Secret Ballots For Us, Not You!
Senate Democrats are waiting giddily for January, when they hold substantial majorities in Congress, and the White House to reintroduce their pet Card Check legislation, that removes the National Labor Relations Board requirement of secret ballots for unionization votes.
With the amount of money that the AFL-CIO, UAW, NEA and other unions poured into their campaign chests last cycle, it's at the top of the agenda.
The Wall Street Journal and LaborPains.org both point out the hypocrisy of Democrats when it comes to their own votes on committee chairs. Every committee will vote on their chairperson via a secret ballot, or already has.
Joe Lieberman retained his Homeland Security chairmanship after a secret ballot was taken by the committee to decide his fate. Henry Waxman wrested the top seat on the Energy and Commerce Committee from John Dingell; one of the longest serving chairman; on a secret ballot.
Why do they do this? Well, to protect themselves from flak both inside the capital, and outside. Lieberman has been a hated target of the Daily Kos/Huffington Post crowd for years, since he started getting vocal about the failings of his party and national security. Anyone on that committee that voted openly to retain a guy who supported John McCain over Barack Obama would get blasted by the far left blogging crowd.
Secondly, if Waxman or Lieberman knows for sure you voted against them that puts you pretty low on the ladder when it comes to ranking positions on their committees, and getting your legislation on the agenda. It also means they, who now hold some sway with the House at large can start usurping larger pet projects from you as payback.
One of the big jokes of this is that the guy who orchestrated Waxman's rise on the committee, as pointed out by the Journal; Rep. George Miller; is one of 10 Congressional Democrats to write a letter to Mexico a while back stating "We feel that the secret ballot is absolutely necessary in order to ensure that workers are not intimidated into voting for a union they might not otherwise choose."
Evidently that's only important in Mexico, not the US. I'm sure if Mexican unions were contributing to the DNC he'd recant on that letter in a heartbeat.
With the amount of money that the AFL-CIO, UAW, NEA and other unions poured into their campaign chests last cycle, it's at the top of the agenda.
The Wall Street Journal and LaborPains.org both point out the hypocrisy of Democrats when it comes to their own votes on committee chairs. Every committee will vote on their chairperson via a secret ballot, or already has.
Joe Lieberman retained his Homeland Security chairmanship after a secret ballot was taken by the committee to decide his fate. Henry Waxman wrested the top seat on the Energy and Commerce Committee from John Dingell; one of the longest serving chairman; on a secret ballot.
Why do they do this? Well, to protect themselves from flak both inside the capital, and outside. Lieberman has been a hated target of the Daily Kos/Huffington Post crowd for years, since he started getting vocal about the failings of his party and national security. Anyone on that committee that voted openly to retain a guy who supported John McCain over Barack Obama would get blasted by the far left blogging crowd.
Secondly, if Waxman or Lieberman knows for sure you voted against them that puts you pretty low on the ladder when it comes to ranking positions on their committees, and getting your legislation on the agenda. It also means they, who now hold some sway with the House at large can start usurping larger pet projects from you as payback.
One of the big jokes of this is that the guy who orchestrated Waxman's rise on the committee, as pointed out by the Journal; Rep. George Miller; is one of 10 Congressional Democrats to write a letter to Mexico a while back stating "We feel that the secret ballot is absolutely necessary in order to ensure that workers are not intimidated into voting for a union they might not otherwise choose."
Evidently that's only important in Mexico, not the US. I'm sure if Mexican unions were contributing to the DNC he'd recant on that letter in a heartbeat.
Labels: Congress, Hypocrisy, secret ballot, Unions
posted by Crazy Politico at 6:24 AM
3Comments:
Even though this would probably be easy for the Donks to do, it's probably pretty low priority. The unions get very little for their undying loyalty to the Democratic Party, a fact bemoaned by a lot of the membership. They are a houseslave of the party.
I think, as I posted before, that the legislation will get introduced very soon after the new Congress goes into session. However, they'll find a way to stall or even put off the vote, probably blaming "evil republicans".
They know that the unions want it, but also realize that it will cost jobs and raise prices. Bad ideas in a recession.
The question is, how long does it take to make a comeback.
I worry about this as well as Obama trying to screw with NAFTA and do Hoffa's bidding to stop the highly successful Mexican Pilot Program, the opposition to which has been based solely on lies, misinformation and xenophobic spin
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