BREAKING: Leaked footage of a right-wing donor conference reveals a secretive plot to write and pass an avalanche of voter suppression laws.

"We did it quickly and we did it quietly," they admit.

Footage obtained by @ItsDocumented & published with @MotherJones.
Officials at @Heritage's private annual donor conference in April describe a full-on assault on democracy:

-Secret strategy meetings with GOP lawmakers to carry out voting restrictions. "No leaks."

-Drafting voter suppression bills on behalf of GOP reps
-They directly link their work to Trump's myth about 2020 election fraud

-They admit that they wouldn't be pursuing nationwide voting restrictions if Trump had won

-They acknowledge that stopping HR1/S1, the #ForThePeopleAct, is critical to their anti-democracy strategy
Read @AriBerman and @NickSurgey’s reporting on the donor briefing at Mother Jones.

Below, we'll isolate some key, newsworthy moments from the leaked footage.

motherjones.com/politics/2021/…
Heritage says it’s running a $24 million, 2-year voter suppression plan across 8 states.

They describe a "direct nexus" between passing state voting restrictions and blocking HR1/S1.

"If we don't win this, we lose our republic. Period."
.@Heritage director Jessica Anderson lays out details of their work:
- quietly drafting and astroturfing voter suppression bills
- lobbying GOP governors to pass voting restrictions rapidly
- "literally giving marching orders" to others on the right
Another Heritage official, Hans von Spakovsky, says he has been holding private briefings with top GOP state election officials for years. More recently they’ve included governors, AGs, lawmakers.

Secrecy is critical. "No leaks."
A Heritage director admits that they wouldn't be running a voter suppression strategy if Trump had managed to win.

"If maybe two, maybe three of these 8 states went a different way in November, we would be having a different conversation here today."
They discuss passing their first voter suppression law in Iowa earlier this year.

“We did it quickly and we did it quietly... Little fanfare. Honestly, nobody even noticed. My team looked at each other and we're like, 'It can't be that easy.'"
Heritage says it also helped draft Georgia’s voter suppression bills, with an eye toward avoiding a legal challenge from @marceelias.

They say they spent $1M dollars on an ad campaign on CNBC to try to tamp down the corporate backlash against the bill.
Heritage officials say that the “most important part” of their strategy in passing voting restrictions may be to re-motivate the conspiratorial Trump base to "return to the polls in 2022."
Finally, Heritage says that blocking the #ForthePeopleAct is critical.

They warn that it "voids every voter ID law in the country" & implements same-day and automatic voter registration.

They call the voting rights bill an "ever present problem."

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More from @MorePerfectUS

14 May
BREAKING: An Amazon worker just testified to the NLRB that he witnessed two Amazon security guards open and search the union ballot dropbox after his overnight shift.

“They had it open for a minute or two. Seemed like they were searching for something,” Kevin Jackson said.
Amazon installed the ballot dropbox in Alabama in direct violation of NLRB orders.

Jackson told the NLRB that he saw Amazon security carrying keys around the mailbox multiple times:

"I seen the security go out several times locking and unlocking it."

As More Perfect Union reported, emails subsequently showed that Amazon pressured the USPS to break its own rules to install the private ballot dropbox.

Read 4 tweets
14 May
NEW: Republicans have found a tax increase they love – a tax on working people.

Instead of taxing the ultra-rich, Republicans want to pay for infrastructure with a gas tax, user fees, and toll roads. These are taxes that disproportionately hit the poor and middle class.
Remarkably, Democrat @MarkWarner is supporting Republicans' plan to tax working people.

Sen. Warner told MSNBC: “I wish the president had not taken user fees off the table, whether gas tax or miles traveled. I think user fees make sense.”
Axios reports that @SenatorSinema and @SenatorCarper also "discussed the possibility of imposing user fees" with Biden in meetings this week.

These were two of the handful of Democratic senators who voted against raising the minimum wage to $15/hour in March. Image
Read 4 tweets
12 May
Thread: GOP governors in 11 states are ending the extra $300 weekly payments to unemployed people, so they can force people to work for less.

In South Carolina that means choosing between:
-$290/week ($7.25/hr minimum wage job)
-$238/week in unemployment on average
It’s not just South Carolina.

GOP governors in Missouri, Iowa, Idaho, Tennessee, Wyoming, South Dakota and Utah are ending the extra $300 weekly payments to unemployed people from the American Relief Plan.

It’s part of the GOP’s war on poor people.
cnn.com/2021/05/11/pol…
GOP governors are working with lobbyists at places like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to exaggerate the worker shortage.

It's a ploy to cut unemployment benefits. There's a shortage of living wage jobs, not a shortage of workers.
politico.com/news/2021/04/2…
Read 8 tweets
11 May
NEW: During the union election, Amazon representatives called workers at home to see if they had turned in ballots and if they needed any "help" filling it out.

At the NLRB hearing, Amazon worker Jennifer Bates shared how Amazon reacted to learning she was pro-union:
Warehouse employee Jennifer Bates worked as an "ambassador" at Amazon's Alabama warehouse, training and fostering a positive culture with new employees.

She went public with her union support in an interview last January.
By February, after going public about being pro-union, Amazon scrapped Bates's job without cause and placed her on the factory line, isolated from others.

Bates said they changed her role inexplicably despite knowing that she had health issues that made line work challenging.
Read 8 tweets
10 May
BREAKING: Amazon workers revealed new evidence of Amazon's illegal union-busting—including managers passing out coupons for 15 extra minutes of break time—at an NLRB hearing today.

Here's what Darryl Richardson, an Amazon warehouse worker in Alabama, told the NLRB:
Amazon sent workers the message that they would lose benefits & "their voice" under a union.

Workers got texts saying: "Protect what you have" and "Don't give up your voice."

In a meeting, workers were told, "You won't have a voice if the union comes in," Richardson said.
Per federal labor law, employers are forbidden from threatening employees "with adverse consequences, such as...loss of benefits, or more onerous working conditions, if they support a union, engage in union activity, or select a union to represent them."

nlrb.gov/about-nlrb/rig…
Read 7 tweets
10 May
Amazon has an important method for busting unions at their warehouses: they fire workers who organize their co-workers.

It is a nationwide pattern—see the thread.

But the script is being flipped. Fired workers like Chris Smalls are now leading the next wave of organizing. 🧵
Gerald Bryson was also fired from the Amazon warehouse in Staten Island in April 2020. They said the reason for his termination was “vulgar language.”

"It was just retribution for me organizing and protesting," he said. "I'm disgusted. I feel violated."
cnet.com/news/fired-ama…
Amazon was threatening and firing warehouse workers in Staten Island even before the pandemic started.

Rashid Long was fired in February 2019 after protesting having an Amazon HQ in New York and advocating for better working conditions.
washingtonpost.com/business/2019/…
Read 7 tweets

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