I missed a pretty good EFCA discussion over at the Bellman while I was waiting for my Ducks to kick some Holiday Bowl ass, but I hope they won't mind if I comment here.
Jason is right, the Republicans are going filibuster every damn thing they can until their base tells them to stop. I don't see that happening on EFCA. The religious right and the terminally stupid might not care about EFCA, but the free marketers and the business types very much care. I don't see a downside to the GOP fighting it, very publicly. They see it as an 80-20 issue, or 80% of the American public agreeing with them. I don't think that the American people have locked in on EFCA yet, so both sides can probably argue that 80% of the American public agrees with their frame. Which one will win out over the coming months is the question.
This is why Obama is going to be very important. If he spends political capital on this, if he pressures people, bullies, bargains, conjoles, in other words acts like LBJ, then we've got a chance. If all capital is reserved for health care, the economy (tax increases), and the environment, we're screwed.
Lex mentions that the anti-EFCA forces are gearing up for a massive spending spree to stop it. Good. Let them spend millions playing defense for a change.
At some point our union superiors are going to be faced with the choice between fighting for the full EFCA or agreeing to a compromise version that will do away with card check and weaken some of the strengthened penalties against NLRA violators (or increase the penalties for unions that violate the NLRA). I fear that after decades of settling for half-a-loaf (ha ha!, we've taken crumbs) they will give up without a fight, falling back on declaring victory and moving on.
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I'll grant that the GOP could choose to pursue an obstructionist course, though I should say that I have some doubts that the party, at the present moment, has the kind of coherence that would make that kind of strategy possible.
My own view is that obstructionism is the worst possible course of action for the GOP. Their basic problem is that obstructionism amounts to a commitment to extend Bush era policies. Whatever resonance those policies might have had in 2004, they lost in 2008 and are unlikely to be a winning hand in 2010. Either the economy will have improved with the credit going to Obama, or it won't have with the blame going to obstructionism. In a word, the best chance the GOP has for gaining back lost ground is to allow the Dems to implement their agenda and hope that the economic situation remains dismal.
I'd second that first graf of dr's - the Senate GOP caucus is not going to have much ability to enforce any sort of discipline, especially on moderate Senators from states who went blue. That your Corkers and Inhofes rail against anything that whiffs of making life better for anyone is a given - the question becomes which side the Voinoviches and Lugars and Snowes take (I'd also add it depends on how much of a gutless wonder Reid will be in maintaining discipline in his own caucus).
My feeling is that if EFCA is inserted into the economic stimulus package that will be priority one in the next few weeks, that's our best shot of getting it past. It'll be in a necessary piece of legislation where applying the "obstructionist" tag will be easy and where Obama can use the bully pulpit more effectively. I want to go after the GOP for trying to hold up a bill to revive the economy because of their troglodytic anti-union vendetta. However, if they try to pass it on it's own, I think that's where we'll more likely run into trouble.
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