Paycheck Protection
Racket The GOP is using a plan developed by
the Christian right to cripple labor
by Robert Dreyfuss
What began as a
modest effort by Orange County, Calif., school voucher
activists linked to the religious right has mushroomed
into a nationwide, GOP-backed drive to cripple the
political power of organized labor and tilt the results
of the November congressional elections.
Advocates of the so-called Paycheck
Protection movement have drafted several state ballot
initiatives, as well as state and congressional
legislation, for consideration this year. If passed, the
measures would force unions to secure annual written
approval from each member before spending any portion of
their dues on political activities. In some extreme
cases, the measures would even apply to any activities
that do not relate specifically to contract bargaining
and labor-management relations, including lobbying,
political education, and get-out-the-vote drives.
"This all started with a group of
three guys in California," says Grover Norquist, the
GOP operative who heads the Washington, D.C.-based
Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) and a backer of the
movement. "My contribution has been to take it
nationwide, as a 50-states project. We're in 35 now, and
we'll have 45 by the end of the year." The
"three guys" Norquist refers to, Jim Righeimer,
Frank Ury, and Mark Bucher, are founders of an Orange
County pro-school-voucher group called the Education
Alliance, which focuses on electing conservative
Christians to local school board positions. The alliance
has received the majority of its funding from Howard
Ahmanson, a wealthy businessman who reportedly funnels
millions to radical-right groups and is linked to the
fundamentalist Colorado-based Focus on the Family. Across
the country, voucher advocates (who seek to use taxpayer
money to enable parents to send their children to private
schools) have been fighting a long-running battle against
teachers' unions, including the National Education
Association (NEA) and the American Federation of
Teachers.
Five years ago, Righeimer, Ury, and
Bucher backed Proposition 174, an initiative that would
have allowed the use of school vouchers in California,
but were soundly defeated by opposition forces led by the
NEA. "It lost big," Bucher admits. Angered by
the unions' ability to mobilize resources, and inspired
by Proposition 134, the Fair Campaign Practices Act, a
similar but less ambitious measure that passed in
Washington state in 1992, Bucher and his allies began
making plans to take the Paycheck Protection idea to
voters in California.
Their work gained the attention of two
influential members of Newt Gingrich's "kitchen
cabinet," Norquist and J. Patrick Rooney, a wealthy
Indiana insurance executive who supports a host of
right-wing causes. Still seething over the AFL-CIO's $35
million war chest in the 1996 elections, which came close
to returning the House to Democratic Party control, the
Gingrich allies seized on the Paycheck Protection idea as
a way to weaken labor. At a critical moment last year,
Rooney stepped in to help finance the ballot effort in
California"I salvaged the campaign," he
saysand, with Norquist, promoted it in Congress and
in dozens of states, winning the support of Senate
Majority Leader Trent Lott, Gov. Pete Wilson (the
campaign's co-chairman in California), and other GOP
leaders.
Congress is currently debating two
Paycheck Protection bills, and initiatives may be on the
ballot in a half-dozen states by the next elections.
Though each measure differs slightly, the more stringent
proposals would dramatically undercut labor's ability to
engage in basic legislative and electoral work. That's
because the cost of collecting millions of signed forms
from union members every year would be prohibitive.
The pivotal battle will take place on
June 2 in California, where the measure is known as
Proposition 226. Both sides plan to fund a costly
advertising duel over the airwaves this May, part of an
even more expensive nationwide campaign.
Whether the Paycheck Protection
measures win or lose, the GOP figures the AFL-CIO will be
so preoccupied with the issue, and so drained of
resources fighting it, that it won't be able to have much
of an impact on the congressional elections in November.
"Our team is going to spend $10
million [in California]," says Norquist. "Their
team will spend $40 million. And they're gonna
lose." Rooney, who ponied up $49,000 in seed money
to get the movement jump-started last year, says that he
will help raise the money needed to rally voters behind
it. By mid-February, organizers had raised $1.3 million
for Proposition 226. AFL-CIO officials say it will take a
minimum of $10-$12 million to beat back the initiative in
California.
Advocates of Paycheck Protection take
pains to disguise the drive's anti-labor implications.
"This is a fairness issue, period," says
Rooney. "No employer and no union should have the
ability to take any worker's money and use it for
political purposes without the worker's consent. They've
got to ask." They also describe it as central to
campaign finance reform, no doubt hoping that it will
prevent "special interests" (read: unions) from
exercising undue electoral influence. (Indeed, in
California organizers call Proposition 226 the Campaign
Reform Initiative.) Yet what many voters don't know is
that Paycheck Protection has nothing at all to do with
political contributions to federal candidates. Although
unions spend millions in independent campaign
expenditures (the AFL-CIO spent $35 million on TV ads
during the 1996 elections), they are prohibited from
making contributions directly to federal campaigns,
except through political action committees. PAC money
must be raised separately from union dues, and so would
be unaffected by Prop. 226 and other such measures.
It's especially ironic that the
initiative's proponents speak out in favor of campaign
finance reform, since backers like Rooney and Ahmanson
regularly make big-money donations to political
campaigns. Asked about his own political largesse, Rooney
frankly admits, "I'm a practical man. The
contributions are just to help me get an interview. I do
believe it does open doors." Since 1992, Rooney,
through his insurance business, has reportedly given well
over $1 million to Republicans. He's also funded the
Gingrich-linked Progress and Freedom Foundation, as well
as the American Legislative Exchange Council.
In California, polls show that
Proposition 226 has wide support. "What they're
trying to do is to take working families out of the
political equation," says Steve Rosenthal, the
AFL-CIO's political director. "I've been in the
labor movement for 18 years, and this is the worst
assault I've seen."
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