In the past week, I’ve gotten at least a dozen emails from RPV, George Allen’s campaign, Americans for Prosperity and veritable cast of thousands criticizing Tim Kaine, raising the specter that somehow, a U.S. Senator Tim Kaine would be able to invalidate Virginia’s right to work (RTW) laws. These laws forbid closed shops where joining the union is a condition of employment.
Here’s the truth, folks – Newt Gingrich has a better chance of getting lunar colonies than Tim Kaine has of repealing RTW, even if he wanted to.
That idea is one of the most ridiculous ideas I’ve ever heard. Virginia’s right to work law isn’t going anywhere, nor is the idea of a national right to work repeal going to happen. This is a ridiculous issue for Republicans to continue demagogue – the equivalent to the Democrats screaming that a Republican White House would ban abortion.
We all know it ain’t gonna happen. If we couldn’t do it when we controlled the Congress and White House, it won’t happen now.
First of all, if you want to criticize President Obama and Tim Kaine about right to work, you should start with their mischaracterization of it. At the Building and Construction Trades Department convention this week, the President tied RTW to attacks on collective bargaining – the two are completely separate issues. When the President can’t even get this stuff straight, I can see why so many Republicans can’t.
Second, there is no on-going effort to repeal RTW in Virginia – in fact, most RTW legislation across the country is going in the opposite direction, with over a dozen states who have had their legislatures taken over by Republicans pushing RTW or similar legislation. In Virginia, we’ve seen efforts to strengthen our RTW laws by having them added to the Virginia Constitution, not weaken them.
Labor understands this. That’s why the Virginia AFL-CIO doesn’t even ask a question on their candidate questionnaire about support for repealing RTW. It’s simply not an issue, especially in a Commonwealth where Republicans have an overwhelming majority in the House, control of the Governorship and effective control of policy in the State Senate.
Nationally, a national right to work repeal hasn’t been on anybody’s agenda, and it would be an impossible lift for Democrats to pull it off, even if they wanted to. Labor’s crown jewel piece of legislation wasn’t a right to work repeal, it was the Employee Free Choice Act, and even that couldn’t get passed in a Congress controlled exclusively by Democrats between 2006 and 2010, and with a friendly White House for two years. If they couldn’t even get card check done, why does anyone think it’s possible they’d be able to pass a national law that would invalidate laws on the books in over 20 states – laws that have been around for over half a century?
It’s simply not possible. So why keep talking about it? To raise money?
Do we not have enough legitimate issues to use to raise money? Tim Kaine’s record alone is a gold mine in that regard. And President Obama hasn’t done himself any favors. I’m tired of seeing both sides use non-issues to scare up the base and raise cash. Democrats do the exact same thing with abortion, as we’ve seen with this completely absurd claim about a Republican “war on women.” I’m sick and tired of it. This may be politics as usual, but it’s one area that I’ve grown completely cynical about.
Campaigns should be about legitimate issues and ideas. We don’t need to resort to this kind of fearmongering when we’re six months away from one of the most critical elections in history. If that alone isn’t enough to raise money off of, nothing is.
We don’t need to resort to scare tactics about issues that have no chance of passing in order to win votes. I would rather us spend time focusing on legitimate issues, like tax increases, that are real threats if Tim Kaine is elected. When a candidate for public office admits that his biggest regret is that he wasn’t able to raise taxes, why are we wasting time talking about RTW?
