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Specter Supported Employee Free Choice Before He Was Against It |
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Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) today repeated his intent on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” to block a Senate vote on the Employee Free Choice Act, despite his past support of the bill. The bill hasn’t changed—so why has Specter flipped?
Compiling a few video clips, we look at Specter’s most recent statements and compare them with what he said in 2005, when he was “delighted” to join Sen. Ted Kennedy, Rep. George Miller and AFL-CIO President John Sweeney in support of the Employee Free Choice Act.
Back then, Specter said the bill was important and necessary, worth supporting specifically because the option of majority sign-up needs to be available if workers want it to form a union.
Said Specter in 2005:
We held hearings last year and it was my conclusion, my judgment that this legislation ought to be pursued.
The basic approach, that workers should have an opportunity by majority rule to determine labor organization, is fundamental in America.
That was when Specter felt current law was “unwise” to allow the kind of management delays and coercion that were—and are—too common in the process of forming unions. He argued explicitly in favor of making sure workers had the option of majority sign-up.
Later in 2005, in a video message to AFL-CIO Convention delegates, Specter boasted about the seniority he achieved thanks to union members’ support and proudly proclaimed himself a “lead sponsor” of the Employee Free Choice Act.
Now, after consulting with “interested parties,” Specter has changed his mind on the issue, saying he won’t even support allowing the bill to get a simple vote in the full Senate.
The language of the bill is the same now as when Specter co-sponsored it in 2005. It’s the same language as it was in 2007, when Specter voted against a filibuster and in support of allowing a Senate vote.
The video encourages viewers to call Specter and see what his position on the bill is today. You can reach his office in Allentown, Pa., at 610-434-1444 or his office in Washington, D.C., at 202-224-4254.
2 Comments
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Why do the Democrats continue to use the excuse of a filibuster for not taking control of the Senate with their majority? The filibuster is an archaic and anti-democratic rule of the Senate which only serves to give power to an obstructionist minority. Four years ago the Republicans, then in control of the Senate, threatened the “nuclear option,” a parliamentary procedure which gets around the filibuster. This forced the Democrats to retreat and accept federal court nominees they did not want to confirm. Their threat is detailed below:
1. The Senate moves to vote on a controversial nominee.
2. At least 41 Senatorrs call for a filibuster.
3. The Senate majority leader raises a point of order, saying debate has gone on long enough and that a vote must be taken within a certain time frame. At this point Senated rules require a cloture vote.
4. The Vice President — President of the Senate — sustains the point of order.
5. A Democratic Senator appeals the decision.
6. A Republican Senator moves to table the motion on the floor (the appeal).
7. This vote to table the appeal, is procedural and cannot be subjected to a filibuster; it requires only amajority vote.
8. With debate ended, the Senate would vote on the issue at hand this vote requires only a majority of those voting.
This was the Republican plan, reverse the roles for the Dems to use it. Credit the Republicans with a great idea and make them irrelevant. This parliamentary tactic will suffice until the filibuster rule is eliminated from Senate rules and placed in the archives of Senate history. We the people deserve a more democratic institution.
I think that Sen. Specter thought that he would face a primary challenge from the right-wing of his party if he voted for cloture on EFCA.
That doesn’t excuse him, of course.
Here is a prime example of an elected offical saying that they are on our side when they really aren’t. He support cloture when he knew that President Bush would veto it; now opposes it when he knows that President Obama will sign it into law, if and when it reaches his desk.