Poison Pill to Laryngitis

There are some radicals in Washington and
around the country who want to take away
our constitutional right to free speech.

By Gerald W. McEntee

Voting is one of the few ways we can make our voices as citizens heard. And for those who disagree with me, just think of the past few elections and the kind of sweeping changes, both good and bad, that occurred as a result.

But when we talk about voting, invariably we also have to talk about the barrage of direct mail and television ads that precede election day.

Love it or hate it, political advertising — both positive and negative — is a fact of life in our current election system. Whether you agree or disagree with what candidates or organizations say during campaigns, their right to say it is protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution.

Now you and I both know that AFSCME has been active when it comes to elections. Not only do we support pro-AFSCME candidates through the PEOPLE program, but we also do everything we can to give you the information you need to make your decision at the ballot box.

But there are some radicals in Washington and around the country who want to take away our constitutional right to free speech.

Why? Because they don’t like the fact that during the 1996 campaign we empowered every single AFSCME member with the facts about what these politicians had been up to.

They didn’t like the fact that we were reminding working people that Newt Gingrich had said that the way to kill Medicare was to change it now and then let it "wither on the vine."

The radical right didn’t like the fact that we were telling working women and men about how they tried to ramrod the Balanced Budget Amendment through Congress at the expense of public employees.

The radical right didn’t like that AFSCME was telling working families about their scheme to unfairly slash government spending, endangering Medicaid and closing public hospitals, just to give the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans a tax cut.

The radical right didn’t like that we were talking about how they were trying to undermine the Fair Labor Standards Act, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration which had protected workers for decades, and how they wanted to re-institute company unions.

So because they didn’t like what we were saying, radicals in Washington, D.C., like Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.) and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) decided to try to silence us — permanently.

How? With something called the "poison pill."

Now I have been told by pollsters and researchers that AFSCME members don’t like hearing about "inside-the-Beltway" politics. And quite frankly, I don’t blame you. But what happened in the Senate in October was more than the standard run-of-the-mill inside-the-Beltway politics.

In October, the Senate was considering the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill. The bill, introduced by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.), would have made sweeping changes in the campaign finance system.

Lott saw this as the perfect opportunity to get even with labor unions like AFSCME. He introduced a poison pill amendment to the bill that would have required AFSCME and any other labor union to get the permission of every single member of that union before any contribution could be made to political candidates. This idea certainly ranks up there as one of the worst in the history of bad ideas — almost as bad as Ronald Reagan’s idea to classify ketchup as a vegetable for the federal school lunch program.

What makes it even worse is that the Lott-Nickles amendment would replace a law that is already on the books that protects union members by allowing them to designate that their dues not go to support political activities.

So when the time came for the amendment to be introduced, Lott used a technicality and introduced it eight different times to block any other senator from offering a different amendment.

I have a basic question for Senator Lott: Since unions already have a way for members to keep their dues from being used for political causes, when will you require the same of corporations? After all, they don’t have to get shareholder authorization to use corporate funds for political activities.

Fortunately, there was so much poison in Lott’s poison pill amendment that even the Senate, which is controlled by anti-labor Republicans, couldn’t swallow it.

I know you may dislike campaigns. I know you may dislike politics. But Sisters and Brothers, when radicals threaten to take away your God-given constitutional rights, it’s time to put aside your dislikes and get involved.

We know from what has happened over the past few years that the radical right is going to continue to target AFSCME and organized labor. The time has again come for our AFSCME family to make its voice heard. Each and every one of us needs to make sure that, in 1998, those who oppose us don’t try to give us laryngitis with another poison pill.