Denver Post: Bennet stuck in neutral over unionizing bill

Thursday, 11 June 2009 08:21

WASHINGTON — Shortly after a meeting between Latino business owners and Sen. Michael Bennet on a controversial unionizing bill last week, his team began working the back channels to control the spin war they feared would result.

The Colorado business group said it was "delighted" with the meeting, and members' notes showed not only did Bennet, D-Colo., have major problems with the bill, but that he would "have a hard time" voting for cloture — the process in which 60 votes are needed to end debate and bring a measure to a vote — something he had never said in public before.

Fearing the worst, Rosemary Rodriguez, Bennet's state director, called one of the attendees to find out what they were saying to reporters.

Craig Hughes, Bennet's campaign director, worked to reassure a consortium of unions that the senator hadn't decided how to vote on the bill, known as the Employee Free Choice Act and the unions' top legislative priority.

"They were just panicked," one meeting attendee said of the efforts at damage control. "Utterly and completely panicked."

By taking a neutral stance on EFCA, Bennet had hoped to defuse an issue that has the power to deeply alienate either business or labor, two key constituencies whose support he'll need in his 2010 election campaign.

But as the events around the meeting last week suggest, Bennet's effort to stay out of a fight has instead put him smack in the middle of one, making him the focus of a massive lobbying effort and requiring an enormous amount of energy on the part of both the lawmaker and his staff to control.

Stances on EFCA unknown

Bennet is one of six Democratic senators who have not announced how they will vote on EFCA, which would allow employees to effectively dispense with a secret ballot in union elections and require binding arbitration if business owners and their employees can't reach agreement on a contract, components that will make organizing workplaces much easier.

Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., supported EFCA when he was in the House and has said he would vote for cloture in the Senate.

But for Bennet, the bill is a constant topic at public events and has provided fodder for a ream of Republican news releases, including one Tuesday that lashed Bennet for announcing his support for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor after a 25-minute sit-down while still failing to take a position on EFCA "nearly five months into his Senate term."

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