For background, MinnPost published:
Jeff Ettinger, in some ways, is an unusual candidate for the Democratic party.
The former CEO of Hormel is running for U.S. House in a special election for southern Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District after the death of Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Hagedorn, following a career in which Ettinger earned tens of millions leading the Austin-based meatpacking giant.
He’ll be competing with seven others for the DFL nomination in a party where many criticize the environmental, labor or animal welfare record of Big Ag, as well as the gulf between the pay of top executives and average workers. And Ettinger also has a history of supporting Republicans, like Mitt Romney for president in 2012.
It’s a resume that some opponents argue won’t sway voters in the May 24 primary or Aug. 9 general election. Yet his campaign has gained early traction. He has won the significant endorsements made so far in the crowded primary race against more liberal candidates, and has raised by a wide margin the most money of any Democrat.
Ettinger’s supporters say his credentials reflect a centrist with business and philanthropic experience, and a person with deep ties to the area who can appeal to voters in the Republican-leaning 1st District.
Italics added. One can argue there are enough centrists in DC, and more ethicists are needed, where the low citizen approval ratings for Congress suggest this is the case. And Painter is not anyone's overzealous liberal. But he does throw down the guantle in his latest emailing of the text of his latest press release:
For Immediate Release
Richard Painter today called for the U.S. Department of Justice to open investigations of price fixing by giant meat packing companies in pork, poultry and beef.
Meat prices are sky high in the grocery store. The GOP blames President Biden for inflation. Here’s what is really going on:
The Trump Justice Department for four years did not enforce antitrust laws, including Section 1 of the Sherman Act, a criminal statute with lengthy prison terms for corporate executives who engage in price fixing.
Federal prosecutors finally brought criminal charges against price fixing executives in the poultry industry.
Federal civil lawsuits are pending against the largest pork packaging companies, including Hormel Foods alleging a price fixing scheme going back to 2009 in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act. Two of the defendants, JBS and Chinese owned Smithfield Foods have entered a $102 million settlement agreement, returning some of their pork price fixing profits to consumers, but the other defendants including Hormel Foods refuse to settle the lawsuit or admit to wrongdoing.
Similar lawsuits have been filed against the beef industry. As in the poultry and pork price fixing litigation, the plaintiffs include wholesalers, grocery chains and sandwich restaurants such as Subway and Jimmy Johns. These businesses all pass the higher cost of meat on to consumers, so the real victim of meat packers’ price fixing is the American consumer.
Farmers also are victims of price fixing by meat packers. Just yesterday, May 11 President Biden said in a speech in Kankakee, Illinois: “Only four big companies, by the way, control more than half the markets for beef, pork, and poultry. Without meaningful competition, our farmers and ranchers have to pay whatever the four big retailers are saying they’ll pay for their chickens, their hogs, and their cattle. These big companies can use their position as middlemen to overcharge grocery stores and, ultimately, families.”
The pork packing monopolists are among the worst offenders. As President Biden said yesterday in his speech: “Fifty years ago, hog farmers got 40 to 60 cents for each dollar the family spent raising that hog. Today, it’s about 19 cents. And as big companies made massive profits, the prices you see at the grocery stores have gone up and the prices farmers receive has gone down. This reflects a market distorted by the lack of competition.”
Richard Painter has been writing, speaking, and teaching about business ethics since 1993. Section 307 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 is based on language Richard proposed to Congress requiring lawyers for corporations to report illegal conduct, including price fixing, up the ladder to corporate boards of directors. CEOs, directors, and senior officers of meat packing companies must have known about price fixing schemes. Congress needs to fix our antitrust laws so they are easier to enforce and price fixing corporate officers are held personally responsible for ripping off American consumers and farmers.
Richard recognizes that persons and corporations are innocent until proven guilty. However, the evidence in these cases - including the $102 million JBS/Smithfield pork price fixing settlement -- is sufficiently strong that the Justice Department should expand its criminal investigation of the poultry industry to include pork and beef. Congress also should hold hearings and subpoena witnesses and documents.
Eating at Subway or Jimmy Johns should not be a luxury just for the wealthy. The time to defend American consumers and farmers against price fixing in food, gasoline, and other goods, is NOW. Richard Painter is a business ethics professor, not a corporate CEO, he’s on the side of the consumer, and he’s determined to go to Congress to get this done.
The district has hog farmers. It has consumers, obviously. With concentration of the industry, the hog farmers are dispersed and face pricing set by the packing firms.
Then, Smithfield already settled. That suggests the litigation has merit. Hormel is stonewalling. It's the big player among the four defendants, by a substantial margin.
So, do voters in MN1 not do any homework, and vote for the big monied candidate, or do they reflect on somebody willing to call out a wrong, and say that ethics is the big DC problem and that a dedication to ethics reform is the better MN1 choice?
We wait. We see.
But this is not a gentle battle. It is one DFL person calling out another as the lesser choice for the open seat. And giving a logical reason for doing so. It is an act that should be heard.
Like it or not, Painter's press release should be covered by Minnesota's mainstream outlets.
Will it?
We wait. We see. Mainstream media, MinnPost in particular owes Painter due attention, less it discredit itself by apparent favoritism.
_________UPDATE________
In fairness to Walker Orenstein who wrote the MinnPost item, he mentions, (quite briefly), Painter, per this excerpt taken from very late in the lengthy MinnPost item:
Another outspoken Ettinger foe is Richard Painter of Mendota Heights, a law professor at the University of Minnesota who was the top ethics advisor for the George W. Bush White House. Painter, who is running in the 1st District primary, didn’t criticize Ettinger for supporting Republicans given his own GOP background. But he said Republicans are good at portraying candidates as a reflection of the “average Joe,” and he said a former corporate CEO will be a bad candidate.
“I don’t think that’s really the definition of a moderate, is a multimillionaire,” Painter said. “That’s not exactly what the average voter is looking for in the Democratic party.”
There are other wealthy business people successful in the DFL like U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips and former Gov. Mark Dayton. But Painter — who is also also running on a more liberal platform that includes tuition-free or low cost college — said he wants to see Democrats move away from the trend.
Republicans are also hammering Democrats on rising inflation. And as Biden blames oil companies and meat producers, Painter said running someone who led Hormel will draw heavy criticism from the GOP. Hormel is also currently a defendant in a lawsuit that alleges several large meat companies were part of a price-fixing scheme. Smithfield Foods and JBS have both settled in the case, in which Ettinger is referenced, though not as a defendant. Ettinger, a former antitrust attorney, forcefully rejected allegations of price fixing.
Ettinger in turn criticized Painter for not living in the 1st Congressional District. Painter plans to move to Faribault permanently if he wins. It’s legal to live outside boundary lines, but Ettinger said “I don’t think you can just move here for an election and kind of parachute in and say ‘I’m here to save you.’ ”
Other candidates in the DFL primary have very different backgrounds than Ettinger. Candice Deal-Bartell is the founder of a child care business, and Sarah Brakebill-Hacke was homeless and spent time in foster care before graduating from Yale and attending Cambridge. She is focusing on increasing access to basic needs.
Ettinger’s response
Ettinger wouldn’t estimate his net worth, though the Star Tribune listed his total compensation in 2016 as nearly $36 million. That was the second highest in Minnesota at the time, but it was also significantly more than his $5.7 million in 2015.
Ettinger doesn’t have a salary at the Hormel Foundation and he volunteers to teach business at the University of Minnesota. He also serves on an economic expansion council created by Walz. Ettinger does have some deferred income from Hormel and makes money on the boards of Ecolab and The Toro Company, positions Ettinger would give up if elected.
His house in Austin is not ostentatious. The five bedroom home was built more than 80 years ago and Zillow estimates it’s worth about $460,000. Ettinger said he and his wife own “some other homes,” they bought when their kids were in school in different places, but they’re deciding if they still want them. And he claims to not live a jet-setting lifestyle, spending at least 85 percent of his time in Austin.
When asked if he would support a wealth tax like President Joe Biden’s proposal to charge billionaires, Ettinger said government should focus on closing loopholes that allow some wealthy people and corporations to pay minimal amounts of tax.
Ettinger also said he is more than just a former executive. He lived in Austin long before he held Hormel’s top job and has been active in the community since, through the foundation and otherwise. “Hopefully they view my time as CEO positively,” Ettinger said of voters and Austin residents. “I think most would view me as I’m more than just a CEO; ‘Jeff from town’ I guess.”
At Hormel, Ettinger said he aimed to have a “respectful, constructive” relationship with the union and was able to reach “mutually agreeable contracts.” Ettinger and the company have a profit-sharing program for workers that was enhanced under his tenure to include a stock option for employees. And he said the company’s board was one of the most diverse at an earlier time than a lot of other big businesses.
Rena Wong, organizing director for UFCW Local 663, which represents Hormel workers, said Ettinger is a “decent guy,” who was “always responsive to workers” and the union. She said Ettinger and his wife are active in the community and support good causes that workers benefit from. Wong said the union is still consulting members on potential endorsements.
Both Painter and Ettinger have Republican ties; which I dislike, but which might not hurt either in MN1. Orenstein in writing may have regarded Ettinger as front-runner, and hence prime for an overriding item focus.
It is early in things, however, and aside from Ettinger, no other declared DFL candidate is worth a corporate fortune in the millions of dollars.
Send another millionaire to the House? What's that getting the average citizen seeing meat prices skyrocket? Zippo is the guess here at Crabgrass.
And, yes, the opinion here is Painter is the better candidate than Ettinger. In fairness that must be admitted. But, a packing plant boss when supermarket prices are subject to record inflation? What is wisdom, and what is less? Who is more likely to sympathize with citizen unrest over raising prices?
Ethics does matter. And when asked about a wealth tax, Ettinger does the old glide and slide - close the loopholes is a mantra of glide and slide politics.
We wait We see.
_________FURTHER UPDATE_________
Orenstein's April 27, MinnPost item title:
‘Jeff from town’: How a former Hormel CEO came to be a Democratic candidate for a U.S. House seat in southern Minnesota
Of interest, perhaps not, "Jeff from town" - does he have an Old Kentucky Home? He surely has a Kentucky flak of one kind or another; his FEC report says exactly that:
1. Ettinger for Congress
PO Box 741
Austin, MN 55912
Email: chris@pattonprocessing.com
2. Date: 03/10/2022
3. FEC Committee ID #: C00808329 This committee is a Principal Campaign Committee. Candidate: Jeffrey M. Ettinger
Party: Democratic-Farm-Labor
Office Sought: House of Representatives
State is Minnesota in District: 01
Affiliated Committees/Organizations
NONE
, ____
Custodian of Records:
Chris Patton
PO Box 9
Lexington, KY 40588
Title: Traeasurer
Phone # (859) 533-4182
Treasurer:
Chris Patton
PO Box 9
Lexington, Kentucky 40588
Title: Traeasurer
Phone # (859) 533-4182
A link. Whether this is just a pro-forma data filing person, or more, is unclear.
But Jeff from Town has the millions to pick and choose help, and goes Kentucky.
Who knows? Ettinger gives the FEC Patton's email, not his own. And the misspelling of Treasurer bespeaks a level of care a multimillionaire might be expected to question.
We wait. We see.
FURTHER: A frontrunner's Facebook? Just Jeff from Town? Never mind net worth?
The MinnPost item asserted: "Yet his campaign has gained early traction. He has won the significant endorsements made so far in the crowded primary race against more liberal candidates, and has raised by a wide margin the most money of any Democrat." Money? Okay, but endorsements? those videos on Facebook? Or touted here? If he has "the significant endorsements made so far," name one.
Aside from MinnPost's leaning that way, name another.
Not that Painter has a host of endorsements known to me, but in fairness, each candidate should be judged on merit. And Painter is correct in pointing out Hormel trade practices that are questionable.
Hormel is the firm Ettinger is running on. Packing meat. Enacting law. Somehow lost in that equation, Painter is a seasoned person familiar with Washington DC, and with ethics, however the Venn diagrams are with or without overlap.
That gets lost in the media anointment and cheerleading, e.g., here, here and here, as well as MinnPost. Money alone is not enough, but it seems to create a threshold of a sort. Money and media are not strangers.
Home town Jeff is thin gruel. As is all the important endorsements. (Who dat?)
Painter is better educated, but with less money. The view here is not being a multimillionaire is a virtue, not a fault. Cutting in Painter's favor.
_________FURTHER UPDATE________
A DFL candidate forum was held. From it:
Health care
Reflecting the lines drawn in the 2020 Democratic Primaries, candidates offered competing visions of a public option versus single payer health care program.
Brakebill-Hacke and Painter both endorsed the Medicare For All single payer health care plan. Brakebill-Hacke additionally said prescription drug prices should not exceed $100 a month.Ettinger, on the other hand, endorsed a public option with expanded exchanges for smaller businesses and farmers. To reduce health care prices, Ettinger supported allowing the federal government to negotiate drug prices, capping the price of insulin and requiring health care providers to be transparent about the cost of medical care before patients buy-in. Expanding coverage for mental heath services was also a priority.
Deal-Bartell proposed expanding Medicare and Medicaid to cover all medical needs under one plan, including mental health and rehabilitative services system and long-term care. This plan would also cap prescription drug prices and lower the qualifying age to access Medicare. She envisioned a marketplace with public and private options.
It seems Ettinger was out of step with the others.
Brakebill-Hacke seems to also be a promising progressive candidate. Whether that favors her in MN1 is yet to be seen.
Better than the dead man former incumbent, all of them, as well as better than any newbies wanting the job from the dead man's sorry Trumpian party; the party of killing Roe v Wade and the party of ceasless whining over Biden clearly winning the last presidential election.
The DFL forum report excerpt above is not the full story. Readers should read the item. It seems fair to all candidates. Unlike other reporting already cited.
FURTHER: Perhaps a link that should have been noted earlier, the Painter campaign homepage:
https://painterforcongress.org/
From that homepage, among other policy statements and commentary items:
One of my opponents for the Democratic nomination for Congress is the former CEO of meatpacking conglomerate of Hormel, Jeff Ettinger. Under his watch, Hormel has been accused of price fixing. According to financial disclosures, his 40 million dollars worth of Hormel stock increased in value to over 50 million dollars this spring as Hormel profits soared and you are getting gouged at the meat counter. So, I ask the voters of Minnesota’s First Congressional District, who is going to work for you to bring down food prices and end price gouging at the grocery store, a guy who made millions by paying farmers and workers less while charging you more; or me, someone who has been fighting for fairness, honesty, and ethics?
There in a single fairly tight paragraph, Painter poses a key question. Check the page. There is more on other policy issues.