Missouri Republicans Push Slew Of Union-Busting Proposals

Missouri Republicans this month touched off the latest push for a so-called “right-to-work” law, introducing legislation similar to the union-busting laws signed by Republican governors in Indiana and Michigan last year. The right-to-work proposal, which prohibits unions from requiring workers to join, is just one of multiple bills targeting unions that are making their way through the GOP-controlled state legislature. Others would end Missouri’s prevailing wage law and prohibit unions from using dues for political purposes unless workers gave them permission to.

Right-to-work, the most pernicious of the proposals, faces an uphill battle even though the GOP holds veto-proof majorities in both the state House and state Senate. Still, Republicans have been emboldened by successful right-to-work efforts in Michigan and Indiana, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports:

“I’ve seen a momentum building around the country, and I don’t think it’s an issue that Missourians or our Legislature can simply ignore or avoid,” said House Speaker Tim Jones, Republican from Eureka who has signed on as a co-sponsor of right-to-work legislation here. “It may be a multiyear process because this is the first time — in a long time — these issues have been debated with this much attention.”

The state senate will not prioritize passage of right-to-work, according to Majority Leader Ron Richard (R), because a similar proposal failed last year. But Republicans in both Indiana and Michigan said they would not prioritize right-to-work before passing it shortly after.

Instead, Richard said the Senate would focus on legislation that repeals the state’s prevailing wage law, which guarantees workers a livable wage, and another proposal that would keep unions from using dues for political purposes.

ProgressMissouri found that the various right-to-work proposals closely mirror legislation produced by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a business front-group that was abandoned by dozens of companies last year over its support for controversial voter suppression laws and other conservative proposals. In 2011, Missouri Republicans introduced right-to-work legislation that was nearly identical to legislation introduced in other states.

Proponents argue that right-to-work laws spur job and economic growth, though there is little evidence backing up those claims. Such laws have, however, been linked to lower wages and less access to health and retirement benefits for workers, both union and non-union alike. Missouri voters overwhelmingly rejected a right-to-work proposal in 1978.

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Gallup: Key immigration-reform proposals hold broad support

Two immigration reform proposals — a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants and increased border security spending — have strong support among the public, a Gallup survey found Tuesday.

Seventy-two percent of those surveyed said illegal immigrants presently living in the U.S. should have an opportunity to acquire citizenship if they meet certain requirements, and 25 percent said they should not.

Sixty-eight percent also supported increased government spending on border security, while only 29 percent were opposed.

While there is some variation between Republicans and Democrats surveyed, both proposals enjoyed majority support from members of both parties.

Fifty-nine percent of Republicans said they supported a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, versus 90 percent among Democrats. And on the question of increased spending on border security, 79 percent of Republicans said they supported the idea, compared to 64 percent of Democrats.

A bipartisan group of Senate lawmakers have proposed a framework that entails increased security measures at the border and a path to citizenship that doesn’t allow illegal immigrants to leapfrog immigrants who have already applied to come to the U.S. legally.

GOP leaders, including Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), have said they hope to act on immigration reform, but rank-and-file House Republicans are skeptical of proposals to grant citizenship, which they call “amnesty."

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Sen. Leahy voices support for key proposals in Obama's gun-control plan

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) voiced support for many of the key proposals in President Obama's plan on curbing gun violence in an interview on C-SPAN's "Newsmakers" program, including closing the so-called gun show loophole and having criminal background checks for all guns sales.

"You can't say, well the rules apply to you and not to you," Leahy said on the program, which is set to air on Sunday. "So I think the first thing you might want to do is close the gun show loophole."

Leahy, whose committee has jurisdiction over changes to gun laws, also called for legislation that would require a "real background check" when people attempt to purchase firearms.

"There's not a way to compare records, felony records," he said. "Let's close that so you can say to everybody, the rules, whatever rules we have, will apply the same to everyone."

The Senate Judiciary chairman said the committee is holding hearings this month on the issue of gun control and he has invited National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre to appear before the committee. Leahy emphasized that he's the first committee chair in either chamber of Congress to schedule a hearing that examines gun-control rules. 

"I want to have real hearings. We're going to hear from people on all sides of the issue and then see if we come out with something," Leahy said. "You have to balance your Second Amendment rights with people's safety, and as a gun owner, I understand that."

"It's kind of lonely out there," he added. "I'm the only one having hearings."

During these hearings, Leahy said he hopes to get a "definitive answer" on whether the previous assault weapons ban worked. While he voted for the ban, he noted: "I'm not looking for something symbolic, I'm looking for something that makes people safer."

Leahy also voiced support for Obama's proposal to limit the size of ammunition magazines sold.

"The idea of having a weapon, say with a 30-round magazine, for civilian use, I mean that's a weapon you'd use in war," he said.  "I don't see a need for it in civilian use."

Leahy refrained from sharing too many specifics about his legislative strategy on gun control, but said he wanted to collect ideas from other members and find areas of agreement.

"Let's see how much we can agree to put in one bill...and then if people agree or disagree to different parts, we'll vote it up or vote it down," he said.

The president has also called for Congress to appropriate $10 million to the Centers for Disease Control to study gun violence, including possible links to video games and media images. Leahy, who is viewed as having close ties to the entertainment industry, said Congress likely will not pass legislation aimed at reducing violence in video games, movies and TV shows.

"There's nothing glamorous about somebody being killed. I worry that people glamorize this in movies or games, but they do have their First Amendment rights," Leahy said. "The issue has been raised. We'll ask about it."

"I don't see a law that's going to ban these things… but there has to be more awareness that parents have a responsibility to say, 'By the way, just what are you watching there?'" he said.

Leahy's committee will also be busy with another hot-button topic this year: immigration reform. The White House has signaled that passing comprehensive immigration reform is one of its top priorities this year. The Senate Judiciary Committee is gearing up for what's expected to be a long battle on the divisive issue.

Leahy stressed that he wants to get a comprehensive immigration bill done this year.

"We've got to do something. You've got to face the reality of 12 million undocumented people in this country," he said.

Without these immigrants, Leahy added that "a whole lot of our businesses would shut down."

"A lot of things would grind to a halt, but worse than that, a lot of families would be destroyed," he said.

In the interview, Leahy noted that his grandparents and great-grandparents came to the U.S. from Italy and Ireland. He questioned whether they would be able to immigrate to the U.S. under the country's current rules.

"There's a small segment of this country that's become very xenophobic and they tend to forget that they're probably only one or two or three generations from somebody coming to this country," he said.

Still, Leahy acknowledged that his committee will face challenges when crafting a bill. He said it would be "helpful" if the president sent the committee legislative language to work from.

"A path to citizenship is easy to say. The devil is in the details, but let's agree that there should be a path to citizenship, and then work out the way to do it," he said.

When asked about Speaker John Boehner's (R-Ohio) recent comments on the Senate's failure to pass a budget in nearly four years, Leahy said he and Boehner have been "long-time friends, but maybe you might want to get your own house in order before you tell us how to run ours."

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Gallup: Majority supports Obama’s gun-control proposals

A majority of people favor President Obama’s efforts to impose stricter gun laws, according to a Gallup survey released late Friday.

According to the poll, 53 percent said they would want their congressman to vote in favor of Obama’s proposals, against 41 who said they would want their representative to vote against the proposals.

On Wednesday, Obama and Biden, flanked by children they said wrote to the White House about gun safety in the wake of the Newtown massacre, unveiled 23 executive actions the president signed into law. Those measures include efforts to improve existing background checks and gun safety, and even encourage doctors to ask patients about guns in their homes.??Obama also pressed lawmakers to quickly implement universal background checks on all firearm purchasers and restore the federal ban on military-style assault weapons and a limit on the size of ammunition magazines.

The issue, according to Gallup, remains highly partisan – 82 percent of Democrats favor the new laws, while 15 percent oppose, compared to only 22 percent of Republicans who are in favor, against 72 who oppose.

Obama has sought to rally public support in past battles over taxes and spending, and is leveraging his high approval rating, and recent opinion polls that show public support for tighter gun restrictions, in an effort to pressure Congress to take action.

The Gallup survey of 1,021 adults was conducted on Jan. 17 and has a 4 percentage point margin of error.

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GOP-Controlled Virginia House Committee Kills Voting Rights Restoration Proposals

Convicted felons in must petition to the governor for voting rights clemency

The Virginia House of Delegates subcommittee with jurisdiction over constitutional amendments killed a series of proposals Monday that would have restored the civil rights of persons convicted of a felony who have completed their sentences. This move come days after Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) endorsed changing the Virginia constitution to automatically allow non-violent felons to regain their voting rights after serving their time.

Virginia is one of a handful of states that prohibits all citizens convicted of felonies from voting, even after they serve their terms, unless they are granted clemency by the governor. A series of proposals by Democrats and Republican members of the Virginia House of Delegates were rejected, en mass, by the Constitutional Amendments Subcommittee of the House Privileges and Elections Committee. The subcommittee’s four Republicans unanimously voted to kill all of the proposals, Democrats Algie Howell (D) and Johnny Joannou (D) were the only votes in favor of any of the measures.

Both McDonnell’s Secretary of the Commonwealth Janet Vestal Kelly and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II (R) attended the hearing to speak in support automatic restorations. Had any of the bills passed through the Virginia General Assembly this year and again next year, it would have gone to a statewide referendum.

Deputy House Majority Leader C. Todd Gilbert (R), a former prosecutor who does not sit on the committee, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that he opposed automatic restoration because felons already get off too easy. “These are not people we ask of much … All we ask them is to show a little personal responsibility and fill out a simple application [for rights restoration].” Far from just simple procedural act, applying for clemency is no guarantee that whoever is governor will grant the clemency request.

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FDA Cracks Down On Deadly Outbreaks With Food Safety Proposals

The Food and Drug Administration proposed new rules on Friday aiming to prevent outbreaks like those experienced in recent years, such as salmonella from peanuts and listeria from cantaloupe.

The rules are among the first flexing the FDA’s new powers outlined in the Food Safety Modernization Act. By tightening oversight, the sweeping rules will prevent future incidents of the dangerous conditions found at the peanut butter and cantaloupe farms:

In a 2011 outbreak of listeria in cantaloupe that claimed 33 lives, for example, FDA inspectors found pools of dirty water on the floor and old, dirty processing equipment at the Colorado farm where the cantaloupes were grown. In a peanut butter outbreak this year linked to 42 salmonella illnesses, inspectors found samples of salmonella throughout a New Mexico peanut processing plant and multiple obvious safety problems, such as birds flying over uncovered trailers of peanuts and employees not washing their hands.

The 2011 legislation is the first major food safety overhaul in over 70 years, even though food contamination sickens one in six Americans and treatment alone costs an estimated $152 billion every year.

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The Craziest Republican Legislative Proposals Of 2012

1. Outlawing the dollar.

Washington state lawmakers introduced a bill that would have outlawed the paper dollar, because “only gold and silver may be recognized as government legal tender.” This is just part and parcel of the extreme right’s continuing fascination with goldbuggery, a fascination to which the Republican party’s presidential candidates gladly pandered.

2. Striking the words ‘sea level rise.’

In Virginia, the Republican-led legislature commissioned a study to determine the impacts of manmade warming on the state’s shores, only to ban terms like “climate change” and “sea level rise,” deeming them “liberal code words.” And North Carolina Republicans voted to ignore studies that predict rapid sea level rise due to global warming.

3. Banning ‘Sharia Law.’

Republicans in states like Florida and Kansas passed Sharia-law bans in their state legislatures. In Kansas, a spokeswoman for Gov. Sam Brownback (R-KS) went so far as to say that the ban meant that the state “will not consider the laws of foreign jurisdictions.” The bans signified yet another year of the Republican establishment endorsing fringe Islamophobes.

4. Defining life as beginning before conception.

In Arizona, Republicans passed a new round of restrictive, anti-choice laws in the last year, chief among them HB 954. The bill, which one Republican defended by comparing women to cows and pigs, outlaws abortions after 20 weeks and actually starts the clock after a woman’s last menstrual period.

5. Allowing citizens to shoot at cops.

The NRA pushed Republicans in Indiana to pass a law that allows any citizen to open fire on a “public servant” for “unlawful intrusion.” Police fear this means a citizen could shoot at a cop, then claim the cop was trying to enter his or her property.

6. Zeroing out foreign aid.

American foreign aid saves literally millions of lives at miniscule cost to taxpayers. And there are millions still dying that more American support could help. Yet Republican Presidential candidates, including Mitt Romney, proposed cutting the entire foreign aid budget and starting from scratch. Though Romney later changed course, House Republicans proposed draconian cuts to lifesaving aid.

7. Creationism in schools.

The movement to question the science of evolution was alive and well this year, as Indiana state senator Dennis Kruse (R) proposed not one, but two bills to inject creationist teachings into the public school curriculum.

8. Promoting discrimination on military bases.

Though H.R.3828, Rep. Tim Huelskamp’s (R-KS) Military Religious Freedom Protection Act, appears to be about protecting military chaplains from having to violate their faith, it would ban using any military facilities for same-sex marriages and even “marriage-like” ceremonies.

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