Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


A few weeks ago Arlen Specter announced that he would oppose the Employee Free Choice Act (aka “card check”), labor’s top legislative priority.  But now that he’s a Democrat, what will he do?  Jon Chait speculates:

Specter says he’ll still oppose EFCA, but I have trouble seeing him really maintain that stance. He has to make it through a Democratic primary now. That’s very hard to do in Pennsylvania when the AFL-CIO is out for your blood.

Specter’s most likely play is to stay formally opposed to EFCA, but support a compromise along the lines of what some moderate Democrats might favor. He certainly can’t risk being the decisive anti-EFCA vote. Democrats in the Senate may be offering him institutional support in the primary, but primaries tend to be low-turnout operations, and Specter is going to have to work his way into the favor of the partisan Democratic base.

I think that’s probably right.  Specter won’t completely flip-flop, but there was some wiggle room in his statement announcing opposition to EFCA.  Even without changing his position on secret ballots, then, I could see him working with a few conservative Dems and moderate Republicans to construct a compromise bill that pretty effectively boosts his labor bona fides.  After all, the current version of EFCA is almost certainly dead in the water (and was likely dead before Specter announced his oppostion), so gaining support for even a watered down version would allow him to position himself as the guy who rescued EFCA and got half a loaf where there was nothing previously.

It might not work, of course, but it’s probably worth a try for him.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see him give it a go.

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate