Unions wait to see Citizens United ‘fix’

America’s largest labor unions are not prepared yet to support
legislation restricting corporate spending on political
campaigns.

Officials with both the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees
International Union (SEIU) said their unions have not decided yet on whether to support the legislative response to the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in
the Citizens United case. Final legislative language, being worked on by Rep.
Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), is likely to be
released this week.

{mosads}“We aren’t ready to take a position just yet off of the bill
summary and are going to wait until it’s introduced and we have the actual
legislative language. Once that happens we will be putting out a statement on
it,” said Eddie Vale, an AFL-CIO spokesman.

“We are not making a decision about the bill until we see
final legislative language. While there are portions of the bill we support,
there are other parts that do not go far enough,” said a SEIU spokesman.

In a legislative summary of the bill obtained by The Hill,
unions would be required to disclose more of their political spending alongside
corporations. The Supreme Court ruling removed restrictions not just for
corporations but also for unions, freeing them both to spend unlimited funds on
election activities in expressly advocating for or against a candidate’s
election.

Richard L. Hasen, an election law professor at Loyola Law School
in Los Angeles, Calif., said he was not surprised by the unions’ muted response
to the bill. He said the labor movement has long been skittish of advocating for
campaign finance reform because it could limit their political power along with
industry groups.

“The unions have long had an ambivalence if not opposition
to campaign finance reform legislation,” Hasen said. “They see this history of
parity and are worried about whatever applies to corporations will apply to
them.”

It is probable that most trade groups will oppose the bill.
On Friday, the country’s largest business association, the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce, blasted the legislative summary for the bill.

At times, unions have been in favor of removing campaign
spending restrictions as well. For example, the AFL-CIO filed an amicus brief
in the Citizens United case calling for some loosening of limits in campaign
finance law.

Nevertheless, in a statement after the Supreme Court’s
decision in January, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the court went too
far in its ruling.

“We believe the Court wrongly treated corporate expenditures
the same as union expenditures, contrary to the arguments we made in our brief
in this case,” Trumka said in a statement. “Unions, unlike businesses, are
democratically-controlled, non-profit membership organizations representing
working men and women across the country, and their independent speech should
accordingly be given greater protection.”

SEIU also lambasted the court decision then, saying it gave
too much weight to corporate speech in elections. But it seems the labor group
wants a more strident bill than the one described in the legislative summary.

SEIU has encouraged members to sign a petition in support of
the Fair Elections Now Act, which would provide some public financing for
federal candidates’ campaigns. In addition, SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Anna
Burger said in testimony provided to Congress that shareholders should have a
say in how corporations spend their money.

“Corporations should not be the only ‘people’ to have First
Amendment rights. Congress should give shareholders a right to object to the
funding of electoral politics through their stock ownership, and give them a
refund to account for a corporation’s political expenditures made over their
objection,” Burger said.

In the legislative summary, corporations would only have to
disclose their political spending to shareholders, not seek their approval.

Hasen said some of the biggest campaign spending
restrictions outlined in the summary would only affect corporations. For
example, large federal contractors, recipients of government bailout funds who
have not repaid the money and foreign-owned companies would be banned from
election spending.

“There are no foreign-owned unions and unions are not
government contractors,” Hasen said. “The biggest limitations in this bill
apply only to corporations because there are no parallels in the labor world.”

Hasen said since campaign finance law is so complex, it is
too difficult to draw conclusions from the two-page summary without seeing the
actual bill. The document seems to have be done “for PR purposes” by focusing
on corporations, which poll terribly in the Citizens United debate, Hasen said.

“It is politically popular to beat up on corporations. But I
bet when we see the actual bill, I bet it will be pretty even-handed,” Hasen
said.