Codependency

Subscribe to The National Right to Work Committee® Posts by Email Why are Democrats in Wisconsin and Indiana fleeing the state rather than vote on reform measures? It's because Big Labor and the Democratic Party are completely codependent upon each other, the Investors Business Daily opines: The fleeing Democrats in Wisconsin and Indiana say they are protecting state workers, but they have plenty of self-interested reasons to hit the road. Their self-imposed exile and national Democrats' support show just how key Big Labor is to their fortunes. Unions have long been a backbone of support for the Democratic Party. They have become even more important in recent years as they ramped up campaign efforts. Without them, Democrats have no chance of reversing the GOP's 2010 gains. The American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, the top public-sector union, spent a reported $87.5 million nationally in the 2010 election cycle — 99% for Democrats. The Chamber of Commerce, by contrast, spent $75 million. The National Education Association spent $40 million, and the Service Employees International Union spent $44 million. That doesn't count the unions' importance in get-out-the-vote efforts, in organizing rallies and in other election activities. There will be 91 electoral votes at stake in the seven upper Midwest states from Minnesota and Iowa to Pennsylvania (excluding President Obama's home state of Illinois). In 2008, Obama won all those states, including a narrow victory in Indiana. But in 2010, Republicans in the area had their best election in decades, picking up 16 House seats, two Senate seats, and five governorships. Only Minnesota's governorship flipped from Republican to Democrat.

Union Bosses Fight for Dues Money

The widely respected political journalist Michael Barone's take on the battle of Wisconsin: Everyone has priorities. During the past week Barack Obama has found no time to condemn the attacks that Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi has launched on the Libyan people. But he did find time to be interviewed by a Wisconsin television station and weigh in on the dispute between Republican Gov. Scott Walker and the state's public employee unions. Walker was staging "an assault on unions," he said, and added that "public employee unions make enormous contributions to our states and our citizens." Enormous contributions, yes -- to the Democratic Party and the Obama campaign. Unions, most of whose members are public employees, gave Democrats some $400 million in the 2008 election cycle. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the biggest public employee union, gave Democrats $90 million in the 2010 cycle. Follow the money, Washington reporters like to say. The money in this case comes from taxpayers, present and future, who are the source of every penny of dues paid to public employee unions, who in turn spend much of that money on politics, almost all of it for Democrats. In effect, public employee unions are a mechanism by which every taxpayer is forced to fund the Democratic Party.