Reconciliation bill is ‘a shame and a sham’

By only two votes, 217 to 215, house Republicans whipped their base into line and passed a $50 billion budget reconciliation bill on Nov. 18. All Democrats—and notably 14 Republicans defying their leadership—voted against the bill that House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi characterized as “a shame and a sham.”

“Today, Republicans are launching an attack on America’s children, America’s families and America’s middle class,” she said on the House floor.

The bill makes cuts to mandatory spending programs such as Medicaid, food stamps and student loan subsidies, with the goal of reducing the federal deficit by $50 billion by 2010. However, before the dust even settled on this vote, the House was expected to steam through a $70 billion tax bill benefiting the wealthiest Americans.

“Not only does this tax giveaway engulf the ‘savings’ generated by the spending cuts,” says AFT legislative director Tor Cowan, “it highlights the Republicans’ determination to enact tax cuts at the expense of America’s most vulnerable citizens.”

The AFT waged a vigorous campaign at the national and local levels to defeat this legislation. In the weeks before the vote, the union contacted member activists to visit the AFT’s online legislative action center and register their opposition. This generated almost 9,000 letters and hundreds of phone calls to Capitol Hill offices.

In the days before the House vote, AFT legislative staff personally visited more than 110 Republican member offices to lobby against the bill. Also, state presidents and political activists in California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Texas mobilized members to fight the bill.

To get the critical mass to pass the bill, lawmakers reduced the proposed cuts from $54 billion to $49.5 billion. Some of this was done by tweaking proposed cuts in food stamps and the Low-Income Heating Emergency Assistance Program. However, the cuts still would deliver a harsh blow to low- and middle-income Americans. And despite the tweaks, the bill made no improvements to the proposed student loan cuts of $14.3 billion.

A House bill made $15 billion in cuts beyond those passed in the Senate budget reconciliation bill in early November. The wide differences in the two bills must be settled in conference, expected to begin soon, but it remains to be seen whether negotiators will be able to muster the support needed to craft and pass a bill in both houses. The AFT already is working on a conference strategy to defeat this bill if it is reported out of the conference committee and put on the House and Senate calendar for a vote.

California governor drops fight over nurse staffing

Two days after California voters defeated his Nov. 8 special election agenda, which included proposals to weaken teacher tenure and cripple the ability of members to participate in the political process through their unions, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger abandoned his court fight to block stricter nurse-to-patient ratios in hospitals.

Nurse staffing ratio legislation, which requires California hospitals to have one nurse for every six patients in general medical units, took effect in 2004. The ratio was to be reduced to one nurse for every five patients in 2005, but last November, Schwarzenegger issued an emergency regulation to delay implementation of the tighter ratios. Nurses mobilized to have that decision overturned, and in March 2005 a Sacramento Superior Court judge declared the governor’s emergency regulation invalid. The ruling was later upheld by a state appellate court.

Colo. voters restore public services

The AFT is celebrating its most significant victory against the anti-government establishment to date: suspension of Colorado’s so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR), a 1992 law that drastically restricted the growth of spending on public services and required any “excess” revenue to be returned to taxpayers.

State voters on Nov. 1 approved Referendum C, which suspends TABOR for five years, allowing the state to keep and spend the revenue it collects for public services.

The vote may signal an important political shift, as proposals like Colorado’s TABOR are cropping up in other states around the country. “Colorado voters sent a clear message: High-quality public services matter and are essential to the health, safety, education and prosperity of Colorado citizens,” says AFT president Edward J. McElroy.

Approval of Referendum C means that taxpayers will forgo a $491 average rebate over five years, says Jo Romero, president of the AFT-affiliated Colorado Federation of Public Employees, which represents state and local government employees.

Suspending TABOR was broadly supported by labor, businesses and nonprofit organizations and has long been a specific priority of the AFT and public service unions. Romero has been a leading voice for TABOR reform since early 2001, when the effects of the 1992 constitutional amendment were compounded by the state’s economic downturn. As state revenues fell, the baseline for determining future spending growth under TABOR’s restrictive formula also fell.

The recession, combined with the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, reportedly caused Colorado revenues to plummet 16 percent. Because of TABOR, which also requires voter approval of any new tax or tax-rate increase, the state has been forced to cut its spending by more than $1 billion.

Meanwhile, TABOR has been introduced in more than 20 state legislatures, and the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center reports that signatures already are being gathered by TABOR proponents in Ohio, Arizona, Oregon and California to get the issue on the November 2006 ballot. A TABOR measure also is expected to be introduced in the Wisconsin Legislature. To get on the ballot, the measure would have to pass the Legislature in two consecutive sessions, says Gabe Kirchner, political organizer for AFT-Wisconsin.