Former LA Police Chief Bernard Parks is currently representing LA Council District 8, where he's currently being opposed by a union-cultivated candidate Forescee Hogan-Rowles. From the LA Weekly:
Parks has been targeted for removal by the DWP's union, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 18, and its affiliate IBEW 11, as well as the city's police union and the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and SEIU Local 721.
The cash-rich unions representing thousands of city workers have organized a massive independent expenditure campaign, pouring more than $650,000 in contributions into electing Hogan-Rowles.
Parks, as head of the City Council Finance and Budget Committee, has infuriated IBEW Local 18's outspoken and powerful business manager, Brian D'Arcy, and L.A. Police Protective League president Paul Weber, by seeking more control over DWP pensions and benefits, challenging the public utility's rationale for rate hikes, voting against a costly police contract and backing layoffs and furlough days for city workers.This is what the capture of the state and local political process by public-sector unions who are primarily interested in their own interests looks like, and this is why it's critical not only that we deal with the fiscal consequences of the last 25 years' control of the political process, but with the mechanism that brought us there.
The County Federation spent more than $8.5 million to defeat Parks when he ran in 2008 for the 2nd District Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors seat, which he lost to Mark Ridley-Thomas.
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Isn't this business as usual, an interest group targeting a politician it doesn't like?
Mickey Kaus on the Drum article from the earlier post: Kevin Drum gives up on Unionism.
It's pretty much acknowledged that the defensive function of unions has long since been eclipsed by evolution, especially in the public sector. There's no danger that the government is going to force children to work 10 hours a day in coal mines. And the "unions make us stronger" argument would be laughable if the consequences of it weren't so tragic.
All that's left is the union as Democratic Party Cash Cow, and political muscle. The muscle only works on Democrats who rely on union money and votes, and that crew diminishes every year.
So all that's left is the money, taken unwillingly from the worker on the one hand and the taxpayer on the other. Even that function is precarious and inefficient, but forcing the public to fund the ambitions of the Democratic Party has a certain appeal to the screw-em-all crowd.
There's nothing inherently wrong with an interest group targeting a politician that is not to their liking.
However, most of those interest groups have to at least ask me nicely for my money, or provide me something of equal value. Failing that, I keep my money (from a charity) or buy from someone else or do without (from a business.)
If I try that against the public sector, I go to jail for tax evasion.
Marcus, the issue simply is that no one else is competitive with the scale of intervention by the unions. If it were railroads, utility companies, or a private developer, we'd consider this corruption and end it.
We should do the same thing here.
Marc
I was commenting on the tone of moral outrage in the quoted article, not on whether or not I support the unions or not
It seemed to be the flip side of "The Unions are the Middle Class" cant that is being floated around by the left recently. It struck me as mawkish and disingenuous in that it somehow wanted the reader to believe that politics is somehow a gentleman's game.
A.L., at 4:
I wouldn't. I've never been that concerned with campaign contributions. I can't very well complain about unions making campaign contributions and not complain about corporations.
Toc, at 5:
I understand your comment was about the outrage. My comment was likewise about outrage, because that's the only thing I find particularly outrageous-- that campaign contributions are basically being extracted from the population by state power, regardless of their political orientation.
Marcus, again - it's the thumb on the scale of contributions that matters. Ostensibly, various interests are free to organize and spend, and their organizing and spending counterbalances each other and we get something like a 'fair' result.
When one interest so consistently dominates, we don't and we get a distorted politics where we want a competitive one.
In the past, when private interests have done this, we've broken them up or limited their power.
It's time to do that to public sector unions.
Marc