The Obama Administration: Now What?
Labor: Most worrisome to the American business lobby is the "Employee Free Choice Act," the so-called "card check" that would allow organizers to form a union simply by collecting the signatures of a majority of employees at the workplace -- and if a contract isn't negotiated, permits a federal mediator to impose one for two years. The bill has passed the House but in 2007 was stymied by a Senate filibuster. Every Democrat (except South Dakota's Tim Johnson, who was recovering from a stroke and didn't vote) supported it, joined by one Republican, Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter, who's up for re-election in 2010. Every other Republican voted against it. If Al Franken wins the Minnesota Senate seat, and party unity holds, supporters will need just one Republican vote to block a filibuster.
That's a big if, according to Josten, who points out that Senate Democrats who voted in favor of debating the bill could do so knowing it stood no chance of coming to a vote, let alone getting signed into law by George Bush. "This time, with 58 Democrats, it's no longer a free vote. So I'm not sure that that means there is as solid a bloc of Democratic votes as there was last time." But Brookings' Binder counters: "If they've gone on record already in favor of it, it was interpreted as their commitment to it. Changing your vote could be more costly than it seemed." The NFIB's Danner concludes that the Senate "will not bring it up unless they absolutely have the votes, because I don't think they want an early loss, and I don't think they want to tie up the Senate for some amount of weeks" just to see it fail.
Labor's allies in Congress will certainly try to move other bills that trouble many firms. "There's like 30 bills pending up there," says Randy Johnson, the U.S. Chamber's vice president for labor, immigration, and employee benefits. "I think 10 of those will be voted on. Each one of those will be a tough fight." Danner believes the wall of Republican unity could well crack on some of these, particularly expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act. "Some senators will say, 'OK, what do you want me be with you on?" adds Johnson. "'If you want me to vote no on the Employee Free Choice act, then I'm going to have to vote yes on paid leave."
In the campaign, Obama promised to re-direct the National Labor Relations Board toward a position more sympathetic to unions. "You're going to see a new National Labor Relations Board headed up by three liberal Democrats," Johnson says. “They're going to seek to reverse cases decided under the Bush board. theIt is clear that by the end of four years," Johnson concludes, "the landscape of the nation's employment laws will have significantly changed."
Energy and the Environment: It seems likely that the stimulus package the next Congress will prepare for Obama will include a big push for clean energy and so-called "green-collar" jobs -- a linking along the lines Binder suggests. The harder part, however, will be establishing a "cap and trade" regimen to control greenhouse gas emissions. Environmentalists claimed an early victory when Rep. John Dingell, a Democratic foe to climate-change legislation, lost the chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee to Californian Henry Waxman, a supporter. In the Senate, Democrats may still be shy of the supermajority they'll need to defeat a Republican filibuster. Earlier this year, when the Senate debated cap-and-trade, six Republicans joined 42 Democrats against a filibuster. (While John McCain didn't vote, he went on record against the filibuster.) Four of those Republicans were defeated by Democrats in November. And the lousy economy has raised the stakes in the debate. "The onus is going to be on members who are pushing policy initiatives that have strong externalities that impact on the economy," says Binder. "It's going to make it tougher for them to marshal a coalition."
