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Letter to AFSCME President McEntee
January 4, 2008
Gerald McEntee
International President
AFSCME
1625 L St. NW
Washington, DC 20036
Dear President McEntee:
We are writing to protest in the strongest terms the negative campaign
that AFSCME is conducting against Barack Obama. We do not believe that
such a wholesale assault on one of the great friends of our union was
ever contemplated when the International Executive Board (IEB) made its
decision to endorse Hillary Clinton.
In fact, when the vote to make a primary endorsement was taken by the
IEB, there appeared to be widespread agreement that we had a strong
field of Democratic candidates all of whom had made a very positive
impression on the IEB Screening Committee. The argument for endorsing
Hillary Clinton was not that her positions were better than those of the
other candidates or that she would be the better president for working
families, but rather that she was the clear frontrunner, the most likely
primary victor, and the strongest general election candidate.
While some of us did not agree with the decision to endorse Sen.
Clinton, we all recognized that once the endorsement was made, AFSCME
would have to expend a certain amount of resources on her behalf in
order to give weight to its action. While the Board was informed at
that time that procedures for independent expenditures had been
established, there was never any discussion of how those expenditures
would be made.
None of the information presented to the International Executive Board
suggested in any way that AFSCME intended to utilize its resources to
attack the other Democratic candidates. In fact, a number of IEB members
stressed–either privately or in their comments at the meeting-how much
they respected and admired Sen. Obama. And at least one Board member
spoke passionately against the Democratic candidates attacking each
other, arguing that such negativity would damage Democratic prospects in
the General Election.
We were therefore shocked and appalled to learn that our union-through
“independent expenditures”–is squandering precious resources to wage a
costly and deceptive campaign to oppose Barack Obama. As Barack’s
standing in the polls has soared, according to numerous press reports
AFSCME has spent untold dollars in Iowa and New Hampshire to send out
mailings and run radio ads whose sole purpose is to undercut his
candidacy. And now AFSCME has even registered a website with the
explicit purpose of “opposing Barack Obama.”
While we would not approve of attacks on any of the Democratic
candidates in this race, all of whom have good relationships with our
union, it is worth noting that AFSCME has chosen to attack only one of
those candidates, Barack Obama.
It is also worth noting that the campaign that AFSCME is waging against
Sen. Obama is fundamentally dishonest and inconsistent with past
positions of our union, i.e. attacking him for not forcing individuals
to purchase health care even when they can’t afford it. The ads are
misleading in attempting to give the impression that they are associated
with John Edwards rather than Hillary Clinton and in their claims that Sen. Obama’s health care plan will exclude 15 million people when in fact every person will have the opportunity to participate. This dishonesty is giving our union a “black eye” among many in the media and
the progressive community.
But even if the ads were not deceptive, we would object to the use of
our union’s funds to attack a long-time friend of AFSCME members, a
candidate who has stood up strongly in support of workers’ rights from
his earliest days as an elected official, a candidate who included the
importance of the right to form unions in his announcement speech, a
candidate who has been a forceful advocate for working families.
Supposedly, we are involved in this primary because we’re concerned
about “access” to the next Democratic president. So why would we want
to develop a hostile relationship with the man who could be that next
president?
And supposedly, our union’s fundamental commitment is to electing a
Democratic president in November. So why would AFSCME’s national
political director threaten to dilute AFSCME’s efforts in the General
Election if Senator Obama is the nominee? We were stunned to see these
kind of threats being made in the national media by one of our union’s
primary spokespersons.
It is our understanding that this attack on Sen. Obama is being carried
out through independent expenditures which are not under your direction,
but that of two members of the International staff. As we understand
it, because of the legal “firewall” that exists, those two staff members
have essentially undertaken this assault on Sen. Obama entirely on their
own initiative without direction from or even consultation with you.
Certainly there has not been any direction from the International
Executive Board regarding this course of action. And we do not believe
that AFSCME members would expect or want their PEOPLE dollars spent in this manner.
We are calling on you to take whatever action that is within your legal
purview to immediately end AFSCME’s attack campaign against Sen. Obama. In the event that you are not able to legally compel these staff members to cease these actions, we are calling on you to immediately take action to discontinue such independent expenditures in order to ensure that no further attacks occur. And we also urge you to ensure that no funds are
utilized to wage such “attack campaigns” among our own members.
