Here’s How to Force Congress to Block SOPA and Save the Internet Here’s How to Force Congress to Block SOPA and Save the Internet
Members of Congress need to feel the heat on the Stop Internet Piracy Act. Here’s how a bold progressive challenger and digital activists forced Paul Ryan to come out agains...
Jan 18, 2012 / John Nichols
Scott Walker Admits His Defeat Would Stall the GOP’s Anti-Labor Push Scott Walker Admits His Defeat Would Stall the GOP’s Anti-Labor Push
Walker has told allies there’s “no doubt” that Republican governors would back off attacks on unions if he loses.
Jan 18, 2012 / John Nichols
A Million Wisconsinites Petition to Recall Scott Walker A Million Wisconsinites Petition to Recall Scott Walker
540,208 signatures are required to force the antilabor governor to face a new election. Activists gathered almost double that number.
Jan 17, 2012 / John Nichols
‘Right-to-Work’ and the Jim Crow Legacy That Affronts King’s Memory ‘Right-to-Work’ and the Jim Crow Legacy That Affronts King’s Memory
Dr. King died while organizing on behalf of labor rights in the public sector. He would be horrified by the rise of anti-labor policies—especially proposals for so-called &l...
Jan 16, 2012 / John Nichols
Christian Right Ordains Santorum to Block Romney, Prays for a New Candidate Christian Right Ordains Santorum to Block Romney, Prays for a New Candidate
With Huntsman exiting to boost Romney, social conservatives try to coalesce behind Santorum. Or are they holding a place for Mike Huckabee or Jeb Bush?
Jan 15, 2012 / John Nichols
Mitt Romney Betrays His Father’s—and His Party’s—Civil Rights Legacy Mitt Romney Betrays His Father’s—and His Party’s—Civil Rights Legacy
George Romney marched with Dr. King and refused to back Republicans who opposed civil rights. Mitt Romney has yet to call out racially charged comments by his GOP foes and has actu...
Jan 13, 2012 / John Nichols
Walker, Texas (Money) Ranger: Can Lone-Star Cash Save Anti-Labor Governor? Walker, Texas (Money) Ranger: Can Lone-Star Cash Save Anti-Labor Governor?
Facing a recall threat, Wisconsin's governor is aggressively raising money... in Austin. With a $250,000 check from the guy who funded “Swift Boat” ads, and more from R...
Jan 12, 2012 / John Nichols
New Hampshire Results Point to a Notable Democratic Enthusiasm Gap New Hampshire Results Point to a Notable Democratic Enthusiasm Gap
Almost one in five voters in the Demcratic primary rejected Obama. But the real news is the steep decline in Democratic primary participation from the last time a Democratic incumb...
Jan 12, 2012 / John Nichols
GOP Anti-Labor Zealotry GOP Anti-Labor Zealotry
Never in the modern history of the Republican Party has a field of GOP presidential candidates been so united and so aggressive in opposing collective bargaining rights for workers. More than a century and a half has passed since a young Republican Party positioned itself as a tribune of the working class; but until recent years, savvy Republicans continued to compete with Democrats for labor endorsements and the votes of union members in industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania. Even Ronald Reagan—who justifiably earned the enmity of labor with his summary firing of air traffic controllers in 1981—made a big deal about his Teamsters endorsement in 1984. Even if his actions did not match his rhetoric, Reagan showed up at union conventions during his presidency, telling a 1981 carpenters union convention that he respected “the sacred right of American workers to negotiate their wages,” adding that “collective bargaining…has played a major role in America’s economic miracle. Unions represent some of the freest institutions in this land. There are few finer examples of participatory democracy to be found anywhere.” And Reagan wasn’t the last Republican to try to connect with labor. As recently as 2007, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee appeared at the International Association of Machinists convention and received its endorsement in that year’s GOP primaries. Today, however, the party’s contenders are not just refusing union invitations. They are making unionbashing central to their campaigns. Antiunion zealotry has become a core premise of the GOP, and it extends far beyond the presidential race. Attacks on the collective bargaining rights of public employee unions by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and Ohio Governor John Kasich may have gotten the most publicity last year (and the most pushback, with Ohio voters overturning Kasich’s anti-labor law in November and Wisconsinites mounting mass rallies and a drive to remove Walker from office). But other Republican governors, notably Indiana’s Mitch Daniels, are striving to undermine the collective bargaining rights of private-sector workers by promoting “right to work” laws, and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has emerged as a favored target of Congressional Republicans. Fierce disdain for labor rights has become a focus of the 2012 campaign, as GOP candidates have been stumbling over one another in a rush to announce their determination to assure that there is no power in a union. In the final debate before the New Hampshire primary, the eventual winner of the race, Mitt Romney, said that passing laws making it harder for unions to organize workers and bargain on their behalf “makes a lot of sense.” Texas Governor Rick Perry argued that erecting structural barriers to union organizing is the way to make a state a powerful “magnet” for job creation. The comments from Romney and Perry were extensions of their previous interventions on behalf of New Hampshire GOP House Speaker William O’Brien’s promotion of a stack of anti-labor legislation, which reflects the agenda of the corporate-funded “bill mill” of the American Legislative Exchange Council [see “ALEC Exposed,” August 1/8, 2011]. O’Brien spent much of last year trying to enact the first right-to-work law in a New England state. He secured passage of the measure, which would have legally barred unions from collecting mandatory dues from workers and otherwise weakened labor at the bargaining table and in the public sphere. But Democratic Governor John Lynch vetoed the bill, and an effort to override the veto failed when more than forty GOP members of the State House sided with Democrats to block the assault on collective bargaining rights. New Hampshire’s legislative vote as well as polling suggest that there are a good many Republicans who agree with independents and Democrats that unions are useful—but the GOP presidential contenders showed no interest in appealing to them. Newt Gingrich, who gained O’Brien’s endorsement, was an enthusiastic proponent of drives to pass right-to-work laws in Northern states, arguing that they are part of a smart economic-development strategy for states competing with one another (and with countries like China) in what economists recognize as a race to the bottom. Even the supposed “moderate,” former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, urged New Hampshire legislators to gain a “competitive advantage over your neighbors” by passing antiunion laws. And “maverick” Ron Paul has been distributing literature in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina that attacks “compulsory unionism” and “big labor.” But the Republican candidates don’t stop there. Gingrich said, “One of the things the Congress should do immediately is defund the National Labor Relations Board.” Not to be outdone, Romney began airing an ad in South Carolina that declares, “The National Labor Relations Board [is] now stacked with union stooges selected by the president.” Rick Santorum, who has tried to present himself as an ally of working Americans with talk of renewing our manufacturing base, is as militant as Wisconsin’s Walker when it comes to attacking the collective bargaining rights of public employees. “I do not believe that state, federal or local workers…should be involved in unions,” griped Santorum. “I would actually support a bill that says that we should not have public employee unions for the purposes of wages and benefits to be negotiated.” Why is unionbashing so central to today’s Republican Party? One reason is that much of the ideological vetting of GOP candidates is done by radio and television personalities like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, who have long painted unions as threats to prosperity. And the candidates also face pressure—even at times threats—from big-spending “independent” groups like the Club for Growth, which are fiercely opposed to labor on issues like trade policy. ALEC and the Tea Party–linked Americans for Prosperity, both funded by the antiunion Koch brothers, add to the pressure, especially at the state level. What’s ironic, of course, is that as the candidates condemn unions, their assaults on one another highlight the need for organized labor and laws protecting the rights of workers. While Romney was airing his NLRB-bashing ads in South Carolina, a Super PAC funded by billionaire gambling magnate Sheldon Adelson and linked to Gingrich launched a $3.4 million ad campaign attacking Romney as a “predatory corporate raider” of small businesses who shuttered factories, eliminated jobs and destroyed the dreams “of thousands of Americans and their families.” The former House Speaker is complaining that his rival’s firm, Bain Capital, “apparently looted the companies, left people unemployed and walked off with millions of dollars” and railing against “rich people figuring out clever legal ways to loot a company.” Aside from the irony of framing ads that could be run by Democrats if Romney turns out to be the Republican nominee, Gingrich was also making a powerful, if unintentional, argument for why federal and state governments should preserve the rights of workers to organize strong unions, to collectively bargain and to make their voices heard at the workplace and at election time. Abraham Lincoln once urged his fellow partisans to recognize that “labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.” Unfortunately, as the events of 2011 and the campaign of 2012 amply illustrate, the Republicans are no longer the Party of Lincoln.
Jan 11, 2012 / John Nichols
Victorious Romney Rallies GOP for Bain Capitalism Victorious Romney Rallies GOP for Bain Capitalism
Romney wins New Hampshire as 60 percent of primary voters reject him. Now he'll play the victim, arguing that the party must unite against Gingrich charge that Romney’s a &ld...
Jan 11, 2012 / John Nichols