-By Warner Todd Huston
It has to be the ultimate hypocrisy, but the Democrat Party has been touting its support for the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), a bill that would eliminate the secret ballot for potential union members, but recently decided that a secret ballot for Senators on whether or not to vote in committee chairmen is quite important. The hypocrisy is stark. I say again, even as Senate Democrats have found no reason to protect the democratic right of the secret ballot for union workers they’ve decided that it is a must for themselves when voting in or out Senate committee chairmen.
The Hill newspaper reported recently that Senate Democrats were recently mulling over a new way to appoint committee chairmen.
In an apparent warning to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), some liberal Democrats have suggested a secret-ballot vote every two years on whether or not to strip committee chairmen of their gavels.
This brouhaha over the status of Democratic chairmen has been going on for a while, but that fight is not our focus here.
In The Hill’s report, Senator Tom Harkin (D, Iowa) features prominently as one that supports the Senate’s secret balloting for chairmen, yet he is one of those Democrat Senators that is pushing hard for the EFCA, the bill that would takes other people’s secret ballot away even as he strives to protect his own.
TheTruthAboutTheEFCA.com recently discussed Senate Democrat’s hypocrisy and had a few comments for Senator Harkin:
We suppose there’s only one question left. EFCA’s card check provision has always been written to only deny secret ballots when the union wants to get in to represent new employees, but it has never been written to allow employees to get rid of the union through the same process. We hope Sen. Harkin and his colleagues will ensure that whatever process is used to get the union a “yes” will be reflected “If the ‘no’s win, [the union’s] out.”
Let’s hope Senator Harkin becomes as interested in American worker’s right to a secret ballot as he is in his own by turning against the EFCA.
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as NewsBusters.org, RightWingNews.com, StoptheACLU.com, TheRealityCheck.org, RedState.com, Human Events Magazine, AmericanDailyReview.com, and the New Media Journal, among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of PubliusForum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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