Billionaire Reed Hastings claims to be a Democrat, but he loves charter schools and despises public schools. In his efforts to promote privatization, he has funded some extremist Republicans. In Missouri, he funded the Republicans intent on eliminating abortion services for women, while giving a pittance to Democrats in the Missouri legislature..
In Indiana, Reed Hastings is the sugar daddy of a very rightwing Republican Party that wants to expand charters and vouchers. Hastings is a man without principle. He doesn’t care about evidence. He doesn’t care about charter financial scandals. He wants to win, and he will fund anti-abortion zealots in Missouri and rightwing extremists in Indiana, so long as it undermines public schools.
Steve Hinnefeld writes in his Indiana blog:
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has given another $700,000 to a pro-charter-school Indiana PAC, which has funneled a big chunk of the money to supporting Republican legislative candidates.
The PAC – called, without apparent irony, Hoosiers for Great Public Schools – reported only one contribution in its 2022 pre-primary campaign finance report, covering Jan. 1 to April 8: the one from Hastings, a California resident with a net worth estimated between $4 billion and $6 billion.
Hoosiers for Great Public Schools then gave $100,000 to another PAC, Hoosiers for Quality Education, which favors school choice in all its forms, including private school vouchers. Hoosiers for Quality Education has made over $600,000 in contributions this year, all to Republicans. Most has gone to GOP House candidates who are favored by caucus leaders and are in contested primaries.
Hoosiers for Quality Education, with ties to Betsy DeVos, the U.S. secretary of education in the Trump administration, didn’t just get money from Hoosiers for Great Public Schools. It got $425,000 this year from Walmart heir Jim Walton, along with several smaller donations.
Hastings also gave Hoosiers for Great Public Schools $700,000 in 2020. It also got $200,000 that year from John Arnold, a Texas billionaire. The group has never received a penny from an actual Hoosier.
But it does have a Hoosier connection. Bart Peterson, who heads the operation, was mayor of Indianapolis from 2000 to 2008. He was a Democrat then. I don’t know what he considers himself now, but he has become a primary source of out-of-state cash for Indiana Republicans.
Peterson told me in 2020 that he was “an unabashed supporter of charter schools” and was making the contributions to improve funding for the schools, which are publicly funded but privately operated. (His day job is president and CEO of Christel House International, which operates charter schools in Indianapolis and schools for underprivileged children around the world).
Whatever the motivation, the campaign contributions helped bolster the Republican supermajority in the Indiana General Assembly. In the 2022 legislative session, that supermajority: 1) repealed the law requiring Hoosiers to have a permit to carry a handgun; 2) made it much more difficult for poor people to be released from jail on bail; and 3) stoked phony outrage over schools teaching “critical race theory.”
Reed Hastings and Betsy DeVos. Hastings, funder of the anti-abortion crusade. Hastings, funder of the phony war against honest teaching about racism (aka “critical race theory.”)
Shameful.
Will cancel Netflix today!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you!!
The foundation associated with Eli Lilly (largest employer in Indiana) is a significant problem for decisions made in a democratically-governed public sector. A review of the foundation’s grants show the number that are of a religious nature.
Bart Peterson’s deputy mayor, Michael O’Connor, was an Eli Lilly lobbyist who ran for school board in 2016. His daughters attended Catholic schools. O’Connor was described in a comparison of candidates as one who supported “innovation” schools. His opponent who supported public schools and opposed innovation schools described them in terms of their for-profit managers.
Cancelled my Netflix’s account.
Indiana is a colony run by male theocrats who understand the need for a rigged playing field which explains why they prefer the schools of the conservative religious where the lessons taught are (1) men over women (2) there’s only one true church and (3) straights over gays.
The message about whites over blacks is also instilled in many of the churches and schools which are homogeneous.
Tucker Carlson’s support for Putin plays to a welcoming crowd in Indiana. Putin is white, authoritarian, orthodox Christian and employs performative masculinity.
Reed Hastings and John Arnold have given Denver reformers $21 million from City Fund to Root Ed. RootEd has tentacles in everything reform. It is currently pushing a bill in the Colorado Legislature that is right out of ALEC : attaching out democracy by undermining elected school boards. I little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, so I apologize if I am wrong, but i do believe this is the Koch/Libertarian attempt at restricting voting rights in our state. Who know where they will attack next? When you can’t win in elections, undermine them and insert minority rule. Every Republican in the Senate Ed Committee and every Democrat but one did. You tell me the difference in the parties on education. Shameful and sad.
and in a state where our very wealthy governor is known to be a huge charter fan — even called out by ALEC as being “education friendly”
The Hill has a story today called “Scandals, Lies, and Audiotape: McCarthy Has Principled Republicans Squirming”
I wonder where they found a principled Republican.
Where did they find Joe McCarthy?
How many elected Republican’s voted to impeach Trump?
Maybe that’s where we’ll find the few principaled Republicans even if we don’t agree with their politics.
This isn’t the first, second or even tenth time I’ve read about Reed Hastings being on the extremist side of what I call Putin Style Fascism.
Billionaires benefit from the current Republican Party because all of the shenanigans mean that government will remain ineffective and unable to hold corporate America accountable. The side show means that no one is there to pay attention to corporate malfeasance. Therefore these obscene contributions will continue.
I have received great pleasure from watching the number of Netflix subscribers drop in recent weeks. Not once have I ever been to the Netflix site. I don’t have an account because I never visited. I never visited because of Reed Hastings, and what he did to my predominantly Democratic state of California, pretending to be a Democrat, making a law that no charter school application can be denied. I never visited Netflix because of Reed Hastings, and what he did to formerly predominantly Democratic President Obama and his administration.
Billionaire CEOs don’t have political affiliations. They have business deals only. A Democrat in the pocket of a tech CEO is not a Democrat. I really wanted to watch the new film Don’t Look Up. I did not. It was on Netflix.
Yes. And likewise.
Interesting. His politics wouldn’t suggest he cares about education quality ebough to fight union strangleholds.
Hastings is a major funder of non-union charter schools. He also wants to eliminate local school boards.
Love Reed Hastings. Thoughtful, honest American.