Jean Carnahan: the Clear Choice in Missouri Senate Race

Missouri’s voters could not have a clearer choice in their state’s potentially pivotal U.S. Senate race between Sen. Jean Carnahan (D), who voted for working families 93 percent of the time in 2001, according to the AFL-CIO, and former U.S. Rep. Jim Talent (R), whose working family voting record in 2000 (his last year in office) was a big goose egg: 0.

Appointed to fill the vacancy left by her late husband, Gov. Mel Carnahan, who was elected over Sen. John Ashcroft (R) in 2000 shortly after tragically losing his life in a plane crash, Jean Carnahan has swiftly built a strong record as an effective legislator and a strong ally for CWA and Missouri’s working families.

Not content to sit on the sidelines, Carnahan has taken a leadership role on many key issues. Shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, she offered an amendment on the Senate floor to an airline bailout bill that would have provided desperately needed unemployment, job training and health benefits for displaced industry workers. While she built a bipartisan majority for her amendment, extremist Republican Senate leaders mounted a filibuster. The amendment fell four votes short of the 60 needed to break the filibuster.

She also took the lead on corporate accountability, sponsoring and winning passage of an amendment to prohibit one of the most despicable practices of the Enron scandal: corporate executives secretly dumping stock while telling their employees and investors the company was doing well.

The first bill Carnahan introduced — the Quality Classrooms Act — was incorporated into the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, making new federal investments in reducing class size and improving classroom conditions.

Carnahan has fought for working families in many other ways, including:

• Voting against the Republican bill that repealed the tough ergonomics standard which CWA worked more than a decade to win and put millions of workers, including many CWA members, at continued risk of painful, crippling injury.

• Co-sponsoring and supporting a real Patients’ Bill of Rights to protect working families from managed care abuses and allow patients to sue their health plan if they suffer harm.

• Supporting a strong Medicare prescription drug benefit to provide real relief to seniors struggling to afford the medicine they need.

• Extending full collective bargaining rights to firefighters, police and other public safety officers in all 50 states.

At the other end of the political spectrum, Talent’s record of extremism stands in stark contrast to Carnahan’s strong, effective voice for Missouri’s working families. In 2000, his last year in the House of Representatives, Talent voted:

• To gut the 64 year-old protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act for inside sales workers, thereby harming 50,000 CWA members, ranging from yellow book sales employees to advertising salespeople at newspapers.

• Against an increase in the minimum wage.

• To stop the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) from implementing the ergonomics standard.

• To grant permanent normal trade relations with China, despite that authoritarian regime’s notorious human and workers’ rights abuses.

• For a sham Medicare prescription drug plan that would have deprived seniors of guaranteed benefits while providing subsidies for the insurance industry.

This record alone is one working families should reject. But making matters worse is Talent’s work since he left Congress to work as a lobbyist last year for corporations and special interests for the “part-time” salary of $230,000.

The significance of this race extends far beyond one vote in the Senate. The outcome could determine which party controls the Senate for the next two years, with major consequences on every policy and budget issue that matters (see U.S. Senate: One Vote Makes All the Difference).

Time and again, Carnahan stands up for CWA members, while Talent sides with the forces of corporate greed and ideological extremism.

Carnahan’s support for our working families agenda has been constant and uncompromising. In her short time in Washington, she has earned our respect and our strong support to make sure that she wins this special election to serve out the remaining four years of her Senate term.

This portion of this website is paid for by the CWA Committee on Political Education - Political ontributions Committee, with voluntary contributions from union members and their families, and is not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.