Congressman Greg Meeks Fighting for the 1%

U.S. Representative Gregory W. Meeks’ (D-NY) district has been devastated by sub-prime mortgages, job losses from off-shored manufacturing and call center jobs, and a lack of good schools.  Yet Rep. Greg Meeks is an ardent advocate for policies and legislation that hurt working families like job-destroying, anti-consumer and anti-environmental “free” trade deals, deregulation of Wall Street banks, hedge funds and private equity, and charter schools.

Meeks was one of only 28 House Democrats to support Fast Track for the TPP, which was opposed by a mass coalition of labor, environmental, consumer, democracy, and human rights organizations. Meeks is one of the most prominent Democratic advocates for “free” trade deals, speaking out on the House floor, lobbing his colleagues, reaching out to the media, and forming caucuses to support bad deals. The US has lost 6 million manufacturing jobs and 60,000 factories have closed because of these bad deals, and every day more jobs can be off-shored, from call center jobs to medical imaging and back-office work to accounting, as a result of these bad deals.

Meeks is an energetic advocate for Wall Street banks who pushes his Democratic colleagues to support anti-consumer legislation despite the industry targeting African-Americans for sub-prime mortgages that led to a foreclosure crisis. As the financial crisis hit hard, Meeks opposed a temporary moratorium on foreclosures, which civil rights, democracy, labor and consumer groups advocated for. He also pushes the predatory “payday loan” industry agenda.

Meeks support for Wall Street also extends to the industry’s educational agenda. In fact, he co-founded the union-busting, for-profit Merrick Academy. In 2010, teachers at Merrick Academy, run by the for-profit Victory Schools, voted to unionize. The Merrick teachers still had no contract in 2012, when 11 teachers were fired in violation of New York State law.

Meeks' bad behavior is richly rewarded by Wall Street. In fact, over his Congressional career, Meeks’ committee has received $2,666,388 in contributions from finance, insurance and real estate (FIRE), with $2,144,015 in the form of PAC contributions. Meeks was named one of the most corrupt members of Congress for three years running by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, an independent watchdog group.

Click here to read even more about Meek's record of hurting working families.