AFSCME Legislative Report
 AFSCME LEGISLATIVE REPORT
Legislation Department
October 28, 2005
Congress — Week ending October 28
Harriet Miers Withdraws as Supreme Court Nominee.
Budget Cuts Move Forward in House and Senate Despite Objections Raised by Key GOP Moderates.
In this issue:
Miers Withdraws as Supreme Court Nominee
Harriet Miers has withdrawn her nomination to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court. The nomination had been in trouble almost from the beginning, with Miers receiving stiff disapproval primarily from some Republican Senators and rightwing activists. The opposition had heightened in recent days with sharp criticism about her qualifications for this important post.
On October 27, Miers sent President Bush her withdrawal letter where she stated that the "confirmation process presents a burden for the White House and our staff that is not in the best interest of our country." In her letter Miers, who currently serves as White House counsel, cited Senate demands that the White House release important documents as her reason for withdrawing. Senators have insisted that these documents could help them judge her qualifications for this important lifetime position, while the White House maintained that to do so would violate executive privilege.
AFSCME had not taken a position on the Miers nomination, pending the results of the hearings that were scheduled to begin on November 7. The hearings would have given the American people an opportunity to hear directly from Miers and judge for themselves her ability to assume this important job.
The President must now nominate someone else to replace Justice O'Connor, who has agreed to stay on until her replacement is found.
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House and Senate Move Forward on Budget Cuts
The House and Senate are both moving forward on efforts to slash a variety of federal programs despite objections raised by a number of GOP moderates. House committees continued to meet while the Senate Budget Committee approved a $39.1 billion package of cuts exceeding the $35 billion target set in the fiscal 2006 budget resolution. House committees are expected to come up with savings closer to the $50 billion called for by House GOP leaders.
The Senate Budget Committee package, which was approved on a party-line vote of 12-10, will come to the floor for a vote the week of October 31, with the final vote expected by November 3. Under Senate rules, the reconciliation bill is not subject to a filibuster and therefore requires a simple majority to pass. Numerous floor amendments are expected over contentious issues like the provision allowing drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and cuts in many domestic programs.
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Two Committees Approve Big Cuts in Medicaid
The Senate Finance Committee approved a painstakingly negotiated package designed to cut
$10 billion from Medicare and Medicaid over five years. The package, approved along a party line vote, would cut Medicaid by $4.26 billion and $5.76 billion from Medicare. None of the Medicaid cuts would directly affect beneficiaries.
On the House side, the Energy and Commerce Committee took a totally different tack. They approved a package that cuts only Medicaid — $11 billion over five years. That package contained harmful changes that would allow states to change the benefit package as well as increase cost-sharing for some beneficiaries. Both of these changes will mean that beneficiaries will not get the care they need and will result in an increase of uncompensated care.
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House Committee Slashes Higher Education Funding
The House Education and the Workforce Committee voted Wednesday, 22-19, to make a total of $14.5 billion in cuts over the next five years to the student loan and grant programs. Every Republican member of the committee voted for the cuts, and every Democratic member of the committee voted in opposition. The bulk of the cuts would come from reductions in increased interest costs that will be directly borne by students and in reductions in the fees that go to the lenders who provide and service the student loan program. However, it is likely that lenders will cover their losses by passing an additional financial burden onto the students. Rep. George Miller (CA), the senior Democrat on the Committee, offered alternative legislation that would have ended one subsidy that results in lenders earning an effective rate of 9.5 percent return on loans and redirected the money into an expansion of the Pell grant program. This was rejected, 20-27.
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House Ways and Means Committee Votes to Cut Assistance to Poor Families, Abandoned Children and the Disabled to Pay for Tax Cuts and a Misguided War
Moving in the name of fiscal responsibility to address the record federal deficits caused by tax cuts in the early years of the Bush administration and the Iraq war, the House Ways and Means Committee approved a "budget reconciliation" package of spending cuts in programs that provide a variety of assistance to poor families and the disabled. The vote to approve the package was along party lines with all Democrats voting against it and all Republicans on the Committee voting for it. All Democratic amendments to modify the spending cuts failed.
As approved by the Committee, the bill would reduce federal funding for child support enforcement by nearly 40 percent by 2010. This cut would reduce child support payments to single parent families by an estimated $21.3 billion over the next 10 years and lead to substantial layoffs of state and local personnel working in the child support system.
The committee also included its bill reauthorizing the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program in the spending reduction package. The TANF provisions increase the number of work hours per week to 40 and restrict the qualifying activities in such a way that states would be forced to spend substantial resources on unpaid workfare or restrict access to the program by poor families. In addition, the bill reduces the already inadequate $1 billion increase in child care funding in prior House versions of TANF reauthorization to $500 million and eliminates $1 billion in bonus payments to states for job gains and employment retention. It includes food stamp block grant pilot projects and major "super waiver" provisions that will permit other program mergers and exemptions from important federal requirements including public administration requirements.
Other provisions in the bill will reduce the number of children who are abandoned by their parents or removed from troubled homes to who can receive federal foster care assistance.
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House Agriculture Committee Poised to Make Food Stamp Cuts
As of this writing, the House Agriculture Committee was poised to approve spending cuts of about $844 million in the food stamp program. The cuts would cause 300,000 working poor families to lose food stamp benefits and would increase from 5 to 7 years the waiting period for immigrants to become eligible for assistance. AFSCME strongly opposes these cuts, which we expect the House committee to approve as a way to help pay for the Bush Administration's tax cuts.
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Bush Reverses Cut in Prevailing Wages for Reconstruction Work in Katrina Affected Regions
The Bush Administration announced that it would reinstate the Davis-Bacon Act on November 8, which the President had suspended on September 8 that requires workers in the Hurricane Katrina disaster area to be paid the "prevailing" local wage. The Davis-Bacon Act, originally enacted in 1931, requires contractors on federally funded projects to pay prevailing local wages and benefits to workers. Pressure to reinstate the law had come from enraged workers around the country as well as inside the Beltway from labor-friendly Republicans and the entire House Democratic caucus. The White House received over 350,000 emails from Working Families e-activists.
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Food Stamp Privatization Prohibition Blocked by House Agriculture Appropriations Committee Members
Led by Representative Henry Bonilla (R-TX), Republican members of the House Appropriations Committee used their majority numbers to block agreement on Senator Tom Harkin's (D-IA) amendment to restrict state efforts to privatize administration of their food stamp programs. All Democratic members of the Appropriations Committees and Arlen Specter (R-PA) supported the provision. Representative Bonilla refused even to consider a compromise of the amendment which would have stopped Texas' plans to lay off state workers and centralized intake work at four call centers operated by Accenture.
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Katrina Rebuild with Respect Act Introduced
Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) this week introduced legislation to ensure fairness in the rebuilding of the Gulf Coast area. At the urging of AFSCME and other unions, the legislation ensures that public sector workers assigned to work on federally funded relief and recovery projects have health and safety protections. The legislation also provides expanded and increased unemployment benefits for workers who lost their jobs as a result of the hurricane and who now number half a million people,
other provisions in the Rebuild with Respect Act require the hiring of workers displaced from their jobs, ensure that federal contracts go to local businesses in the Gulf Coast region, and ensure compliance with affirmative action rules. A provision reinstating the Davis-Bacon prevailing wage rules were rendered unnecessary by the capitulation of the Bush Administration to pressure from labor friendly Republicans to restore the wage protections.
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Another Immigration Bill Introduced in the Senate
A fight in the Congress this year over immigration policy seems increasingly more likely. Pressure to "do something" about immigration is mounting as yet another immigration bill is introduced in the Senate. This week, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) introduced his bill (S. 1916) which stakes out a position somewhere between the other two major Senate bills (S. 1033 and S. 1438) introduced earlier in the session by Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and John McCain (R-AZ) and Sens. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and John Cornyn (R-TX).
Senator Hagel's bill includes a new temporary worker program, H-2C, which would add 250,000 new temporary visas annually, good for two years with one two-year extension. Workers coming into the U.S. under this program would be permitted to apply for permanent residence. The bill would also increase the number of seasonal worker visas, H-2B, from 66,000 to 100,000. H-2C visa holders would be permitted to change jobs and retain their visa status while holders of H-2B would not. Workers who obtain visas under the new H-2C program would have wage protections including payment of prevailing wage and would also be protected by all federal, state and local labor and employment laws, including the right to organize. The bill also increases the number of border and customs officers.
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Senate Passes FY 2006 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Spending Bill
The Senate passed its version of the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Spending bill. The bill emerged from committee with a $32 million cut in state employment service grants and level or slightly reduced funding levels for many of the health and social services programs. Many amendments offered on the Senate floor to restore and increase funding in key program areas were rejected, including amendments to increase funds for elementary and secondary education, Head Start and assistance for low-income households to pay heating bills which are expected to soar this winter.
One positive development was approval by the Senate for an amendment to restore $125 million in funding for health care monitoring and workers' compensation benefits for workers hurt while conducting rescue, recovery and clean up work at Ground Zero following the 9/11 attack. The Bush administration had pressed to have the funds promised to New York revoked. Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and Charles Schumer (D-NY) offered the amendment.
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House Passes Bill to Limit Political and Legislative Work of Many Nonprofits
On Wednesday, the House passed an amendment to housing legislation (H.R. 1461) that prohibits nonprofit organizations that operate low income housing from engaging in any political or legislative activity if they receive federal funds authorized by the legislation. Specifically, the provision prohibits nonprofits from using their own funds to lobby elected officials or to mobilize people to vote. If challenged, it is likely that the provision will be declared an unconstitutional limitation on free speech. The provision did not limit the political or legislative activities of for-profit firms that operate low income housing.
Advocates opposed to the provision, including labor, civil rights, civil liberties, disability, and religiously affiliated organizations lobbied against the amendment and also for a separate, procedural motion to strike the provision from the bill. The amendment was approved by a vote of 210 to 205 with 13 Republicans voting with all but two Democrats against the harmful amendment. The procedural motion failed by a vote of 200 to 220. Three Republicans voted right on both the amendment and the procedural motion: Reps. Jim Leach (IA), Jim Ramstad (MN) and Christopher Shays (CT).
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AFSCME-supported Legislation Moves Out of Committee
Legislation to combat violence against judges and boost security in courthouses was approved by the House Judiciary Committee. H.R. 1751 would bar possession of a dangerous weapon in federal courthouses and would increase penalties for assaulting, kidnapping or murdering judges or their family members. The bill would also make it a federal crime to kill state public safety officials whose offices receive federal funds and increase the minimum sentence to 30 years to life to the death penalty. AFSCME members affected would be corrections, law enforcement, probation and parole officers and other courtroom personnel. AFSCME sadly is aware of the need for courthouse security because of the death of an AFSCME corrections officer, Wayne "Cotton" Morgan, who was killed outside a Tennessee Courthouse while transporting an inmate back to prison.
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New Report Highlights Failures of 2001-2005 Federal Tax Breaks
A new report, entitled, "The Boom That Wasn't" demonstrates that the Bush Administration's tax cuts since 2001 have been a failure and produced no positive economic effects. While Bush campaigned on the belief that tax cuts would help America's economy, he has signed $860 billion of tax cuts into law and the main result of the tax cuts is negative — a large, growing federal deficit. The report, by the Economic Policy Institute, finds relatively low overall growth of the economy, employment, and income from salaries and wages.
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