The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is in legislative limbo and that’s just fine with him, Rep. John Kline, R-MN, senior Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee, told reporters during a media conference call today.
There are more than enough co-sponsors of EFCA to pass it in the House, but many House Democrats who signed on to the bill don’t really want to vote for it, so they are waiting for the Senate to do something first. And since the bill’s backers don’t have 60 votes in the Senate, the Democratic leadership won’t bring it to the floor there either. “Democrats know this [legislation] is very unpopular with voters,” Kline said.
“It’s stuck right now…and I’m happy to see it stuck,” he said, warning that “this certainly doesn’t mean it’s over.” Just a handful of Senate Democrats – including Diane Feinstein, D-CA, Blanche Lincoln, D-AR, Arlen Specter, D-PA, and Jim Webb, D-VA – are all that’s standing in the way, and they may be looking for a small change in the language as an excuse to get on board. “But there really isn’t a compromise position,” Kline said, and opponents of EFCA “should be very careful not to offer such a compromise.”
However, legislative limbo is a far cry from what even Kline himself predicted last year when Democrats took over the White House and both chambers of Congress. “Last year I said that …card check would be law before the end of February.” The author of the Secret Ballot Protection Act attributes the somewhat surprising roadblock to a massive grassroots effort to educate the public about legislation that will not only eliminate the secret ballot in union elections, but also cost the nation hundreds of thousands of jobs annually.
“Card check is hanging by a thread as thick as Diane Feinstein,” Kline said. “The push and shove will continue, but I don’t think we’ll see floor action in either body until somebody changes their position. I would like it to be in limbo until the next election.”
