Tom Strickland: Clear Choice for Colorado’s Working Families

Colorado is home to one of the most closely contested Senate races this fall and two of the most widely divergent candidates to face off against one another.

The incumbent senator, Wayne Allard (R), has one of the most anti-worker records in Congress. In his six-year Senate career, he has voted against the interests of working families 98 percent of the time, according to the AFL-CIO.

His opponent, former U.S. Attorney Tom Strickland (D), promises to fight for working families and against the narrow, wealthy special interests. Strickland, who lost narrowly to Allard in 1996, is running a vigorous campaign to turn the tables, pledging to create jobs, protect Coloradans’ economic and physical security, make prescription drugs more affordable and improve education.

On issue after issue affecting the lives of working families, Strickland and Allard stand on opposite sides:

• Allard voted to repeal the tough ergonomics standard which CWA worked more than a decade to win, putting millions of workers, at continued risk of painful, crippling injury. By contrast, Strickland pledges to strongly support the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and its power to protect workers.

• Allard voted against collective bargaining rights for firefighters, police and other public safety officers and has supported legislation allowing the permanent replacement of strikers. However, Strickland has made clear his support for worker protections, including a strong National Labor Relations Board.

• Allard voted six times in six years against raising the minimum wage by $1 an hour. Strickland has pledged his support to make the minimum wage a livable wage.

• Allard voted against both the Family and Medical Leave Act, which guarantees the right to unpaid leave for the parents of a newborn child, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides coverage to millions of previously uninsured children. Strickland supports both initiatives and will work to ensure that every American has access to quality, affordable health care.

• Allard was one of the earliest congressional supporters of schemes to privatize Social Security and put it at the mercy of the stock market. By contrast, Strickland is adamantly opposed to any plan that would make the sure thing of Social Security more like an Enron 401(k) plan.

• Allard voted four times in the past three years against providing comprehensive prescription drug benefits for Medicare recipients — this after taking tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the prescription drug industry. Strickland not only supports a Medicare prescription drug benefit that is universal, voluntary and affordable, he also wants to lower senior citizens’ costs by speeding the introduction of generic drugs and requiring companies to sell medicines at the average price they cost in foreign countries.

One of the greatest differences between the candidates is in the area of corporate accountability. After amassing a stellar record as the former chief federal prosecutor for Colorado, where he took on white collar crime, corporate wrongdoing, health care fraud, and giant polluters, Strickland has crafted a detailed plan to enforce corporate responsibility. He favors increased penalties for corporate fraud and destroying evidence (as occurred at Enron), whistleblower protection, accounting reform, and new measures to protect employees’ pensions.

Once again, Allard is on the opposite side. He urged the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) not to accept strict new accounting rules that might have prevented corporate scandals like Enron. And he voted in 1995 to weaken laws that allow investors to hold corporations accountable when they commit fraud.

Of special note to CWA members, Allard has received numerous campaign contributions from the former top executives of Qwest, the telecommunications giant that has laid off thousands of workers and seen its stock price plummet after becoming enmeshed in its own accounting scandal. Three years ago, Allard took the unusual step of urging the chairman of US West to accept Qwest’s merger offer and even bought Qwest stock the day the merger was announced. But as Qwest executives cashed in on $2.26 billion worth of company stock, and as thousands of hard-working Colorado Qwest employees lost their jobs and retirement savings, Allard has yet to utter a word of criticism.

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 (see U.S. Senate: One Vote Makes All the Difference).

Strickland has shown he has the courage and commitment to stand up for working families, while Allard consistently sides with the forces of corporate greed and ideological extremism. Strickland has more than earned our strong support in his campaign to defeat Allard and become the next U.S. senator from Colorado.

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.