Congresswoman Betsy Markey got nearly a quarter million dollars from labor unions to help her defeat incumbent Republican Marilyn Musgrave.  Now Markey is paying them back by sponsoring card check legislation.  She’s making a potentially fatal political mistake.  The unions don’t need her vote to win in the House, and they certainly don’t need her as a co-sponsor.  Yes, they gave her a lot of money, but is risking her political future worth the price?

Markey represents a conservative district. Last fall the Colorado Stateman reported that the 4th CD is 38 percent Republican, 27 percent Democrat and 35 percent unaffiliated.   Markey campaigned as business woman who understands the challenges of running a small business. She campaigned on “change.”  She was going to cut spending and restore fiscal discipline.  Check out the campaign ads and decide if she is voting as she campaigned.

Back to Markey’s mistake.  Perhaps she doesn’t remember that binding arbitration couldn’t even get 30 percent support in Fort Collins, but the business community does.  The Fort Collins Coloradoan quoted David May, CEO of the Fort Collins Area Chamber of Commerce: “It would seem that she’s out of step with her constituents. I would point out that the most liberal part of her district is the city of Fort Collins, and city of Fort Collins overwhelming defeated binding arbitration (for municipal employees) by a vote of 71 percent last June.”

Northern Colorado’s business community does not like card check legisation.  One of the most influential business voices in this region is the Northern Colorado Legislative Alliance (NCLA) and it opposes this legislation calling it dangerous.  NCLA has issued a call-to-action in hopes of defeating it.  National Federation of Independent Business, the nation’s leading voice for small business, opposes card check too.

Markey represents a conservative district that doesn’t exactly embrace labor unions.  (Think Monfort) The business community is opposed to card check and still Markey co-sponsors the union-forced issue.  One could argue that Markey is standing on principle. We’ll see if she is still standing next election cycle or will blunder bring her down?

I do wonder something.  Did Markey encourage all her employees to unionize and collectively bargain when she was a business owner?  I ask this in all seriousness because I don’t know.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 16th, 2009 at 7:54 pm and is filed under labor unions, northern Colorado, politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.