Starbucks CEO to Use Coffee Cups to Lobby Lawmakers

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is "urging" workers at Washington, DC-area outlets to write messages on cups this Thursday and Friday to encourage lawmakers to resolve the fiscal cliff standstill, reports Reuters. The deadline for a fiscal cliff decision is January 1st, but talks stalled just before Christmas. In an effort to get things moving on Capitol Hill, Schultz wants employees to write the phrase "come together" next to the names of customers on to-go cups at the 120 or so Starbucks locations in the DC area.

Schultz plans on taking out ads in several newspapers and pushing the "come together" message on Twitter and Facebook. He has already posted an open letter on the company's website, stating that "Rather than be bystanders, we have an opportunity—and I believe a responsibility — to use our company's scale for good by sending a respectful and optimistic message to our elected officials to come together and reach common ground on this important issue." Perhaps employees will take Gawker's suggestion and just draw dicks on the cups instead?

Schultz has mixed politics and Starbucks before: in August of 2011, he called for a boycott of contributions to lawmakers until they resolved the country's debt, and back in September he took out newspaper ads calling for "the President and the Congress to put an end to partisan gridlock."

In any case, Schultz is taking his campaign very seriously: he told Reuters that "if talks do not progress, we will make this much bigger." Hopefully his employees will learn how to spell "together" in time.

· Starbucks to Send Cliff Nessage on Cups [Reuters]
· Please Draw Dicks on Your Customers' Cups [Gawker]
· All Starbucks Coverage on Eater [-E-]