Friday's Chronicle had an article about the House passing a card-check bill (see here for why this is important), and for the most part it wasn't bad...but there was one horrifying bit:
[Rep. George] Miller [who sponsored the bill] received $299,000 in campaign contributions from labor political action committees of his total $667,494 raised during the 2005-2006 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.The article quotes three Republican representatives who oppose the bill. If you guessed that it doesn't say how much any of them got from anti-union interests, you would be right.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, who has received significant support from labor throughout her congressional career, received $349,000 in union contributions of the $1.7 million she raised during the 2005-06 cycle.
Intentionally or otherwise (probably otherwise), it reinforces the right-wing narrative in which Democrats are beholden to 'special interests' and Republicans act on principle.
I wrote to the Chronicle's 'reader representative' about this, and we'll see what kind of response I get (or don't get). Based on past experience, I'm not optimistic.
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