Big Labor May Still Reap Benefits Despite Election Losses
Ivan Osorio and F. Vincent Vernuccio | Forbes.com
11/05/10
It may be down, but it is hardly out.
Organized labor’s fears were realized Tuesday when Republicans won a decisive majority in the House, almost eviscerated the Democrat majority in the Senate and picked up eight governorships (with four undecided as of this writing). Was this a triumph of corporate interests, as some on the left might suggest? Hardly.
Ironically, the same Democrats who railed against the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision–which struck down the parts of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance legislation that limited how much unions and corporations could spend on political campaigns–are the ones receiving the greatest benefit. The biggest spenders this election cycle were public sector unions, giving almost exclusively to Democrats.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees alone spent $91 million on the 2010 midterm election, making it the largest single campaign donor this cycle. As TheWall Street Journal reported, “Freed to spend their own funds, AFSCME, the SEIU, and the National Education Association have spent $171.5 million, compared to political outlays of $140 million by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, American Crossroads and Crossroads GOP.” Big Labor helped Democrats narrowly hold on to the Senate and bail out Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. As Matt Patterson, senior editor at the Capital Research Center notes, “SEIU alone … allocated $725,000 to help ensure Reid’s return to the United States Senate.”
Read more @ Forbes.com.
