David Sirota: Do Dems Lack Strategery, Or Are They Avoiding It?

David Sirota
Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Do Dems Lack Strategery, Or Are They Avoiding It?

Though Will Ferrell famously ridiculed George Bush's "strategery," Republicans in Washington were pretty good legislative strategists when they controlled Congress. They often employed the very basic method of attaching something they wanted that was politically unpopular to something politically popular that enough Democrats would be forced to vote for to get it through the Senate (where 60 votes are often needed). You could always tell how much Republicans really wanted something by looking at the vehicle they were attaching it to. The more popular/necessary that vehicle, the more you knew the GOP wanted it. If they attached something to, say, a must-pass government spending bill, you knew they really wanted to pass what they were attaching.

I bring this up because I was sad to see what I think is the not-necessarily-inevitable Senate defeat of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) - the most important labor law reform in decades.

The EFCA is a bill that helps workers avoid Wal-Mart-style intimidation efforts when they dare to consider forming a union to collectively bargain with their employer. Not surprisingly, it is a bill that Corporate America despises and that thus unifies the bought-and-paid-for Republican Party in opposition.

Why, then, would Democratic leaders bring up the Employee Free Choice Act as a standalone bill? By doing that while knowing this was a bill the GOP would be so adamantly against, they engineered a legislative situation that allowed that GOP opposition to occur with the minimum amount of political consequences.

More at http://www.workingassetsblog.com/2007/06/do_dems_lack_strategery_or_are.html