-Caveat Lector-
Documents Show Union Leaders Have Veto Power in Democrat Campaigning
WASHINGTON (AP) - Documents that the Democratic Party and unions have sued to
keep secret reveal a campaign strategy in which labor and party officials
served side-by-side on committees that directed the Democrats' election
activities in each state.
While labor's support of Democrats is well known, the documents show labor
leaders had veto power over Democratic Party plans in 1996 by virtue of their
large donations and seats on the steering committees in each state.
``When the DNC and its National partners including ... the AFL-CIO and the
NEA (National Education Association) agree on the contents of a plan, each
national partner will give their funding commitment to the state,'' an
internal DNC memo titled ``Rules of Engagement'' said.
Lawrence Noble, the nation's former top election regulator, told The
Associated Press on Thursday he was surprised by the degree of control unions
held over Democratic decisions. Noble headed the investigation into GOP
charges of illegal coordination between the unions and Democrats.
``The AFL had a certain amount of control over what political parties and
candidates did. That is what is striking,'' Noble said.
The AFL-CIO donated $35 million in 1996.
At the request of the Democratic Party and labor unions, a federal judge has
forbidden the Federal Election Commission from releasing the documents it
gathered during its four-year probe.
AP obtained the documents from officials involved in various federal
investigations of unions and from groups that got some documents when they
were briefly released by the FEC this spring, then abruptly pulled from
public display under threat of litigation.
The documents detail extensive discussions between labor and party leaders on
how to contact, register and influence voters to support Democrats and show
where unions in some instances drew their money to accomplish the mission.
In one case, a New York hospital workers union, Local 1199, spent $250,000
from its strike defense fund for a $2.7 million effort called the '96
Project' aimed at holding congressional Republicans accountable for their
support of Newt Gingrich's ``Contract with America,'' the records show.
Frequently, officials from the Democratic Party or its congressional
fund-raising arms contacted union officials to seek approval for election
activities.
For instance, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee official Rob Engel
wrote AFL-CIO political official Steve Rogers in September 1996 to discuss
phone banks and direct mail efforts aimed at identifying voters and getting
them to the polls in 16 target congressional districts.
``We request the AFL-CIO review these budgets and programs. If you approve
them, we ask that you encourage your affiliated unions to contribute to each
congressional district coordinated campaign,'' Engel wrote.
DCCC operatives followed up a few days later with a second memo. ``Attached
is our updated and improved requests for your big bucks,'' it said.
Around the time, the AFL-CIO ran ads in several of the same congressional
districts portraying Republican candidates as out of touch with worker issues
and Democrats as union-friendly, the FEC concluded.
John Hiatt, AFL-CIO general counsel, acknowledged the union had veto power
over Democratic activities it helped finance.
``For aspects of campaigns we subsidize, I think we would want veto power,''
Hiatt said. ``We may have veto power over issues or aspects we're working on,
as other groups the Democrats are working with would want to keep control
over things they're working on.''
In North Carolina, the documents show, state AFL-CIO President Chris Scott
and North Carolina NEA President John Wilson each served on the management
committee that handled day-to-day operations.
In Nebraska, the state party gave AFL-CIO and teachers union officials
similar positions on its executive committee alongside officials from Ben
Nelson's Senate campaign and other candidates. A state party memo said
``labor will play a key role'' in a party-run effort to contact 150,000
households twice during the fall campaign.
The national blueprint for the coordinated campaigns stated flatly that
before state parties could implement their election plans they had to be
``submitted with a signature page which demonstrates the formal sign off of
the principal players for each representative of the Steering Committee.''
The contacts were so extensive that Noble, the FEC's chief lawyer, initially
concluded the two sides had illegally coordinated. The commission eventually
abandoned that finding and closed the case after a federal judge ruled in an
unrelated case that such coordination may be protected by First Amendment
free speech.
But the FEC's final report, stamped ``sensitive,'' still concluded that the
AFL-CIO had ``apparent veto power'' over the Democrats' election decisions in
the states. The unions had the ``authority to approve or disapprove plans,
projects and needs of the DNC and its state parties with respect to the
coordinated campaign,'' the report said.
Noble said he thinks the FEC should have appealed the court ruling and
punished the Democrats and the unions for illegal coordination.
Noble said business groups allied with Republicans also have growing clout in
elections. ``You have a political system in large part controlled by special
interests, whether it be AFL on one side with Democrats, or business
interests with the Republicans,'' he said.
In addition to each state party's coordinated committee, the DNC created a
national steering committee that included party officials, a representative
of the Clinton-Gore campaign as well as two officials from the AFL-CIO, one
from the NEA and one from the Emily's List political action committee.
DNC general counsel Joseph Sandler told the FEC that the national committee
met six or eight times to develop and implement the coordinated campaigns, as
well as discuss financing.
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