation. 

Several months ago, Regan pledged to re-file his unsuccessful dialysis ballot measure in 2020. He made this pledge just days after voters rejected Dave’s dialysis measure by a blow-out margin: 61.5% (“No”) to 38.5% (“Yes”).

Why is the price tag jumping for California ballot initiatives?

Every four years, California readjusts the number of valid voter signatures that must be collected in order to place an initiative on the statewide ballot. Specifically, it takes 5 percent of the total votes cast for governor during the most recent election.

That threshold was re-set during last November’s gubernatorial election when large numbers of voters turned out to boot Republican congressmembers from office. The threshold jumped from 365,879 valid signatures to 623,212 valid signatures.

That’s gonna make it much more expensive to put measures on the ballot. SEIU-UHW hires companies to collect signatures from voters, typically paying them between $2 to $3 per signature. Campaigns must collect far more signatures than the threshold because a certain percentage of signatures turn out to be invalid.

So that’s why the costs associated with statewide initiatives are going to “skyrocket,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle. (John Wildermuth, “Qualifying a California ballot measure to become a ‘playground of billionaires,’” San Francisco Chronicle, January 2, 2019.)

According to the newspaper: 

It already costs at least $2 million to qualify a measure for the ballot, and that’s before a single dollar is spent on a campaign to actually win the election. The new signature numbers are likely to boost that amount dramatically.

How much will the costs jump?

At least to $3.4 million, according to analysts.

So, unless Regan finally owns up to his record of uninterrupted failure, SEIU-UHW members can expect Dave to blindly pour more and more of their dues dollars into ballot initiatives… rather than using these precious resources to fund aggressive contract campaigns, organizing drives, and representational work to support the union’s members.

NUHW Hits Kaiser with Strike

The National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) is taking on Kaiser Permanente again.

Not through ballot initiatives, which is Dave Regan’s preferred approach.

But through strikes… which SEIU-UHW hasn’t attempted against any healthcare company in years.

Last month, 4,000 NUHW members conducted a weeklong strike against dozens of Kaiser facilities across California. The strikers included Psychologists, Licensed Clinical Social Workers, Marriage and Family Therapists, Psychiatric RNs, Medical Social Workers, Addiction Medicine Specialists, Dietitians, Health Educators, and others.

It was the largest strike by mental health therapists in the nation's history, according to NUHW.

What do the strikers want? They're demanding more staff.

Kaiser’s chronic understaffing of its mental health clinics forces patients with depression, bipolar disorder, and other conditions to wait two months or more for appointments.

Strikers were joined by former Congressman Patrick Kennedy -- the author of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act and a national leader of mental health reform efforts -- who flew across the US to join them on the picket line.

RNs from the California Nurses Association and members of the Stationary Engineers Local 39 also joined picket lines across the state.

According to NUHW, the strike produced more than 1,000 press stories.

And one thousand patients reported their stories of Kaiser’s delayed care -- including suicides and other tragic outcomes -- to the union’s “Kaiser Don’t Deny” website, according to NUHW.

This isn’t the first time that NUHW has taken on Kaiser.

Several years ago, NUHW hit Kaiser with a series of statewide strikes and successfully got the state to fine the giant HMO $4 million for illegally delaying their patients’ mental health appointments. NUHW documented more than a dozen suicides connected to Kaiser's delayed care.

Check out this three-minute TV news story about the strike and Kaiser’s understaffed mental health clinics.

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?

SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan Launches “Spin” Offensive on Ballot Initiative

This week, Dave Regan trotted out an interesting “spin” on his ballot initiative gamble.

Regan’s mathematically-challenged spin goes something like this: 

Regan has spent $20 million of SEIU-UHW members’ money on a statewide ballot initiative targeting the dialysis industry. Meanwhile, two multinational dialysis companies have spent a combined $105 million to oppose the initiative. Even if Regan’s initiative loses at the ballot box, Dave says he’s still a winner because the other side was forced to spend more money.

A recent article entitled “Healthcare Workers’ Union Counts Dialysis Victory in Dollars Spent against It” (CalMatters, October 21, 2018) begins this way:

Win or lose, Dave Regan, the healthcare worker union leader who is pushing an initiative to regulate dialysis clinic profits, is getting some satisfaction at the huge sums being spent by the dialysis industry, $105 million and counting.

“In a weird kind of way, we must be doing something right,” Regan said, referring to the spending.

So why is Dave’s spin “mathematically challenged”?

Dave forgot to mention some important details.

For example, $105 million is barely a drop in the bucket for these mammoth companies. Their combined annual revenues are $51 billion, with annual combined profits totaling $4 billion. $105 million represents less than 0.2% of the companies’ annual revenues. It’s like a few pennies to them.

Meanwhile, Dave spent $20 million of SEIU-UHW members’ money, which represents about 20% of the union’s annual budget. Ouch!

Imagine if you gambled 20% of your organization’s annual budget… and you lost.

No wonder Dave is test-driving some spin… especially now that the election is less than two weeks away. Publicly, Regan says his union’s own polling indicates the initiative will win, according to a press release issued by SEIU-UHW this week.

Meanwhile, Regan’s $20 million gamble appears to have come at the expense of the union’s basic day-to-day work – such as bargaining good contracts and representing workers on the job. In recent months, two separate groups of SEIU-UHW members formally requested elections to decertify SEIU-UHW and go non-union, according to NLRB records. 

The two groups are USC Verdugo Hills Hospital (a 158-bed hospital in Glendale, Calif.) and Santa Rosa Community Health (an outpatient clinic system with 12 campuses and 500 staff in the San Francisco Bay Area). Regan has instructed his attorneys to stall the elections as long as possible.

Like Dave said: “In a weird kind of way, we must be doing something right.”

$125 Million Price-Tag on Dave Regan’s California Ballot Initiative

Here’s an update on Dave Regan’s 2018 ballot initiative bonanza:

The ballot initiative campaign with the highest price-tag in California's 2018 midterm elections isn’t about rent control or the gas tax, it’s about kidney dialysis, and specifically, how much profit providers can make from the procedure.

Supporters and opponents of Proposition 8, the “Fair Pricing for Dialysis Act,” have contributed almost $120 million during the 2018 campaign season.

(Samuel Metz, “California's most expensive proposition battle pits kidney dialysis providers against unions,” Palm Springs Desert Sun, Oct. 16, 2018)

In fact, these numbers have grown even higher since the article was published three days ago. According to the California Secretary of State, Regan has pumped $20.4 million into the campaign while opponents have poured $105.6 million into their effort.

Regan launched this statewide ballot initiative after SEIU-UHW was unsuccessful in organizing kidney dialysis workers a couple of years ago. Regan hoped his punitive measure would serve as leverage to force the industry into a backroom unionization deal -- just like Regan tried to do with the California Hospital Association.

Apparently, Regan’s threats weren’t enough.

According to one source, the two sides met in Sacramento to discuss a possible deal just days before the deadline for withdrawing initiatives from the ballot. After 30 minutes, however, the meeting reportedly ended when Regan stormed out of the room.

That’s what led to the full-on fight we’re now witnessing at the ballot box… with Regan’s billionaire opponents pouring five times as much money into their campaign as Regan.

At this point, it’s impossible for SEIU-UHW to finagle any sort of deal from the industry as Regan no longer has the ability to remove his initiative from the ballot.

So, SEIU-UHW is left in a no-win position… even as it spends tens of millions of its members’ dollars on a no-win proposition.

Meanwhile, SEIU-UHW’s public image is taking a beating in the press. All of the state’s major newspapers have editorialized against Regan’s initiative including the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Sacramento Bee, San Diego Union-Tribune, San Jose Mercury News, Fresno Bee, La Opinión, Santa Rosa Press Democrat, Modesto Bee and Bakersfield Californian.

Many of the newspapers are angry at Regan’s repeated attempts to use the initiative process as a bargaining chip rather than a tool to create better public policy. For example, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat writes:

Proposition 8 is nothing short of an abuse of California’s initiative process, which allows anyone with enough money to put a proposed law on the ballot.

This initiative is designed to punish dialysis clinic operators who have resisted union efforts to organize their employees. Voters shouldn’t play along.

We don’t have a position on whether clinic employees should unionize. However, we’re absolutely certain that voters shouldn’t be asked to judge a regulatory scheme for a specialty medical procedure that literally is a matter of life and death for tens of thousands of California residents suffering from serious kidney disease. That’s a job for the Legislature and the state Department of Public Health Services.

Proposition 8, sponsored by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, supposedly is about improving conditions at the 588 licensed dialysis clinics around the state. Yet there is nothing in this initiative about standards of patient care…

This isn’t the first time these unions have used ballot initiatives to try to gain leverage at the bargaining table. But this fight doesn’t belong on the ballot, as voters are in no position to write accounting rules for dialysis clinics.

To date, Regan has gambled tens of millions of dollars of his members’ money on ballot initiatives… without success. This year, he introduced no fewer than 10 initiatives. 

Imagine if he had instead spent $20 million on training rank-and-file organizers, mounting aggressive contract fights, winning improved standards for workers and patients, and launching grass-roots organizing campaigns.

Unfortunately, Regan has little interest in developing rank-and-file leaders and building bottom-up power among his union's members. Why?

It means fewer challenges to his personal power atop the union.

More Bumps in the Road for Dave Regan’s Ballot-Initiative Bonanza

SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan is facing more problems in his quest to pass at least ten ballot initiatives during 2018.

After first abandoning his effort to place an initiative on Arizona’s November ballot targeting the kidney dialysis industry, Regan then dropped his plans for ballot measures in three California cities “after not gathering enough signatures,” according to the East Bay Times.

The three measures would have targeted Stanford Health Care in the cities of Pleasanton, Emeryville and Redwood City. Regan tried to use the threat of his ballot initiatives to pressure Stanford into signing a special unionization deal. (Angela Ruggeiro, “Livermore sued over city measure for healthcare costs; asks court to rule on legality,” East Bay Times, August 10, 2018)

Earlier this year, the City of Emeryville sued SEIU-UHW alleging that Regan’s ballot initiative is unconstitutional, violates due process rules, and is preempted by state and federal laws.

In a fourth city in the San Francisco Bay Area – Livermore -- Regan successfully gathered enough signatures to qualify his anti-Stanford initiative for the citywide ballot. However, Diamond Dave and his attorneys are now locked in dueling lawsuits with the city.

On August 2, Regan sued the City of Livermore alleging that the ballot language approved by the City Council is biased. The lawsuit was filed in Alameda County Superior Court, according to press accounts and SEIU-UHW’s website.

Meanwhile, the City of Livermore has filed a court petition challenging the constitutionality of Regan’s ballot initiative. The city says healthcare prices are governed by statewide rules and that it would be improper for the city to create its own separate standards. The city attorney “likened the scenario to if Livermore adopted a different vehicle code, just for the city, which would go against state vehicle codes.”

Livermore City Attorney Jason Alcala

As the lawsuits move forward, pin-striped lawyers and pollsters and consultants are chanting “Ka-Ching!” as the price tag on Regan’s 2018 ballot-initiative bonanza soars ever higher.

Why is the City of Livermore against Regan’s ballot initiative?

If approved by voters, the measure would force the city to spend nearly $2 million a year to implement and administer Regan’s initiative, according to experts hired by city officials. Additionally, city officials fear that Regan’s initiative would drive hospitals, clinics and other healthcare providers out of the city.

Late last year, Regan apparently launched his ballot-initiative bonanza with great hopes… despite the failure of his past efforts. In 2018, Regan introduced more ballot initiatives than during the past six years combined.

So far, however, Regan has come up empty-handed... and it’s unlikely he’ll eke out any deals at this stage of the game. Once the initiatives have been put on the ballot, there’s little incentive for the targeted companies to negotiate with Regan because he no longer has the power to remove the initiatives from the ballot.

Regan -- who believes ballot initiatives are some kind of miraculous solution for the profound problems gripping the US labor movement -- has dumped more than $10 million of his members’ funds into initiatives during 2018.

What could workers have done with this money?

And what’ll happen to Diamond Dave if he ends the year without a single unionization deal?

Stay tuned.  

Dave Regan Confronts Hurdles in Ohio Ballot Initiative Effort

SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan recently submitted signatures to try to put an initiative targeting kidney dialysis companies on Ohio's November ballot... but he came up 10,000 short of the 306,000 needed to qualify the initiative for the ballot.

That left Regan with just 10 days to collect 10,000 valid signatures before a state election deadline. (Jo Ingles, “Dialysis Clinic Regulation Ballot Issue Faces More Hurdles,” WKSU, July 27, 2018.)

Yesterday, an SEIU spokesperson announced that the campaign had submitted additional signatures that should qualify the measure for the ballot. The signatures must now be validated by state officials.

How much is Regan’s Ohio ballot-initiative project costing?

Beaucoup dinero.

As of July 31, Regan’s campaign had spent more than $4.1 million, according to records posted by the Ohio Secretary of State. (SEIU-UHW’s Political Action Committee is called “Ohioans for Kidney Dialysis Patient Protection”).

In an interesting development, campaign finance disclosure reports indicate that SEIU International gave $2.5 million to the campaign. Meanwhile, SEIU-UHW has “loaned” the campaign more than $1.7 million. It’s unclear if SEIU-UHW will ever be repaid.

Why is DC-based SEIU International contributing to the campaign?

After all, Regan has warred with SEIU International President Mary Kay Henry. It’s unclear what sort of internal politics lie behind this support.

Where has Regan spent the $4.1 million?

Most of the money has gone to a California signature-gathering firm that hires temporary workers to collect voters’ signatures. “In recent weeks we have seen hundreds of paid circulators,” said opponents of the measure, “many of them from out of state, gathering signatures on petitions.”

Meanwhile, Regan spent another chunk of change on polling and public-relations firms. Still other money has gone to the law firm of Regan’s personal attorney, Michael Hunter.

In June, campaign spending leaped skywards when the campaign paid more than $3.1 million to the signature-gathering firm headed by Angelo Paparella, according to disclosure records.

In yet another hurdle, Regan now faces a lawsuit over the ballot measure, which is designed to amend Ohio’s Constitution. 

The lawsuit was filed by the Ohio Renal Association, which represents the state’s 326 dialysis clinics. It seeks to block the measure from appearing on the November ballot. Of course, Regan will now have to spend gobs more money on lawyers to try to beat back the legal challenge.

So… the price tag for Regan’s ballot-initiative strategy keeps growing by the minute.

These new reports help us understand just how much money Regan is pouring into his 2018 ballot-initiative gamble, even though it doesn’t appear to be headed towards any resolution that would produce an organizing agreement between the dialysis industry and SEIU-UHW.

Stay tuned.

SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan Drops Ballot Initiative in Arizona

Dave Regan has dropped his effort to place an initiative targeting the kidney dialysis industry on Arizona’s statewide ballot, according to a press outlet. (Howard Fischer, “Union Gives up on Dialysis Initiative,” The Daily Courier, July 4, 2018)

Here’s the background.

After Regan first filed an initiative against the kidney dialysis industry in California, he then filed copycat initiatives in both Arizona and Ohio in an apparent attempt to "up the ante" on industry leaders. Regan apparently hoped the pressure would prompt industry leaders to sign a special unionization deal with him in exchange for his commitment to withdraw the initiatives from the ballots, as he did in a secret deal with executives at the California Hospital Association (CHA).

The secret deal with the CHA, which later came to light through litigation, sold out the workers that Regan claimed to be advocating for – including banning them from striking and even criticizing their employers’ multi-million dollar salaries.

To date, Regan has spent upwards of $6 million of SEIU-UHW’s funds on his California kidney-dialysis initiative. Nonetheless, dialysis industry officials have failed to bite on Regan’s bait. So… Regan and SEIU-UHW are now heading towards a multi-million dollar election battle in November.

Regan has plowed millions of dollars of the union’s resources into his high-stakes (and high-cost) game of chicken with dialysis industry officials. Regan once touted his ballot initiative strategy as an “audacious new proposal to save the labor movement,” even though it has drained tens of millions of dollars from SEIU-UHW’s coffers without leading to the unionization of a single healthcare worker.

Here are some excerpts from the article about Regan’s initiative in Arizona:

A California union has given up on its plan to ask Arizona voters to impose new service and cost restrictions on companies that perform dialysis.

Sean Wherley, spokesman for Service Employees International Union, said on Monday his organization has decided to focus its efforts elsewhere.

Wherley conceded the measure was aimed specifically at two firms: Fresenius Kidney Care and DaVita Kidney care. He said the two control more than 80 percent of the licensed dialysis centers in the state. Potentially more significant, Wherley acknowledged that both operate here without SEIU employees.

This isn’t the first time SEIU had started petition drives in its fights with employers.

Two years ago it crafted an initiative drive to cap the pay of hospital executives at no more than what the president of the United States is paid, or $450,000 a year. But after gathering what it said was more than 281,000 signatures — far more than needed — the union decided to scrap the effort in the face of challenges to the validity of many of those signatures.

But Wherley sidestepped questions Monday about whether the SEIU was simply using the Arizona initiative process for political purposes in the union’s ongoing battles with hospitals and health care employers.

“There’s only so many states that have ballot initiatives,’’ he said.

“So we look at them, where does SEIU have a presence, where can health care workers be benefited, where can patients be benefited,’’ Wherley said. “That’s kind of the calculus that decides where we introduce an initiative and where we submit signatures to qualify.’’

In the end, Wherley said, the union decided to not even try to collect signatures on the Arizona proposal.