Will the Senate Stiff Union Workers?

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Two weeks before Christmas 2000, partisan politics left public employees out in the cold: Republican senators blocked them from a mortgage assistance program.

Due to a move led by Sens. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) and Wayne Allard (R-Colo.), public employee provisions were dropped from the omnibus American Home Ownership and Economic Opportunity Act of 2000. The bill was written to allow law enforcement officers, teachers, firefighters and other local public workers to buy homes with cut-rate down payments for mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration. Alternatively, they could get a 50 percent discount on homes owned by the agency.

But The Washington Post reports that Gramm and Allard opposed the provisions because the employees don’t display the proper loyalty when they go to the polls. The newspaper quoted an anonymous House GOP member who stated that the two senators didn’t want to offer incentives to union workers "who they know aren’t going to vote Republican."

The measure received overwhelming bi-partisan support in the House. However, Gramm and Allard stalled passage in the Senate until the House agreed to drop the public employee provisions. The result is a bill that offers mortgage and financial assistance for Native Hawaiians, Native Americans, rural homeowners, the elderly and the disabled — but not AFSCME members or other workers employed by state and local governments.

Determined to support these vital workers, Reps. John J. LaFalce (D-N.Y.) and Jim Leach (R-Iowa) — authors of the omnibus act — and other House members introduced H.R. 674 in February. Their Homeownership Opportunities for Uniformed Services and Educators Act offers reduced down payments and loan fees for teachers, law enforcement officers and firefighters