Consumer Federation of California

The Consumer Federation of California has endorsed Barbara Boxer for re-election to the US Senate. This is the first time CFC has endorsed a candidate for federal office.

Consumer Federation Executive Director Richard Holober stated ‘During her three terms on the US Senate, Barbara Boxer has been a consistent voice for fair play in the marketplace. Consumers need Barbara Boxer’s leadership to protect our hard earned money from Wall Street greed.’

For consumers, the difference between Barbara Boxer and Carly Fiorina couldn’t be more profound.

Barbara Boxer authored the Airline Passenger Bill of Rights, which was incorporated into a Department of Transportation rule adopted this year. It guarantees that passengers won’t endure the agony of being trapped in an airplane on the tarmac for hours on end when a flight encounters unexpected delays.

Senator Boxer was a strong advocate for the Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act, which strengthened safeguards against dangerous household products. She made sure the bill included a ban on phthalates, a toxic chemical found in children’s products, and stopped an attempt by chemical lobbyists to sneak language into the bill that would have loaded home furnishings with toxins linked to cancer, impairment to brain development and reproductive harm.

Following the BP Gulf oil spill this April, Senator Boxer sponsored legislation to eliminate the $75 million cap on liability for big oil companies’ spills when they cause massive economic and environmental harm.

Senator Boxer has stood up to Wall Street’s arrogance. When California enacted the nation’s toughest Financial Privacy Legislation (SB 1 of 2003) Senator Boxer led the fight to stop national banks from preempting our landmark privacy law.

Boxer was one of only eight senators to vote against the Gramm Leach Bliley Act in 1999. This bill eliminated New Deal regulation of the banking industry. The collapse of our banking system in 2008, and the subsequent impoverishment of America would have been far less destructive if other lawmakers had the courage and foresight that Senator Boxer demonstrated when she voted to preserve a banking law that would have prevented banks from ever becoming ‘too big to fail’.    

Failure has been Carly Fiorina’s ticket to personal success. During her disastrous stint at Hewlett Packard, she laid off 30,000 workers, shipped thousands of American jobs overseas, and pushed HP’s share price down by 50%.  

When HP fired her in 2005, Ms. Fiorina walked away with $42 million in severance pay, stock options and retirement benefits.

In her December 2008 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Ms. Fiorina stated corporations should ‘require a CEO to return compensation to shareholders if promised results aren’t delivered’ following their departure. She wrote that CEO compensation should be based on a ‘scorecard that reflects customer satisfaction and investment in employees, in addition to achievement of financial goals’.  Ms. Fiorina should heed her own advice and return her $42 million golden parachute to Hewlett Packard.  

Barbara Boxer is the consumer’s clear choice for US Senate.