Lincoln Joins McConnell Filibuster of Employee Free Choice

[ccharles000]

One of the good things about the Employee Free Choice debate thus far has been the way that working people have had a chance to find out who their friends really are . . . and aren't. Arlen Specter, long a Republican who liked to wrap himself in the cloak of a friend of labor, was exposed when he crumbled under pressure and announced that he would join the Republican filibuster of the Employee Free Choice Act. And now, Blanche Lincoln has become the first Democrat to announce her plan to join Specter, Mitch McConnell, and the Senate Republicans in blocking an up-or-down vote on real, needed labor law reform:

Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., told a Monday meeting of the Little Rock Political Animals Club that she will oppose the Employee Free Choice Act.

Lincoln's office said the senator will release a statement on the legislation this afternoon.

"I cannot support that bill," Lincoln said, according to one attendee. "Cannot support that bill in its current form. Cannot support and will not support moving it forward in its current form."

It's hard to interpret the statement that she "cannot support and will not support moving it forward" as anything other than a pledge to not just oppose the bill, but to throw her lot in with the obstructionist Republican effort to prevent Employee Free Choice from ever getting a fair vote on the Senate floor. It's one thing to vote "no" on Free Choice, a bill supported by the President, and a reform sorely needed to even the playing field for working Americans after 20 years of Reagan and the Bushes -- it's another entirely to join the Republicans in thwarting a democratic vote on the measure. That's inexcusable.

But given the fanatical opposition of the corporate overclass to empowering workers, and given Wal-Mart's particular hatred on unions, it should be little surprise that Lincoln -- a co-sponsor of last week's estate tax giveaway designed to pamper Walton family heirs -- would betray her party and American workers when the chips were down. In so doing, Senator Lincoln stands in stark opposition to a far more famous Lincoln, who took the occasion of his first State of the Union Address to say:

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

Even if Blanche Lincoln disagrees with Abraham Lincoln that labor "deserves much the higher consideration" when measured against capital, she ought -- at the very least -- to allow her fellow Senators the consideration of considering the matter for themselves, in an up-or-down vote.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/4/6/717192/-Lincoln-Joins-McConnell-Filibuster-of-Employee-Free-Choice

[QC]

1. She needs a well-funded primary challenger, like every other "Democrat"

who refuses to support EFCA.

They should be destroyed.

[ccharles000]

2. Blanche Lincoln (WalMart-AR) needs to go

[depakid]

4. Withhold money and help from the DNC

as well opposing any of her pet projects.

[ccharles000]

3. kick