Catch of the Day: The Pelosi-Samoa Connections May Be Even Deeper
Note: One of the items here is based on a Wikipedia entry that has not otherwise been verified. See the Editor’s Note below.
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Fishing around in the now widely-known Samoan exception to the recently passed Minimum Wage bill (where tuna industry workers there are apparently being paid $3.26 an hour), Andy’s Angle cast a wide net and hauled in the following:
The interesting thing, however, is that the largest employer in American Samoa is Del Monte Foods’ StarKist Tuna, home to over 75% of the island’s workforce. Del Monte Foods, as it turns out, is headquartered in the District of the new Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Smelling a whiff of impropriety, House Republicans have thrown up some serious questions about the exemption and who inserted it into the bill.
NewsBusters points out that few in the Mainstream Media will cover this story given their breathless love for the new Speaker. FoxNews has picked up the story, questioning the potential influence Del Monte may have as a major player in the Speaker’s District. Doing my own research, however, I’ve discovered that the impropriety is much deeper. Speaker Pelosi’s husband Paul, it turns out, owns something to the order of $17 million in Del Monte stock! (see what immediately follows–Ed.)
(Editor’s Note — The previous sentence is noted in Wikipedia and has not otherwise been verified. Commenter #3 below, claiming to be Tom Elliott of FunkyPundit, says he was told that no one holds more than $14 mil worth of DLM stock [except Heinz]. Commenter #4 Kevin says that this item was entered into Wiki at 3:04 PM Jan. 12 [GMT, it is believed]; that link is here. The link claiming $17 mil in Del Monte ownership by Paul Pelosi goes to Nancy Pelosi’s Wiki page. The Del Monte ownership interest is not claimed at that page. Thus, there is reason to believe that the claim of such ownership interest on the part of Paul Pelosi is suspect. UPDATE, Jan. 16 — the latest available info (an item inexplicably deleted from the Heinz Wiki entry on Jan. 13 indicates that Mr. Pelosi’s $17 million interest [link is to item deleted] is in Heinz, and that he was involved in some way in that company’s recent proxy battles.)
I wonder if he stands to benefit should StarKist avoid an additional $2 hike in hourly wages… (actually, for the Samoans, it would be a $3.99 hike from $3.26 to $7.25 — Ed.)
Follow the money trail a little further and Speaker Pelosi may have a sympathetic accomplice in the US Senate. It turns out that the H.J. Heinz Company owns nearly 75% of Del Monte’s stock. Heinz, of course, is the company owned in large part by the H.J. Heinz family of whom Teresa Heinz is a major heir as the widow of H.J. Heinz the III, the late Senator from Pennsylvania. And who did Mrs. Heinz marry shortly after her late husband’s passing? Senator John Forbes Kerry of Massachussetts!
If the Del Monte (or Heinz — Ed.) holdings of Mr. Pelosi are supposed to appear on her Congressional Disclosure Form, I don’t see them. The Del Monte stock could be owned by a separate holding company that is listed, or it could be that such holdings don’t have to be disclosed. Hopefully, readers here will know more.
Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.
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UPDATE: Be sure to read my Comment 10 below.
Tom – After doing some more digging, I found an interesting article at SFGate.com that suggests the Pelosi’s don’t have to disclose their investments completely, just the “range of investment values.” In other words, the money Paul Pelosi makes via his San Fransico holding corp is disclosed in the vaguest possible terms on Mrs. Pelosi’s record. Still digging for more verifiable evidence.
Comment by Andy Vance — January 12, 2007 @ 3:13 pm
#1 I had that impression too from looking at the forms. And if a holding company doesn’t distribute anything more than dividends (from the holding company).
I looked through DLM’s proxy and didn’t see any indication of ownership, though it would only be about .7% if the Wiki entry estimate is correct.
Comment by TBlumer — January 12, 2007 @ 3:27 pm
I just spoke with Del Monte. They said their largest shareholder owns around $14 million in stock. Unless he owns through Merrill Lynch or a similar firm, this story, while seemingly great, is wrong.
Comment by tom elliott — January 12, 2007 @ 5:35 pm
Interesting. That wiki entry was made yesterday at 15:04
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Del_Monte_Foods&diff=100228022&oldid=98156288
I’m really starting to lose a lot of trust in the bloggers.
Comment by Kevin — January 12, 2007 @ 5:52 pm
#3 – That’s bogus. Institutional investors owned as much as 144M as of Q4 06.
Comment by Kevin — January 12, 2007 @ 6:01 pm
I’m still wondering why anyone trusts wikipedia; it’s just a community blog in a different format. Don’t let the brand name confuse you into thinking that is of encyclopedic, reference worthy quality.
Another way to consider checking ownership is from quote.yahoo.com, then the stock symbol, then the left sidebar for Ownership:Major Holders. What is the correct stock symbol to be using: DLM or a holding company or combination? http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=DLM
I think the ‘headquarted in the District of the new Speaker’ is the more interesting angle. Personal holdings are too hard to find out and a too easy method for false rumors. Does Del Monte have a lobbyist who has to file any kind of disclosures?
Comment by Cornfed — January 12, 2007 @ 7:09 pm
#6, your point is well-taken, which is why the sentence was hedged from the very beginning (though more strongly now), and why the title has a “may” in it.
That said, I hope it’s a little clear that I’m not pleased.
Your link to Yahoo gives good info, but still leaves the possibility that Paul Pelosi’s firm, if it is an “institution,” has $17 mil in the stock, since the cut for institutions listed is at $50-plus mil.
#5, thanks for catching that.
ALL — I have a real problem with the speaker’s response noted in the WashTimes:
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A spokeswoman for Mrs. Pelosi said yesterday that the speaker has not been lobbied in any way by StarKist or Del Monte.
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That would appear to leave open the possibility that she was lobbied by her SPOUSE on the companies’ behalf.
Comment by TBlumer — January 12, 2007 @ 7:22 pm
I posted about this on my non-local blog, Liberal Common Sense. Some information you might be interested in pertaining the minimum wage in American Samoa and why it might not have been included in the minimum wage bill can be found here:
http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/fedreg/final/2003020096.htm
http://www.dol.gov/esa/media/press/whd/whdpressVB2.asp?pressdoc=national/20051845.xml
I’d also point out as I did in my post that if you look at the wage set for the Northern Mariana Islands, it is listed to be $3.55 an hour…which is not exactly scads higher than most of the classifications in American Samoa that were raised two years ago.
Comment by Lisa Renee — January 12, 2007 @ 7:38 pm
#8, if the argument is that those are living wages in Am Somoa, I would hope that someone would have made it by now. I can see how it might be awkward for a Dem to make that argument, but until then, you’ll have to forgive people who think that perhaps an isolated population with Dem industries is being exploited and kept exempt, while a different isolated pop with Republican industry overseers loses its exemption.
Comment by TBlumer — January 12, 2007 @ 7:49 pm
#8, I just got a call from someone on this. He made it clear that wage levels for Somoa are set by a Fair Labor Standards Act Committee, and that for min wage to apply to them Congress would have had put in language to take away their authority. That’s what you were trying tell me, but I’m having a senior afternoon.
They either neglected to do that, or deliberately didn’t. I suppose with Murphy’s law you might lean towards accident on this — except for the Pelosi connection.
I don’t know whether there was a different exemption for the Northern Maritime Islands, but if they made a conscious decision to remove it and didn’t think of somoa, that makes the case that Somoa was an “oops” that much weaker.
This has been the post from hell.
Comment by TBlumer — January 12, 2007 @ 8:46 pm
Thanks Tom, I wasn’t trying to argue the fairness of one versus the other, just trying to discover the possible why’s other than it being assumed it was “Tuna gate”. I am not an expert when it comes to laws/regulations versus territories versus states but it does appear there is a very different standard of living on these islands as opposed to the United States.
Comment by Lisa Renee — January 13, 2007 @ 4:07 pm
#11, agreed. The Dems/Pelosi could have made that part of their response, and perhaps that would have pre-empted some of the furor. In fact, acknowledging the perceived appearance of a conflict of interest and getting in front of it with a living-standards argument might have been pretty effective too. But it goes against a lot of Dem instincts, policy and political.
Comment by TBlumer — January 13, 2007 @ 4:15 pm
If you’re so intent on finding out about Pelosi’s financial interests, how about making a couple of clicks and looking at her personal financial disclosure statements:
http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/candlook.asp?CID=N00007360
Notice any Del Monte stock? Any Heinz stock? Any asset besides the vineyard valued at over $5 million?
Oh, and by the way, as of 2004, Theresa Heinz Kerry’s trust owned less than 4% of HJ Heinz:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/kerry/heinz.asp
Comment by ZuZu — January 16, 2007 @ 11:36 am
I see that you actually do link to Pelosi’s disclosure form. Good for you.
However, you still manage some major, MAJOR, acrobatics to try to make the obvious lack of evidence suspicious.
So again, so much for responsible blogging.
Comment by ZuZu — January 16, 2007 @ 11:43 am
#13-#14, I do not think the disclosure form is the last word. If Heinz stock is owned by one of the corps owned by Paul (or a group of them each with separately relatively small amounts), the holding corp value shows up on the disclosure statement, not the Heinz stock.
Nailed-down specifics would be nice, but I think it would take major acrobatics to claim that Paul, and therefore Nancy, Pelosi do not have a personal interest in what happens in Samoa that would be affected by what happens to the min wage on that island. I think the evidence is that they do, and that it is material to their financial well-being.
Comment by TBlumer — January 16, 2007 @ 1:30 pm
#13-#14, while we’re at it. My corrections and modifications have been infinitely more timely, visible and acknowledged than you’ll see just about anywhere else. So back off on the “responsible blogging” canard; it’s as responsible as it gets around here.
Comment by TBlumer — January 16, 2007 @ 1:54 pm
Oh please. “Nailed down specifics would be nice” ???? No kidding.
You have yet to present anything except bloggers’ fantasies, unsourced and unsupported by logic, and two anonymous unsourced edits made by the same person minutes apart at Wikipedia.
Then you and the other bloggers cross-pollinate to back up your points.
You have yet to show a single asset listed on Pelosi’s disclosure form – beside the vineyard – with a value over $5 million. You speculate about “corps owned by Paul” but can’t name a single one or what it uh, “holds.” Evidently you haven’t had the intellectual curiosity, much less honesty, to even do that small amount of research. I thought this was “The Business End of the Blogosphere,” eh?
You’d rather spread bad information based on ZERO evidence. Yet you hold this up as “as responsible as it gets around here.”
Well, given the wingnut company you seem to keep, I’ll bet that last is true. Talk about pathetic.
Comment by ZuZu — January 16, 2007 @ 9:28 pm
#17 this statement stands:
Nailed-down specifics would be nice, but I think it would take major acrobatics to claim that Paul, and therefore Nancy, Pelosi do not have a personal interest in what happens in Samoa that would be affected by what happens to the min wage on that island. I think the evidence is that they do, and that it is material to their financial well-being.
Also:
here —
The couple estimated their total assets to be worth $25 million to $102 million last year, with liabilities of $6 million to $31 million. Assets are reported in broad ranges on the disclosure forms, making it difficult to determine a lawmaker’s exact net worth..
Comment by TBlumer — January 16, 2007 @ 10:17 pm
Oh my God, how can you claim to run a “business blog” ???
They itemized their reportable assets in the disclosure form. They placed a value on those assets, within the range specified in the instructions.
With the exception of the vineyard (personal residences are not required to be reported), there is not a single asset on that form whose value exceeds $5 million. Get it? That’s the high end.
You’re startin’ to scare me, Tom ….
Comment by ZuZu — January 16, 2007 @ 10:32 pm
Continued from 18 due to a programming quirk … the broad ranges leave a lot of latitude for disclosure.
Heinz stock could be in Financial Leasing Services, Forty-Five Belden, Granite Ventures, Stoneridge LLC, and Yerac Associates. Heinz stock could also be in funds managed by Pelosi in Fairfield, Forty-Five Belden, Isolep and Yurac, from which he gets management fees.
We also do not have the 2006 form.
Also one must look at the reax here. If the Pelosis had no vested interest in Heinz-Del Monte-Starkist-Samoa, they would be screaming about it instead of trying to figure out how to put out the *Samoan exception* fire. Instead she tried to change the subject to *no one has lobbied me.*
I have walked it back as far as it needs to be walked back, esp as you also conveniently forget that the whole entry has *may* in the title (there was a reason for that), which renders your entire immature rant in #17 irrelevant. The *unverified* nature of the $17 mil is duly noted. I could be a chickenbleep and delete the entry, but that has not been the style around here. There are enough qualifiers that the reader has enough info to decide whether there is smoke, or fire. You obviously do not think so. Others appear to. The people under scrutiny are acting as if there is.
Comment by TBlumer — January 16, 2007 @ 10:36 pm
# 20
Again, it is completely astounding you purport to run a “business blog.”
The “broad ranges” ALL top out at $5 million.
Now take a few minutes and put your business skills to work and research what those LLCs etc do. Hint…some of them actually have the term “real estate” in their description.
Surely a biz whiz like you also knows that “managing” a fund is not the same as owning stock. In addition, owning shares of a fund is not the same as owning stock. Maybe it should also be pointed out to you that having a savings account at B of A is not the same as owning the stock they invest in.
Honey, you flatter yourself if you think this $17 million Heinz ownership blather has gotten any farther than the fringes of the Internet. But never fear, with the wingnut echo chamber being what it is, you may eventually make it into Swift Boat territory yourself. Aim high !
In the meantime, your posts stand as a monument to wingnuttery ignorance, and I am content that the silliness of your arguments are pointed out for the thoughtful reader who may stumble by.
Back to your mom’s basement.
Comment by ZuZu — January 16, 2007 @ 10:46 pm
Excuse me, with the exception of the vineyard property, the “broad ranges” all top out at $5 million.
Can’t be too careful in explaining stuff here.
Comment by ZuZu — January 16, 2007 @ 10:48 pm
The ranges of the non-RE items identified in #20 (correcting 45 Belden to Forty-Five Belden) have a high end of $7.75 mil. Of course I know the diff between owned and managed but maybe the Wiki poster, who I believe had some kind of basis for what was posted (remember, this is a “may” entry — M-A-Y), did not.
The statement still stands, and you can rant all day and night, and it won’t change anything:
Nailed-down specifics would be nice, but I think it would take major acrobatics to claim that Paul, and therefore Nancy, Pelosi do not have a personal interest in what happens in Samoa that would be affected by what happens to the min wage on that island. I think the evidence is that they do, and that it is material to their financial well-being.
And you just gave your game away, and gave me what I need to get you on moonbattery that makes your charges of wingnuttery totally ludicrous …. because the Swifts were 99%-plus correct … repeat after me “In Christmas 1968 in Cambodia, Nixon was not even president yet, and John Kerry said that it’s ’seared in his memory’ that he was.” Nixon was not President, Kerry was not in Cambodia, and the Swifts nailed his lying butt. Read it and weep.
Comment by TBlumer — January 16, 2007 @ 11:06 pm
(Edited by BizzyBlog because of apostrophe and quote problem and to delete stupid statement.)
Gee Tom, you say the range of *items* have a high end of $7.75 million, but you do not say which ones they are. Or are you just adding them all together in one big pot? There is efficiency for ya!
(BizzyBlog answer to commenter question about deleting stupid and/or obscene statements — yes, and your stupid statement has been deleted).
And you just gave YOUR wingnuttery away, Tommy boy. Kerry never said that it was *seared in his memory* that Nixon was President in 1968. Maybe you should go back and read the 1986 speech yourself. I know, that would actually involve research …
While this last shows you to be not quite in the league of the Swift Boat nuttery to which you aspire, it does show that you are intellectually lazy enough to be in their target audience.
Oh, and hey, thanks for linking to these posts !
Comment by ZuZu — January 16, 2007 @ 11:46 pm
Yawn. The $7.75 mil is the eyeballed high-end total of the items noted in #20.
Double yawn:
*Mr. President, I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians, and have the President of the United States telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia.*
*I have that memory which is seared-seared-in me, that says to me, before we send another generation into harm;s way we have a responsibility in the U.S. Senate to go the last step, to make the best effort possible in order to avoid that kind of conflict.*
Among the thing Kerry has *seared-seared* is the memory of the president who said we had no troops in Cambodia. The historical record shows that Johnson never said any such thing in that general time frame. Nixon did sometime after he entered office in 1969, and is thus the President who Kerry has to be referring to in his statement.
Nixon was not President at *searing* time, Kerry was not in Cambodia, and the Swifts nailed his lying butt. Read it (again) and weep.
You have thus been irretrievably outed and owned, and further elaboration on this thread is pointless.
Oh and in case you are wondering, the limitations of this post have been clearly disclosed to readers and this statement still stands:
Nailed-down specifics would be nice, but I think it would take major acrobatics to claim that Paul, and therefore Nancy, Pelosi do not have a personal interest in what happens in Samoa that would be affected by what happens to the min wage on that island. I think the evidence is that they do, and that it is material to their financial well-being.
Hasta Chiquita bananas.
Comment by TBlumer — January 17, 2007 @ 12:54 am
Zuzu, three words cover almost all of the comments I will not post: Asked and answered.
Your take on Kerry-Nixon-Cambodia was not posted to protect you from embarrassment.
BTW, you can always get your own blog.
Comment by TBlumer — January 17, 2007 @ 8:02 am
As to the one remaining “open” item, an MSM source for Heinz proxy, I am very confident that a search of libe dbases would yield a source. I don’t have time for it. If you consider that insufficient, so be it. I have a business to run.
Comment by TBlumer — January 17, 2007 @ 8:24 am
Obviously, Zu, you don’t understand what “further elaboration on this thread is pointless” means. It’s a polite way of saying that posting is over. Politeness hasn’t been your strong suit, so I guess I should known better than to think you’d understand it.
Comment by TBlumer — January 17, 2007 @ 2:03 pm