Max Cleland: the Clear Choice in Georgia Senate Race

In his first term, Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.) has proven himself to be a strong supporter of working families and an advocate on such key issues as health care, stopping corporate abuses, pension protection and Social Security.

As a Vietnam war hero who was severely injured on the battlefield and Georgia’s former secretary of state, Cleland is a popular vote-getter. But this fall, he faces a tough opponent in Rep. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), a staunch conservative and supporter of the extremist House Republican leadership.

This promises to be one of the most closely contested Senate races in the nation. It is also one in which the contrasts between the candidates could not be clearer.

On a host of key issues affecting the lives of working families, Cleland and Chambliss take opposite sides:

• Cleland voted to protect workers from repetitive motion injuries by keeping the tough ergonomics standard which CWA worked more than a decade to win. However, Chambliss voted in the House not only to repeal it but to prohibit the Occupational Safety and Health Administration from issuing a similar rule. Chambliss’ action puts millions of workers, including many CWA members, at continued risk of painful, crippling injury.

• Cleland voted for a strong Patients’ Bill of Rights that would protect working families from managed care abuses and allow patients to sue their health plan if they suffer harm. By contrast, Chambliss voted to create special protection for HMOs and to make it harder for patients to sue them.

• Cleland worked to assist those economically harmed by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks by voting to provide $31 billion in unemployment and health benefits for displaced workers. But Chambliss voted for an stimulus package that spent $162 billion on special interest corporate tax breaks and devoted just $12 billion to helping laid-off workers.

• Cleland voted against school vouchers that drain vital resources away from the neediest public schools, while Chambliss supports them.

In all, Cleland voted for working families 81 percent of the time in 2001, according to the AFL-CIO, compared to just 17 percent for Chambliss. Over the course of his House career, Chambliss has voted right on the issues most important to working families just 7 percent of the time.

Cleland is running a clean campaign based on affordable, quality health care, lower cost prescription drugs, saving Social Security, and education. He is a strong opponent of President Bush’s scheme to privatize Social Security, placing the pillar of Americans’ retirement security at the mercy of the stock market.

Cleland also has made fighting corporate fraud a priority, building on his experience cracking down on big business abuses as Georgia secretary of state. He worked hard for passage of legislation strengthening oversight and auditing standards, creating tougher penalties for securities fraud, protecting whistle blowers and imposing strict conflict of interest rules for stock analysts and securities officials. He is a co-sponsor of the Fully Informed Investor Act, which would remove some of the smokescreens corporations put in place to hide their inside actions from shareholders and the public. And he co-sponsored the Corporate and Criminal Fraud Accountability Act of 2002, which toughens penalties for officials destroying evidence in a federal investigation, as occurred with Enron.

While the contrast between Cleland and Chambliss could not be greater, the significance of this race extends 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).

CWA members and indeed all working families in Georgia have a strong supporter and ally in the Senate in Max Cleland. Through his actions, he has earned our respect, our support and most important, he has earned another term in office.

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.