Public Employees Union is Now Campaign's Big Spender

[RightinNYC]

Public-Employees Union Is Now Campaign's Big Spender - WSJ.com

(Story has two titles, I picked the shorter)

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is now the biggest outside spender of the 2010 elections, thanks to an 11th-hour effort to boost Democrats that has vaulted the public-sector union ahead of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO and a flock of new Republican groups in campaign spending. The 1.6 million-member AFSCME is spending a total of $87.5 million on the elections after tapping into a $16 million emergency account to help fortify the Democrats' hold on Congress.

...

The 2010 election could be pivotal for public-sector unions, whose clout helped shield members from the worst of the economic downturn. In the 2009 stimulus and other legislation, Democratic lawmakers sent more than $160 billion in federal cash to states, aimed in large part at preventing public-sector layoffs. If Republicans running under the banner of limited government win in November, they aren't likely to support extending such aid to states.

I guess it's not the "7:1" spending imbalance that some sources were trumpeting a few weeks back. I wonder if Obama will have anything to say about how Citizens United is ruining democracy by letting the unions pour money into these elections.

 

[Councilman]

Before federal laws came into play Unions had a place in American society. Today they are run by Communists and operate like the Mafia, they have thug enforcers who are willing to threaten and beat down the opposition.

They are willing to ignore Federal laws and employ illegal aliens, just for the dues, and they are run by Anti-Americans Marxists/Communists/Socialist and they don't seem to care who knows it.


Yeah so they give a lot of money to the Democrats, that doesn't meant the Democrats are under their control does it.

Well yes it does.


Wake up America we have a job to do come Nov. 2 and we don't want to let down all of those who fought and died down by letting Obama and the Unions and the Liberals continue on their path of destruction of America and everything it still, (but just barely) stands for.

All of these Unions are working together and not for the Good of America they are bankrupting the California and every City in it and the Nation as a whole and it has to stop.

 

[Ned Racine]

This is why they ALSO just Love Early Mail in absentee Voting - just in case a few need help in filling out their ballots , can't read English(or Spanish) or just want to remain employable or not get an inconvenient transfer.

 

[Hoplite]

Question: If it's been determined that corporations somehow have the right to free speech and can exercise said right by spending vast amounts of money on a political campaign, why is that same right NOT afforded to unions?

 

[Harshaw]

Who said it's not?

 

[RightinNYC]

edit: what harshaw said.

I'm not arguing that unions don't have the same rights as corporations, I'm arguing that they do. The hypocrites are the people who are arguing that one has rights that the other doesn't.

 

[Hoplite]

Who said it's not?

edit: what harshaw said.

I'm not arguing that unions don't have the same rights as corporations, I'm arguing that they do. The hypocrites are the people who are arguing that one has rights that the other doesn't.

There is A LOT of scorn heaped on unions for getting involved with politics. That seems to be a double standard when people who will advocate for the right of corporations to do something that they heavily criticize unions for doing. And while, yes you are free to criticize and criticism does not equate to calling for a ban on it, calling a union corrupt and accusing them of buying elections dont really demonstrate that you recognize the supposed right of a private entity to speak freely by donating money on an equal basis

EDIT: Original second post deleted, double post by accident

 

[RightinNYC]

There is A LOT of scorn heaped on unions for getting involved with politics. That seems to be a double standard when people who will advocate for the right of corporations to do something that they heavily criticize unions for doing. And while, yes you are free to criticize and criticism does not equate to calling for a ban on it, calling a union corrupt and accusing them of buying elections dont really demonstrate that you recognize the supposed right of a private entity to speak freely by donating money on an equal basis

EDIT: Original second post deleted, double post by accident

Not sure why you're arguing against that strawman, since the only other people to comment on the issue have stated pretty explicitly that they have no problem with unions doing this.

IIRC, you're the only one of us who thinks that the two should be treated differently.

 

[Harshaw]

There is A LOT of scorn heaped on unions for getting involved with politics. That seems to be a double standard when people who will advocate for the right of corporations to do something that they heavily criticize unions for doing. And while, yes you are free to criticize and criticism does not equate to calling for a ban on it, calling a union corrupt and accusing them of buying elections dont really demonstrate that you recognize the supposed right of a private entity to speak freely by donating money on an equal basis

EDIT: Original second post deleted, double post by accident

Waaaaah. Unions get criticized. Boo-frickin'-hoo. No one said they didn't have the right.

The largest complaint I see is that unions, for which membership is mandated by law if you want to work in their shop, use everyone's dues to push particular political points of view, possibly against the wishes of some of its members. At least in a corporation, if it's doing something you don't like, you have an easy, and perhaps even profitable, out.

Sure, you could counter this by saying "well, they could just quit their jobs if they don't like it." Which is true. But then you'd sound just like an eeeeevil conservative, and you'd be using the exact argument made by anti-unionists.