Politics

Democrats Wore Union Label

July 20, 2001 / 1:43 PM EDT / CBS/AP

In exchange for extensive financial support, Democratic Party officials let union leaders approve or veto election strategies in statewide campaigns, according to documents that have been blocked from public release by a judge.

Internal party and union memos, which a combined Democratic Party-union lawsuit sought to keep secret, were obtained by The Associated Press and detail extensive behind-the-scenes coordination during the 1996 campaign.

"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," Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee official Rob Engel wrote in a September 1996 memo to an AFL-CIO official.

A few days later, the DCCC sent over revised strategies with the following note: "Attached is our updated and improved requests for your big bucks."

Union representatives also were allowed to serve on state party steering committees to help approve or reject plans for Democrats' so-called coordinated campaigns, the memos state.

The contacts were so extensive that the Federal Election Commission ultimately concluded the unions had "apparent veto power" over Democratic plans.

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The commission's chief lawyer first concluded the contacts amounted to illegal coordination. But the FEC reversed course and dropped the case after a court ruling in an unrelated case suggested such coordination might be protected by the First Amendment.

Lawrence Noble, the retired FEC chief lawyer who conducted the probe, told AP in an interview Thursday he was struck by the amount of influence unions were given over Democratic Party plans.

"The AFL had a certain amount of control over what political parties and candidates did. That is what is striking," Noble said.

An internal Democratic National Committee memo gathered by the FEC laid out the approval process.

"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," said a memo entitled "Rules of Engagement."

Other documents detailed the extent of organized labor's influence in statewide campaigns. For instance:

North Carolina AFL-CIO president Chris Scott and John Wilson, state NEA president, served on the management committee that handled daily Democratic campaign operations.
Nebraska's Democratic Party gave AFL-CIO and teachers' union officials similar positions on its executive committee alongside officials from Sen. Ben Nelson's campaign and other candidates.
Indiana Democratic Party Political Director Steve Rogers wrote in a memo, recounting a converation with an AFL-CIO official: "As we discussed, all parties involved in the coordinated campaign … agree that a voter contact program in central and southwestern Indiana would be a vital element in helping all Democratic candidates win."

John Hiatt, AFL-CIO general counsel, acknowledged Thursday that the union had veto power over Democratic activities it helped finance — but not over the entire campaign.

"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."

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler issued her injunction barring the release of the documents this week after the DNC and AFL-CIO argued most of the records contained proprietary information.

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.

The national blueprint for the coordinated campaigns stated 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."

In addition to its usual political action committee donations, the AFL-CIO spent $35 million from its general treasury funded by workers' dues on advertising and others efforts in 1996 to help Democrats win.

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The FEC's final report, stamped "sensitive," concluded that 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."

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 awell as two officials from the AFL-CIO, one from the NEA and one from the Emily's List political action committee.

The documents also detail joint political training.

Heather Booth, the DNC's Director of Training, stated in an affidavit that she conducted several workshops in March 1996 that taught AFL-CIO officials "generic techniques for conducting public education campaigns, staging grassroots events and working with the media."

A few months later in July 1996, the AFL-CIO conducted a seminar for Democratic candidates for Congress, who were given polling materials and guides on how to craft messages for union voters and working women.

By JOHN SOLOMON and LARRY MARGASAK
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