Consider this in a report by Brad Shannon of The Politics Blogs at The Olympian:
The names of House Speaker Frank Chopp or members of the House and Senate leadership teams clearly are not among the recipients. Lawmakers who did get secondary copies via the “cc” list include Rep. Mike Sells, Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, Sen. Joe McDermott, and Rep. Tami Green.
My source says all are sponsors or supporters of the labor legislation and could not have been “threatened” by the email in any fashion. The source also said the email was the result of a conversation between labor representatives who met Monday to talk about strategy for getting the so-called privacy act passed. The contents of the message were intended for attendees at that meeting, but Johnson appears to have copied others — the mistake that the labor council said it had made in its news release issued this week about the incident.
Just for the record, the primary list of recipients appears to consist of labor people — including representatives of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 21, Washington Federation of State Employees, Teamsters Joint Council No. 28, laborers union, and others. The secondary list also has labor people.
Wow, someone hit “send.” Pass the smelling salts. I’ve never sent an intemperate email in my entire life.
So what we’re left with is that the “Big Three,” namely Gov. Chris Gregoire, House Speaker Frank Chopp and Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown decided to get out of a tough vote on a worker’s rights issue by calling the cops on the labor council. I’m sorry, that’s the only way to read this thing, other than concluding that all three of them need to be committed.
I gotta tell you, the mind boggles. These so called leaders are so much more fucked up than I even imagined. They called the fucking cops on the state labor council.
Tell me again, dear leaders, how progressives should support a tax increase. Because you’re going to have to make a pretty damn compelling argument, and if you drag my kids’ schools into the discussion, I’m going to have no choice but to assume you are bargaining in bad faith.
Because “bad faith” pretty much describes this Democratic state government, despite some movement forward on a few issues.
Throwing labor under the bus is what Democrats do, cf Bill Clinton and others. This does not make our esteemed leadership look good. Going squirrely over an email…..shudder.
So, what we have here is the Gov and crew saying give us our money, bitch, or we’ll have the cops on your ass?
Sounds like the labor council should be the ones calling the cops.
Labor took a real beating this session. This was the coup-d’-grace.
Better Democrats, please.
Mike Sells is my old local teacher’s union president and is secretary for the AFL-CIO. He is about as pro-labor as it gets.
Don’t ever tell the union rep. in a school district about anything. They are always buttered up and made to feel important by the administration, who in turn uses the rep. as a source of information on potentially troublesome teachers.
No crime was committed here, that is clear. From a strategic and political perspective, however, I have to wonder–what the fuck happened here?
Why are public employees allowed to have unions? I think they should be barred for being in unions ’cause they’ve already got pretty damn good working conditions, salaries and benefits. What the hell to the have to bitch about?
6. proud leftist spews:
Proud Leftist tells us it ain’t a crime.
Whew! I’ll just take his word for it.
Thanks for clearing that up…KLOWN!
Well, Mr. Cynical, please point out which specific section of the law cited the WASLC violated? You can’t because there isn’t any language in the law that is relevant to this.
Chopp & Brown have been desperate for any excuse to kill this bill, and, as blatantly transparent as this was, it was simply the best they could do.
And @1: In this instance, Labor wasn’t thrown under a BUS, it was thrown under a 787…
Wrong. Labor screwed up. You don’t explicitly link votes and contributions, certainly not in writing. Had the Dems gone ahead and passed the bill, the Reps would hammer them for corruption — and would have written “evidence” to prove it.
Maybe its true that the Dems were looking for an excuse to kill the bill. But labor shouldn’t have given them one.
Legal issue or not, labor fucked THEMSELVES over. They need to shut up, take their lumps this session, and do it right next year. (And I hope they do, because I like that bill.)
Brown and Chopp and their lickspittle staffers owe their positions to the majority members who elected them. Without those votes for Brown and Chopp, Boeing does not get to control the legislative agenda.
I’m sorry to say it, but the only way to clean up a mess like this is to remove the support from the members who elect these people. They can’t be allowed to position themselves as “pro-labor” only to turn around and grant total power to leaders who take their orders directly from Boeing.
Not one more session with Brown and Chopp in charge.
I don’t have to listen to employer propaganda, because I don’t have a job. I don’t work! Why should anyone work?
“You don’t explicitly link votes and contributions”
Poppycock. Anyone with half a brain cell knows votes follow contributions, that the linkage is direct, thinly disguised a lot of the time, but direct nevertheless. This is as if the GOP controlled all 3 branches of government and told the business community to go fuck off on their pet issue.
Never. Would. Happen.
Furthermore, I am hard pressed to think of a single issue that the business community favored where the GOP members of the legislature had any measureable “cold feet” syndrome looking for the tiniest opportunity to shelve it. Can you?
Lickspittle. (always liked that word!)
@10 “You don’t explicitly link votes and contributions, certainly not in writing.”
If that was true, every Republican in Congress would be in jail, instead of only half of them.
There is simply nothing illegal about private citizens and organizations of private citizens tying their financial support to specific pieces of legislation.
Under constitutional protections for freedom of expression the courts have never been willing to sweep campaign contributions into bribery statutes as “a pecuniary benefit” unless an expressed agreement of quid pro quo existed between the contributor(s) and the lawmaker(s).
No such agreement ever existed in this case.
Boeing’s threats were tied to a specific piece of legislation. And they were legal.
It is not illegal for the WSLC to threaten to withhold financial support from Democratic campaigns if they fail to hold their leadership accountable for the legislation they have promised to support. That does not constitute an expressed agreement of quid pro quo. It just a perfectly legal threat.
It may not be “nice”. But it’s legal.
Matthew @ 10 you are right on this and Jon is talking out of his ass.Oh well. In the end it is not so inportant that folks like Jon get it.
What is important is that Dem leadership did not allow a big error on the part of Labor, arm the GOP with the power they otherwise lack.
These democrats have demonstrated a consistent, annoying chickenshit manner in the face of big issues. The continuously look over their shoulders for the big, bad Republicans and then trip over their feet to be more republican.
If the state legislature is so afraid of the union, WHY DO THEY AGREE TO A CLOSED SHOP IN STATE EMPLOYMENT?
They all make noises about supporting labor, but really they don’t. While those public employees who must belong to the union pay their union dues every month, the state allows management to intimidate state workers who avail themselves of the union tools they pay for.
Now this from the brilliant leadership in the state legislature.
Just admit you are going to screw state employees and that you are going to screw higher education employees and face the music that your fat ass will be out of your legislative seat next go around.
PTBAA said:
Bout time a lefty told the truth of what the Democratic does in their caucii. Puddy’ll use this in later arguments.
Wrong analogy.
Good try though PTBAA.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!
Lauramae, nice words, but who will run against them? Why not you?
Puddy and you both know if these Democratics are on the ballot against a Republican you’ll scurry on down to the mailbox with your straight Democratic selected Donkey votes.
#20. Yeah…I voted for both dems and repubs in 08. I actually look at who is running and don’t make knee jerk reactions like conservatives do.
“Puddy’ll use this in later arguments.”
What? That politicians tend to reflect the beliefs of their supporters (and contributors) or something else? Can’t wait for this.
“Good try though PTBAA.”
Thank you.
“That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!
Okay!!!! Stick it, Puddy!!! Stick it!!!
@20…and you will no doubt vote straight GOP no matter how far into fruitcake land the party goes, making the futile assertion that “conservatism hasn’t failed” because “it was never tried”, just like a disillusioned communist circa 1956. How did that work out for them?