April 07, 2006

RNC/WH Outreach To ... Labor Unions?

For the first time in years, the WH and RNC have organized high-level briefings for some nation's biggest labor unions, gatherings described by GOPers both as part of traditional midterm election outreach as well as a consequence of widening differences within the labor movement about tactics and strategy.

WH pol. dir. Sara Taylor, RNC chairman Ken Mehlman and RNC pol. dir. Mike DuHaime will sit down with pol. directors and execs from at least seven unions in RNC meetings this month. Participating unions include the carpenters, the operating engineers, the firefighters, the laborers, the boilermakers, the painters and the seafarers.

GOPers plan to discuss their sense of the nat'l landscape and will solicit labor's take on information about specific races where labor-friendly GOPers are vulnerable. Said one GOP official: "They support [some] Republicans. It's good for them to understand us. It's good for us to understand them." The pitch was described by another GOP official as, "We're interested in talking with you guys a little bit more about where out political interests are." Beyond that, though, the RNC's intentions puzzle many invitees. Several labor officials said they wondered whether the RNC would ask whether they planned to spend money on specific races.

(Two GOP officials say the topic of labor cash, which frightens Republicans at all levels, is not an intended topic of discussion, though it might come up.). One labor source planning on attending said he expected the agenda to include a discussion of "various races and situations around the country and perhaps some issues." This source was quick to add that many of the participating unions already "have built very productive working relationships" with moderate Hill GOPers, and that, in this sense, the meeting was "nothing new." What is new, of course, is the pro-active outreach by GOPers and Bush admin officials at top levels. [MARC AMBINDER AND JONATHAN MARTIN]

Unions, traditionally the worker bees of Dem GOTV efforts and the largest single source of the party's election finances, were targeted almost immediately by WH dep CoS Karl Rove when Bush took office. Rove has told associates that Dem admins refused to go after union corruption. Grover Norquist, the dean of movement conservatives in DC, has likewise said that reducing labor's political muscle was a critical component of efforts to "defund the left." Ex-House Maj. Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) often refused to meet with labor lobbyists. The Labor Dept. stepped up enforcement of labor's internal spending practices. The unions, in turn, spent more than $100M to defeat Bush in '04 and claim credit for putting the kibosh on his plan to remake Soc. Sec. During the election, even the informal relationships between union officials and GOP and WH pol. aides chilled.

Still, Bush and the GOP have sought relationships with dissident and open-minded members of labor. In his first term, the president sought common cause with Jimmy Hoffa's Teamsters on ANWR drilling before relations between the two scions went south. He also embraced the carpenters when they disaffiliated from the AFL in '01, treating their president to a Labor Day trip on AF-1 the following year.

And during the '04 campaign, BC'04 directly targeted conservative-leaning union workers in states like OH. (The campaign obtained a public list of labor union members in the state.) SEIU Pres. Andrew Stern, whose union has spent tens of millions to elect Dems every cycle, warned the Dem Party to never assume that labor automatically would fight from their corner, and he routinely meets with top GOPers to lobby about labor issues.

The International Association of Firefighters (IAFF), the first union to endorse Sen. John Kerry in '04, is friendly with high-ranking GOPers on many committees, and their president has made very public noises about the need to be politically inclusive. Building trades unions rely on a bipartisan coalition of members on the transportation cmtes, and dozens of GOPers in Northeastern and Midwestern cong. districts have longstanding relationships with labor unions at the local and nat'l level. (Union-GOP interaction was critical in persuading the WH to repeal its post-Katrina Davis-Bacon Act suspension.) Boilermakers, sheet-metal workers and operating engineers contribute to the AFL-CIO's political program to benefit Dems but often work more closely with GOP lawmakers, a political must with a GOP-held Congress.

When he was running for Maj Leader, Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) stopped by a "thank you" party for GOPers who helped win funding for union construction projects. In MO, the Carpenters, the Laborers and the Operators endorsed MO's senior Sen. Kit Bond (R) during his '04 re-election bid. Sen. Jim Talent (R), who faces a tough challenge from Dem Claire McCaskill this year, was a key proponent of private activity bonds to fund infrastructure in the recently-passed highway bill. Some labor unions rewarded him with a thank-you reception in DC.

Posted at 01:13 PM

Comments

Post a comment