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Senate Shake-Up Gives Working Families New Clout
A year that started out as one of the politically bleakest for working families took a turn for the better in June with the shake-up in the U.S. Senate, a change likely to affect issues from family leave to foreign trade, as well as judicial appointments.
“This is an earthquake,” CWA Chief Lobbyist Lou Gerber said. “In one stroke, Jim Jeffords put an abrupt end to the first all-Republican government in Washington in nearly 50 years.”
Jeffords is the Vermont senator who left the Republican Party to become an independent aligned with the Democrats, giving them a 51-49 majority in the Senate. Announcing his decision, he said, “I increasingly find myself in disagreement with my party.”
But votes on the Senate floor are only part of the political equation. By taking over the Senate leadership and its committees, advocates for working families get to decide which bills get hearings. Opponents, though, have other ways of pushing their agenda.
“What this does is give us the tools to control the agenda of items considered in Senate hearings,” Gerber said. “It changes us from being strictly defensive players to playing offense. It does not, however, ensure a safe harbor.”
That’s because opponents who don’t get hearings on their bills can tack them on as amendments to unrelated bills pending on the Senate floor. “Senate rules are pretty liberal in terms of allowing floor amendments, and we have to be on guard,” he said.
One such amendment is likely to come from Sen. Judd Gregg (R- N.H.), whose bill to restrict the health conditions that apply to the Family and Medical Leave Act now has no realistic chance of getting through committee.
Gregg’s bill is pending in the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, taken over by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.). A champion of workers’ rights, Kennedy is an advocate for expanded family leave, a Medicare prescription drug plan, a patients’ bill of rights and an increase in the minimum wage.
Kennedy is a co-sponsor of a patients’ rights bill, S. 872, with Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and John Edwards (D-N.C.). A second bill favored by President George W. Bush has also been introduced. Both offer similar access to emergency and specialty care, allow patients to appeal HMOs’ decisions and bar “gag” clauses that limit communication between patients and doctors.
But an important difference involves a patient’s right to seek damages against HMOs. The bill Bush supports would allow lawsuits only in federal court and cap non-economic damages for pain and suffering at $500,000. Kennedy’s bill, endorsed by the American Medical Association, would allow suits in state or federal court, and civil judgments up to $5 million for pain and suffering.
Though Kennedy and most Senate Democrats support an ergonomics standard for workers, Gerber said there’s no way to quickly “undo what the Congressional Review Act did.”
Using the obscure act, Congress voted in March to kill the ergonomics rule created by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration after 10 years of research and exhaustive input from labor and business. The act bars federal agencies from issuing a replacement rule that is “substantially” the same as the one revoked.
On the issue of trade, little has changed. The Senate Finance Committee, which seemed likely after the transition to hold off on “fast track” legislation, began hearings June 20 on a House bill introduced by Rep. Philip Crane (R-Ill.). The bill would give the president the authority to negotiate trade deals with no input from Congress. Lawmakers would only be able to vote “yes” or “no” on pacts, including the controversial Free Trade Area of the Americas. Business groups lined up to testify for the bill; opponents testifying included AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.
A day earlier, a broad coalition of labor, environmental and human rights’ groups held a news conference to denounce fast track and the corporate push for trade pacts with no labor or pollution standards. Speakers included CWA President Morton Bahr. He noted an article in World Finance magazine titled, “Who owns the agenda for achieving sustainable growth and development?”
“Working families around the world are asking this precise question,” Bahr said. “This was the issue at the demonstrations in Seattle and Quebec, because workers and others concerned with labor rights, the environment and human rights are demanding a voice in setting the agenda for trade negotiations.”
Taking Congress out of the equation through fast track “means you’re taking people out of the equation,” he said.
For the long term, Gerber said the most significant impact of the transition might lie in judicial appointments. Judges are appointed for life and their rulings can ripple through many generations. For the Bush administration, it will now be tougher to put conservative, anti-worker judges on the federal bench, including the U.S. Supreme Court.
“It’s probably going to affect who’s nominated,” Gerber said, explaining that hard-line conservatives who might have been approved when Republicans were in control stand little chance now. Bush may decide to nominate more moderate judges as a result, he said.
“This is an earthquake,” CWA Chief Lobbyist Lou Gerber said. “In one stroke, Jim Jeffords put an abrupt end to the first all-Republican government in Washington in nearly 50 years.”
Jeffords is the Vermont senator who left the Republican Party to become an independent aligned with the Democrats, giving them a 51-49 majority in the Senate. Announcing his decision, he said, “I increasingly find myself in disagreement with my party.”
But votes on the Senate floor are only part of the political equation. By taking over the Senate leadership and its committees, advocates for working families get to decide which bills get hearings. Opponents, though, have other ways of pushing their agenda.
“What this does is give us the tools to control the agenda of items considered in Senate hearings,” Gerber said. “It changes us from being strictly defensive players to playing offense. It does not, however, ensure a safe harbor.”
That’s because opponents who don’t get hearings on their bills can tack them on as amendments to unrelated bills pending on the Senate floor. “Senate rules are pretty liberal in terms of allowing floor amendments, and we have to be on guard,” he said.
One such amendment is likely to come from Sen. Judd Gregg (R- N.H.), whose bill to restrict the health conditions that apply to the Family and Medical Leave Act now has no realistic chance of getting through committee.
Gregg’s bill is pending in the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, taken over by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.). A champion of workers’ rights, Kennedy is an advocate for expanded family leave, a Medicare prescription drug plan, a patients’ bill of rights and an increase in the minimum wage.
Kennedy is a co-sponsor of a patients’ rights bill, S. 872, with Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and John Edwards (D-N.C.). A second bill favored by President George W. Bush has also been introduced. Both offer similar access to emergency and specialty care, allow patients to appeal HMOs’ decisions and bar “gag” clauses that limit communication between patients and doctors.
But an important difference involves a patient’s right to seek damages against HMOs. The bill Bush supports would allow lawsuits only in federal court and cap non-economic damages for pain and suffering at $500,000. Kennedy’s bill, endorsed by the American Medical Association, would allow suits in state or federal court, and civil judgments up to $5 million for pain and suffering.
Though Kennedy and most Senate Democrats support an ergonomics standard for workers, Gerber said there’s no way to quickly “undo what the Congressional Review Act did.”
Using the obscure act, Congress voted in March to kill the ergonomics rule created by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration after 10 years of research and exhaustive input from labor and business. The act bars federal agencies from issuing a replacement rule that is “substantially” the same as the one revoked.
On the issue of trade, little has changed. The Senate Finance Committee, which seemed likely after the transition to hold off on “fast track” legislation, began hearings June 20 on a House bill introduced by Rep. Philip Crane (R-Ill.). The bill would give the president the authority to negotiate trade deals with no input from Congress. Lawmakers would only be able to vote “yes” or “no” on pacts, including the controversial Free Trade Area of the Americas. Business groups lined up to testify for the bill; opponents testifying included AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.
A day earlier, a broad coalition of labor, environmental and human rights’ groups held a news conference to denounce fast track and the corporate push for trade pacts with no labor or pollution standards. Speakers included CWA President Morton Bahr. He noted an article in World Finance magazine titled, “Who owns the agenda for achieving sustainable growth and development?”
“Working families around the world are asking this precise question,” Bahr said. “This was the issue at the demonstrations in Seattle and Quebec, because workers and others concerned with labor rights, the environment and human rights are demanding a voice in setting the agenda for trade negotiations.”
Taking Congress out of the equation through fast track “means you’re taking people out of the equation,” he said.
For the long term, Gerber said the most significant impact of the transition might lie in judicial appointments. Judges are appointed for life and their rulings can ripple through many generations. For the Bush administration, it will now be tougher to put conservative, anti-worker judges on the federal bench, including the U.S. Supreme Court.
“It’s probably going to affect who’s nominated,” Gerber said, explaining that hard-line conservatives who might have been approved when Republicans were in control stand little chance now. Bush may decide to nominate more moderate judges as a result, he said.