Threat to Collective Bargaining Right Rejected by Ohio Voters

OHIO ELECTION RESULTS

• Ohio repeals law restricting unions; Miss. blocks ‘personhood’ amendment (By Aaron Blake and Rachel Weiner, Washington Post) Ohioans voted Tuesday to repeal a Republican-backed law that restricted collective bargaining for public workers, while Mississippi voters blocked an amendment that would have defined a fertilized egg as a person.
• Ohio Voters Reject Law Limiting Public Unions (By Caitlin Huey-Burns, Real Clear Politics) Ohio voters on Tuesday gave Democrats and President Obama a welcome shot of the arm in the key battleground state by rejecting Republican Gov. John Kasich's signature achievement: a law that curbs collective bargaining rights for public employees. Voters resoundingly defeated the measure, 63 percent to 37 percent.
• Ohio voters reject Republican-backed union limits (AP - CBS News) The state's new collective bargaining law was defeated Tuesday after an expensive union-backed campaign that pitted firefighters, police officers and teachers against the Republican establishment. In a political blow to GOP Gov. John Kasich, voters handily rejected the law, which would have limited the bargaining abilities of 350,000 unionized public workers. With nearly 95 percent of the votes counted late Tuesday, about 61 percent were to reject the law.
• Elections may signal a pause in conservative trend (By Paul West, Washington Bureau, LA Times) AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, in Columbus, Ohio, to cheer a badly needed victory for organized labor and its Democratic allies, called the results a defeat for "those who spend their time scapegoating workers and pushing a partisan agenda."

Unions Front-and-Center in Occupy Wall Street

OCCUPY WALL STREET

• Labor occupies Wall Street (Ben Smith, Politico)
• Labor Wades Delicately Into Occupy Wall Street (By Andrew J. Hawkins, City Hall News) “For a brief period of time the unions will be front-and-center, talking about macro issues rather than things that are micro, things that are selfless rather than things that are selfish,” Adler said. “And they will being doing it at the center of media attention that they have not been successful in mobilizing themselves."
• The Politics of Occupy Wall Street: Bernie Sanders, Progressives, Big Unions Endorse; Obama's Silent (John Nichols, The Nation) Congressman Dennis Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat who sought the Democratic nomination for president in 2004 and 2008, was equally enthusiastic: To the young men and women who are braving the overreaction of local authorities to raise their voices against the corruption and manipulation of our nation that emanates from Wall Street: I say to you that your presence is making a difference.

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS 9/7/09

INDEPENDENT VOTERS

According to the polls, independents are abandoning unions, Obama and the progressive agenda. Or did the unions, Pres. Obama and progressives abandon independents to the right?

• Labor Day, support for unions plunges to all-time low (By: BYRON YORK, Chief Political Correspondent, Washington Examiner) Broken down by political party, Gallup found support for unions has fallen the most among critically-important independent voters. Last year, 63 percent of independents said they approved of unions. Now, just 44 percent say the same thing.
• Labor Unions See Sharp Slide in U.S. Public Support-For first time, fewer than half of Americans approve of labor unions (by Lydia Saad, Gallup)
• Obama is fast losing white voters' support (By Peter Wallsten, LA Times) New surveys show steep declines in Obama's approval ratings among whites -- including Democrats and independents -- who were crucial elements of the diverse coalition that helped elect the country's first black president. Pew Research crosstabs
• Bleeding Independents (by Charlie Cook, National Journal) Indies support Obama's foreign policy, not so much domestic...

OPEN PRIMARIES

Good news for Idaho independents (and all voters)! California referendum in June 2010.

• Federal judge wants trial in election suit (By REBECCA BOONE - Associated Press, KBCI-CBS News) Harry Kresky, the New York-based attorney representing the Independent groups who intervened in the case, said he was pleased with Winmill's ruling, because it means that the Idaho Republican Party will be held to a higher standard of proof if they want to win the case.
• Judge sets trial on Idaho primaries (Betsy Z. Russell, Spokesman Review)
• Judge Says Trial Needed in Idaho Republican Party Case Against Open Primary (Ballot Access News)
• California Election Law Bill News (Ballot Access News)
• Open primary could help ease Sacramento gridlock (Martin Wisckol, Columnist: The Buzz, The Orange County Register)

GOVERNORS RACES

Chris Daggett is giving them a run for their money in New Jersey. Redux on toll road in Texas?

• A positive campaign in the race for governor? (Press of Atlantic City/ Carla Linz Callaway's Blog)
• NJ governor's race gets down and dirty (by Politico.com in Star Ledger)
• Texas gov's opponent uses toll road plan as ammo (By KELLEY SHANNON, Dallas Morning News)

BLOOMBERG 09

Colin Powell and Mike Bloomberg marched at the front of the Caribbean West Indian Day Parade today in Brooklyn; Lenora Fulani and the Independence Party are supporting Bloomberg for re-election on the Independence Party line Column C. The Independence Party is the third largest party in New York.

• Colin Powell Endorses Bloomberg at West Indian Day Parade (By KAREN ZRAICK AND JENNIFER 8. LEE, NY Times/City Room)
• Hankster VIDEO from Caribbean West Indian Day Parade with a statement by Lenora Fulani
• The Leonard Lopate Show - Underreported: The Fight for the Independence Party (WNYC radio broadcast)

HEALTH CARE DEBATE

Socialism or capitalism? What about having a developmental conversation?

• Obama’s in the ER but he’ll get his reforms: The right’s healthcare scare tactics are hitting home – but to little purpose (Andrew Sullivan, Times Online - UK)
• David Axelrod on "Meet the Press" (TRANSCRIPT on RealClearPolitics)
• TV SoundOff: Sunday Talking Heads (Jason Linkins, Huffington Post EXCERPT) Obama's approval rating among independent voters is slipping. Gregory's assumption is that independent voters=centrist democrats. I have to imagine that independent voters are souring on Obama's health care maneuvers because he DOES NOT SEEM TO WANT TO FIGHT FOR THE REFORM FOR WHICH THEY VOTED.
• The Obama Slide (By DAVID BROOKS, NY Times)

Independents, ground games, and Unity 08

Obama does well among women and young voters and — here’s what really persuades me — is taking a large number of independent voters. (Claude Lewis in The Monitor)

The ground game does not always go as expected, and dollars don’t always equal votes. (CQ Politics on the Clinton/Obama contest in Nevada)

Unity '08 calls it quits -- Obama seems to be carrying the unity message, and Bloomberg seems to be picking up the bipartisan mantle.... (Los Angeles Times blog)

Conversations on Organized Labor

The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers endorsed Hillary Clinton (and Mike Huckabee) at their conference this week in Miami. That's a problem.

Matt Stoller on Open Left points to a consistent problem: This is why labor can't get traction. It doesn't matter to their leaders that Clinton employs a union-buster as her chief strategist, they want a winner.

I've long understood the problem of the "labor movement" to be its undying loyalty to a dying Democratic Party. (See Organized Labor Stares Down Own Mortality in The Evening Bulletin from PA) Unions barely even organize the unorganized anymore -- their "growth" strategy in a post-industrial economy rife with NAFTAs, WTOs, CAFTAs, etc., is to re-organize the already organized by raiding other unionized workers and holding elections to switch their bank accounts over... Union membership since the effective days of Reagan, the original union-buster, has dropped from 20% to around 12%.

If organized labor would take a page from independents, whose ranks have grown during the same time period from 8% to 43%*, they might decide to become less "organized" and more independent. That would do for a start.

* According to a September 3, 2006 Washington Post article, A Nation of Free Agents, by Marc Ambinder: "Independent voters comprise about 10 percent of the electorate, but the percentage of persuadable independents has shot up to about 30 percent. In the 27 states that register voters by party, self-declared independents grew from 8 percent of the registered electorate in 1987 to 24 percent in 2004, according to political analyst Rhodes Cook. Consistently, about 30 percent of U.S. voters tell pollsters they don't belong to a party."

* And the most recent USA Today/Gallup poll puts self-identified independents at 43% of the electorate.

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• Union membership down to 12% (independent voters are 43%)--instead of walking picket lines, they're walking precincts for the Dems (Chicago Sun Times)


• Time Magazine poll: Edwards On Track in Iowa (Time)


• Repubs in a mess (The Trail/Washington Post)


• Retronomics: Clinton, Clinton and more Clintonism (Bloomberg News)


• Will the real Paul Wellstone please stand up (Star Tribune (Minneapolis)


• Bloomberg: Influencing the debate (Washington Post)

Florida IAM to Host Presidential Candidates Monday and Tuesday

Five presidential candidates confirmed they will take part in discussions of key domestic issues before more than 600 representatives of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) on August 27 and 28 at theDisney Yacht and Beach Club in Orlando, FL.

The schedule for the IAM's Conversation with the Candidates is as follows:
Mon. Aug. 27, 3:30 pm--New York Sen. Hillary Clinton
Mon. Aug. 27, 7:30 pm--California Rep. Duncan Hunter and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee
Tue. Aug. 28, 7:30 pm--Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich

The candidate conversations will be moderated by Erin Moriarty of CBS News.The event will be streamed, live, from the www.GOIAM.org web site. Streaming provided by ustream.tv.