Why K Street Hates Sherrod Brown: When Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown says that “card check”–organized labor’s proposal to let union organizers avoid secret-ballot elections– is dead, “card check” is dead.
“It’s not going to happen now,” Brown said on WVIZ radio in Ohio.
I remember a steady stream of insider posts in The Atlantic from Marc Ambinder about Big Labor’s latest cunning tactic that was going to put a card check bill on Obama’s desk by … spring … summer … fall … spring…. You could never be sure whether the union officials knew something you didn’t know or were just engaged in reflexive braggadocio. Now we have a better idea. …
P.S.: Wagner Act unionism has not been on offense lately. …
P.P.S.: Brown may have just sent K Street into recession, if that’s possible. Big Business and Small Business, terrified of the “card check” bill–including its mandatory government arbitration provisions–spent heavily on lobbyists to fight it. How many former Senate staffers have fed their children for the past three years off of the “card check” menace? Businesses are unlikely to keep the fees flowing if the threat has disappeared. They should take up a collection to bring Ambinder back from National Journal. Or to pay Sherrod Brown to be quiet. … You’d think by now Brown would know proper D.C. etiquette, which is to pretend “card check” still might, just might, pass, maybe in some “compromise” form. That way Democrats are happy–they’ve led labor on for another cycle–and K Street is happy. Keep hope alive! It’s good for the juice.) …
