OLYMPIA — Upset with what they see as an increasingly pro-business tilt to the Democratic party in Washington state, labor leaders have formed a new organization to keep a tighter grip on who gets their campaign dollars.
DIME, short for Don’t Invest in More Excuses, a political action committee formed by the Washington State Labor Council is designed give the umbrella group more control over which candidates and campaigns get union dollars, council President Rick Bender told The Olympian newspaper.
“We want a little bit more control over where our dollars go,” said Rick Bender, president of the Washington State Labor Council, which provided money for independent ads helping Gov. Chris Gregoire’s re-election and an estimated 250,000 telephone calls to voters to help her. He said it is no more business as usual for labor.
Going into its annual two-day convention that begins Friday in Wenatchee, the council is also reviewing policies on grassroots support and endorsements, likely meaning fewer campaign workers for Democratic causes and fewer dollars for Democratic coffers and for state legislative campaign committees run by the party’s caucuses.
Labor support helped Democrats win control of both houses of the Legislature last year and re-elect Gov. Chris Gregoire, who benefited from independent advertisements purchased by the council and an estimated 250,000 telephone calls to voters on her behalf.
“Our relationship is not like it was before going into the 2008 election,” Bender said. “No question we’ve decided we are going to change the way we’re going to finance these campaigns.”
In the 16th Legislative District, Laura Grant is the top fundraiser in a six-way race for the unexpired term of her late father, longtime Democratic Rep. Bill Grant of Walla Walla, although she has gotten nothing from unions representing teachers, state employees, technical engineers and non-teaching public school employees, all of which gave to her father a year ago.
Grant’s record was rated 14 percent favorable to labor issues this year, labor council spokeswoman Kathy Cummings said.
“We’re not holding her out as an example. We’re holding to our new prescribed strategy. We’re looking for champions. She obviously isn’t,” Cummings said.
Meetings between labor leaders and House Speaker Frank Chopp, Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown and Gregoire are being arranged “to urge them to sort of restore our traditional working relationship,” state Democratic Party chairman Dwight Pelz said.
“All I can tell you is I understand there are raw feelings, and we are doing everything we can at the Democratic Party to restore the traditional alliance between labor and the Democratic Party,” Pelz said.
A worker privacy bill they abruptly killed in the last session might be considered again in January, said Rep. Sam Hunt of Olympia, chairman of the House Democrats’ campaign committee. Under that measure — labor’s top priority in Olympia in 2008 — employers would be barred from forcing workers to listen to political, religious or other issues of conscience in the workplace.
“A lot of us were disappointed we didn’t get worker privacy through, but I don’t think it’s dead,” Hunt said.
The bill was tabled after a labor lobbyist referred to the bill in an e-mail concerning campaign donations. Labor leaders were angered when lawmakers asked for an investigation by the State Patrol, which quickly found no substance to concerns about wrongdoing.
Labor also was upset that the Legislature refused to approve a permanent increase in jobless pay or to find new resources to pay for government workers’ health care and salaries.
Hunt said Democrats did pass a number of labor-friendly bills. Some labor bills were passed by the House but died in the Senate.
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