pillon, roger
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.75em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; letter-spacing: 0.08px; word-spacing: 0.4px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">or protesters and activists unhappy with a particular company or industry, driving up the cost of doing business is a tried-and-true way to apply pressure. Think about the grape boycott in the late 1960s for farm workers' rights. Or more recently, <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/05/social-movements-fight-for-15-occupy-civil-rights/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">protests over worker wages at fast-food restaurants</a>. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.75em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; letter-spacing: 0.08px; word-spacing: 0.4px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now some corporations are fighting back by putting financial pressure on activists like Duncan Tarr, a 20-year-old junior at Michigan State University.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.75em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; letter-spacing: 0.08px; word-spacing: 0.4px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tarr is also an activist and cares deeply about Enbridge Energy’s line 6B<a href="http://www.enbridge.com/Line6BReplacementProjects.aspx" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"> pipeline. </a> The pipeline, which moves tar sands oil from Canada through Michigan and has an imperfect safety record, was being replaced last summer. Tarr and <a href="http://www.michigancats.org/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">a group he’s part of</a> were determined to get some attention.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.75em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; letter-spacing: 0.08px; word-spacing: 0.4px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tarr says things started with a traditional picket. Then, “My co-defendant and I stopped a truck. And we locked our necks to the truck with U-locks that you use, for like a bicycle,” he says. Firefighters came and cut the locks. The whole thing – the protest and the detaching – took about 90 minutes.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.75em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; letter-spacing: 0.08px; word-spacing: 0.4px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tarr and one other young man were arrested and charged with trespassing; they expected that. What they didn’t expect was for Enbridge’s contractor, <a href="http://www.precisionpipelinellc.com/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Precision Pipeline</a>, to use Michigan’s crime victim restitution laws to assess charges to make up for the value of equipment and workers idled during their protest. Duncan Tarr was ordered to pay Precision Pipleine $39,226 in restitution. That’s twice as much as he owes in student loans.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.75em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; letter-spacing: 0.08px; word-spacing: 0.4px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bankruptcy won’t get rid of a restitution order in Michigan, where restitution laws are among the most inflexible in the nation.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.75em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; letter-spacing: 0.08px; word-spacing: 0.4px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Precision Pipeline repeatedly declined to comment for this story. Enbridge Energy, in an email from a spokesperson back in March, said in part, “We hope the convictions and the court’s decision will serve to deter others from creating unsafe situations in the future.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.75em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; letter-spacing: 0.08px; word-spacing: 0.4px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rashad Robinson heads up <a href="http://colorofchange.org/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Color of Change</a>, a national civil-rights group that successfully pressured the Mall of America to <a href="http://www.startribune.com/mall-of-america-won-t-seek-40-000-restitution-in-black-lives-matter-protest-case/299982321/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">drop a restitution claim</a> against a group of protestors that disrupted business with an action tied to the Black Lives Matter movement. He says he’s seen restitution used this way in Michigan, in California, and in Minnesota.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.75em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; letter-spacing: 0.08px; word-spacing: 0.4px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It’s a tactic that we’re seeing especially as corporations continue to gain more and more power in our democracy,” he says.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.75em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; letter-spacing: 0.08px; word-spacing: 0.4px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In some ways, what’s going on between activists and their targets is a steady escalation on both sides. <a href="http://www.cato.org/people/roger-pilon" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Roger Pillon</a>, vice president of legal affairs at the Cato Institute, thinks it’s only fair protesters begin to bear some financial costs as well, particularly when they trespass to try to make a point.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.75em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; letter-spacing: 0.08px; word-spacing: 0.4px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We’ve established rules for protest. If you violate them, you can’t expect to get away scot-free,” he says. “After all, you can’t impose the cost of your moral virtue on the backs of people who are just trying to run their own business.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.75em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; letter-spacing: 0.08px; word-spacing: 0.4px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.snre.umich.edu/profile/ajhoff" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Andy Hoffman</a> teaches business at the University of Michigan. He says while some companies might feel backed into a corner by activists, he wonders if demanding crime victim restitution will backfire.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.75em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; letter-spacing: 0.08px; word-spacing: 0.4px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“This tactic could embolden more people to hate this company even more and go after them even stronger,” he says. “I think it’s a risky strategy.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.75em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; letter-spacing: 0.08px; word-spacing: 0.4px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Duncan Tarr, the college student activist, says it hasn’t affected the anti-pipeline protesters he knows.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.75em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; letter-spacing: 0.08px; word-spacing: 0.4px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The people who know about the restitution, that’s something else they see as a really horrible thing. Some people have gotten involved after learning about the restitution.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.75em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; letter-spacing: 0.08px; word-spacing: 0.4px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s difficult to see how the use of financial tools will change the landscape of activism. It is certainly making an impact on individual protesters. Consider Duncan Tarr: The pipeline he was protesting against is up and running.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.75em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; letter-spacing: 0.08px; word-spacing: 0.4px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Meanwhile, he stills owes more than $39,000 dollars on his restitution bill. </font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.75em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.08px; word-spacing: 0.4px;">http://michiganradio.org/post/michigans-crime-victim-restitution-laws-being-used-corporations-make-protesters-pay</span></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">bs off</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Pilon is the founding director of Cato’s Center for Constitutional Studies, which has become an important force in the national debate over constitutional interpretation and judicial philosophy. He is also the founding publisher of the <em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">Cato Supreme Court Review</em> and the inaugural holder of Cato’s B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Prior to joining Cato, Pilon held five senior posts in the Reagan administration, including at State and Justice, and was a national fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. In 1989 the Bicentennial Commission presented him with its Benjamin Franklin Award for excellence in writing on the U.S. Constitution. In 2001 Columbia University’s School of General Studies awarded him its Alumni Medal of Distinction. Pilon lectures and debates at universities and law schools across the country and testifies often before Congress.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">His writing has appeared in the <em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">Wall Street Journal</em>, the <em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">Washington Post</em>, the <em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">New York Times</em>, the <em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">Los Angeles Times</em>, <em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">Legal Times</em>, <em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">National Law Journal</em>, <em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy</em>, <em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">Stanford Law and Policy Review</em>, and elsewhere. He has appeared on ABC’s Nightline, CBS’s 60 Minutes II, Fox News Channel, NPR, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, C-SPAN, and other media.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pilon holds a BA from Columbia University, an MA and a PhD from the University of Chicago, and a JD from the George Washington University School of Law.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: DroidSerif, Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Dear Senator McConnell:</span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">This responds to your October 8, 1999, request for my assessment of the October 5, 1999, letter that Common Cause sent to members of the Senate urging support of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill. That bill would close what Common Cause calls a soft money “loophole” in the law</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. To support its call for passage, Common Cause expresses concern that “some groups have inaccurately attacked a ban on soft money as an unconstitutional attempt to restrict the exercise of rights that are protected by the First Amendment.” Claiming that the attacks are based on “a distortion of the legislation” or “a mischaracterization of the applicable law,” <b>Common Cause seeks to “correct the record” and argue that “a ban on soft money is fully constitutional.”</b></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 16px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: DroidSerif, Georgia, Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">In general, the Common Cause letter, like the bill itself, repeatedly blurs the bright line the Supreme Court has drawn between “hard money” — contributions used to expressly advocate the election or defeat of specific candidates, which may be regulated in the interest of preventing corruption or its appearance — and “soft money” — contributions used for all other purposes, including issue advocacy, which may not be regulated. Because Common Cause wants to bring all federal campaign contributions under federal regulation, its letter speaks loosely of contributions that “influence” elections and “affect” campaigns. It says, for example, that get-out-the-vote and voter registration drives and ads that name candidates are activities that “predominantly affect” campaigns and “thus require hard money funding.”</p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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