Feminist Case Against Andy Puzder

Donald Trump, Mike Pence, Andy Puzder

Donald Trump’s nomination of Andy Puzder probably has more to do with the politics of the so-called “Pro-Life” (read that as supporters of compulsory pregnancy and in this context that’s not hyperbole) constituency than his anathema to unions and the minimum wage. As Wikipedia points out:

While practicing law in St. Louis, Puzder authored a Missouri abortion law upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services in 1989. Following the Webster decision, Puzder was a founding member of the Common Ground Network for Life and Choice.[4] In 1984, Puzder and another lawyer had written an article for the Stetson Law Journal proposing a Missouri law that would define life as beginning at conception in the broad context of contract or property law. Puzder reasoned that if fetuses were recognized as having rights in other contexts, it would establish a foundation for challenging Roe v. Wade later on.[5]

Also while practicing law in St. Louis, Puzder met Carl Karcher, the founder of the Carl’s Jr. quick-service restaurant chain. Karcher was embroiled in serious financial difficulties and asked Puzder to move to California as his personal attorney. In 1991, Puzder relocated to Orange County, California. Puzder has been credited with resolving Karcher’s financial dilemma, allowing Karcher to avoid bankruptcy and retain a significant ownership interest in the company he founded, CKE Restaurants, Inc. (CKE).[6]While practicing law in St. Louis, Puzder authored a Missouri abortion law upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services in 1989. Following the Webster decision, Puzder was a founding member of the Common Ground Network for Life and Choice.[4] In 1984, Puzder and another lawyer had written an article for the Stetson Law Journal proposing a Missouri law that would define life as beginning at conception in the broad context of contract or property law. Puzder reasoned that if fetuses were recognized as having rights in other contexts, it would establish a foundation for challenging Roe v. Wade later on.[5] Also while practicing law in St. Louis, Puzder met Carl Karcher, the founder of the Carl’s Jr. quick-service restaurant chain. Karcher was embroiled in serious financial difficulties and asked Puzder to move to California as his personal attorney. In 1991, Puzder relocated to Orange County, California. Puzder has been credited with resolving Karcher’s financial dilemma, allowing Karcher to avoid bankruptcy and retain a significant ownership interest in the company he founded, CKE Restaurants, Inc. (CKE).[6]

David Roberti

When the Webster decision came down my NOW Chapter and the entire pro-choice movement in Los Angeles picketed Democratic State Senator David Roberti’s office 24/7 for three days straight. Anti-abortion Roberti responded by telling the press to talk to right-wing nutcase Susan McMillan Carpenter if they wanted to know his views on abortion.

Carl Karcher, an arch pig who sold burgers

Throughout the 1980s and into the 90s, my NOW Chapter made it a habit to picket Carl’s Junior restaurants because of owner/founder Carl Karcher’s financing of right wing causes, especially the Human Life International (HLI). HLI was founded in 1981 by fanatic Paul Marx to combat not only abortion but all forms of birth control, because as he wrote “Abortion is the end point of the abuse of sex, which begins with the unleashing of the sexual urge by contraception.” Marx was not only a fanatic, he was sick.

One night in the days of “thermal paper” fax machines I spent hours after regular business time faxing hundreds of pages and thousands of signatures to CKE corporate headquarters in Fullerton so that they would come in the next day and find about a mile of thermal paper all over the office in support of a woman’s right to choose.

As an aside, Karcher was also a big financial backer of former Congressman and American Independent Party [Note that in 2016 for the first time in its history the ultra-right wing California AIP nominated Republican Donald Trump who appeared on the California ballot as nominee of both parties] 1972 Presidential Candidate John Schmitz, who once notoriously said publicly in a press release that the audience at a hearing on abortion, which included Attorney Gloria Allred, was “a sea of hard, Jewish and (arguably) female faces.” John’s son, Attorney and Trump foreign policy advisor Joseph Schmitz, has also been accused of anti-Semitism: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article96421087.html

So being a hero of the misogynist compulsory pregnancy crowd, it’s no surprise that Carl Karcher had Andy Puzder take over management of CKE in 2000. Lest there be any question of Andy Puzder’s misogyny, he was nailed for domestic violence back in 1989: http://www.riverfronttimes.com/newsblog/2016/12/08/andrew-puzder-trump-pick-for-labor-department-was-accused-of-abusing-wife

John Ashcroft

The Governor that Puzder served, later to be Attorney General John Ashcroft had the distinction of taking no action against Missouri State Prison Warden and Chief Executioner William Armentrout III, when he took a side job as expert witness during Nazi Ernst Zundel’s hate crime trial in Canada. Armentrout testified that it was his expert opinion that it was impossible for a million people to have been murdered in Auschwitz. As I had been the person who exposed this to the St. Louis Post Dispatch and Kansas City Star shortly after his 1988 testimony, I brought it to the attention of Senator Patrick Leahy’s staff when Ashcroft was before the Senate Judiciary Committee over his 2001 pending appointment as Attorney General. Leahy declined to question him about the Armentrout affair because it would have embarrassed Democrat Mel Carnahan, Ashcroft’s successor as Governor, because Carnahan had promoted Armentrout to head the Department of Corrections.

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