Rob McKenna wants you to know that he isn’t Scott Walker. Via Politico (audio link added):
Rob McKenna…told a gathering of Puget Sound Carpenters last week that he’ll strive for a “positive relationship between labor and management,” even lamenting the agenda pursued by Walker.
“We need to have a good strong relationship between labor and management in this state,” McKenna said at the April 11 meeting, according to the audio that was secretly recorded. “Now unfortunately because of a couple of governors — particularly Scott Walker — everyone thinks that someone who’s going to be a Republican governor, they’re going to be Scott Walker. I’m not Scott Walker. This is not Wisconsin. This is Washington state.”
You know who else isn’t Scott Walker? Gov. John Kasich (R) of Ohio, also elected in 2010 who, a year later, signed Senate Bill 5 that limited collective bargaining for public employee unions.
And who else isn’t Scott Walker? Two-term Governor Mitch Daniels (R) of Indiana who, on day one of his first term used executive orders to decimate public employee unions.
Who are other not-Scott Walkers, that have waged war on collective bargaining, public employee unions, and labor in general? Govs. Rick Scott (R-FL), Jan Brewer (R-AZ), Rick Snyder (R-MI), Bobby Jindal (R-LA), and Chris Christie (R-NJ).
Who else isn’t Scott Walker? Scott Fucking Walker, that’s who.
Here he is, just a week before the 2010 election, being interviewed by the Oshkosh Northwestern‘s editorial board (video here):
Editorial Board Member: Before, we were talking about state employees contributing to their plan, paying their share of the pension plan. Collective bargaining come into that?
Walker: Yep (nodding yes)
Editorial Board Member: How do you get that negotiated and accepted by the state employee unions?
Walker: You still have to negotiate it. I did that at the county as well.
McKenna is asking us to trust that he will not engage in the same ALEC-fueled agenda we’ve seen coming from his fellow Republicans in Ohio, Indiana, Florida, Arizona, Michigan, Louisiana, Maine, and New Jersey. Really, Rob? After claiming to be the co-creator of the Teabaggy lawsuit to overturn the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act? After refusing to represent state Commissioner of Public Lands Peter Goldmark in a lawsuit to protect public lands? After making a closed-door campaign promise before an anti-light rail group that he would work to find ways to kill light rail to the East Side?
Get real.
Gee, Darryl, do you ever get the feeling Republicans can’t be trusted? I know that feeling …
Who’s The Best President For Business?
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Roger Rabbit Commentary: When a president has a record like this, why would anyone want to take a chance on an unproven unknown?
Sorry Cupcake, but at this point all Republicans are teahadist Scott Walkers. Maybe that wouldn’t be the case if Republicans could get elected without the help of the Tea People and the Walkerites, but right now they can’t.
Speaking of Walker, his cancelation of the extension of the Hiawatha passenger train to Madison(the high speed rail project, and when the trains got to Milwaukee, they would most likely continued onto Chicago),just hit home again. TALGO had set up a manufacturing plant in Milwaukee, with orders from WisDoT for two trains, and ODOT(Oregon) for 2 trains. Now that those trains are done, the layoffs have begun. The 2 trains for the Badger State were for upgrading the existing trains to Chicago from Milwaukee(Hiawatha service) and lessen it’s dependence on Amtrak equipment. A separate maintenance facility would be needed, but that was part of the money that Walker sent back to Washington. He and the legislature could have funded the facility, but did not. ODoT is getting their two trains, and they will be running on the Cascade Corridor(Eugene-Salem-Portland-Centralia-Tacoma-Seattle-Everett-Vancouver B.C). We don’t need the other two that would have been running Chicago-Milwaukee(and eventually Madison), most likely they will be mothballed.
I know McKenna has opposed some Sound Transit projects in the past, but I wonder if he would be just stopping by in Tacoma, South Tacoma, and Lakewood, in early October? That is when SOUNDER trains will be moving into Lakewood. Don’t politicians that oppose projects tend to show up at the ribbon cutting anyway? Bad enough they had to build an entirely new connection between two different rail lines for it(There was not much of a connection between the Tacoma Eastern(ex-Milwaukee Road, now Tacoma Rail Mountain Division, where the current Tacoma stop is), and the Prairie Line(originally Northern Pacific, now owned by Sound Transit).
My Sis & Niece moved up (permanently) from Phoenix this last week. Got their drivers licenses converted. “Do you want to register to vote? Do you want to be an organ donor?” No problem, it’s done.
I think I now have 3 votes (including mine) – believe me I’m letting them know about walking under sheepskins McKenna. The LAST thing this state needs is another Repub Gov like Scott Walker.
And frankly McKenna sounds just like another Scott Walker!
Regardless of whatever McKenna says now, or what he would do in the future, there is nothing wrong with punishing Republicans by holding their feet to the fire for the mistakes leading up to th3 2008 economic collapse, or for holding the economy hostage in a bid to make it worse for the President’s re-election hopes.
Like my mother used to say – people judge you by who you choose to associate with. Let the judging begin!
I guess it would be sort of like believing Obama when he said he’ll close Gitmo.
@ 7
He needed Congress to pass a law to do so. Congress flat out refused to consider it. He had the support of the Senate, but the law never made it out of the House Ways and Means committee, controlled by the GOP.
Try again, TeaBegger.
If only public worker bargaining rights were about WORKER RIGHTS and not union protectionist rights. WFSE is actively bullying and recruiting formerly exempt employees that are public employees. They are doing so secretively and without meetings.
They take advantage of employee ignorance of union/worker rights
They plant themselves in peoples’ offices and refuse to leave until people sign “interest cards” without telling them that it really is a union card. Once they’ve collected 51% of the required signatures then they can absorb everyone of those exempts into the union. No meetings, no vote, no opportunity to ask questions.
And if you as a worker simply question the practices in a public way, they threaten you.
WFSE is the world’s worst union. They have zero interest in actually doing any fucking goddamned work in representing their workers. Just collecting the dues.
After negotiating a 3% pay cut for workers, those goddamned assholes raised the percentage of union dues that at least some chapters have to pay to keep their lard asses in business.
If I were to be represented by a union, I want the dudes with the baseball bats that hold their signs. I want the longshoremen. Not the granola eating, fuckwits at WFSE.