theintercept--2020-05-06--Giant Hospital Corporation Takes Advantage of Coronavirus to Fight Nurses’ Union Drive

corporation in America , HCA Healthcare , is using the coronavirus pandemic to delay and undermine a union election for 1,600 nurses in North Carolina .
After nurses filed in March to hold an election , HCA Healthcare petitioned the National Labor Relations Board , or the NLRB , to delay the vote because of the pandemic .
In the meantime , it hired professional union busters costing $ 400 an hour to conduct meetings inside Mission Hospital in Asheville , urging nurses to oppose joining a union .
And while the corporation stands to rake in $ 4.7 billion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of coronavirus cases in North Carolina is steadily growing , and nurses say they had to fight for basic personal protective equipment , or PPE .
“ Instead of HCA using those resources and money and effort to prepare for Covid-19 and have proper PPE , they chose to put it into union busting instead , ” said Sarah Kuhl , a registered nurse with Mission ’ s oncology research department .
“ I feel like that put us significantly behind to being adequately prepared for Covid-19 , ” Kuhl said .
HCA @ @ @ @ @ @ @ States and the United Kingdom .
HCA CEO Sam Hazen makes $ 27 million annually — 478 times the median HCA employee , and the company paid out over $ 600 million in dividends to shareholders last year .
Of HCA ’ s $ 51.3 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2019 , over $ 21 billion of that came from the government in payments from Medicare and Medicaid .
In 2000 , the corporation pleaded guilty in the case of the largest Medicare fraud in U.S. history and paid $ 1.7 billion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Scott , R-Fla. , was CEO at the time .
In February 2019 , HCA turned its sights to North Carolina .
The for-profit , multinational conglomerate purchased the nonprofit Mission Hospital for $ 1.5 billion .
Since being absorbed into HCA , Mission has been plagued by widespread complaints over cuts in staff , poor communication , and lack of access to basic supplies and PPE .
The nurses filed for an election in March , with 70 percent of them signing union authorization cards , to join National Nurses United — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nurses at 19 HCA facilities across the country .
Only 37 out of HCA ’ s 184 hospitals have a union presence .
The majority of HCA facilities are located in states with low union density like Florida and Tennessee , where the corporation is headquartered .
In North Carolina , just 2.3 percent of the workers are union members .
“ Our campaign is an enormous thing for North Carolina and the South , ” said emergency room nurse Trish Stevenson .
“ This would set an enormous precedent for change , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Health care is in dire need of a shift away from profit-driven corporations.
” HCA ’ s attorneys are now arguing before the NLRB that the vote should be further delayed , claiming in filings submitted to the NLRB that “ [ HCA ] submits the election should not be scheduled prior to or during the time it and its healthcare professionals , including Registered Nurses , are dealing with the surge of Covid-19 patients and caring for those patients.
” But the megafirm has still found the time and money to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hospital , demanding nurses leave their shifts to meet one-on-one with consultants from the Crossroads Group .
HCA declined a request for comment from The Intercept .
nurse Jill Rabideau was pulled away from her patients on the pulmonary step-down unit to join a group of other health care workers for a “ Labor Relations ” session led by a union-busting consultant .
“ It was an hour and 15 minutes of listening to an angry little man in a room that probably had 15 other nurses that were pulled off their units @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was very frustrating to me , but particularly when everybody had all these Covid questions.
” Kuhl attended a meeting with anti-union consultants on March 13 .
“ If you are coming in there without a whole lot of knowledge about unions and you don ’ t do any more research , then it can be misleading , ” said Kuhl .
“ A lot of things we heard is that you won ’ t be able to talk to your manager anymore , ” Kuhl said .
“ We heard you won @ @ @ @ @ @ @ contract is signed , which is not true.
” Department of Labor disclosures show consultants from the Crossroads Group were hired at $ 400 an hour .
The Crossroads Group is active in the union-busting space , routinely appearing in Department of Labor filings .
In 2003 , the NLRB found that firm ’ s founder Michael Penn had violated federal labor law when he threatened employees would lose their benefits at Jensen Enterprises if they voted in a union , and again in 2010 when he threatened to sue a pro-union employee @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Crossroads Group did not respond to a request for comment .
On March 24 , Stevenson was working in the emergency room when she was asked to cover for another nurse so her colleague could attend a one-on-one meeting with a consultant .
Facing an upsurge in Covid-19 patients , Stevenson recalled , “ We couldn ’ t afford to let staff go to attend the meeting , but they were demanding it.
” “ They were just demanding that we cover nurses on their assignment , even though it ’ s inappropriate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to let staff go at that time.
” Nurses throughout the hospital were already reeling from staff cuts , an exodus of experienced RNs , and rising nurse-to-patient ratios in the wake of HCA ’ s takeover of Mission — problems that are all exacerbated by the pandemic .
“ We ’ re already in a state of red and then we ’ re being faced with a pandemic that is just further going to compromise us , ” Stevenson said .
“ My worry is we just won ’ t be able @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” its affiliated physician groups ample legal and accounting support in applying for the CARES Act ’ s Paycheck Protection Program loans , HCA documents show .
The CARES Act explicitly requires that recipients of PPP loans stay neutral in union organizing campaigns .
Former NLRB Chair Wilma Liebman told The Intercept that the arrangement raises concerns .
The situation “ demonstrates the tensions and hypocrisy of a hospital chain taking advantage of the provisions of the law but at the same time — exploiting the law to take advantage of the nurses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ neutrality language is very important so that companies or lawyers that are benefiting from these loans aren ’ t using them to fight unionization , ” said Liebman .
HCA has disclosed that it will accrue over $ 4.7 billion in benefits from the CARES Act , from direct payments to hospitals , accelerated Medicare payments , payroll tax deferrals , and other benefits .
On an April 21 earnings call , HCA CEO Sam Hazen told Wall Street analysts “ Fortunately , I see HCA Healthcare as uniquely positioned to help define @ @ @ @ @ @ @ opportunities.
” John Logan , a labor historian at San Francisco State University , noted the irony of HCA ’ s actions during the Covid-19 pandemic .
“ [ Nurses ] really are organizing to have a voice over life and death issues , ” said Logan .
Speaking generally of anti-union campaigns in the health care space , Logan said , “ Hospital administrators still think that it ’ s appropriate to bring in outside consulting firms that cost millions of dollars.
” Hospital anti-union campaigns can cost well over $ 1 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Policy Institute found last year .
“ I think in some ways there ’ s been an intensification of anti-union campaigns because employers believe they can get away with things right now that they wouldn ’ t in normal circumstances ” Logan said .
megacorporation newly in charge of their hospital , nurses had witnessed working conditions and patient care standards deteriorate rapidly .
When the pandemic hit , union nurses acted quickly , demanding safe policies for PPE and transparency about the hospital ’ s plan for Covid-19 response .
“ Some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ‘ Why are [ nurses ] trying to organize a union during this pandemic ?
’ ” said Kuhl .
“ Organizing a union during this pandemic is more important than it was before Covid-19 existed .
If we don ’ t get the things that we need to care for the patients who will be affected by Covid-19 , either directly or indirectly , the outcome is going to be bad.
” “ That ’ s why even though we don ’ t have a union yet , we did the PPE @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It was vital .
Time was of the essence that we do that to ensure safety for our patients during this pandemic.
” Before the nurses submitted a petition for PPE on April 2 during the pandemic , said 35-year nurse Kelly Tyler , management “ came through one day and gathered up all the masks , even if you were wearing a mask , they asked you to take it off .
You had to go through the house supervisor to get a mask for patient care.
” After the petition was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ made masks mandatory in patient care areas , ” a victory for union nurses .
“ Maybe it ’ s not out of the goodness of HCA ’ s heart that they are doing this , maybe it is from the union and our demands , ” Tyler said .
“ There was zero transparency about how much PPE we had , ” said Kuhl .
“ We weren ’ t getting information about how many Covid patients we had .
None of that was information that we were privy to until we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
That was a direct result of the union.
” Despite the delayed vote , Rabideau is confident of victory when the election is finally held .
In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic and its uncertain aftermath , Mission nurses say that the cost of losing would be too high .
“ [ Nurses should ] not always be the ones giving up to make corporations thrive because the price is not acceptable , ” Rabideau said .
“ The actual cost is at the expense of our patients .
… Nurses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can say that unequivocally .
We didn ’ t become nurses to make a shareholder wealthy .
”

The largest hospital corporation in America, HCA Healthcare, is using the coronavirus pandemic to delay and undermine a union election for 1,600 nurses in North Carolina.
After nurses filed in March to hold an election, HCA Healthcare petitioned the National Labor Relations Board, or the NLRB, to delay the vote because of the pandemic. In the meantime, it hired professional union busters costing $400 an hour to conduct meetings inside Mission Hospital in Asheville, urging nurses to oppose joining a union.
And while the corporation stands to rake in $4.7 billion in CARES Act benefits, the number of coronavirus cases in North Carolina is steadily growing, and nurses say they had to fight for basic personal protective equipment, or PPE.
“Instead of HCA using those resources and money and effort to prepare for Covid-19 and have proper PPE, they chose to put it into union busting instead,” said Sarah Kuhl, a registered nurse with Mission’s oncology research department.
“I feel like that put us significantly behind to being adequately prepared for Covid-19,” Kuhl said.
HCA Healthcare has 184 facilities in the United States and the United Kingdom. HCA CEO Sam Hazen makes $27 million annually — 478 times the median HCA employee, and the company paid out over $600 million in dividends to shareholders last year. Of HCA’s $51.3 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2019, over $21 billion of that came from the government in payments from Medicare and Medicaid. In 2000, the corporation pleaded guilty in the case of the largest Medicare fraud in U.S. history and paid $1.7 billion in fines. U.S. Senator Rick Scott, R-Fla., was CEO at the time.
In February 2019, HCA turned its sights to North Carolina. The for-profit, multinational conglomerate purchased the nonprofit Mission Hospital for $1.5 billion. Since being absorbed into HCA, Mission has been plagued by widespread complaints over cuts in staff, poor communication, and lack of access to basic supplies and PPE. The nurses filed for an election in March, with 70 percent of them signing union authorization cards, to join National Nurses United — which has 150,000 members and currently represents nurses at 19 HCA facilities across the country.
Since being absorbed into HCA, Mission has been plagued by complaints over cuts in staff and lack of access to basic supplies and PPE.
Only 37 out of HCA’s 184 hospitals have a union presence. The majority of HCA facilities are located in states with low union density like Florida and Tennessee, where the corporation is headquartered. In North Carolina, just 2.3 percent of the workers are union members.
“Our campaign is an enormous thing for North Carolina and the South,” said emergency room nurse Trish Stevenson. “This would set an enormous precedent for change, and it could happen nationwide for nurses. Health care is in dire need of a shift away from profit-driven corporations.”
HCA’s attorneys are now arguing before the NLRB that the vote should be further delayed, claiming in filings submitted to the NLRB that “[HCA] submits the election should not be scheduled prior to or during the time it and its healthcare professionals, including Registered Nurses, are dealing with the surge of Covid-19 patients and caring for those patients.”
But the megafirm has still found the time and money to wage an aggressive anti-union campaign inside the hospital, demanding nurses leave their shifts to meet one-on-one with consultants from the Crossroads Group. HCA declined a request for comment from The Intercept.
On March 15, nurse Jill Rabideau was pulled away from her patients on the pulmonary step-down unit to join a group of other health care workers for a “Labor Relations” session led by a union-busting consultant.
“It was an hour and 15 minutes of listening to an angry little man in a room that probably had 15 other nurses that were pulled off their units,” Rabideau said. “That was very frustrating to me, but particularly when everybody had all these Covid questions.”
Kuhl attended a meeting with anti-union consultants on March 13. “If you are coming in there without a whole lot of knowledge about unions and you don’t do any more research, then it can be misleading,” said Kuhl. “A lot of things we heard is that you won’t be able to talk to your manager anymore,” Kuhl said. “We heard you won’t get wage increases until the contract is signed, which is not true.”
“We couldn’t afford to let staff go to attend the meeting, but they were demanding it.”
Department of Labor disclosures show consultants from the Crossroads Group were hired at $400 an hour. The Crossroads Group is active in the union-busting space, routinely appearing in Department of Labor filings. In 2003, the NLRB found that firm’s founder Michael Penn had violated federal labor law when he threatened employees would lose their benefits at Jensen Enterprises if they voted in a union, and again in 2010 when he threatened to sue a pro-union employee at DHL for “defamation.” The Crossroads Group did not respond to a request for comment.
On March 24, Stevenson was working in the emergency room when she was asked to cover for another nurse so her colleague could attend a one-on-one meeting with a consultant.
Facing an upsurge in Covid-19 patients, Stevenson recalled, “We couldn’t afford to let staff go to attend the meeting, but they were demanding it.”
“They were just demanding that we cover nurses on their assignment, even though it’s inappropriate because we just couldn’t afford to let staff go at that time.”
Nurses throughout the hospital were already reeling from staff cuts, an exodus of experienced RNs, and rising nurse-to-patient ratios in the wake of HCA’s takeover of Mission — problems that are all exacerbated by the pandemic.
“We’re already in a state of red and then we’re being faced with a pandemic that is just further going to compromise us,” Stevenson said. “My worry is we just won’t be able to respond at all to the pandemic.”
HCA also gives its affiliated physician groups ample legal and accounting support in applying for the CARES Act’s Paycheck Protection Program loans, HCA documents show. The CARES Act explicitly requires that recipients of PPP loans stay neutral in union organizing campaigns.
Former NLRB Chair Wilma Liebman told The Intercept that the arrangement raises concerns.
The situation “demonstrates the tensions and hypocrisy of a hospital chain taking advantage of the provisions of the law but at the same time — exploiting the law to take advantage of the nurses,” said Liebman.
“The neutrality language is very important so that companies or lawyers that are benefiting from these loans aren’t using them to fight unionization,” said Liebman.
Read Our Complete Coverage The Coronavirus Crisis
HCA has disclosed that it will accrue over $4.7 billion in benefits from the CARES Act, from direct payments to hospitals, accelerated Medicare payments, payroll tax deferrals, and other benefits. On an April 21 earnings call, HCA CEO Sam Hazen told Wall Street analysts “Fortunately, I see HCA Healthcare as uniquely positioned to help define the new normal and capitalize on new opportunities.”
John Logan, a labor historian at San Francisco State University, noted the irony of HCA’s actions during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“[Nurses] really are organizing to have a voice over life and death issues,” said Logan. Speaking generally of anti-union campaigns in the health care space, Logan said, “Hospital administrators still think that it’s appropriate to bring in outside consulting firms that cost millions of dollars.” Hospital anti-union campaigns can cost well over $1 million, a report from the Economic Policy Institute found last year.
“I think in some ways there’s been an intensification of anti-union campaigns because employers believe they can get away with things right now that they wouldn’t in normal circumstances” Logan said.
With a for-profit megacorporation newly in charge of their hospital, nurses had witnessed working conditions and patient care standards deteriorate rapidly. When the pandemic hit, union nurses acted quickly, demanding safe policies for PPE and transparency about the hospital’s plan for Covid-19 response.
“Some members of the community are thinking, ‘Why are [nurses] trying to organize a union during this pandemic?’” said Kuhl. “Organizing a union during this pandemic is more important than it was before Covid-19 existed. If we don’t get the things that we need to care for the patients who will be affected by Covid-19, either directly or indirectly, the outcome is going to be bad.”
“That’s why even though we don’t have a union yet, we did the PPE petition,” said Kuhl. “It was vital. Time was of the essence that we do that to ensure safety for our patients during this pandemic.”
Before the nurses submitted a petition for PPE on April 2 during the pandemic, said 35-year nurse Kelly Tyler, management “came through one day and gathered up all the masks, even if you were wearing a mask, they asked you to take it off. You had to go through the house supervisor to get a mask for patient care.”
After the petition was delivered, noted Tyler, HCA “made masks mandatory in patient care areas,” a victory for union nurses. “Maybe it’s not out of the goodness of HCA’s heart that they are doing this, maybe it is from the union and our demands,” Tyler said.
Kuhl put it more bluntly.
“There was zero transparency about how much PPE we had,” said Kuhl. “We weren’t getting information about how many Covid patients we had. None of that was information that we were privy to until we used collective action to get that information. That was a direct result of the union.”
Share Your Coronavirus Story Click here to learn about contacting a reporter securely, or email us at coronavirus@theintercept.com
Despite the delayed vote, Rabideau is confident of victory when the election is finally held. In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic and its uncertain aftermath, Mission nurses say that the cost of losing would be too high.
“[Nurses should] not always be the ones giving up to make corporations thrive because the price is not acceptable,” Rabideau said. “The actual cost is at the expense of our patients. … Nurses are not OK with that. I can say that unequivocally. We didn’t become nurses to make a shareholder wealthy.”


theintercept--2020-05-06--Mass Incarceration Poses a Uniquely American Risk in the Coronavirus Pandemic

fundamental flaw in the models that Trump administration officials have used to project the curve of the coronavirus outbreak as it rips across the United States .
Those models were based on other countries ’ experiences with the virus — from China to Italy — and do not account for a uniquely American risk factor : mass incarceration .
There are currently 2.3 million people incarcerated in U.S. jails and prisons .
The U.S. accounts for 4 percent of the world ’ s population and 21 percent of its prisoners .
While incarcerated people have been released in trickles across @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the global epicenter of the pandemic , those releases are hardly making a dent in the density of prisons and jails , and they pale in comparison to the tens of thousands of people freed by other countries with far lower incarceration rates .
So far , at least 295 men and women in the U.S. have died after contracting the virus behind bars — a figure that is climbing by the day and remains “ dramatically underreported , ” according to experts who have been tracking it .
The official number of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ incarcerated people are being tested : In the handful of facilities with higher test rates , most people were found to be positive .
Eight of the 10 largest outbreaks in the country are in prisons and jails .
But mass incarceration is not only causing people to die of Covid-19 behind bars .
As corrections facilities become hot spots , the virus is also rapidly spreading into the surrounding communities .
A new model released in April by the American Civil Liberties Union suggests that when jails are accounted for , estimates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at least 100,000 .
And that ’ s for jails alone — not prisons or immigration detention facilities .
It ’ s not hard to imagine why prisons and jails have quickly become the epicenter of the epicenter .
“ There ’ s no such thing as social distancing in prison , ” a man incarcerated in a New York state maximum security facility wrote to me .
“ How can an incarcerated individual maintain social distancing in a population of over 2,000 ?
” he added .
“ With 240 men to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ With every man dwelling on all sides of one another , constantly ?
” “ This is a time bomb , ” another incarcerated man wrote .
“ The mess halls and lines traveling to and from , among other places , are areas of mass density .
They have cut down the amount of people per table , but we ’ re still less than 2 feet part.
” “ I am sure you can imagine that the jailhouse is in the worst state it has been in anyone ’ s memory @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has spent the last 25 years in prison .
“ In this particular warehouse , it seems like every day we hear of someone in the cell sick , taken to a section of cells for the sick , placed in the medical department ’ s isolation , or taken to an outside hospital.
” The prison had finally started to provide inmates with face coverings , though not real masks , and hand sanitizer , he noted .
Hand sanitizer is usually banned in prisons as contraband , a lawyer said on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has alcohol in it , and I guess they think that people are going to drink it.
” The fact that some prisons are starting to relax the rule is a sign of how dire the situation is getting , and how little officials are actually doing to stop the virus .
The psychological toll , too , is even more staggering behind bars .
“ I haven ’ t been this stressed out since I was on trial , ” a third man wrote to me , before listing all the loved @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sat in prison unable to be with them .
“ It ’ s the fear of calling home and finding out someone else I held close to the heart passed away .
It ’ s the fear of never being able to see someone I love ever again and not being able to pay my proper respects.
” As the virus spread , the spreadsheet quickly grew into a more ambitious project — and the most complete picture we have of how the crisis is impacting jails and prisons across the country .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ advocacy groups , and strangers offering to monitor releases , juvenile detention centers , and requests filed with each facility , among other information .
When state corrections departments began to post regular updates about positive cases and deaths , many in response to mounting public pressure , a group of volunteers started recording the data daily to track the growth of cases over time .
They also scoured news reports and tapped into other resources to provide data that was sometimes more up to date than the official tallies .
“ Everything @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dolovich emphasized .
“ It ’ s in the interest of the prison systems to pretend these people are not dying from Covid.
” Born as a crisis response tool , the project also aims to document the pandemic in the country ’ s prisons and jails before officials have an opportunity to rewrite its history .
“ One of the things that we ’ re predicting is that after the initial emergency has passed , the number of people who died during this period and the number of people who are reported @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be very different , ” Dolovich said .
“ I think jails and prisons are going to pretend that people died from other things.
” As incomplete as the data might be , UCLA ’ s Covid-19 Behind Bars project is breathtaking for the scale of the catastrophe it captures .
It is also an indictment of a criminal justice system that both enables so much death and fails to account for it .
In addition to 295 deaths , the UCLA project has documented at least 21,007 coronavirus cases among incarcerated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 8,754 cases , and 34 deaths , among corrections staff .
No government agency has compiled or made public this collective data .
According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement , 674 detainees have tested positive , out of 1,346 people tested .
So far , at least one detainee has died of the virus , at the Florence staging facility , a transfer center in Arizona .
At least four ICE staff at the Hudson County Jail in New Jersey have died .
And cases were reported , among both staff and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ facilities .
Cases were also confirmed at more than two dozen correctional facilities for youth , according to the UCLA data .
Part of the reason there ’ s no official comprehensive dataset tracking the impact of the coronavirus in the U.S. prison system is because there is no unified system , but rather a tangle of federal , state , and local jurisdictions .
“ It ’ s always been a decentralized fight , state by state , county by county , ” said Dolovich .
That presents both a massive challenge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Because there is no centralized body overseeing Covid-19 responses in prisons and jails , advocates have been lobbying hundreds of officials across the country , while armies of lawyers have been working around the clock on behalf of individual clients and entire classes of people .
They have filed motions with dozens of courts arguing for relief that can range from diversion to lower sentences to compassionate release .
“ The level of advocacy effort and involvement is actually astonishing and inspiring right now , ” Dolovich said .
“ There ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ basically slamming their heads against the wall and trying to see if there ’ s any kind of weakness they can take advantage of to help their clients.
” “ We ’ ve had 40 years of a legal system that ’ s been crafted with the effect of making it extremely hard to provide any kind of meaningful constitutional relief for people , ” she added .
“ We respond to any kind of social crisis with incarceration , and what we ’ re seeing now is the fruits of those efforts.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the U.S. criminal justice system — a sprawling , decentralized bureaucracy with thousands of jurisdictions and powerholders — has long served to hide the full cost of mass incarceration .
Comprehensive data on those the U.S. deprives of their freedom is virtually impossible to obtain in a timely fashion , if at all .
The coronavirus crisis has laid bare this systemic failure more than ever .
The country ’ s more than 3,000 jails , in particular , function like fiefdoms .
While state corrections departments oversee prisons , and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ jails operate under the authority of thousands of local officials .
Only a handful of states collect data from their jails .
“ There isn ’ t centralized reporting , responsibility , or accountability , ” said Insha Rahman , director of strategy and new initiatives at the Vera Institute of Justice , which has long sought to fill in the gaps in official data and recently launched a new tracker monitoring Covid-19 responses across the jail system .
“ It ’ s actually literally going county by county to get that information.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ to know what ’ s happening across the entire country , ” echoed Udi Ofer , the director of the ACLU ’ s Justice Division .
“ We don ’ t have one criminal justice system in the United States , we literally have thousands of criminal justice systems .
… It ’ s so decentralized that every jail , every prison is its own universe.
” The ACLU model attempted to account for the “ uniqueness of every jail and community , ” said Lucia Tian , the organization ’ s chief @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was the combination of “ over 1,200 individual models with tailored information from those particular jail systems and counties.
” The model predicted that , with highly effective social distancing in place , accounting for jails would increase U.S. Covid-19 deaths by 98 percent — from a projected 101,000 to 200,000 .
With less effective social distancing , jails could bump up the death toll by 188,000 , for a predicted total of 1,177,000 .
The UCLA project tracks jails too — though only a few jail systems are making coronavirus data readily @ @ @ @ @ @ @ larger cities where scrutiny is highest .
Those jails have been devastated by the virus .
At Rikers Island , in New York City , where three inmates and nine corrections staff have died , the reported infection rate is almost 10 percent .
At Cook County jail in Chicago , where six inmates and two staff have died , almost 900 inmates and staff have tested positive .
In prison , age is a significant risk factor for tens of thousands of people : There are nearly 200,000 incarcerated people over the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has spiked by nearly 300 percent over the last 20 years .
That ’ s indicative not just of how many people the U.S. incarcerates , but also for how long .
About 40 percent of people in prison have at least one chronic health condition such as asthma or diabetes , which makes those individuals particularly susceptible to serious illness with Covid-19 .
But if people in prison tend to be older and sicker , people in jail move in and out at much higher rates , making those incarcerated in jails @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more likely to spread it .
There were 10.7 million jail admissions in 2018 alone — and each admission puts police officers , guards , and other staff , in addition to the incarcerated , at risk of exposure .
“ Social distancing is even worse in jails , because jails are meant to be temporary holding facilities , ” Ofer said .
“ People tend to live in dormitory-style rooms with bunk beds 2 feet apart , if that .
There ’ s absolutely no social distancing in jail , it ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The situation at Rikers and Cook County offers a bleak foreshadowing of mass deaths to come across the jail system , particularly in rural areas where health care access is already a chronic issue and jails often fill in for a lack of services .
A report released in April by Data for Progress warned that rural communities are particularly vulnerable in a pandemic .
In those communities , jails are often filled with people who have substance abuse problems or are too poor to post bail .
Worse , the report warns @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in counties that lack hospital capacity to handle the coronavirus pandemic.
” In Mississippi , Montana , North Dakota , and West Virginia , for instance , more than one-third of people held in jails are in counties with no ICU beds .
“ We know rural America is at least a couple of weeks behind the curve , ” said Rahman .
“ But when it comes , it ’ s going to be devastating .
… It will be worse than Rikers.
” The solution , health experts and prisoners ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , is simple : Prisons and jails should release far more people as quickly as possible .
“ Mass incarceration was a public health crisis before Covid-19 , but the pandemic pushed it past the breaking point , ” said Ofer .
“ We need governors and prosecutors and judges , and we need the president of the United States , to act immediately and dramatically to reduce jail and prison populations to stop the spread of Covid-19 , not only in jails and prisons , but in the broader community.
” But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have echoed across the country , and some states , like Vermont , have taken decisive action , many law enforcement officials have resisted what they called the “ mass release ” of incarcerated people .
In general , jails have reduced their population at a much higher rate , about 25 percent , according to a new analysis by the Prison Policy Initiative .
But prisons , the same analysis found , “ have released almost no one.
” Some officials have suggested that those incarcerated for “ violent ” crimes are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has long crippled efforts at substantial criminal justice reform , even before the current crisis .
“ If we don ’ t tackle the question of people serving time on violent convictions , we can ’ t meaningfully stop the spread of Covid-19 , ” said Rahman .
“ That ’ s just not going to make a meaningful dent.
” Still , U.S. officials are hanging on to mass incarceration even as its devastating impact becomes ever clearer .
In Louisiana , rather than releasing people , officials have started to isolate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Louisiana State Penitentiary , commonly known as Angola , that had been shut down following a long history of human rights abuses .
In New Jersey , officials promised that hundreds of people would be released — but weeks later only a handful had been freed , and 37 people have died in prisons across the state .
And in New York , Gov .
Andrew Cuomo exploited the coronavirus pandemic to roll back weeks-old bail reforms that helped drastically reduce the jail population .
“ It ’ s the Willie Horton factor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decarceration in the United States all the time , ” said Ofer , citing the recent backlash against New York ’ s bail reform .
“ You could have a 97 percent success rate , where people are going home , being with their families .
All you need is one case — which is inevitable — of someone committing a crime again and the backlash begins .
And unfortunately , that ’ s what motivates many politicians.
” Cuomo , who has been hailed as a rare leader for his coronavirus response @ @ @ @ @ @ @ repeatedly resisted addressing the question of mass incarceration in his daily Covid-19 briefings .
“ He has actually done less than other governors , including Republican governors or governors in Republican states , in terms of releasing people , ” said Rahman .
“ Fifty-five people died in a nursing home in Cobble Hill , Brooklyn , ” she added , noting that nursing homes have rightfully been a priority for the governor .
“ There is no reason to believe that won ’ t happen in one of our prisons or one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ last week by Human Rights Watch is just the latest to call on officials across the board to use their full powers to “ avert an imminent catastrophe.
” “ Without urgent action , Covid-19 in jail and prison populations will cause substantial suffering and death .
Authorities need to take immediate action to protect incarcerated individuals and to limit transmission , ” the report reads .
“ Failure to do so will undermine measures already in place outside of jails , including orders to shut down businesses and to ‘ shelter in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spread .
Failure to do so will contribute to overwhelming the capacity to meet medical needs .
Failure to do so will result in avoidable deaths.
” For at least 295 people — and probably far more — it ’ s already too late .
Together , the ACLU and the UCLA Prison Law and Policy Program have compiled data on all known Covid-19 fatalities in prisons and jails into a spreadsheet , “ Death by Incarceration , ” which lists the names of the dead wherever they are known .
Along with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s age , race , date of death , and notes about any requests for early release they might have made before dying .
The spreadsheet also includes a column for “ words of remembrance.
” “ It felt really weird to just write names without memorializing it , so we left the box for anyone who may have known the person who has died and just wanted to share a few thoughts , ” Ofer said .
A few days ago , someone found the database , which is public but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the box next to Susan Farrell ’ s name .
Farrell , a 74-year-old who died at the Women ’ s Huron Valley Correctional Facility in Ohio on April 8 , had served 30 years in prison , always maintaining her innocence in the killing of her abusive husband .
She had last attempted to have her sentence commuted in 2018 , but her request was denied .
“ I loved her laugh , ” wrote the anonymous commenter , who said the two had been best friends at the prison and used @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Guilty or not , Susan is not the sum of her crime and could have served the community so much better had she been allowed to eventually leave the prison .
”

There is a fundamental flaw in the models that Trump administration officials have used to project the curve of the coronavirus outbreak as it rips across the United States. Those models were based on other countries’ experiences with the virus — from China to Italy — and do not account for a uniquely American risk factor: mass incarceration.
There are currently 2.3 million people incarcerated in U.S. jails and prisons. The U.S. accounts for 4 percent of the world’s population and 21 percent of its prisoners. While incarcerated people have been released in trickles across the country as the U.S. has become the global epicenter of the pandemic, those releases are hardly making a dent in the density of prisons and jails, and they pale in comparison to the tens of thousands of people freed by other countries with far lower incarceration rates. So far, at least 295 men and women in the U.S. have died after contracting the virus behind bars — a figure that is climbing by the day and remains “dramatically underreported,” according to experts who have been tracking it. The official number of positive cases reveals little beyond how few incarcerated people are being tested: In the handful of facilities with higher test rates, most people were found to be positive. Eight of the 10 largest outbreaks in the country are in prisons and jails.
But mass incarceration is not only causing people to die of Covid-19 behind bars. As corrections facilities become hot spots, the virus is also rapidly spreading into the surrounding communities. A new model released in April by the American Civil Liberties Union suggests that when jails are accounted for, estimates of the death toll are off by at least 100,000. And that’s for jails alone — not prisons or immigration detention facilities.
It’s not hard to imagine why prisons and jails have quickly become the epicenter of the epicenter.
“There’s no such thing as social distancing in prison,” a man incarcerated in a New York state maximum security facility wrote to me. “How can an incarcerated individual maintain social distancing in a population of over 2,000?” he added. “With 240 men to a block, minus the guards? With every man dwelling on all sides of one another, constantly?”
“This is a time bomb,” another incarcerated man wrote. “The mess halls and lines traveling to and from, among other places, are areas of mass density. They have cut down the amount of people per table, but we’re still less than 2 feet part.”
“I am sure you can imagine that the jailhouse is in the worst state it has been in anyone’s memory,” added the man, who has spent the last 25 years in prison. “In this particular warehouse, it seems like every day we hear of someone in the cell sick, taken to a section of cells for the sick, placed in the medical department’s isolation, or taken to an outside hospital.” The prison had finally started to provide inmates with face coverings, though not real masks, and hand sanitizer, he noted. Hand sanitizer is usually banned in prisons as contraband, a lawyer said on a recent call, “because it has alcohol in it, and I guess they think that people are going to drink it.” The fact that some prisons are starting to relax the rule is a sign of how dire the situation is getting, and how little officials are actually doing to stop the virus.
The psychological toll, too, is even more staggering behind bars. “I haven’t been this stressed out since I was on trial,” a third man wrote to me, before listing all the loved ones who were falling ill as he sat in prison unable to be with them. “It’s the fear of calling home and finding out someone else I held close to the heart passed away. It’s the fear of never being able to see someone I love ever again and not being able to pay my proper respects.”
Inmates gather outside tents at the Federal Correctional Institute Terminal Island in this aerial photograph taken above Los Angeles on May 1, 2020. Photo: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Everything Is an Undercount
For the past two months, Sharon Dolovich and a team of volunteers have been tracking the tsunami sweeping through the country’s prisons and jails. Early on in the U.S. outbreak, when prisons’ first response to the threat was to shut down visits, Dolovich, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, started a spreadsheet to keep track of each facility’s Covid-19 policies. Prisoners’ rights lawyers were scrambling to help their clients. Dolovich made the document public “so people don’t reinvent the wheel,” she told me. “People were writing demand letters and starting to do court filings to go to court and try to get people released. Not everybody had to do it for themselves — I could share.”
Read Our Complete Coverage The Coronavirus Crisis
As the virus spread, the spreadsheet quickly grew into a more ambitious project — and the most complete picture we have of how the crisis is impacting jails and prisons across the country. Dolovich started hearing from former students, advocacy groups, and strangers offering to monitor releases, juvenile detention centers, and requests filed with each facility, among other information. When state corrections departments began to post regular updates about positive cases and deaths, many in response to mounting public pressure, a group of volunteers started recording the data daily to track the growth of cases over time. They also scoured news reports and tapped into other resources to provide data that was sometimes more up to date than the official tallies.
“Everything we are seeing is undercounted,” Dolovich emphasized. “It’s in the interest of the prison systems to pretend these people are not dying from Covid.”
“It’s in the interest of the prison systems to pretend these people are not dying from Covid.”
Born as a crisis response tool, the project also aims to document the pandemic in the country’s prisons and jails before officials have an opportunity to rewrite its history. “One of the things that we’re predicting is that after the initial emergency has passed, the number of people who died during this period and the number of people who are reported to have died from Covid are going to be very different,” Dolovich said. “I think jails and prisons are going to pretend that people died from other things.”
As incomplete as the data might be, UCLA’s Covid-19 Behind Bars project is breathtaking for the scale of the catastrophe it captures. It is also an indictment of a criminal justice system that both enables so much death and fails to account for it. In addition to 295 deaths, the UCLA project has documented at least 21,007 coronavirus cases among incarcerated people, as well as at least 8,754 cases, and 34 deaths, among corrections staff. No government agency has compiled or made public this collective data.
Graphic: Soohee Cho/The Intercept
According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 674 detainees have tested positive, out of 1,346 people tested. So far, at least one detainee has died of the virus, at the Florence staging facility, a transfer center in Arizona. At least four ICE staff at the Hudson County Jail in New Jersey have died. And cases were reported, among both staff and detainees, at more than 40 other facilities. Cases were also confirmed at more than two dozen correctional facilities for youth, according to the UCLA data.
Part of the reason there’s no official comprehensive dataset tracking the impact of the coronavirus in the U.S. prison system is because there is no unified system, but rather a tangle of federal, state, and local jurisdictions. “It’s always been a decentralized fight, state by state, county by county,” said Dolovich.
That presents both a massive challenge and an opportunity, added Dolovich. Because there is no centralized body overseeing Covid-19 responses in prisons and jails, advocates have been lobbying hundreds of officials across the country, while armies of lawyers have been working around the clock on behalf of individual clients and entire classes of people. They have filed motions with dozens of courts arguing for relief that can range from diversion to lower sentences to compassionate release. “The level of advocacy effort and involvement is actually astonishing and inspiring right now,” Dolovich said. “There’s no easy levers. So people are basically slamming their heads against the wall and trying to see if there’s any kind of weakness they can take advantage of to help their clients.”
“We’ve had 40 years of a legal system that’s been crafted with the effect of making it extremely hard to provide any kind of meaningful constitutional relief for people,” she added. “We respond to any kind of social crisis with incarceration, and what we’re seeing now is the fruits of those efforts.”
Each Its Own Universe
The fragmentation of the U.S. criminal justice system — a sprawling, decentralized bureaucracy with thousands of jurisdictions and powerholders — has long served to hide the full cost of mass incarceration. Comprehensive data on those the U.S. deprives of their freedom is virtually impossible to obtain in a timely fashion, if at all. The coronavirus crisis has laid bare this systemic failure more than ever. The country’s more than 3,000 jails, in particular, function like fiefdoms. While state corrections departments oversee prisons, and the Bureau of Prisons runs federal facilities, jails operate under the authority of thousands of local officials. Only a handful of states collect data from their jails.
“We literally have thousands of criminal justice systems.”
“There isn’t centralized reporting, responsibility, or accountability,” said Insha Rahman, director of strategy and new initiatives at the Vera Institute of Justice, which has long sought to fill in the gaps in official data and recently launched a new tracker monitoring Covid-19 responses across the jail system. “It’s actually literally going county by county to get that information.”
“It’s so hard to know what’s happening across the entire country,” echoed Udi Ofer, the director of the ACLU’s Justice Division. “We don’t have one criminal justice system in the United States, we literally have thousands of criminal justice systems. … It’s so decentralized that every jail, every prison is its own universe.”
The ACLU model attempted to account for the “uniqueness of every jail and community,” said Lucia Tian, the organization’s chief analytics officer, adding that their model was the combination of “over 1,200 individual models with tailored information from those particular jail systems and counties.” The model predicted that, with highly effective social distancing in place, accounting for jails would increase U.S. Covid-19 deaths by 98 percent — from a projected 101,000 to 200,000. With less effective social distancing, jails could bump up the death toll by 188,000, for a predicted total of 1,177,000.
Signs pleading for help hang in windows at the Cook County jail complex on April 9, 2020, in Chicago. Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images
The UCLA project tracks jails too — though only a few jail systems are making coronavirus data readily available to the public, mostly in larger cities where scrutiny is highest. Those jails have been devastated by the virus. At Rikers Island, in New York City, where three inmates and nine corrections staff have died, the reported infection rate is almost 10 percent. At Cook County jail in Chicago, where six inmates and two staff have died, almost 900 inmates and staff have tested positive.
In prison, age is a significant risk factor for tens of thousands of people: There are nearly 200,000 incarcerated people over the age of 55, a number that has spiked by nearly 300 percent over the last 20 years. That’s indicative not just of how many people the U.S. incarcerates, but also for how long. About 40 percent of people in prison have at least one chronic health condition such as asthma or diabetes, which makes those individuals particularly susceptible to serious illness with Covid-19.
“We know rural America is at least a couple of weeks behind the curve.”
But if people in prison tend to be older and sicker, people in jail move in and out at much higher rates, making those incarcerated in jails especially vulnerable to catching the virus and more likely to spread it. There were 10.7 million jail admissions in 2018 alone — and each admission puts police officers, guards, and other staff, in addition to the incarcerated, at risk of exposure. “Social distancing is even worse in jails, because jails are meant to be temporary holding facilities,” Ofer said. “People tend to live in dormitory-style rooms with bunk beds 2 feet apart, if that. There’s absolutely no social distancing in jail, it’s kind of a one-two punch.”
The situation at Rikers and Cook County offers a bleak foreshadowing of mass deaths to come across the jail system, particularly in rural areas where health care access is already a chronic issue and jails often fill in for a lack of services. A report released in April by Data for Progress warned that rural communities are particularly vulnerable in a pandemic. In those communities, jails are often filled with people who have substance abuse problems or are too poor to post bail. Worse, the report warns, rural jails “are frequently located in counties that lack hospital capacity to handle the coronavirus pandemic.” In Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, and West Virginia, for instance, more than one-third of people held in jails are in counties with no ICU beds.
“We know rural America is at least a couple of weeks behind the curve,” said Rahman. “But when it comes, it’s going to be devastating. … It will be worse than Rikers.”
Death by Incarceration
The solution, health experts and prisoners’ rights advocates have been saying all along, is simple: Prisons and jails should release far more people as quickly as possible. “Mass incarceration was a public health crisis before Covid-19, but the pandemic pushed it past the breaking point,” said Ofer. “We need governors and prosecutors and judges, and we need the president of the United States, to act immediately and dramatically to reduce jail and prison populations to stop the spread of Covid-19, not only in jails and prisons, but in the broader community.”
But as calls for people to be released have echoed across the country, and some states, like Vermont, have taken decisive action, many law enforcement officials have resisted what they called the “mass release” of incarcerated people. In general, jails have reduced their population at a much higher rate, about 25 percent, according to a new analysis by the Prison Policy Initiative. But prisons, the same analysis found, “have released almost no one.” Some officials have suggested that those incarcerated for “violent” crimes are unworthy of release — a distinction that has long crippled efforts at substantial criminal justice reform, even before the current crisis. “If we don’t tackle the question of people serving time on violent convictions, we can’t meaningfully stop the spread of Covid-19,” said Rahman. “That’s just not going to make a meaningful dent.”
Share Your Coronavirus Story Click here to learn about contacting a reporter securely, or email us at coronavirus@theintercept.com
Still, U.S. officials are hanging on to mass incarceration even as its devastating impact becomes ever clearer. In Louisiana, rather than releasing people, officials have started to isolate the sick in a section of the Louisiana State Penitentiary, commonly known as Angola, that had been shut down following a long history of human rights abuses. In New Jersey, officials promised that hundreds of people would be released — but weeks later only a handful had been freed, and 37 people have died in prisons across the state. And in New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo exploited the coronavirus pandemic to roll back weeks-old bail reforms that helped drastically reduce the jail population.
“It’s the Willie Horton factor, which is what kills reform and decarceration in the United States all the time,” said Ofer, citing the recent backlash against New York’s bail reform. “You could have a 97 percent success rate, where people are going home, being with their families. All you need is one case — which is inevitable — of someone committing a crime again and the backlash begins. And unfortunately, that’s what motivates many politicians.”
A man wearing a mask holds a poster reading “No death camps in NYS” while taking part in a vigil outside Queensboro Correctional Facility on April 23, 2020, in New York City. Photo: Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images
Cuomo, who has been hailed as a rare leader for his coronavirus response — mostly outside New York — has repeatedly resisted addressing the question of mass incarceration in his daily Covid-19 briefings. “He has actually done less than other governors, including Republican governors or governors in Republican states, in terms of releasing people,” said Rahman.
“Fifty-five people died in a nursing home in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn,” she added, noting that nursing homes have rightfully been a priority for the governor. “There is no reason to believe that won’t happen in one of our prisons or one of our jails.”
A report released last week by Human Rights Watch is just the latest to call on officials across the board to use their full powers to “avert an imminent catastrophe.”
“Without urgent action, Covid-19 in jail and prison populations will cause substantial suffering and death. Authorities need to take immediate action to protect incarcerated individuals and to limit transmission,” the report reads. “Failure to do so will undermine measures already in place outside of jails, including orders to shut down businesses and to ‘shelter in place,’ by adding to further spread. Failure to do so will contribute to overwhelming the capacity to meet medical needs. Failure to do so will result in avoidable deaths.”
For at least 295 people — and probably far more — it’s already too late.
Together, the ACLU and the UCLA Prison Law and Policy Program have compiled data on all known Covid-19 fatalities in prisons and jails into a spreadsheet, “Death by Incarceration,” which lists the names of the dead wherever they are known. Along with information about the facility are the person’s age, race, date of death, and notes about any requests for early release they might have made before dying. The spreadsheet also includes a column for “words of remembrance.”
“It felt really weird to just write names without memorializing it, so we left the box for anyone who may have known the person who has died and just wanted to share a few thoughts,” Ofer said. A few days ago, someone found the database, which is public but not widely advertised, and filled in the box next to Susan Farrell’s name. Farrell, a 74-year-old who died at the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility in Ohio on April 8, had served 30 years in prison, always maintaining her innocence in the killing of her abusive husband. She had last attempted to have her sentence commuted in 2018, but her request was denied.
“I loved her laugh,” wrote the anonymous commenter, who said the two had been best friends at the prison and used to play Scrabble together almost every day. “Guilty or not, Susan is not the sum of her crime and could have served the community so much better had she been allowed to eventually leave the prison.”


theintercept--2020-05-05--Speaker Pelosi Supports Push for Taxpayer Bailout of Corporate Lobbyists

soon have its own taxpayer-funded bailout .
Industries as varied as oil refining , construction , fast food restaurants , and chemical manufacturing are seeking federal cash to support their lobbyists in Washington , D.C .
Many of the largest lobbying forces are organized under the 501 ( c ) ( 6 ) section of the tax code as trade groups .
Corporations with similar concerns pool their money together to fund trade groups , which in turn employ thousands of lobbyists to shape elections and legislation on a daily basis .
But the Paycheck Protection Program , the centerpiece @ @ @ @ @ @ @ excluded such trade groups .
That could change in the next round of stimulus legislation , which Congress is scheduled to debate later this month .
Lobbyists have stepped up a campaign to make sure professional influence peddlers are eligible for the PPP , or P3 , funds .
The push also includes a demand for an additional $ 25 billion for canceled events and other lost revenue from the coronavirus pandemic .
Senior Democratic lawmakers , including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi , plan to accommodate the demand and change the eligibility standard @ @ @ @ @ @ @ flow to business advocacy groups .
The American Society of Association Executives , which represents trade group leadership , explained in a letter to lawmakers that trade group lobbyists need federal funding to better advocate for their clients .
“ These organizations are already relied upon to help coordinate federal resources to combat the coronavirus pandemic , and they require staff to fulfill this duty , ” ASAE wrote .
Trade groups , the ASAE letter notes , have faced declining revenue as corporations wind down dues payments and sponsorship fees in response @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was signed by many of the most influential Beltway lobby groups .
The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers Association , one of the trade groups requesting the 501 ( c ) ( 6 ) bailout , pays its top lobbyist , Chet Thompson , $ 1.8 million a year .
The group represents the largest oil refiners in the country , including Exxon Mobil , Koch Industries , and Motiva Enterprises , the U.S. arm of Saudi Arabian oil company Aramco .
Other trade groups that joined the letter include the National Retail @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Walmart and Macy ’ s ; the National Restaurant Association , which represents McDonald ’ s and Darden Restaurants ; and ACA International , the lobby group for debt collectors .
A similar joint letter on the 501 ( c ) ( 6 ) issue to Wisconsin lawmakers , from the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce , a branch of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce , pitched lobby groups as vital conduits of information .
“ During this difficult time , business trade associations are performing an essential role for our state ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The Wisconsin lobbyists argued that they should be eligible for the P3 funds because business trade groups “ transmit information , answer questions , and ensure that our members have the tools they need to comply with the deluge of laws , orders and regulatory changes that are being introduced.
” The Wisconsin letter was signed by local organizations , such as the Wisconsin Dairy Alliance and the Wisconsin Restaurant Association .
It was also signed by the American Chemistry Council , the national chemical industry behemoth that employs 64 registered lobbyists @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for favored lawmakers .
The P3 program , though touted as a small business program , has attracted headlines in recent weeks as large multinational firms , churches , and politically connected interests have won access to the loans , which may be converted to grants if recipients maintain payroll .
“ There are some odd inconsistencies in who is eligible for loans under the Paycheck Protection Program , ” said Craig Holman , a lobbying expert with the watchdog group Public Citizen .
“ The program should be exclusively targeting small enterprises @ @ @ @ @ @ @ such , it is perfectly reasonable to exclude trade associations from eligibility .
Small businesses that are members of these trade associations are already eligible for the loans , even though their lobbying associations 501 ( c ) ( 6 ) s are not , ” Holman noted .
But the campaign to provide 501 ( c ) ( 6 ) lobby groups with bailout money has been sold as a way to save struggling business interests — an argument that appears to be winning over key lawmakers .
Rep. Stephanie Murphy , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ D-Calif. , two leading moderate Democrats , have expressed support for the campaign .
The two lawmakers participated in a conference call last month with industry executives and lobbyists , pledging to try to change the eligibility requirements .
“ Right now , the way it is being implemented , it ’ s not necessarily helping everybody it was intended to , ” said Murphy during the call , which was sponsored by ASAE .
“ The 501 ( c ) ( 6 ) issue is clearly an example of that , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ off a call with my local Chamber , and they are doing everything they can to keep their doors open.
” Rep. Dina Titus , D-Nev. , in a letter in support of the 501 ( c ) ( 6 ) rule change , also argued that P3 money would help local Nevada Chambers of Commerce .
Lobby groups have poured resources into the campaign in recent weeks .
The Associated Builders and Contractors , which represents largely nonunion construction companies , has called on member companies to press lawmakers to support the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Executives , a federation of state business lobbyists backed by Google , Facebook , Comcast , and other large business interests , has highlighted the push for federal aid .
The National Association of Concessionaires , which represents snack food companies such as Coca-Cola and Hersey , is another example .
The group has waged war in recent years to defeat taxes on sugary foods , nutrition labeling requirements , and other rules viewed as onerous to business .
Now the group faces an existential threat not to sugary sweets , but from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of its team of corporate advocates .
The group recently held a call with Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi , D-Ill. , who expressed support for a change to the bailout program to allow money for 501 ( c ) ( 6 ) groups such as the NAC .
Krishnamoorthi , according to an update published by NAC , urged the group to write to Congress as fast as possible .
“ There is no time to wait , ” said Krishnamoorthi , as “ time is of the essence.
” Pelosi , speaking during @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democrats plans to push for a variety of reforms to the P3 program in the next round of emergency coronavirus legislation .
Among the changes , Pelosi said , would be a shift to include 501 ( c ) ( 6 ) trade groups .
The shift , if adopted , represents a dramatic flow of government money to business lobbying groups .
Pelosi also signaled support for P3 money to 501 ( c ) ( 4 ) issue advocacy organizations , which include groups such as the Sierra Club and the National @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she did not include expanding the program for 501 ( c ) ( 5 ) organizations , which represent labor unions , to be eligible for P3 rescue funds , a demand made by some Democratic lawmakers .
Update : May 6 , 2020 This story has been updated to reflect Speaker Pelosi ’ s indication Tuesday evening that she supports a bailout for 501 ( c ) 6s and will include it in the next round of legislation .

K Street may soon have its own taxpayer-funded bailout.
Industries as varied as oil refining, construction, fast food restaurants, and chemical manufacturing are seeking federal cash to support their lobbyists in Washington, D.C.
Many of the largest lobbying forces are organized under the 501(c)(6) section of the tax code as trade groups. Corporations with similar concerns pool their money together to fund trade groups, which in turn employ thousands of lobbyists to shape elections and legislation on a daily basis. But the Paycheck Protection Program, the centerpiece of the small business rescue program, excluded such trade groups. That could change in the next round of stimulus legislation, which Congress is scheduled to debate later this month.
Lobbyists have stepped up a campaign to make sure professional influence peddlers are eligible for the PPP, or P3, funds. The push also includes a demand for an additional $25 billion for canceled events and other lost revenue from the coronavirus pandemic. Senior Democratic lawmakers, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, plan to accommodate the demand and change the eligibility standard so that small business bailout money can flow to business advocacy groups.
The American Society of Association Executives, which represents trade group leadership, explained in a letter to lawmakers that trade group lobbyists need federal funding to better advocate for their clients.
“These organizations are already relied upon to help coordinate federal resources to combat the coronavirus pandemic, and they require staff to fulfill this duty,” ASAE wrote. Trade groups, the ASAE letter notes, have faced declining revenue as corporations wind down dues payments and sponsorship fees in response to the economic downturn.
The letter was signed by many of the most influential Beltway lobby groups. The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers Association, one of the trade groups requesting the 501(c)(6) bailout, pays its top lobbyist, Chet Thompson, $1.8 million a year. The group represents the largest oil refiners in the country, including Exxon Mobil, Koch Industries, and Motiva Enterprises, the U.S. arm of Saudi Arabian oil company Aramco.
Other trade groups that joined the letter include the National Retail Federation, which represents firms such as Walmart and Macy’s; the National Restaurant Association, which represents McDonald’s and Darden Restaurants; and ACA International, the lobby group for debt collectors.
A similar joint letter on the 501(c)(6) issue to Wisconsin lawmakers, from the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, a branch of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, pitched lobby groups as vital conduits of information. “During this difficult time, business trade associations are performing an essential role for our state’s businesses,” the Wisconsin lobbyists wrote.
The Wisconsin lobbyists argued that they should be eligible for the P3 funds because business trade groups “transmit information, answer questions, and ensure that our members have the tools they need to comply with the deluge of laws, orders and regulatory changes that are being introduced.”
The Wisconsin letter was signed by local organizations, such as the Wisconsin Dairy Alliance and the Wisconsin Restaurant Association. It was also signed by the American Chemistry Council, the national chemical industry behemoth that employs 64 registered lobbyists and spends lavishly on campaign-style television advertisements for favored lawmakers.
Read Our Complete Coverage The Coronavirus Crisis
The P3 program, though touted as a small business program, has attracted headlines in recent weeks as large multinational firms, churches, and politically connected interests have won access to the loans, which may be converted to grants if recipients maintain payroll.
“There are some odd inconsistencies in who is eligible for loans under the Paycheck Protection Program,” said Craig Holman, a lobbying expert with the watchdog group Public Citizen.
“The program should be exclusively targeting small enterprises of fewer than 500 employees. As such, it is perfectly reasonable to exclude trade associations from eligibility. Small businesses that are members of these trade associations are already eligible for the loans, even though their lobbying associations 501(c)(6)s are not,” Holman noted.
But the campaign to provide 501(c)(6) lobby groups with bailout money has been sold as a way to save struggling business interests — an argument that appears to be winning over key lawmakers.
Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., and Rep. Ami Bera, D-Calif., two leading moderate Democrats, have expressed support for the campaign. The two lawmakers participated in a conference call last month with industry executives and lobbyists, pledging to try to change the eligibility requirements.
“Right now, the way it is being implemented, it’s not necessarily helping everybody it was intended to,” said Murphy during the call, which was sponsored by ASAE.
“The 501(c)(6) issue is clearly an example of that,” added Murphy. “I just got off a call with my local Chamber, and they are doing everything they can to keep their doors open.”
Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., in a letter in support of the 501(c)(6) rule change, also argued that P3 money would help local Nevada Chambers of Commerce.
Share Your Coronavirus Story Click here to learn about contacting a reporter securely, or email us at coronavirus@theintercept.com
Lobby groups have poured resources into the campaign in recent weeks.
The Associated Builders and Contractors, which represents largely nonunion construction companies, has called on member companies to press lawmakers to support the change. Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives, a federation of state business lobbyists backed by Google, Facebook, Comcast, and other large business interests, has highlighted the push for federal aid.
The National Association of Concessionaires, which represents snack food companies such as Coca-Cola and Hersey, is another example. The group has waged war in recent years to defeat taxes on sugary foods, nutrition labeling requirements, and other rules viewed as onerous to business.
Now the group faces an existential threat not to sugary sweets, but from declining revenue that could risk the employment of its team of corporate advocates. The group recently held a call with Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., who expressed support for a change to the bailout program to allow money for 501(c)(6) groups such as the NAC.
Krishnamoorthi, according to an update published by NAC, urged the group to write to Congress as fast as possible. “There is no time to wait,” said Krishnamoorthi, as “time is of the essence.”
Pelosi, speaking during a webinar on Tuesday evening, discussed Democrats plans to push for a variety of reforms to the P3 program in the next round of emergency coronavirus legislation. Among the changes, Pelosi said, would be a shift to include 501(c)(6) trade groups. The shift, if adopted, represents a dramatic flow of government money to business lobbying groups.
Pelosi also signaled support for P3 money to 501(c)(4) issue advocacy organizations, which include groups such as the Sierra Club and the National Rifle Association. In her remarks, she did not include expanding the program for 501(c)(5) organizations, which represent labor unions, to be eligible for P3 rescue funds, a demand made by some Democratic lawmakers.
Update: May 6, 2020
This story has been updated to reflect Speaker Pelosi’s indication Tuesday evening that she supports a bailout for 501(c)6s and will include it in the next round of legislation.


theintercept--2020-05-07--America's Crowded Prisons Are About to Create a Coronavirus Crisis in Rural America

several decades , rural America ’ s economic lifeline has been the construction and operation of prisons and immigrant detention centers , both public and for-profit .
The 1980s saw the collapse of American manufacturing and a farm crisis that ripped through the countryside .
Mass incarceration was well-timed to fill the gap , producing jobs where they were needed .
But those lifelines have transformed into vectors for coronavirus , putting rural communities at risk of outbreaks .
For many Americans , the plight of prisoners produces little sympathy .
But in a twist on JFK — “ Freedom @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is enslaved , all are not free ” — those outside the prison walls are not immune from what goes on inside them .
Those jobs that made the campuses so attractive to local communities are staffed by people who go in and out each day — and what they bring with them could make all the difference in communities where hospitals were already shutting down , a trend exacerbated by Covid-19 .
It ’ s next to impossible to social distance in jails and prisons .
“ Correctional facilities are overcrowded , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a UCLA School of Law professor who focuses on jail conditions .
“ It ’ s important to remember that when we say overcrowded , we mean dozens of people sleeping inches within each other ’ s faces .
They ’ re using the same toilets .
Most don ’ t have access to liquid hand soap .
In short , they are ideal sites for incubating respiratory viruses.
” Guards and other jail staff have to share tight spaces and physically handle the prisoners — and then they go home at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there are not many other career choices beyond working in a jail or prison .
The average national salary for a prison correctional officer is $ 47,013 .
In an essay titled “ Building a Prison Economy in Rural America , ” public policy researcher Tracy Huling points out that there are more prisoners than farmers in some swaths of the United States .
She notes that in the 1990s , a new prison or jail sprung up in a rural area at a rate equivalent to every 15 days .
So it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been outbreaks in areas that don ’ t otherwise have risk factors , such as crowded public transportation in densely populated urban centers .
Marion County , Ohio , has 2,332 confirmed cases , in a population of 66,501 .
The Marion County prison is currently the top cluster site in the country by far , according to a New York Times analysis .
“ When I read about institutions like in Ohio that are able to test a lot of people , of the positive , most are asymptomatic , ” Cheshire @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ My god , how do you possibly protect other inmates and staff ?
” Last week , PBS reported that of federal prisoners who had been tested , 70 percent were found to have the coronavirus .
A breakdown of New York Times data tracking Covid-19 cluster sites on April 26 revealed that out of 100 top cluster sites , 35 were tied to correctional facilities .
In comparison , 28 percent of infections were linked to nursing homes .
Those numbers are astounding when you consider that nursing home residents @ @ @ @ @ @ @ infection because of their age , while incarcerated people and prison staff vary in age .
Seven of the top 10 cluster sites are linked to American prisons or jails .
As the Marshall Project reported , so-called prison towns like Palestine , Texas , where correctional facilities are a community ’ s primary employer , have already seen an explosion of cases .
An ACLU report released last week estimates that 100,000 more people will die because of America ’ s crowded jails .
“ The United States ’ unique obsession with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it comes to combating the spread of COVID-19 , ” the ACLU concluded .
New York Gov .
Andrew Cuomo hail the heroism of America ’ s “ essential workers ” — be they doctors , police officers , EMTs , grocery workers , or bus drivers— prison and jail staff go unmentioned .
It ’ s a strange lapse , but perhaps an unsurprising one , given that the solution — large scale decarceration — remains politically difficult .
Citing concerns about Covid-19 spread , U.S. Attorney General William Barr issued a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people who are at risk and who have no history of violence after a 14-day quarantine on March 26 .
But even carrying out that limited mandate has proven difficult due to overcrowding .
In some cases , prisoners being quarantined because they were set for release were in proximity to prisoners who were in quarantine because they were sick .
Governors , too , announced plans to release some prisoners , which prompted President Donald Trump to lash out and threaten to find ways to stop state executives from doing so .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of prison , some people are getting out that are very serious criminals in some states , and I don ’ t like that , I don ’ t like it , ” he said in a press conference .
“ We don ’ t like it , the people don ’ t like it , and we ’ re looking to see if I have the right to stop it in some cases.
” Van Wickler , the Cheshire County jail superintendent , wishes that weren ’ t the case .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ determine who really needs to be in jail .
Who ’ s a danger .
You don ’ t want nonviolent people in jail .
And review who has COPD , asthma , is pregnant , has heart disease , you see what to do to release these people and figure out alternative sanctions like electronic surveillance.
” Infections in meatpacking plants have also received plenty of attention , perhaps due to worries about food supply .
But as of May 4 , there were seven prisons in the Times ’ s top @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plants .
A meatpacking plant is the biggest employer in some rural places , but you ’ d be hard-pressed to find any community , urban or rural , without a jail or a prison .
And prisoners and jail staff are more vulnerable to contracting the disease than meatpacking plant workers .
“ Unlike a meatpacking plant , where in theory , a diligent worker can opt out of coming to work if they ’ re sick , that ’ s not an option for people who are incarcerated , ” Littman @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Once the infection is inside , its spread is unavoidable .
And it ’ s rapid spread.
” “ Another reason jails and prisons are primary sites is that the quality of access to medical care is limited at the best of times and has gotten even worse now that resources are stretched thin .
Staff , including medical staff , getting sick .
Officers escorting people to medical appointments are getting sick , ” Littman said .
Nursing home staff have medical training that can help keep themselves and their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t .
“ We focus too much on viruses going into the prison .
But prison is an incubator , ” said Dr. Peter L. Scharf , a public health expert at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center New Orleans .
“ The guards go in and out .
Social distancing for correctional officers is a non-starter .
They have to directly supervise the inmates .
There ’ s the issue of correctional officers bringing it into prison or bringing it home from the prison and possibly infecting their families @ @ @ @ @ @ @ incarcerated people The Intercept spoke with are terrified .
They watched guards come in with masks before they themselves were issued the protective gear .
They were given conflicting information about the Barr memo , including the falsehood that they were safer in prison .
And they have major concerns about prisons ’ ability to keep them , and members of the community , safe .
“ You have to understand that Coleman Prison Complex is the largest in the nation , ” a woman at a federal prison in Florida wrote to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ women ’ s prison , where there was an outbreak of Legionnaires ’ disease in January .
“ We have nearly 6,000 inmates .
… Coleman sits in [ Sumter ] County , Florida and is next door neighbors with The Villages , a large wealthy retirement community , ” she wrote .
“ Its residents make [ Sumter ] County the county with the ‘ oldest ’ citizens in the State of Florida .
C-19 cases have already begun appearing in The Villages .
We will overwhelm the hospitals within days .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ventilator being needed by an inmate or a retired CEO who is the golfing buddy of the doctor who do you think will get it ?
” Even for the golfing buddy , the odds aren ’ t great .
Roughly 80 percent of people who go on ventilators for coronavirus don ’ t come off alive .

For the past several decades, rural America’s economic lifeline has been the construction and operation of prisons and immigrant detention centers, both public and for-profit. The 1980s saw the collapse of American manufacturing and a farm crisis that ripped through the countryside. Mass incarceration was well-timed to fill the gap, producing jobs where they were needed.
But those lifelines have transformed into vectors for coronavirus, putting rural communities at risk of outbreaks. For many Americans, the plight of prisoners produces little sympathy. But in a twist on JFK — “Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free” — those outside the prison walls are not immune from what goes on inside them. Those jobs that made the campuses so attractive to local communities are staffed by people who go in and out each day — and what they bring with them could make all the difference in communities where hospitals were already shutting down, a trend exacerbated by Covid-19.
Read Our Complete Coverage The Coronavirus Crisis
It’s next to impossible to social distance in jails and prisons. “Correctional facilities are overcrowded, often badly,” explained Aaron Littman, a UCLA School of Law professor who focuses on jail conditions. “It’s important to remember that when we say overcrowded, we mean dozens of people sleeping inches within each other’s faces. They’re using the same toilets. Most don’t have access to liquid hand soap. In short, they are ideal sites for incubating respiratory viruses.”
Guards and other jail staff have to share tight spaces and physically handle the prisoners — and then they go home at night. In some rural areas, there are not many other career choices beyond working in a jail or prison. The average national salary for a prison correctional officer is $47,013.
In an essay titled “Building a Prison Economy in Rural America,” public policy researcher Tracy Huling points out that there are more prisoners than farmers in some swaths of the United States. She notes that in the 1990s, a new prison or jail sprung up in a rural area at a rate equivalent to every 15 days. So it’s not surprising that there have been outbreaks in areas that don’t otherwise have risk factors, such as crowded public transportation in densely populated urban centers. Marion County, Ohio, has 2,332 confirmed cases, in a population of 66,501. The Marion County prison is currently the top cluster site in the country by far, according to a New York Times analysis.
“When I read about institutions like in Ohio that are able to test a lot of people, of the positive, most are asymptomatic,” Cheshire County jail superintendent Richard Van Wickler said. “My god, how do you possibly protect other inmates and staff?”
Last week, PBS reported that of federal prisoners who had been tested, 70 percent were found to have the coronavirus. A breakdown of New York Times data tracking Covid-19 cluster sites on April 26 revealed that out of 100 top cluster sites, 35 were tied to correctional facilities. In comparison, 28 percent of infections were linked to nursing homes. Those numbers are astounding when you consider that nursing home residents are at much higher risk of serious infection because of their age, while incarcerated people and prison staff vary in age. Seven of the top 10 cluster sites are linked to American prisons or jails. As the Marshall Project reported, so-called prison towns like Palestine, Texas, where correctional facilities are a community’s primary employer, have already seen an explosion of cases. An ACLU report released last week estimates that 100,000 more people will die because of America’s crowded jails. “The United States’ unique obsession with incarceration has become our Achilles heel when it comes to combating the spread of COVID-19,” the ACLU concluded.
When politicians like New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo hail the heroism of America’s “essential workers”— be they doctors, police officers, EMTs, grocery workers, or bus drivers— prison and jail staff go unmentioned. It’s a strange lapse, but perhaps an unsurprising one, given that the solution — large scale decarceration — remains politically difficult.
Photo: Alex Kormann/Star Tribune/Getty Images
Citing concerns about Covid-19 spread, U.S. Attorney General William Barr issued a memo instructing federal prisons to release incarcerated people who are at risk and who have no history of violence after a 14-day quarantine on March 26. But even carrying out that limited mandate has proven difficult due to overcrowding. In some cases, prisoners being quarantined because they were set for release were in proximity to prisoners who were in quarantine because they were sick.
Governors, too, announced plans to release some prisoners, which prompted President Donald Trump to lash out and threaten to find ways to stop state executives from doing so. “Some states are letting people out of prison, some people are getting out that are very serious criminals in some states, and I don’t like that, I don’t like it,” he said in a press conference. “We don’t like it, the people don’t like it, and we’re looking to see if I have the right to stop it in some cases.”
Van Wickler, the Cheshire County jail superintendent, wishes that weren’t the case. “You need to review your population and determine who really needs to be in jail. Who’s a danger. You don’t want nonviolent people in jail. And review who has COPD, asthma, is pregnant, has heart disease, you see what to do to release these people and figure out alternative sanctions like electronic surveillance.”
Infections in meatpacking plants have also received plenty of attention, perhaps due to worries about food supply. But as of May 4, there were seven prisons in the Times’s top 10 cluster sites and three food processing plants. A meatpacking plant is the biggest employer in some rural places, but you’d be hard-pressed to find any community, urban or rural, without a jail or a prison. And prisoners and jail staff are more vulnerable to contracting the disease than meatpacking plant workers. “Unlike a meatpacking plant, where in theory, a diligent worker can opt out of coming to work if they’re sick, that’s not an option for people who are incarcerated,” Littman, the UCLA law professor, said. “Once the infection is inside, its spread is unavoidable. And it’s rapid spread.”
“Another reason jails and prisons are primary sites is that the quality of access to medical care is limited at the best of times and has gotten even worse now that resources are stretched thin. Staff, including medical staff, getting sick. Officers escorting people to medical appointments are getting sick,” Littman said. Nursing home staff have medical training that can help keep themselves and their wards safer; guards and prison cooks don’t.
“We focus too much on viruses going into the prison. But prison is an incubator,” said Dr. Peter L. Scharf, a public health expert at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center New Orleans. “The guards go in and out. Social distancing for correctional officers is a non-starter. They have to directly supervise the inmates. There’s the issue of correctional officers bringing it into prison or bringing it home from the prison and possibly infecting their families and others.”
Share Your Coronavirus Story Click here to learn about contacting a reporter securely, or email us at coronavirus@theintercept.com
Meanwhile, dozens of incarcerated people The Intercept spoke with are terrified. They watched guards come in with masks before they themselves were issued the protective gear. They were given conflicting information about the Barr memo, including the falsehood that they were safer in prison. And they have major concerns about prisons’ ability to keep them, and members of the community, safe.
“You have to understand that Coleman Prison Complex is the largest in the nation,” a woman at a federal prison in Florida wrote to The Intercept, referring to the low-security women’s prison, where there was an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in January.
“We have nearly 6,000 inmates. … Coleman sits in [Sumter] County, Florida and is next door neighbors with The Villages, a large wealthy retirement community,” she wrote.
“Its residents make [Sumter] County the county with the ‘oldest’ citizens in the State of Florida. C-19 cases have already begun appearing in The Villages. We will overwhelm the hospitals within days. And if it comes down to a ventilator being needed by an inmate or a retired CEO who is the golfing buddy of the doctor who do you think will get it?”
Even for the golfing buddy, the odds aren’t great. Roughly 80 percent of people who go on ventilators for coronavirus don’t come off alive.