When legislators convene inside the chambers of the House and Senate, a crowd gathers outside the doors to begin the ritual of note-passing.
They scribble a lawmaker’s name on a request form, their own name and the something very important they want to say to the lawmaker.
That note gets couriered in and a conversation between lawmaker and note-writer ensues in the noise of the corridor or in the quiet near the chamber floor.
In these brief exchanges, lobbying masquerading as educating goes on. These individuals inform and urge lawmakers to act a certain way on a certain item.
They don’t need to threaten because the threat is implicit with their presence.
When they’re not passing notes, lobbyists are writing them, expounding and expanding in ways we all sometimes can read.
It’s the way legislating is done in Olympia.
That’s why House Speaker Frank Chopp, Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown and Gov. Chris Gregoire cannot shake the suspicion surrounding their reason and motives for killing the Worker Privacy Act.
This was the most important legislation sought by the Washington State Labor Council, a force behind Democratic candidates including the three leaders. Businesses made it their top target for elimination and the Boeing Co. wielded the crossbow of opposition.
The bill would have allowed employees to skip meetings that might cover unionization, politics or religion. Employers could still hold these meetings but could not punish absent workers.
The votes were there to pass it in the House and Senate, but Chopp and Brown didn’t want it to come up.
They expressed concerns about the bill’s legality and worried it might offend Boeing as the aerospace giant mulls its future in Washington.
They needed a way out because Chopp, Brown and Gregoire weren’t bold enough to come out and declare the bill dead.
Then the storied March 10 e-mail arrived.
A veteran labor council leader sent that communique to “Brothers and Sisters” in labor, suggesting a strategy of pledging no more union member dollars to Democratic groups until the bill got signed.
In an act of “What were you thinking?” the author copied it to four lawmakers who supported the bill.
One of them rushed it into the hands of Brown who became upset. She showed Chopp, who reacted just shy of ballistic (probably with joy). Gregoire was called in.
The trio went into a tizzy and summoned law enforcement to investigate. They wanted to know whether union members writing about withholding political donations to spur legislative action in the same sentence constituted a crime.
State Patrol detectives needed no interviews to conclude it didn’t.
In contrast, only weeks earlier, Chopp, Brown and the governor didn’t call the troopers when lawmakers received what read like an actual political threat.
Pilchuck UniServ Council, which represents teacher unions from several Snohomish County school districts, issued a Feb. 23 “declaration and resolution” for members to “actively oppose the re-election” of any lawmaker who voted for a specific education reform bill opposed by the group.
The usual response by the governor and legislative powers is no response; they’re calloused from receiving such warnings from friend or foe.
That’s why their reaction to the labor council e-mail appears more of an excuse than the reason for killing the bill.
Four days before that e-mail surfaced, Boeing fired off its own to the governor’s office; its lobbyist urged the governor to “share the responsibility necessary to do the right thing.” Chopp and Brown couldn’t hold off a vote much longer.
For Boeing, the trio did the right thing.
For labor, the trio made a tough year even tougher.
More than a few are starting to think with Democrats like these who needs Republicans.
Political reporter Jerry Cornfield’s blog, The Petri Dish, is at www.heraldnet.com. Contact him at 360-352-8623 or jcornfield@heraldnet.com.
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