[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 119 (Wednesday, September 4, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H10013-H10018]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    THE POLITICS OF ORGANIZED LABOR

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hayworth). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of May 12, 1995, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Weldon] is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your indulgence 
and the staff's indulgence. I will try not to take the entire 60 
minutes, but I have something that I have to say to you and hopefully 
through you, Mr. Speaker, to the workers of this country. The workers 
of this country I want to speak to tonight, partly because this past 
Monday was Labor Day. As you know, the Congress was out of session. We 
were not here in Washington. But there were a lot of speeches given, a 
lot of rhetoric was passed. And I think many of the Washington labor 
leaders laid the foundation for what they hope will be a very 
successful political campaign totally in concert with the Democratic 
Party, both from the standpoint of the presidency and congressional and 
senatorial races across the country.
  I want to talk about that for a moment, Mr. Speaker and, through you, 
I want to talk to those rank and file union workers across the country 
who I think have been sold a bad bill of goods or, in fact, I would say 
have not even been sold the case. They have been had.
  What do I mean by that, because that is a very serious charge? The 
basis of my outrage and my concern is that last spring when the AFL-CIO 
leadership met in Washington, they had a vote to require every AFL-CIO 
member in the country, whether they agreed or not, to put up a dollar 
of their dues over a period of 3 years that would raise a total of $35 
million. This $35 million that is being taken from the paychecks of 
workers in the Teamsters, in the building trades, in all the major 
unions across this Nation, is not going to elect just labor-sensitive 
Members of Congress. It is going to support one political party and one 
political party only. To me, Mr. Speaker, that is an outrage.
  Is it an outrage to me because I am a Republican or because I hate 
labor unions? I do not think it is the case, Mr. Speaker, because I am 
one of those labor-sensitive Republicans who during my 10 years in 
Congress been out front supporting many of the issues important to 
working men and women and in many cases the leaders of my local labor 
unions back in Pennsylvania. So I am not someone who has been against 
many of labor's top priorities. But what outrages me is what a few 
leaders in this city have been able to force upon the millions of rank 
and file workers across the country and it is to their workers, those 
workers that I want to speak tonight, because I do not think they 
really understand the facts.
  We would think if labor was going to assess every member of its rank 
and file across the country and every local labor union, that in fact 
that money would go to defeat those Members of Congress who do not 
support the priorities of organized labor. That is not the case. 
Because in fact, Mr. Speaker, of the $35 million that is being used to 
run ads, for instance, in the district of my neighbor, Jon Fox in 
Montgomery County, even though Jon Fox has supported many of labor's 
top priorities, that half a million dollars being used against Jon Fox 
and being used against Phil English and against Jack Quinn and against 
a number of Republican Members across the country who have been 
supportive of labor's priorities is not being used against Democrats 
who have zero voting records on labor issues.
  Now, one would wonder why the Federal Election Commission, Mr. 
Speaker, would not do an inquiry, if we have an organized group in this 
country forcibly assessing $35 million from rank and file workers and 
yet only targeting that money against incumbent freshman Republicans 
and yet that is exactly what is happening. In fact, Mr. Speaker, my 
office has done a study and we have looked at the voting records as 
determined by the AFL-CIO, and we have found that no incumbent freshman 
Democrats, even those from right-to-work States, even those who have 
zero or 5 or 10 percent AFL-CIO voting records, are being targeted. 
None of them. All of the money that is being forcibly collected from 
organized labor is being used to only support Democrats and to defeat 
incumbent Republican Members of Congress.

  Now, why would this happen? Would it be because the national leaders 
and the rank and file workers across America are so unhappy with the 
agenda of the past several years and all of the Republicans? I would 
think not, Mr. Speaker. Let me go through some items point by point.
  First of all, Mr. Speaker, I can tell you that when Bill Clinton was 
first running for office and the Democrat Party controlled the 
Congress, both houses, I was the Republican who offered the compromise 
Family and Medical Leave Act that is now law. Do you know something, 
Mr. Speaker? That bill passed the House and the Senate a year before 
the final conference was brought before us for a final vote. Why was 
that done?
  It was because the Democrat leadership was not concerned about rank 
and file workers who wanted family and medical leave. Rather, they 
waited an entire year because they wanted to have George Bush veto the 
bill in the middle of the Clinton-Bush election. Were they concerned 
about rank and file workers? No, they were concerned about scoring 
political points. Then maybe it is because the President has been so 
supportive of labor's agenda over the previous 3 years.

                              {time}  2100

  Well, let us look at the President's agenda in line with the rank-
and-file labor movement's agenda over the past several years. Organized 
labor, Mr. Speaker, in this country, the first 2 years of the Clinton 
administration, had two top priorities. Their two top priorities were 
defeating NAFTA, the North American Free Trade zone legislation, and 
passing the anti-strikebreaker legislation.
  Now let us look at each of those pieces of legislation and see what 
this President did to help enact each of those.
  The President was not with labor on NAFTA, Mr. Speaker. The President 
lobbied hard to pass it. He passed NAFTA in the House, largely with 
Democrat and Republican votes, he passed it in the Senate, and he 
signed it into law.
  I have introduced legislation in this session, Mr. Speaker, that says 
that

[[Page H10014]]

this President was not truthful with the American people. He said that 
when NAFTA was passed the side agreements would raise up the worker 
standards and the environmental laws in Mexico to avoid the drain of 
jobs south, and that has not happened. My bill says that each year the 
President must certify that progress is being made. My bill was 
introduced because I opposed NAFTA. I was supportive of labor's 
position; the President was not.
  Let us look at the anti-strikebreaker bill, Mr. Speaker. Here was a 
piece of legislation labor said was their top No. 1 priority. That bill 
passed the House, Mr. Speaker, and it passed the House with Republican 
support. In fact, there were enough votes to pass it in the Senate. Now 
President Clinton says he was in favor of the anti-strikebreaker bill, 
but let us look beyond the rhetoric, and let us look at whether or not 
he really was truthful to the rank-and-file workers across America who 
are paying a dollar a month for 3 years out of their pay to support 
this President in this election whether they like it or not.
  To get a bill on the floor of the Senate without a filibuster or to 
avoid a filibuster you need 60 votes. As you know, Mr. Speaker, it is 
called invoking cloture. The anti-strikebreaker bill passed the House 
with more than enough votes because it had Republican support. There 
were enough votes in the Senate to pass the anti-strikebreaker bill. 
But guess what, Mr. Speaker? They could only get 59 Senators to vote 
for cloture to cut off the debate.
  Now how does that relate to President Clinton, Mr. Speaker? Neither 
Senator from Arkansas voted for cloture to allow the antistrikebreaker 
bill to come up on the floor of the Senate for a vote. Now here we have 
a President from Arkansas, and do we really believe that the rank-and-
file workers of this country really believe that President Clinton 
could not convince one of those two Senators to vote yes for cloture to 
give the 60-vote number and then vote against the bill, because it 
still would have passed?
  You see, Mr. Speaker, this President wanted to have it both ways. As 
he has done repeatedly throughout the last 3\1/2\ years, he wanted the 
Congress to pass NAFTA, and he wanted to say to the rank-and-file 
workers, ``I am for it and I am going to sign it, but, oh, by the 
way,'' as he told small business owners, ``it will never come to my 
desk for a signature.'' Why? Because he would not lift a finger to help 
get the votes to invoke cloture in the Senate. So again rank-and-file 
union workers across the country were betrayed.
  Where was the Washington leadership, Mr. Speaker? Where were they on 
strikebreaker? Where were they on NAFTA? And let us look beyond that, 
Mr. Speaker, because we saw and we have heard the rhetoric coming from 
the national labor leadership about the minimum wage vote.
  The first 2 years of the Clinton administration both the House and 
the Senate were controlled by the Democrats in the majority. There was 
not one movement to bring up a minimum wage bill in either body. And, 
as a matter of fact, the President is on the record as having said in 
the first 2 years of his administration that he thought the minimum 
wage increase was a mistake. But this session, with Republicans in 
control, he thought it would be a wedge issue.
  Where were the organized labor leaders who were mandating 
contributions from the workers the first 2 years of the Clinton 
administration? Why were they not siphoning off that dollar a month out 
of the paychecks of those workers to support those who supported the 
minimum wage?
  But it even gets worse than that, Mr. Speaker.


                announcement by the speaker pro tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hayworth). The gentleman from 
Pennsylvania [Mr. Weldon] will suspend for just 1 minute, please.
  The Chair would like to remind all Members that it is out of order to 
characterize the position of the Senate or of Senators designated by 
name or position on legislative issues.
  The gentleman from Pennsylvania may proceed.
  Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania. I thank the gentleman, and I would just 
say, Mr. Speaker, the real outrage of my feeling here tonight is best 
expressed by what this President and his party are doing to those 
workers who work in the defense and science technology base of this 
country. Here is a President talking about job creation, and here are 
national AFL-CIO leaders saying, ``We are going to take a dollar a 
month out of your check and put it into a $35 million fund to defeat 
freshmen Republicans so that we can create jobs.''
  Where were those big labor leaders, Mr. Speaker, when this President 
decimated defense spending? Over the past 3 years 1 million men and 
women in this country have lost their jobs. Now were these minimum wage 
jobs? No, they were jobs represented by the UAW, by the International 
Association of Machinists, jobs represented by the Electrical Workers, 
by the building trades who build and construct the base housing and the 
facilities on our military bases. They were jobs held by building 
trades and teamsters and machinists and boilermakers who build our 
ships and UAW workers across the country. This President's cuts in 
defense spending eliminated 1 million of those jobs. We did not hear a 
peep out of the national labor leadership in Washington about those job 
losses.

  Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, over the past 2 years the Congress under 
the Republican leadership has brought defense spending back to a 
sensible level of spending. Have we increased it dramatically? No. We 
have given the service chiefs the dollars that they feel are necessary, 
not what Bill Clinton's political appointee wants in terms of the 
Secretary of Defense, but what the members of the Joint Chiefs say they 
need to protect our troops.
  Now here is the irony, Mr. Speaker. This President has railed 
publicly, and the administration has railed publicly, about the 
Republican Congress increasing defense spending. In fact, I was one of 
the few Republicans who voted against increasing funding for the B-2 
bomber. I felt we could not afford it.
  Now this President said he was opposed to the B-2 bomber. What did he 
do last year after Congress prevailed and increased funding for the B-
2? Well, he took a trip out to the California plant where the B-2 is 
manufactured, and he gave a speech, and he said to the union workers 
and the management standing in back of him we are going to build 1 more 
B-2 bomber, and we are also going to have a study done of our joint 
deep strike bomber needs, and that study will come out in November 
right after the election is over.
  Again, rank-and-file union workers have been used.
  Mr. Speaker, here is the real irony of what is happening this year 
with the AFL-CIO, and this to me is absolutely outrageous. That $35 
million that is being collected right now from every member of every 
AFL-CIO local in America is being used to target Members who voted for 
funding the jobs that many of them now hold.
  Now is that not outrageous? Can you imagine being a worker at the C-
17 plant where Republican Members voted to increase funding for the C-
17 and now having those workers--and I totaled this up based on the 
number of workers at that facility, 8,000 of them--they are now 
contributing forcibly $350,000, not with their consent. It was forced 
out of their pockets to defeat those Member of Congress who supported 
the funding for the jobs that they now hold.
  I wonder if those workers really understand what is happening, Mr. 
Speaker. I wonder if they are aware that a few, and it is only a few, 
Mr. Speaker, because the bulk of the labor leaders in this country are 
honorable men and women. Many of them in my district good friends of 
mine. Many of them here in Washington are good solid friends. But when 
I talk to them about this issue, they nod their heads and they say, 
``We know. We know what you are talking about, but it was a decision 
made above our pay grade.''
  So here we have a decision made by a few leaders in the AFL-CIO to 
siphon money off of workers, to use that money to spread misinformation 
and defeat candidates who in many cases have been supportive of the 
very jobs that those workers have. To me that is an outrage, Mr. 
Speaker.
  And let me say this and to make this point clearly. We did not 
increase defense spending to create jobs. We increased defense spending 
because of the

[[Page H10015]]

threat that is out there. But when this President criticizes this 
Congress for increasing defense spending, and then talks about the loss 
of jobs in this country, and then has the audacity to go out to plants 
where the ships are being built, where the aircraft are being 
manufactured caused by that increase in spending, and cut the ribbon on 
those projects, then that to me is outrage, and that is what is 
happening right now, Mr. Speaker. This President in his political 
campaign is going around the country and he is boasting about jobs 
being created. He is going to plants where ships are being built, where 
planes are being manufactured, where bases are being rehabbed. He is 
criticizing the Congress in Washington for increasing defense spending, 
but he is going out across America, one State at a time, especially in 
California, and he is saying, ``I am here to support your job.''

  And on top of that, Mr. Speaker, those Members of Congress who stood 
fast for increases in science funding and the technical base and the 
space program and in defense because they were the right decisions are 
now having money forcibly taken from those workers who have benefited 
to be used to target those Members for defeat. That is not America, Mr. 
Speaker. It is not America when a few people inside the Beltway can 
force people to put money into candidates that they know nothing about 
or perhaps are voting against their very interests.
  Now do I rise to say all this as someone who is upset because of what 
the AFL-CIO is doing to me personally? Absolutely not, Mr. Speaker. As 
a matter of fact, out of the 21 House races in Pennsylvania when the 
State AFL-CIO in Pennsylvania endorsed, they endorsed 20 Democrats and 
left one district with no endorsement. That is my district.
  They are not running ads in my district, Mr. Speaker, so I am not 
here complaining about what is happening to me. But I cannot sit by any 
longer and allow my friends who are working people across this country 
to have their money be taken and used for a partisan political purpose, 
and that is exactly what is being done.
  You see, Mr. Speaker, I am a Republican, but I was involved in a 
labor movement. I was a teacher for 7 years, vice president of my 
association, taught in the public schools right next to west 
Philadelphia, served on a negotiating committee for 3 years, so I know 
what it is like to be active in the association. For the 7 years before 
that, and while teaching and going to college, I worked in a market and 
was an active member of the retail clerks union. I come from a large 
family of nine children, the youngest of nine. My father was in the 
textile workers union most of his life. I am sensitive to issues 
involving working people because I think we as a society and as a 
country need to be fair.
  But I stand before you tonight, Mr. Speaker, and I say through you, 
Mr. Speaker, to all of those millions of men and women across this 
country who are involved in labor unions:

       Your leadership is not being fair. They have taken your 
     money forcibly, and they're not using it for just to support 
     what is right for you. They're using it for a narrow focus 
     political agenda to support one party.

  Mr. Speaker, anyone who analyzes the history of this institution 
could quickly show that no piece of legislation supportive of working 
people has ever been passed without bipartisan support. From family and 
medical leave, to anti-strikebreaker, to plant closing legislation, to 
any other piece of legislation that is significant, every one of those 
bills has had bipartisan support. Yet, Mr. Speaker, in this election 
$35 million was pulled from the pockets of working men and women to be 
used for a national agenda, in many cases to defeat those Members of 
Congress who voted for the funding to keep those very people employed.
  My contention is, Mr. Speaker, we heard earlier some of our comrades 
and colleagues from the Democrat side saying the polls are showing 
there is a huge lead. Once the American people see through the rhetoric 
and the demagoguery, once they see that a few people in Washington have 
siphoned off forcibly $35 million to be used to misinform the American 
people, those numbers are going to change.

                              {time}  2115

  Let me say this, Mr. Speaker. How much outrage would this country 
have if corporate America forced rank and file management employees to 
kick in $35 million to defeat Democrats across the country? You would 
have a national scandal unfolding. That does not happen. In fact, all 
the studies that have been done show that most companies allow the 
workers who contribute to their PACs to have a say where the money 
goes.
  In the case of this $35 million siphoned out of the pockets from 
America's working people, they will not have a dime's worth of say as 
to where their money will go. Now, we logically should ask the 
question, does that mean that every rank and file labor union worker 
will vote Democrat? In fact, Mr. Speaker, in the last election the 
polls showed that 40 percent of the American unionized work force voted 
Republican. What happens to those 40 percent? Are they being 
disenfranchised? Are they having money pulled out of their pockets to 
be used to defeat people that they in fact are going to vote for? That 
is not American, Mr. Speaker. That is not right.
  Mr. Speaker, I stand here tonight because I have credibility with 
working men and women in this country. I am not out to hurt them. I 
want to support them, as I have done this session, in protecting Davis-
Bacon. It was a group of Republicans, largely freshmen Republican 
Members, who went to the leadership and said, do not strip away Davis-
Bacon protection. Do you know what, Mr. Speaker? Those rank and file 
building trades workers across the country who rely on the prevailing 
wage now have been forcibly taken, had money taken out of their pockets 
to be used to defeat those freshman Republicans who stood up for the 
prevailing wage.
  I am the author in this session of the modification to Davis-Bacon 
that has bipartisan support. At last count, 128 Members from both 
parties cosponsored my bill to reform Davis-Bacon, with the support of 
the national labor leaders of the building trades and the manufacturing 
groups. I will stand up for what is right, and I will be honest. As a 
Republican, I will disagree with my party from time to time if I feel 
we are not being sensitive enough. But I cannot stand by silently and 
see a few, and I am talking about a handful, a handful of people in 
this city forcibly take $35 million from the pockets of working men and 
women and use that money to hurt those same people.
  What is the feeling of our Republican Members, Mr. Speaker? I can 
tell the Members, in talking to a number of my colleagues who are 
sensitive to labor issues, there is a feeling of absolute outrage, 
absolute outrage, because these Republican Members, and there are about 
40 or 50 of them, have walked side by side in standing up for what is 
right for working people, even when right-to-work Democrats voted 
against every one of those initiatives.
  Yet, what has the national labor leadership done? It has defied the 
rank-and-file worker, saying we are talking about your money, we do not 
care about right-to-work Democrats, we do not care about Democrats who 
do not support labor unions or labor's agenda, we are only going to 
target Republicans because we are totally in bed with the Democratic 
leadership and Bill Clinton, the President of the United States. Excuse 
me, Mr. Speaker, I should not say his name.
  This is an outrage and I am not going to let this election go by 
without doing what I can to expose what is taking place in this 
country. I said earlier I was a teacher for 7 years, active with the 
education association in my State, vice president of my local 
association, and a negotiator. Mr. Speaker, there are 25 classroom 
teachers in this Congress in the Republican Party.

  The NEA and the AFT, the two largest labor unions, over the past 2 
years have contributed $3.5 million to campaigns, 99 percent of it to 
Democrats. Forty-four to one. For every $1 of money to a Republican, 
$44 to a Democrat. It does not matter whether they were teachers or 
not, or whether they support good schools, or educators. This was our 
Republican candidate's point, Mr. Speaker, It was not what we heard 
from the other side about taking on teachers. This party is not against 
teachers. This party is against large institutional labor union leaders 
who have a political agenda as opposed to an agenda for rank-and-file 
workers.

[[Page H10016]]

  Mr. Speaker, that is where the battle is. The battle is not with 
those classroom teachers who need more support and who need decent pay 
and benefits. It is against those leaders who have a totally political 
agenda that is in many cases a personal agenda to move themselves 
forward, as opposed to the people they are siphoning money from.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope, as this election unfolds over the next 2 months, 
in every city, in every town, in every county we expose what is 
happening to every rank-and-file worker in this country. We can have 
honest differences in how to increase people's economic viability. We 
can have honest differences in how to improve the economic lot of 
people who are trying to work for a living. But no one should be 
forcibly made to contribute to an agenda set by someone else. That is 
what is happening in this country right now.
  To those rank-and-file workers, Mr. Speaker, across America who will 
see this or hear this, and I guarantee you we are going to spread this 
message, I say that they need to let their labor leaders know that 
enough is enough, they are not pawns in the game. As my local labor 
leaders back in my county so ably know and do, they support those who 
are friends to them and they oppose those who are enemies. But Mr. 
Speaker, the national labor leadership cannot understand that, because 
they only see one thing. That is a political agenda of one party.
  So in effect, they sell out the millions of rank-and-file workers who 
want to have people represent their views. They sell them out for a 
larger political agenda that supports one party and one idea and agenda 
of bigger Government.
  Our job, Mr. Speaker, is to dispel this notion and to get the facts 
on the record as they are. I am going to go to every district I can and 
provide every piece of information I can to every defense plant in this 
country represented by a labor union. I even heard that the 
administration, the President and the Vice President, wanted to come to 
Philadelphia, Mr. Speaker, to go to a local plant where the V-22 was 
built. That is nice they wanted to do that. I wonder if, when the 
President came up there, he would mention the fact that it was not he 
who supported the increased funding for that program, but rather, it 
was the Congress that supported that increase in funding. Why? Because 
the Marine Corps has it as their top priority.
  I understand the President may want to travel to some shipyards where 
he can cut the ribbon on some ship keels. I wonder if he is going to 
tell those workers that it was not he who supported the increased funds 
for those ships, but rather, it was he who criticized the Congress for 
increasing funding by the level of $12 billion in this year's 
authorization and appropriation bills.
  I wonder if when the President goes out and talks about programs, 
whether it is the B-2 or missile programs, he is going to be honest in 
telling those workers that he opposed the funds that have been 
requested by the service chiefs that we in this Congress, in a 
bipartisan way, have brought forward.
  Let me make that point again, Mr. Speaker. Our funding for defense in 
this Congress was not a Republican base alone. In fact, the defense 
authorization bill, which passed on this floor, had almost 300 Members 
vote in the affirmative. In fact, the final conference report had over 
300 Members voting in the affirmative. That is not a Republican plan, 
that is a bipartisan plan supporting what is good for America.
  My point is that those voters, those Members of Congress who voted to 
support that increase in funding to provide for those new programs at 
the same time are having their Washington handful of labor leaders 
siphon off $35 billion to defeat the very Members who have supported 
their jobs.
  Mr. Speaker, we cannot let this administration have it both ways, as 
they try to do all the time, as this President did when he went before 
APAC, the largest association of supporters of Israel in this country. 
He want to their national conference and he said how supportive he was 
of Israel. He said, furthermore I am going to increase the funding for 
the Nautilus program, a new missile defense initiative that will 
protect the people of Israel from the Katyusha rockets being fired into 
Israel.
  What he did not tell the people at APAC, Mr. Speaker, which we have 
now put on the record many times, is that in fact this administration 
zeroed out funding for the Nautilus or high-energy laser program for 
each of the last 3 years. They tried to kill the program. But this 
year, because, I guess, the President felt it was a good political 
time, he went before APAC and said, we are going to move this program 
forward. If it had not been for the actions of this Congress in a 
bipartisan way, that money would not have been there for that decision 
to be made. But again, this President was able to have it both ways.
  As we just recently saw with the debate over terrorism, it was this 
Congress that increased funding for antiterrorism initiatives long 
before the downing of the TWA flight, long before the killings in Saudi 
Arabia of our troops. It was this Congress over the past 2 years that 
held hearings and put additional funding in for anti-terrorism 
initiatives to the extent of $200 million above and beyond what 
President Clinton said he needed, but well in line with what the 
service chiefs said was important for the security of our country and 
our people.
  Mr. Speaker, I am outraged tonight, this, the week of Labor Day, when 
we celebrate the rich history of this country, where those of us in 
both parties can support the right of people to work and have decent 
paying jobs, and even to join and be involved in labor unions, I am 
outraged because in this week, a week that we celebrate the rich 
history of this country and the labor movement, I have to go through 
you, Mr. Speaker, to tell the rank and file workers across America that 
their interests now are being circumvented by those who have a larger 
political agenda, not based upon voting records, and I say, Mr. 
Speaker, and I hope that our workers across the country are listening, 
remember that, not based upon voting records.
  The gentleman from Pennsylvania, Jon Fox, in suburban Philadelphia, 
is not being targeted because he is insensitive to working people. To 
the contrary, Jon Fox voted with labor on many of their issues. He is 
being targeted because the leadership of the presidency and the 
Democratic party has gotten totally in sync with the leaders of the 
labor movement down here, and their goal is to defeat freshmen 
Republicans all across the country.
  At the same time they are spending half a million dollars, the AFL-
CIO, in targeting the gentlemen from Pennsylvania, Jon Fox, they are 
letting other incumbent Democrats who have zero voting records on labor 
issues go scot-free. Why? Not because they care about issues that the 
labor unions are concerned with, but because they happen to have a D 
after their name.
  I cannot stand by and let that happen, Mr. Speaker. As someone, 
again, who has supported the labor movement in this Congress over the 
past 10 years, who has no target aimed at me this time, but I am not 
going to sit by and let my rank and file union workers and my members 
of the UAW and the Teamsters, and the building trades and the 
firefighters union have their money siphoned off and forcibly 
contributed to defeat those Members who in many cases I have had to go 
out and get the support from, to support the initiatives those very 
workers think are important. That is what is happening in this country 
this year.
  I would hope, Mr. Speaker, that as we get closer to election day, 
more and more rank and file workers across this country would begin to 
ask questions. Because I can tell the Members, Mr. Speaker, there is 
going to be an election in November, and we may have the Republicans 
keep control of the House and the Senate, we may have the Democrats 
take control of the House and Senate, but I can tell the Members this, 
it is not going to be by a large margin. It is going to be by a close 
margin.
  I can tell the Members, we will remember. Those who have been 
supportive of issues that are important to working people will 
remember. I hope that those workers across America who are listening to 
this debate tonight, who are listening to the message that I am 
bringing forth tonight, will remember also that they are being forced 
to contribute in many cases to a national political party's agenda that 
has nothing to do with the security of their job.

[[Page H10017]]

In fact, the ads that are being used running against the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania, Jon Fox, have nothing to do with labor. They are saying 
Jon Fox voted to cut Medicare.

                              {time}  2130

  Mr. Speaker, those are the same ads they are running across the 
country. Why? Not again because these Members have supposedly voted 
against working people's interests, but because they happen to be 
Republicans and they feel the best way to defeat them is to run false 
ads scaring senior citizens. It is called Mediscare. So they are 
running these ads, even though we are increasing Medicare spending by a 
significant amount over 7 years, they are running these ads in the 
hopes that senior citizens will become alarmed enough to go out and 
vote straight Democratic. That is not what is in the interest of those 
workers who every day form the backbone of this country. I cannot be a 
Member of this Congress and let this outrage continue without speaking 
up for what I believe to be the most ridiculous, the most unfair and I 
even think the most illegal action that any single group of leaders 
could take to harm the interests that they are supposedly representing.
  Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record an editorial from the 
Washington Times dated Sunday, September 1, and the results of a study 
done by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution on AFL-CIO contributions 
to congressional candidates, as follows:

               [From the Washington Times, Sept. 1, 1996]

                        Educators or Lobbyists?

       With many school systems across the country opening for the 
     new school year last week at the very time the Democratic 
     Party was convened to crown Bill Clinton and Al Gore, no 
     doubt many public-school teachers faced a difficult dilemma. 
     Should they attend the convention, or should they report to 
     their schools? Evidently, they decided to visit Chicago, the 
     home of what former Secretary of Education Bill Bennett once 
     described as the worst public education system in the nation.
       Once again the National Education Association (NEA), the 
     2.2 million-member teachers' union, flexed its muscles in the 
     Democratic Party, comprising more than 10 percent of the 
     Democratic delegates--405. The other large teachers' union, 
     the 875,000-member American Federation of Teachers (AFT), 
     accounted for another 4 percent. Amazingly, nearly half of 
     all unionized delegates were teachers. The NEA delegation, 
     about the size of California's, again represented the largest 
     special-interest block, a distinction it has prized for each 
     of the last six Democratic conventions. No wonder Mr. 
     Bennett, referring to the NEA, has said, ``You're looking at 
     the absolute heart and center of the Democratic Party.''
       The NEA delegates did not merely attend the convention. One 
     of their alumnae literally ran it. Debra DeLee, the former 
     executive director of the Democratic National Committee who 
     served last week as the chief executive officer of the 
     Democratic National Convention, easily made the 
     understandably smooth transition to the Democratic Party from 
     her previous positions as head of the NEA's political action 
     committee, NEA-PAC, and chief NEA Washington lobbyist. 
     According to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), a non-
     profit, nonpartisan campaign-finance research organization, 
     during the 1994 election cycle, NEA-PAC gave $2.26 million, 
     98.5 percent of it to Democrats. CRP reports that AFT 
     political contributions to congressional candidates totaled 
     $1.29 million in 1993-94, 99.1 percent to Democrats.
       Combined, the two national teachers associations' PAC's 
     donated more than $3.5 million to congressional candidates, 
     nearly all them Democrats. But even this sizable sum is 
     dwarfed by the total contributions from the NEA's state- and 
     local-level affiliates. After studying four representative 
     states, Forbes magazine extrapolated its findings and 
     calculated an astounding $35 million for the two-year 
     period. An analysis of Indiana's one state and 31 NEA-
     affiliated local PACs revealed they alone raised nearly 
     $700,000 and spent nearly $500,000 in a single year. 
     According to John Berthoud of the Alexis de Tocqueville 
     Institution, ``The NEA spends $39 million a year on 1,500 
     field organizers across the country to promote their 
     political agenda.''
       In the unregulated, so-called ``soft-money'' category of 
     political donations to national party committees, which 
     ostensibly use the funds for ``party-building activities,'' 
     the NEA contributed $600,000 to the Democratic Party in the 
     1993-94 cycle, reflecting a 44 percent increase from the 
     1991-92 cycle. The AFT chipped in $236,000 in ``soft-money,'' 
     a 53 percent increase over 1991-92. Given the high growth 
     rates of ``soft-money'' contributions in the past and the 
     fact that 60 percent of the NEA's and 72 percent of the ATF's 
     1993-94 ``soft-money'' contributions arrived during the final 
     six months of that two-year period, it remains to be seen how 
     generous they will be in 1995-96, especially since the 
     national conventions occurred during this period. 
     Nevertheless, a Common Cause study released this month 
     covering the first 18 months of the 1995-96 cycle has already 
     tallied ``soft-money'' contributions to the Democratic Party: 
     $305,000 (NEA); and $263,500 (AFT). The trend seems 
     unmistakable.
       Considering that the Clinton and Gore families have both 
     forsaken--for good reasons--the failure-plagued public school 
     system in the District of Columbia in favor of two of its 
     most elite private institutions, causing considerable 
     embarrassment for the public-school establishment, one would 
     think that some teachers might be reluctant to support 
     Clinton-Gore '96. Then again, studies have shown that large 
     majorities of big-city public-school teachers send their 
     children to private schools, too, boycotting the very 
     institutions that employ them. So of course the NEA 
     enthusiastically endorsed the Democratic ticket--as it has 
     since Jimmy Carter. To celebrate the return of Democratic 
     control of the White House, in January 1993 the NEA mailed 
     posters to more than 25,000 junior high and middle schools. 
     The subject? ``Bill Clinton's and Al Gore's Most Excellent 
     Inaugural.''
       What do the teachers' unions expect in return for all of 
     the financial and in-kind support to the Democratic Party? 
     After losing both houses of Congress in 1994, the unions 
     clearly want the Democrats to regain control of the 
     legislative branch. As Mr. Berthoud has observed, ``If 
     every item on the NEA's legislative agenda for the 104th 
     [Republican] Congress were adopted, federal spending would 
     increase by at least $702 billion per year. This 
     translates into a tax increase on a family of four of more 
     than $10,000 per year.'' Talk about leverage.
       But the nightmare scenario that most frightens the NEA is 
     not only failing to recapture Congress but losing the White 
     House as well. Consider their horror at the prospects of 
     dealing with a president who believes as Bob Dole does, that 
     ``at the heart of all that afflicts our schools is a denial 
     of free choice,'' which Mr. Dole declared in July when he 
     announced his modest school-voucher program. ``Our public 
     schools are in trouble because they are no longer run by the 
     public. Instead, they're controlled by narrow special 
     interest groups who regard public education not as a public 
     trust but as political territory to be guarded at all 
     costs.'' Any guesses whom he had in mind?
       Mr. Dole predicted the issue of school choice would evolve 
     into ``a civil rights movement of the 1990s.'' Indirectly 
     referring to the Clintons and Gores, Mr. Dole observed that 
     ``some families already have school choice . . . because they 
     have the money.'' Just as the G.I. Bill expanded both 
     opportunity and choice to millions of World War II veterans, 
     many of whom would otherwise have been unable to attend 
     college, Mr. Dole has proposed a four-year pilot program that 
     would provide 4 million children low- and middle-income 
     families educational choice and opportunities their families 
     otherwise would never be able to afford.
       The experimental program would cost a relatively miniscule 
     $5 billion per year, which is less than 2 percent of annual 
     public expenditures for elementary and secondary schools, but 
     it would make choice available to nearly 10 percent of the 45 
     million students in our nation's public schools. Most 
     important of all, targeted as it is to low- and middle-income 
     families, the program would offer a lifeline to millions of 
     poor students confined to the worst schools in our large 
     cities.
       The money would be split equally between the federal and 
     state governments. It would provide vouchers worth $1,000 for 
     elementary schools and $1,500 for high schools. The vouchers 
     would be redeemable not only at public schools but at private 
     and parochial schools as well. Combined with family 
     contributions, partial scholarships and other private 
     financing, the vouchers would clearly meet a demand and fill 
     a niche to provide immediate opportunities to children most 
     in need. Because vouchers would introduce competition for the 
     taxpayer's education dollars, the teachers' unions fear them 
     like the plague, knowing full well that vouchers would 
     jeopardize their monopoly power.
       That there is a link between America's failing inner-city 
     schools and the terrible circle of poverty is indisputable. 
     As David Boaz of the Cato Institute recently observed, 
     ``Education used to be a poor child's ticket out of the 
     slums; now it is part of the system that traps people in the 
     underclass.'' What is so tragic is that it doesn't have to be 
     this way. But as long as President Clinton, the Democratic 
     Party and the special-interest teachers' unions stand in the 
     way, blocking educational opportunity the way George Wallace 
     once did in Alabama more than 30 years ago, yet another 
     generation will be sacrificed to satisfy the demands of the 
     special pleaders.
       If rhetoric would solve the problems of inner-city schools, 
     the Democratic convention would have been part of the 
     solution. Unwilling to do anything to immediately address the 
     crisis, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle piously 
     pronounced, ``Every child should have the freedom to go to a 
     good school.'' Current Democratic Party Chairman Don Fowler, 
     quoting Thomas Jefferson, rhapsodized about the benefits of 
     ``a free public education for all our citizens.'' Public 
     education may be free to its young consumers, but to their 
     parents and other taxpayers it clearly is not.
       All the more ionic was the fact that this fatuous rhetoric 
     emanated from Chicago, of all places. After observing the 
     Chicago public schools for the Chicago Tribune, Bonita

[[Page H10018]]

     Brodt wrote in 1991 that she found ``an institutionalized 
     case of child neglect. . . . I saw how the racial politics of 
     a city, the misplaced priorities of a centralized school 
     bureaucracy, and the vested interests of a powerful teachers 
     union had all somehow taken precedence over the needs of the 
     very children the schools are supposed to serve.'' What was 
     that about the benefits of ``a free education for all our 
     citizens?'' Benefits for whom, Mr. Fowler?
                                                                    ____


   ``AdTI Releases New Study: ``A Fiscal Analysis of NEA and AFL-CIO 
              Contributions to 1996 Congressional Races''

       Arlington, VA.--The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution 
     (AdTI) today released a study of the contributions by the 
     political committees of the National Education Association 
     and the AFL-CIO which reveals that each group's stated fiscal 
     agenda of simply stopping ``draconian'' cuts in government is 
     misleading.
       The study concludes that the Members of Congress that the 
     two unions are opposing have voted to cut government, but 
     only by rather modest amounts--about two percent of federal 
     spending. The Members that these two unions are contributing 
     to, however, have not supported the status quo but rather 
     have been voting to increase the size and scope of the 
     federal government.
       The size of the net cuts voted for by union-opposed Members 
     roughly equalled the size of the net increases voted for by 
     union-backed Members. Thus, the study concludes that if the 
     cutters have been ``radical,'' the union-backed Members have 
     been just as radical in their record of support for larger 
     government.
       Through the end of April 1996--half a year before the 
     election--the two unions combined had already contributed in 
     excess of $850,000 to 1996 congressional candidates. The 
     study cross-indexed campaign contributions made by these 
     unions for and against Members with all votes to increase or 
     cut spending in the first session of the 104th Congress. The 
     tool used for analysis of these Members' votes was the Vote 
     Tally database of the nonpartisan National Taxpayers Union.
       The candidates for the Senate and the House that the NEA is 
     supporting voted on average to increase annual federal 
     spending by $30.4 billion and $28.9 billion respectively. The 
     Senate and House candidates that they are opposing voted to 
     cut government by $31.8 billion and $32.4 billion 
     respectively.
       The profiles of Members that the AFL-CIO is supporting and 
     opposing closely resemble the profiles of Members that the 
     NEA is supporting and opposing. The candidates that the AFL-
     CIO is backing for the Senate and the House on average voted 
     to increase federal spending by $33.7 billion and $32.2 
     billion respectively. Senate and House candidates opposed by 
     the AFL-CIO voted to cut government by $29.9 billion and 
     $33.6 billion respectively.
       Study author John Berthoud said the work provides an 
     illuminating profile of the politics of each group which 
     would probably surprise union members. ``Many union members 
     are probably being told by their Washington offices that 
     these unions' objectives are just to fight radical cuts, but 
     the facts simply don't support such claims,'' Berthoud 
     observed.
       Copies of the complete seven-page study are available from 
     the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, 1611 North Kent 
     Street, Suite 901, Arlington, VA 22209, (703) 351-4969. E-
     mail: [email protected].

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