Bank of America Stadium, the Charlotte, N.C. sports area that has been proposed as the site where President Obama will accept the Democratic Party’s nomination for a second term in the White House, was built entirely with nonunion labor, The Daily Caller has learned.
Brett McMahon, president of Miller & Long DC, Inc., told TheDC it’s ironic that the Democratic National Committee is discussing the venue as a likely locale for Obama’s re-nomination ceremony, since the president has long-standing political alliances with America’s biggest and wealthiest labor unions
Miller & Long was responsible for the stadium’s construction in the mid-1990s. (RELATED: Seeking more luxury suites, DNC might move Obama convention speech to stadium)
“The majority of the companies that built the stadium were members of Associated Builders & Contractors,” McMahon told TheDC. “It is a great example of a grand monument that was built entirely union-free.”
And unlike many sports facilities, he added, “there was very, very little public expenditure” for the stadium. “It stands as an outstanding example of the free enterprise system at work.”
Sources inside the Democratic Party told the Charlotte Observer on Wednesday that plans are in place to have the president deliver his acceptance speech in the 74,000-seat stadium, so that more luxury-suite accommodations are available for the party to sell to top donors.
Obama has recently upbraided Bank of America, the facility’s named sponsor, calling it an example of a financial institution “using financial regulation as an excuse to charge consumers more.”
But despite the apparent disconnect between the president’s loyalties and his party’s practical needs, McMahon is pleased that his firm’s masterpiece is poised to have such a high profile during the August convention.
“It is a big deal to me because I spent two years working on the building,” he said.
McMahon serves as spokesman for the Halt The Assault campaign, a program of the Associated Builders & Contractors-sponsored Free Enterprise Alliance. That group describes itself as an “action arm for small businesses, entrepreneurs, and other advocates of limited government, [and] open and fair (and intense) competition.”
It is sometimes critical of labor unions, and says on its website that the federal government “should be prohibited from requiring union-only project labor agreements.”
Bank of America Stadium is home to the NFL’s Carolina Panthers.
David Martosko is The Daily Caller’s executive editor. Follow him on Twitter
