Playing Homeland Politics
Senate Democrats put union votes over national security.
hughhewitt.com
Friday, September 27, 2002 12:01 a.m. EDT
President Bush didn't get it quite right the other day when he said that by failing to pass a Homeland Security bill the Democrats were "not interested in the security of the American people." He should have said they're willing to put union interests above the security of the American people.
That's the first thing to understand about the Senate's impasse over the creation of a Department of Homeland Security. The stalemate isn't about protecting workers' rights, as Senator Joe Lieberman, sponsor of the Democratic bill, would have it, or about making sure "we protect the rights and freedoms of our American citizens," as Senator John Breaux, co-sponsor of a so-called compromise, said yesterday. Rather, it's about protecting the political security of Democratic Senators by paying off big labor a month from Election Day.
There are two key disputes here: whether workers in the new department will belong to unions, and whether the President will have more flexibility to hire, fire, train and reassign them than he does over federal workers who process your Medicare payment or deliver your mail.
Under existing law, the President already has the power to exempt federal workers from unions on national security grounds. The Lieberman bill would take away that authority in the new department. In short, Mr. Bush would have the discretion to bar unions in every unit of government except Homeland Security.
To understand how outrageous this is, consider that every President has exercised this authority since JFK established the principle in the early 1960s by banning unions in the FBI, CIA and Secret Service. A 1978 law codified it and Jimmy Carter went on to exempt 47 more groups of federal workers for reasons of national security. Mr. Bush has exercised this authority just once--in January, when he excluded about 500 Justice Department employees working on terror prosecutions. Union rules would have made it difficult to shift them, as needed, to new investigations.
The White House also wants private sector-style flexibility over the 170,000 workers who would be gathered together from various agencies into the new department. This ought to be a no-brainer, as anyone who has ever had to deal with the INS will immediately understand. Everyone, even Democrats, agree with the general principle that the civil service system is a mess. It takes an average of six to nine months merely to hire someone.
Congress understood the need for such flexibility a year ago, when it created the Transportation Security Agency. The law exempts airport screeners from federal labor law, including the right to organize, and authorizes the government to "employ, appoint, discipline, terminate and fix the compensation, terms and conditions of employment." This didn't sit well with the AFL-CIO's John Sweeney, who saw a missed opportunity in the TSA, which employs 31,000 workers and counting. He wants to make sure it doesn't happen again, and the Democrats in the Senate are happy to oblige.
That's the real reason Mr. Daschle popped a cork and Senator Bob Byrd blew a gasket this week about "politicizing" the war on terror, and that's why Mr. Bush should stick by his promise to veto. |
