Rejoice! The Storm Troopers of Leftism Are Being Crushed!

 

TAA_Rally_in_the_Capitol,_2012_(6879367837)This is the second in a series on the importance and durability of conservative successes since Reagan took office and since Obama lost his supermajority; we do win battles and they can stay won.

Though FDR created the modern Democratic Party as a diverse array of government entities and sales pitches to attract various identity groups, its heart was legally-empowered unions. In what might be considered the first individual mandate, Americans under a pro-union government would be forced to pay dues to a third party who would spend it, in part, on getting Democrats elected. There’s a raft of ways in which that system was enhanced; since 1931, for instance, Davis-Bacon prevailing wage laws have meant that government had to overpay for contracts, with much of the surplus going to unions, who were also helped by the additional red tape. Because people rarely give much of their own free will, declared union spending on the 2012 cycle topped $1.7 billion, while the Obama campaign ($0.5 billion), DNC ($0.3 billion), and declared outside spending on the Presidential race ($0.1 billion) didn’t compare.

But it’s more than money. Unions are the Democrats’ answer for why America is great. All the wonderful changes of the twentieth century, the incredible wealth enjoyed by our middle class, the massively superior quality of life we have over our parents … all these are explained, in their telling, by unions. The roll free markets serve in conservative mythology (and in reality) are credited to unions in the Left’s narrative. They can also point to unions as a source for social capital and the guarantors of individual rights, making them not merely the purported engine of economic growth, but also the Left’s church.

What Democrats could never do through direct government control, they achieved, for a while, through unions. People complain about regulatory overhead today — and the complaint is just — but our situation is still greatly superior to the awfulness of the schlerotic unionized industries of the 1970s. Reagan didn’t just lift the boot of direct government control off our neck, but he helped lift the violence, the inflexible and cumbersome union rules, and the sheer corruption of the union system.

Private Sector Union Membership

Before Reagan took over, private sector union membership was at 23 percent. Before Scott Brown took office, it was at 7.2 percent. By last year, it had fallen to 6.6 percent. Reagan was brutal to the unions, Bush 41 followed up, and it took a while for membership to look as if it might stabilize in Clinton’s second term. Bush 43 had an excellent Labor Secretary in Elaine Chao, who I hope would be available for the next administration, and who killed the unions’ brief hope under Clinton. More recently, Obama put a ton of effort into this issue; his two biggest achievements were Obamacare and the Stimulus, and the latter was primarily a union issue (the auto bailouts helped, too). But even with Obama’s NRLB, unions being the key priority of the Democrats, and an inspirational president who got his start working for unions, the relentless drive toward freedom has continued.

That 6.6 percent figure from 2014 is set to fall further, too. In 1958, there were 18 right to work states. In 1963, Wyoming brought that to 19. Louisiana (1976), Idaho (1985), and Texas in (1993!), brought us to 22, and then there was stasis. We weren’t falling back, but we weren’t gaining, either. Other than Nevada, these were all states with weak unions, anyway. We’d never taken a union-loving state until 2012, when Mitch Daniels moved Indiana. Last year, both West Virginia and Michigan became right to work states. This year, so did Wisconsin and we’re set to see some more states fall to our conquest, with none moving in the opposite direction.

Private sector unions aren’t just the mythology the Left credits with essentially everything good that happened in America in the 20th Century. They’ve also been the Democratic Party’s best shock troops ever since the Klan failed them, they’ve been their best fundraisers, and they’ve been the reason that white men and traditionally-minded women could be proud members of the Democratic Party. And we’re grinding them to dust.

Public Sector Union Membership

It’s often said that public sector union membership is picking up the slack, but there are many fewer government workers (22 million) than there are private sector workers (120 million). More importantly, public sector unions aren’t increasing their unionization rate: they’ve merely held their numbers constant while private unions of crumpled. Public sector union membership was at 35.9 percent before Reagan took office, went up under him to 36.6 percent, was at 37.4 percent when Scott Brown won, and is at 35.7 percent now. Wisconsin and Indiana have led a charge against them, too, obviously (I bet no one has read this far without knowing about Wisconsin’s Act 10). Along with the right to work reforms, these measures will only further unions’ decline.

The Future if a Republican Wins in 2016

There’s more to follow; Scott Walker may be the only candidate to have a solid labor reform platform and an indisputable record of achievement, but he’s not the only candidate on the right side of the issue. Bush and Rubio fought teacher’s unions indirectly in Florida. Kasich has a record for fighting, if not defeating, unions. Our Congressional leadership is more anti-labor than any Congressional leadership in a half century. Jim Geraghty talks about the way that Huckabee immediately trashed Walker’s plan for being excessively anti-labor, but Jim’s excellent piece misses the magnitude of the change. We used to have a lot of labor-friendly Republicans. We just don’t any more. The last time we had a majority, we couldn’t pass Davis Bacon reform because labor could count on Santorum, Kit Bond, Mike DeWine, George Voinovich, Mel Martinez, Gordon Smith, Ted Stevens, Chuck Hagel, Olympia Snowe, Arlen Specter, and Lincoln Chaffee. They’re all gone now, and they haven’t been replaced. Sen. Susan Collins is a moderate, but even she’s better on labor than any of those guys. There’s simply no place in today’s elected GOP for Huckabee’s identity politics only style of Republicanism that devoid of conservatism, or at least there wasn’t in 2010, 2012, or 2014. Even this year, I don’t believe Huckabee could get elected as governor or to congress.

Walker’s approach in Wisconsin was to liberate workers as a way to cut budgets, and his federal plan follows this model. This means that it can be passed with reconciliation. Unless we lose five seats in the Senate, any president can follow Walker’s model. He puts it better than I could, but basically he would: 1) Remove the NRLB as a way of immediately undoing all of Obama’s bad labor rules and to divert mediation to a more efficient system (the one used by railway workers, for historical reasons); 2) Enact a raft of reforms to make it harder for federal unions to raise money for politics, protect whistleblowers, make every state right to work (with the ability for states to opt out of that); and 3) Most importantly, repeal the Davis-Bacon Act, a law originally passed in the 1931 to keep African Americans out of the Northern states and Mexicans out of border states, and that now cripples American infrastructure, actively increases inefficiency, and provides massive cash payments to Democrats. A Davis-Bacon repeal is straight-up cash left on the table, even before you look at its moral costs. The gig economy — Uber and such — creates a space in which the elimination of labor as a non-trivial force becomes ever more plausible.

The Future If We Lose

Regardless, we shouldn’t pop the champagne yet. If we lose, the NLRB rules will take hold and stick. McDonald’s, for instance, would be far more likely to unionize. Other expansion seems likely. Obama’s reforms have been delayed, but they’re ready to bite, and a Clinton (or Sanders) Administration would give them the space to expand unions. A Supreme Court with Kennedy replaced by a 100% liberal would reverse decisions like Harris v. Quinn, which would mean that home-care assistants could be forced to join unions. And then, Uber drivers. And a host of other guys who won’t even know that there’s an election on, but will be notified by text message that they’ve chosen to join a union. The gig economy expanded under the wrong SCOTUS and the current NRLB could see massive expansions of the involuntarily unionized. Without Congress passing a new law, union membership would skyrocket to unheard of levels: 40, or even 50 percent of the country wouldn’t be impossible.

With that, we wouldn’t just lose general elections, although that would be one consequence. Union funding would go back to not merely dwarfing the other sources, but doing so to an absurd degree, and then rise beyond that to unprecedented height. Part of the impact would be that we would start losing primary elections to friends of labor again.

2016 looks set to be the election that decides the electoral and business future of the country for decades to come. Both victory and loss would have irrevocable and decisive effects.

Image Credit: “TAA Rally in the Capitol, 2012 (6879367837)” by Peter Patau. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Commons.

Published in Domestic Policy, Economics, Law
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  1. The King Prawn Inactive
    The King Prawn
    @TheKingPrawn

    James Of England: In both cases we should emphasize, as Walker did, that we don’t want to get rid of unions. We just want to reduce union abuses while retaining the good stuff they do

    Same plan for Obamacare?

    Edit: I apparently woke up on the argumentative side of the bed this morning.

    • #31
  2. The King Prawn Inactive
    The King Prawn
    @TheKingPrawn

    James Of England: Currently, unions in all sectors operate to increase funds spent on causes that the individual members often disagree with and engage in corrupt and sometimes violent politics. That should end (although union members should feel free to join political groups).

    Yes. This is where the attack should be. Prosecute the violence. Disempower unions from using dues for any purpose not directly related to the primary function of collective bargaining. Make them collect political contributions for democrats separately and voluntarily.

    Of course, with federal employee unions it’s a different thing. At work tonight I’ll excerpt some of the new contract which was negotiated on my behalf to demonstrate the sorts of useless things over which federal employee unions have a say. They are nothing more than lobbying groups for federal employees because it is in legislation that federal pay and benefits are set. These are not subject to negotiation like with every other employee group, so federal employee unions are bad exactly for the reasons FDR said they were, which should scare people. Something so inherently corrupt even Roosevelt recoiled from it is obviously not in the public interest.

    • #32
  3. BrentB67 Inactive
    BrentB67
    @BrentB67

    I grew up in Missouri and did undergrad there. It has been trending much more red recently, but trade unions, especially in St. Louis still hold a lot of sway. Some of this is leftover from the UAW powerhouse days, but small unions like IBEW are very influential. When I was 16 and sacking groceries I was required to be a member of UFCW local 655. I attended almost every meeting and raised all kinds of hell (I know everyone is shocked) until the union told the store to cut my hours and shut me up.

    The unions are happy to let republicans authorize concealed carry, try to ban abortion, etc., but do not cross the unions.

    • #33
  4. The King Prawn Inactive
    The King Prawn
    @TheKingPrawn

    Judge Mental: I would like to see the rule everywhere be that joining any union is voluntary, and that dues collection is not done by payroll deduction, but by some other billing method.  That produces the genuinely voluntary system you mention, and at the same time greatly reduces the influence of the union, because under those conditions many people won’t join and others won’t pay.

    At the federal level membership is voluntary, but dues can be deducted by payroll allotment at the member’s request, and this is the place where membership is at the highest level. Of course, federal employee unions are a different matter all together because they can be nothing but lobbying firms who do contract negotiations over the length and placement of lunch breaks, and the lead time for approval of leave requests as a side gig.

    • #34
  5. Matt Balzer Member
    Matt Balzer
    @MattBalzer

    The King Prawn:As far as forcing right-to-work from the top down, really? I still believe in separation of powers between the national and state governments. From which enumerated power would this heavy hand of the national government extend to crush a state’s right to be as stupid in their labor contracting laws as their voters agree they should be?

    Since the states would still have the ability to opt out of right-to-work, I don’t see it as much of an issue. Besides, if there’s no ability to push right-to-work from the top down, what ability is there to push unionization from the top down?

    • #35
  6. The King Prawn Inactive
    The King Prawn
    @TheKingPrawn

    I love unions as a concept because people should be able to freely associate, pool their resources, and work together to accomplish shared goals. I can see how this would be beneficial in a workplace where management might be tempted to harshness toward employees. We’ve all worked for that guy. Being able to get together with our coworkers and do more than drink beers and lament is an inherently good and American thing.

    The problem, however, is that the right to association extends not just to the employees of one shop or factory, but to those employees and the employees in the competing factory across the street. On grounds of liberty and free association the union of these two groups in the striving for their common cause must also be honored. (Of course, the liberty of the bosses of both groups to fire the lot of them should they fail to do their [expletive] jobs should also be honored.)

    Where the whole idealism falls apart is in reality when human nature rears its head. Just as those unions of common cause can accomplish reasonable goals for their members, they are just as likely to produce mobs, in every negative sense of the word.

    The real choice we have is to attempt to thread the needle legislatively to maintain liberty and ameliorate this natural occurrence, or to just ban them outright — which is antithetical to higher principles, at least in my humble(ish) opinion.

    • #36
  7. RightAngles Member
    RightAngles
    @RightAngles

    Once when I was in my 20s living in Chicago, the CTA (Chicago Transit Authority) bus drivers went on strike for a pay raise. They ended up getting a base salary that at the time was nearly a mid-level executive salary, and it was more than I was making with my college degree. In addition to that, it was hard to find a way to get to work during the strike, and a fare hike was coming in order to pay for their new pay level. I was so angry I wrote a letter to the editor of the Tribune. I signed my name, which was listed in the phone book. The day my letter was published, my phone rang off the hook all evening and into the late hours of the night. Some of the calls were death threats, some were heavy breathing, and some of them swore loudly at me, called me awful names, and hung up.

    • #37
  8. The King Prawn Inactive
    The King Prawn
    @TheKingPrawn

    Matt Balzer:

    The King Prawn:As far as forcing right-to-work from the top down, really? I still believe in separation of powers between the national and state governments. From which enumerated power would this heavy hand of the national government extend to crush a state’s right to be as stupid in their labor contracting laws as their voters agree they should be?

    Since the states would still have the ability to opt out of right-to-work, I don’t see it as much of an issue. Besides, if there’s no ability to push right-to-work from the top down, what ability is there to push unionization from the top down?

    I think the right might somehow find a spine if the left tried to make the entire nation a closed shop. My question is more on the technical problem of where the federal government gets the power to make right-to-work the default of the nation even if it is obviously (obvious to us at least) the better way. No matter how great an idea may be, its awesomeness does not empower the national government to act on it. Only the Constitution does that, and its high time we start realizing and acting on this again.

    • #38
  9. Matt Balzer Member
    Matt Balzer
    @MattBalzer

    The King Prawn:

    Matt Balzer:

    The King Prawn:

    I think the right might somehow find a spine if the left tried to make the entire nation a closed shop. My question is more on the technical problem of where the federal government gets the power to make right-to-work the default of the nation even if it is obviously (obvious to us at least) the better way.No matter how great an idea may be, its awesomeness does not empower the national government to act on it. Only the Constitution does that, and its high time we start realizing and acting on this again.

    I might be misunderstanding this, but if right-to-work is not currently the default status, then what is the current default? I’d say that making right-to-work the default is actually more Constitutionally correct, although I have very little knowledge about what labor arrangements existed at the time it was written.

    • #39
  10. The King Prawn Inactive
    The King Prawn
    @TheKingPrawn

    Matt Balzer:

    The King Prawn:

    Matt Balzer:

    The King Prawn:

    I think the right might somehow find a spine if the left tried to make the entire nation a closed shop. My question is more on the technical problem of where the federal government gets the power to make right-to-work the default of the nation even if it is obviously (obvious to us at least) the better way.No matter how great an idea may be, its awesomeness does not empower the national government to act on it. Only the Constitution does that, and its high time we start realizing and acting on this again.

    I might be misunderstanding this, but if right-to-work is not currently the default status, then what is the current default? I’d say that making right-to-work the default is actually more Constitutionally correct, although I have very little knowledge about what labor arrangements existed at the time it was written.

    The default is there is no default. It’s completely a state matter. If obvious federal intervention wasn’t discovered in over 200 years, I can’t really imagine we’ll wake up tomorrow and realized we’ve just been missing setting this up for over two centuries.

    • #40
  11. Matt Balzer Member
    Matt Balzer
    @MattBalzer

    The King Prawn:

    Matt Balzer:

    The King Prawn:

    Matt Balzer:

    The King Prawn:

    My question is more on the technical problem of where the federal government gets the power to make right-to-work the default of the nation even if it is obviously (obvious to us at least) the better way.No matter how great an idea may be, its awesomeness does not empower the national government to act on it. Only the Constitution does that, and its high time we start realizing and acting on this again.

    I might be misunderstanding this, but if right-to-work is not currently the default status, then what is the current default? I’d say that making right-to-work the default is actually more Constitutionally correct, although I have very little knowledge about what labor arrangements existed at the time it was written.

    The default is there is no default. It’s completely a state matter. If obvious federal intervention wasn’t discovered in over 200 years, I can’t really imagine we’ll wake up tomorrow and realized we’ve just been missing setting this up for over two centuries.

    Okay, I think I resolved my disconnect. Instead of a ‘repeal and replace’ it should just be ‘repeal’ and then leave it up to the states to decide how they want their labor laws?

    • #41
  12. The King Prawn Inactive
    The King Prawn
    @TheKingPrawn

    Matt Balzer: Okay, I think I resolved my disconnect. Instead of a ‘repeal and replace’ it should just be ‘repeal’ and then leave it up to the states to decide how they want their labor laws?

    Repeal what? Disband the NLRB, which Walker plans, because that is no neutral arbiter … it’s a wholly owned union tool. Leave it to the states to do the rational thing or be leftists. The market will sort it out like it has been between California and Texas.

    • #42
  13. Mike H Inactive
    Mike H
    @MikeH

    Gary McVey: Even the least politically aware adult knows that they can’t go to a competing police force or a competitive motor vehicle department.

    But we can dream…

    • #43
  14. Mike H Inactive
    Mike H
    @MikeH

    The King Prawn: As far as forcing right-to-work from the top down, really? I still believe in separation of powers between the national and state governments. From which enumerated power would this heavy hand of the national government extend to crush a state’s right to be as stupid in their labor contracting laws as their voters agree they should be?

    The difference is allowing right-to-work is moral, so it’s right to create it by almost any means.

    “Sorry, my enumerated powers don’t allow me to stop him from kicking you.”

    • #44
  15. The King Prawn Inactive
    The King Prawn
    @TheKingPrawn

    Mike H: The difference is right-to-work is immoral, so it’s right to stop it by almost any means.

    Right-to-work means no compulsory union membership.

    • #45
  16. Mike H Inactive
    Mike H
    @MikeH

    The King Prawn:

    Mike H: The difference is right-to-work is immoral, so it’s right to stop it by almost any means.

    Right-to-work means no compulsory union membership.

    Ahh, of course, said that backwards.

    • #46
  17. The King Prawn Inactive
    The King Prawn
    @TheKingPrawn

    Mike H:

    The King Prawn:

    Mike H: The difference is right-to-work is immoral, so it’s right to stop it by almost any means.

    Right-to-work means no compulsory union membership.

    Ahh, of course, said that backwards.

    More importantly, it took a constitutional amendment to end slavery, which is clearly immoral, so why should it be in the power of the national government to end a similar, though less sever, immoral institution?

    • #47
  18. Mike H Inactive
    Mike H
    @MikeH

    The King Prawn:

    Mike H:

    The King Prawn:

    Mike H: The difference is right-to-work is immoral, so it’s right to stop it by almost any means.

    Right-to-work means no compulsory union membership.

    Ahh, of course, said that backwards.

    More importantly, it took a constitutional amendment to end slavery, which is clearly immoral, so why should it be in the power of the national government to end a similar, though less sever, immoral institution?

    Most of what the government does now is both immoral and unConstitutional so I don’t see why we’re picking nits on how we stop immoral action. For instance, Obamacare. It shouldn’t need an act of Congress to stop it. It should just be stopped because it’s wrong. Everyone should simply stop following the law, but the reason is because it’s simply wrong to force people to act like that, not because the Commerce Clause was misinterpreted. I have a post to write on how the Constitution has largely failed, why that is, and what perhaps could be done to have a more enforceable document, but as you can imagine, that’s not something that can be banged out in an hour.

    • #48
  19. Qoumidan Coolidge
    Qoumidan
    @Qoumidan

    We’ve been experiencing public teacher strikes in my state, so the conversation of unions has come up. The comments and follow-up questions seems to mostly be “we support the teachers, of course” and “without the union how would the poor little teacher on their own take on their evil overlords to prevent them from forcing them to work more for less (or the same) pay?”
    Both of those things are ridiculous and severely limit the discussion, but I am not a debater and often must go ponder for a while before being able to gather my thoughts on an issue. How does one briefly argue against unions in that context?
    Also of note is that it is apparently illegal in Washington state for teacher’s unions to strike so why are they getting away with it? They certainly appear to have in Pasco.

    • #49
  20. The King Prawn Inactive
    The King Prawn
    @TheKingPrawn

    Mike H: Most of what the government does now is both immoral and unConstitutional so I don’t see why we’re picking nits on how we stop immoral action. For instance, Obamacare. It shouldn’t need an act of Congress to stop it. It should just be stopped because it’s wrong. Everyone should simply stop following the law, but the reason is because it’s simply wrong to force people to act like that, not because the Commerce Clause was misinterpreted. I have a post to write on how the Constitution has largely failed, why that is, and what perhaps could be done to have a more enforceable document, but as you can imagine, that’s not something that can be banged out in an hour.

    I don’t disagree with your description, but I’m leery of your prescription. But I’ve been a little uneasy with the potential outcome of this experiment in self-government for a while.

    • #50
  21. The King Prawn Inactive
    The King Prawn
    @TheKingPrawn

    Qoumidan: How does one briefly argue against unions in that context? Also of note is that it is apparently illegal in Washington state for teacher’s unions to strike so why are they getting away with it? They certainly appear to have in Pasco.

    I think you answered your own question. I have friends on both sides of this fight. Our state is harder because the teachers do have a point on some issues they raise. The state really is dropping the ball in many ways on education, but it does not bear all the guilt alone as the federal behemoth is forcing errors as well. I’ve a friend who as a principal turned down federal money because of how much of that money would be consumed to hire another non-teaching staff member to manage the paperwork associated with using it. No one is wholly right or wholly wrong in the fight here. However, the teachers demanding a miracle need to wake up to reality and work with the legislature for progress rather than throwing a toddler’s fit and demanding nothing short of perfection.

    • #51
  22. Matt Balzer Member
    Matt Balzer
    @MattBalzer

    The King Prawn:

    Matt Balzer: Okay, I think I resolved my disconnect. Instead of a ‘repeal and replace’ it should just be ‘repeal’ and then leave it up to the states to decide how they want their labor laws?

    Repeal what? Disband the NLRB, which Walker plans, because that is no neutral arbiter … it’s a wholly owned union tool. Leave it to the states to do the rational thing or be leftists. The market will sort it out like it has been between California and Texas.

    Right, but the NLRB is the enforcer of the NLRA. If the NLRB is dismantled the laws it is meant to enforce will still be on the books, only there will be no body to oversee them, and they would still be a limit on state ability to write their own labor legislation.

    • #52
  23. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    A new POTUS Could wipe out the NLRB by saying he feels it is not constitutional for the Congress to create a board that answers to no one, and makes law. He could disband it, send everyone home, and declare its regulations null and void.

    A Court case means nothing. There is no way for the SCOTUS to make the POTUS do anything to enforce those rules.

    Now, Congress could pass the rules into actual law, as the Founders intended. The President could also veto them as they came up.

    Our side are cowards or they want the power of the regulatory state. So much of that power could be handed back to Congress at the stroke of a pen in an Executive Order.

    • #53
  24. Sabrdance Member
    Sabrdance
    @Sabrdance

    The King Prawn:I love unions as a concept because people should be able to freely associate, pool their resources, and work together to accomplish shared goals. I can see how this would be beneficial in a workplace where management might be tempted to harshness toward employees. We’ve all worked for that guy. Being able to get together with our coworkers and do more than drink beers and lament is an inherently good and American thing.

    The problem, however, is that the right to association extends not just to the employees of one shop or factory, but to those employees and the employees in the competing factory across the street. On grounds of liberty and free association the union of these two groups in the striving for their common cause must also be honored. (Of course, the liberty of the bosses of both groups to fire the lot of them should they fail to do their [expletive] jobs should also be honored.)

    I see no reason -and I’m not sure you do either -to extend the belief in freedom of association to a government protected monopoly for the supply of workers.  Unions are cartels and guilds.  If they can produce a monopoly on workers -like the Masons of the Middle Ages -by guaranteeing high quality work, and so demand higher compensation, I would not object as loudly.

    That is not the system we live under, though.

    • #54
  25. Sabrdance Member
    Sabrdance
    @Sabrdance

    As to the main article, I’m not so convinced of the comparison.  Yes, private sector union membership is dropping, and Government union membership is constant as a share of employment -but government has been growing in size over the relevant period until very recently, and there’s also a lot of de-facto unionization through enforcement of Davis Bacon on government contracts.  All these executive orders Obama issues about how federal contractors have to do this, that, and the other thing are things the unions already demand.

    • #55
  26. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    Mike H:

    Most of what the government does now is both immoral and unConstitutional so I don’t see why we’re picking nits on how we stop immoral action. For instance, Obamacare. It shouldn’t need an act of Congress to stop it. It should just be stopped because it’s wrong. Everyone should simply stop following the law, but the reason is because it’s simply wrong to force people to act like that, not because the Commerce Clause was misinterpreted. I have a post to write on how the Constitution has largely failed, why that is, and what perhaps could be done to have a more enforceable document, but as you can imagine, that’s not something that can be banged out in an hour.

    We are on the same page, I think.

    Much could be done without breaking the “law”, simply by saying that Congress cannot pass legislation that gives away its power to legislate under the Constitution. The POTUS could disband most of the regulatory state and tell Congress “you pass all these as laws”. Of course, he could then veto the crap out of them.

    • #56
  27. James Of England Inactive
    James Of England
    @JamesOfEngland

    The King Prawn:

    James Of England: They had a 96-63 vote in favor; that’s a pretty healthy majority. Governor Nixon isn’t hanging around after 2016, and Missouri’s turning increasingly red. All the predictions (Cook, Sabuto, etc.) have it as a tossup.

    Republican supermajority, enough to override the D governor’s veto (this was the vote that failed) because 13 of those Republicans voted with the unions. You know I’m as stridently anti-trump as anyone, well anyone other than Rick Wilson, but if a pinkish state like Missouri with Republican supermajorities can’t override a veto to bring their state out of the early 20th century, then what will electing more of the same class of Republicans accomplish?

    I’m not sure how pink as opposed to purple Missouri is. In terms of statewide officials, they have a Democratic governor, 1 each of Senators, Democratic AG, Democratic Treasurer, Democratic Sec. State, and Democratic Auditor. Oh, and a Republican Lt. Gov.. The next gubernatorial election is viewed as a tossup.

    Electing that class of Republicans seems likely to give us RtW in Missouri when we get an amenable Governor. That might be this election, or it might be the following cycle.

    As far as forcing right-to-work from the top down, really? I still believe in separation of powers between the national and state governments. From which enumerated power would this heavy hand of the national government extend to crush a state’s right to be as stupid in their labor contracting laws as their voters agree they should be?

    There is no forcing of states to do anything. This is a weakening of part of Federal law. The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) was initially partly weakened by Taft-Hartley, which said that states had the right to decide to opt out of parts of the Wagner Act, which they called Right to Work.

    Walker would go further and say that states do not have to take action to opt out of those portions of federal regulation. Instead, if no action were taken, the lighter burden would apply.

    Neither of these laws prevent states from passing stupid labor laws of their own, and many states have done precisely that. There are some state laws that get pre-empted, but there is a fair degree of flexibility.

    The NLRA was passed under the Commerce Clause, as you know. If your argument is that it shouldn’t have been, then fine. Arguing that we shouldn’t partially repeal it because we should totally repeal it seems like an argument against any federal reform, though. Think about the politicians you like. Think about their proposed reforms. You will find that they all fail the test you provide.

    • #57
  28. James Of England Inactive
    James Of England
    @JamesOfEngland

    The King Prawn:

    James Of England: In both cases we should emphasize, as Walker did, that we don’t want to get rid of unions. We just want to reduce union abuses while retaining the good stuff they do

    Same plan for Obamacare?

    Edit: I apparently woke up on the argumentative side of the bed this morning.

    Well, sort of. Walker is the only candidate to have published an Obamacare replacement plan. That repeals Obamacare, but some of its features are similar. It provides a tax credit to those without employer sponsored insurance to even out the costs, for instance. I think that that’s a good thing. If you disagree, then by all means argue that case. If you disagree because now the idea has Obama-cooties, I will be less impressed than if you argue on the merits.

    Two other differences: Firstly, Obamacare is very new and American society has not organically formed itself around it in a similar way to the way it has the NLRA. It’s a lot easier to repeal Obamacare, and there is less harm from reform. Secondly, Obamacare is an almost entirely awful law. The NLRA is not. The introduction of secret ballot requirements was one of the greatest advances in the 20th century. When Solidarity looked for allies in the West, it had to go to US unions, because secret-ballot-less European unions were run by the KGB. American unions were patriotic and led by Americans with essentially Western, albeit leftist, values. The secret ballot also reduced the level of organized crime to being merely dominant, and eventually to only a part of the union movement.

    Although the NLRA was passed under the Commerce Clause, I feel that the secret ballot provisions could reasonably have been passed under the 14th Amendment as part of an enforcement measure protecting the First Amendment right to Free Association.

    • #58
  29. James Of England Inactive
    James Of England
    @JamesOfEngland

    The King Prawn: The default is there is no default. It’s completely a state matter. If obvious federal intervention wasn’t discovered in over 200 years, I can’t really imagine we’ll wake up tomorrow and realized we’ve just been missing setting this up for over two centuries.

    No, the default is the full application of the NLRA, without a Taft-Hartley opt out. The Federal intervention has been obvious to the country since it started in 1935 (there were Federal Interventions before then, obviously, but Federal intervention in the form of stopping states from being RtW starts then).

    If you think about it, there really has to be a default; what was the law before statutes were passed and decisions made? If you’re ignoring the legislation of the Progressive era, the default is that unions are illegal restraints upon trade.

    • #59
  30. James Of England Inactive
    James Of England
    @JamesOfEngland

    The King Prawn:

    Mike H: Most of what the government does now is both immoral and unConstitutional so I don’t see why we’re picking nits on how we stop immoral action. For instance, Obamacare. It shouldn’t need an act of Congress to stop it. It should just be stopped because it’s wrong. Everyone should simply stop following the law, but the reason is because it’s simply wrong to force people to act like that, not because the Commerce Clause was misinterpreted. I have a post to write on how the Constitution has largely failed, why that is, and what perhaps could be done to have a more enforceable document, but as you can imagine, that’s not something that can be banged out in an hour.

    I don’t disagree with your description, but I’m leery of your prescription. But I’ve been a little uneasy with the potential outcome of this experiment in self-government for a while.

    I’m with you. As Christians, we should obey the secular authorities. As Americans, we should be unbelievably grateful for the Constitution and for the superiority of our government over all others.

    If you have a cancer in your system, by all means cut it out. If you have a merely bothersome and upsetting malady, do not leap straight to major organ amputation wherever it shows up.

    • #60
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