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May 12, 2009

Obama gives union veto power of California state funds

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In yet another troubling example of our president rewarding unions for campaign support, the L.A. Times reports that the Obama administration has inappropriatly allowed the politically powerful Service Employee International Union (SEIU - one of the biggest donors to President Obama's campaign) to interfere in the relationship between the state of California and the federal government over the issuance of the "stimulus" funds (emphasis mine):

Reporting from Sacramento -- Officials in the governor's office say a politically powerful union may have had inappropriate influence over the Obama administration's decision to withhold billions of dollars in federal stimulus money from California if the state does not reverse a scheduled wage cut for the labor group's workers.

The officials say they are particularly troubled that the Service Employees International Union, which lobbied the federal government to step in, was included in a conference call in which state and federal officials reviewed the wage cut and the terms of the stimulus package.

California Secretary of Health and Human Services Kim Belshe said she could not recall another instance in which the federal government invited a significant stakeholder group into such government-to-government negotiations.

"The involvement of a stakeholder in this kind of state-federal deliberative process is unusual at best," she said. "This was really atypical and outside any norm I am familiar with."

In addition to several state and federal officials, participants in the April 15 conference call included an SEIU associate general counsel in Washington, a lobbyist for SEIU in California and a representative from SEIU's policy staff in California, according to a list provided by the Schwarzenegger administration.

Warner Todd Huston sums up the matter of virtual veto power being given to SEIU:

[...] When does an unelected union without legal governing powers get a say in what the federal government does with its dealings with a state? When a president that is more beholding to unions than he is to the Constitution and the people of the United States comes to office, that's when. And now we have that in Barack Obama.

[...] ... we have a bankrupt state trying to stay alive by cutting the costs of government. Those cuts are in the exorbitantly overgenerous benefits and wages of government workers. Certainly these sorts of cuts are common in real life, that where business is ruled by the reality of economic forces, but here we are in the fantasy world of government where only an upward projection of wages and benefits is apparently possible despite any such silly thing as "reality." And these self-interested unions are being given veto power over federal funds by a president that has no desire or interest to observe the Constitution or the rule of law.

The most frightening thing about this is the extent that it implies a willingness on the part of the Obama administration to use Chicago-style political thuggery and ignore the Constitution.

Posted by Hyscience at May 12, 2009 6:10 AM

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