The 27-year-old attended candidate events across the state to raise concerns about a proposed tax on Wall Street financial transactions that much of the field supported. Bespectacled, unshaven and casually dressed, Tackeff wasn’t shy about asking questions.At a Dec. 22 gathering with former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, Tackeff introduced a woman he said was his mother. Reuters could not verify her identity.
Last year, Congressional lawmakers introduced four bills that would impose a tax on financial transactions of one kind or another. Some of those bills have prominent backers, including Democratic Senators Kirsten Gillibrand, Brian Schatz and Chris Van Hollen, and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
“We have various stakeholders who are extremely interested in this issue, they came together and asked us to provide the strategy and the grassroots,” Barnhart said. “This is a really diverse coalition and it is comprised of stakeholders from all walks of life.” "Targeting Democratic voters as a wedge issue, that’s unique," said Susan Harley, deputy director for the Congress Watch division of Public Citizen, a liberal watchdog group based in Washington D.C."We haven’t seen those voters be a target of this work before."
Locust Street also tried to shape public opinion in Iowa, whose first-in-the-nation caucus was held on Feb. 3. The Partnership attempted to recruit Democratic officials to put their names to op-ed media commentaries declaring their opposition to any financial transaction tax because it allegedly would harm mom-and-pop savers by shrinking their retirement accounts.
Because Locust Street is a public relations firm, not a full-time lobbying shop, it rarely has to disclose who hires it. Barnhart confirmed that Locust Street did some work for embattled e-cigarette maker Juul Labs Inc, which had hired the firm to drum up popular support for its product following a rash of vaping-related deaths in the United States. Several media outlets reported on the arrangement last year.
But the idea caught on with centrists too. Former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg put it in his tax plan. Billionaire Michael Bloomberg, a former investment banker, shocked his former industry by backing the tax. Reuters contacted four other groups that have come out publicly against a financial transaction tax: the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, the Modern Markets Initiative, the Managed Funds Association and the American Retirement Association. All said they had no involvement with the Partnership.Brian Parks works as a “grassroots advocacy professional” for Locust Street.
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