Why Are Maryland Labor Unions Contributing To Virginia Candidates?

Interesting phenomonon. I went to the VPAP website, and just for grins looked up the donations given to Paul Nichols, Democrat nominee for the 51st House of Delegates district seat.

Now, I expected to see a lot of contributions from lawyers, because you ask for money from the people you know, and you cannot doubt that Nichols knows a lot of lawyers. That's what I did, when I made the mistake of running for office. Sure, there are the a**holes who will complain about out-of-state or out-of-district contributions, but when they're from individuals, one can hardly legitimately complain, since it is highly likely that such contributions come from the people who know you the best: the people who's lives you've touched, and who are impressed enough with you that they are willing to underwrite your candidacy.

And, of course, I remember the Democrat candidate who stupidly attacked Maureen Caddigan for such an out-of-state donation, from New Jersey, as I recall.

It was from her mother.

But you've got to wonder about some donations, particularly from institutions. And the VPAP website lists not fewer than four donations from labor unions. Two come from Virginia organizations: the Virginia "Education" Association, a teachers union, and the Virginia AFL-CIO.

But two are very interesting. They come from Maryland, of all places. One is from the Sheet Metal Workers Union, Local 100. The other comes from the Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 689.

Then there's Bruce Roemmelt, Prince William County's own "union-label" candidate. Nearly a third ($18,050) of the money he's raised ($57,663) comes from labor unions.

Why, oh why, would these Maryland labor unions have an interest in electing a Democrat in Virginia House districts?

Actually, the answer is probably pretty simple: all of these unions want to attack Virginia's Right to Work law, as well as the Commonwealth's strong stand against public employee monopoly bargaining.

Might it be that they view a Democrat majority as more amenable to these outcomes? One has to wonder why Democrats aren't talking about these issues. Perhaps because it is a stealth effort to elect anti-worker, union-friendly candidates? After all, the first thing that many Dems do when they enter office is grant special privileges to Dem-friendly constituencies. It's a necessary course to perpetuate your own power when your agenda is so unpopular with the people.

After all, few Dems in 2006 ran for Congress on a platform of giving more power to labor unions. And what was among the first acts of the Democrat majority in the House? Passage of the fraudulently-misnomered "Employee Free Choice Act," which force employers to recognize unions as representatives of workers based upon cards (no inquiry into how obtained) signed by a majority of employees.

It certainly wouldn't be surprising if Virginia Dems, having run the sleaziest campaign in modern Virginia history, were to have also set themselves on a course to illicitly perpetuate their own power by becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of the VEA and the Virginia AFL-CIO.

To the extent, of course, that they are not so already.