Senate Dems Are Against Secret Ballot for Unions… But Not Themselves

19 Aug, 2009 by Warner Todd Huston

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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.