Specter in tough position on card check

Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), the only Republican senator who voted two years ago for a labor priority making it easier to form unions, is under heavy pressure to flip his position.

Specter is in a tough spot. If he sticks to his guns and supports card check legislation, as he did in 2007, he could count on union support when he seeks reelection in 2010. But business groups warn he could strengthen a primary challenger.

{mosads}By flipping his position and voting against the Employee Free Choice Act, Specter would almost certainly lose the backing of unions and hurt himself in the general election.

“It could be a very big problem for him. I think he understands that,” said former Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), who narrowly lost a primary challenge to Specter in 2004 and has not ruled out a rematch. “He’s significantly more vulnerable now than he was in 2004.”

The legislation would allow workers to bypass secret-ballot elections when forming a union and is seen as a must-stop by business groups. In 2007, every Senate Democrat present voted to advance the card check bill, but Democrats lacked the 60 votes needed to overcome a procedural hurdle.

This time around, Democrats control 56 seats and the two independents also caucus with Democrats, giving card check supporters as many as 58 votes in the Senate next year. If two Republicans vote with Democrats, the measure could pass.

Specter has not said how he will vote on the legislation this coming Congress, but over the summer signaled a willingness to hear from both sides.

In a July 2008 article in the Harvard Journal on Legislation calling for reforms to labor law and public hearings, Specter said card check is not the answer. “The reform the country needs is not as simple as instituting card check or mandating secret-ballot elections. Neither of these options would cure the weak remedies or procedural delays at the [National Labor Relations Board],” Specter wrote.

He said lawmakers should work to pass legislation that would ensure employees’ freedom of choice regarding their representation instead of “serving the interests of unions or employers.” Both unions and employers have abused the system, according to the article co-written by Specter and one of his aides.

Specter also expressed a willingness in the article to look at other methods for organizing unions. “Is it possible to secure a non-coercive selection process for employees through a process other than card check?” Specter asked.

Under card check, a majority of workers would have to sign cards authorizing a union to represent them.

Business groups argue this would eliminate the secret-ballot process now used to organize workers, and would give union bosses the ability to intimidate workers into forming unions.

Unions argue employers have too much influence to intimidate workers into voting against organizing. Labor officials said if Specter supports them, unions will help him in 2010.

“At the AFL-CIO, we look at the voting record of a candidate and he is going to have a lot of tough votes this year,” said Bill George, president of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO. “If he stays in line with us, we will probably stay with him.”

George said Specter would have to vote for cloture as well as the bill itself when legislation comes to the Senate floor next year. Otherwise, Specter’s standing with his state’s labor unions could be damaged.

“It would be very critical,” George said of Specter’s card check vote.

George’s more than 900,000-member union endorsed Specter in the 2004 election. His group encouraged its GOP members to vote for him in his primary battle against Toomey and also sent out direct mail and made phone calls for Specter during the general election.

Specter has often straddled the divide between the two parties, earning a reputation of being an unorthodox Republican by, for example, supporting labor and abortion rights. However, he has on occasion voted against his labor allies. In 2001, he voted against rescinding a move by the Bush administration to void a federal ergonomics rule, which angered unions.

Specter has also drawn fire from both sides of the political spectrum when reviewing judicial nominations put forward by this White House.

Toomey, the president of the Club for Growth, and conservative activist Grover Norquist both said Specter would hurt himself in a primary by voting to move card check forward. When Specter voted to move the bill forward in 2007, he did so knowing the legislation lacked the votes to advance in the Senate. President Bush had threatened to veto the bill even if the Senate had passed it. President-elect Barack Obama, who voted for the bill as a senator, would almost certainly sign it into law.

“Before, it was a free vote,” Norquist said in an interview. “Now, if he makes the vote, he’d almost certainly be the key vote.”

Specter also has to watch out for challenges in the 2010 general election. He’s one of only four Northeast Republican senators, and Democrats are eyeing his seat as one of their most favorable pickup opportunities.
Television pundit Chris Matthews, the host of MSNBC’s “Hardball,” is among those Democrats considering a run.

Specter predicted on Sunday he would have a tough opponent in the GOP primary and in the general election.

“Well, I’m going to have an opponent,” he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “Late Edition.” “In fact, I’m going to have two opponents, Wolf: one in the primary where I always have a tough race, and again in the general.”

He said he would be prepared “whoever my opponents are.”