AFSCME Legislative Report
 AFSCME LEGISLATIVE REPORT
Congress — Week ending December 23
Senate sends budget cutting bill back to the House and then adjourns for the year. Final action postponed until next year. Labor-HHS spending bill passes in the Senate. Immigration bill moves forward in the House. The next Washington Weekly Report will be issued when Congress returns in mid- to late January, 2006. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!
In this issue:
Senate Blinks and Sends Budget Cut Bill Back to House
The Senate reached a level of high drama when Senators voted to make a series of changes to the nearly $40 billion budget cutting bill and sent it back to the House for consideration, rather than giving it to the President for his signature as was originally expected. The Senate ended up passing the amended version of the bill by a vote of 51-50, with Vice President Cheney breaking a 50-50 tie vote. The budget bill would make major cuts in mandatory spending programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, welfare and student loans. For example, Medicaid would be cut by nearly $5 billion over five years, with beneficiaries facing increased cost-sharing and benefit reductions; the student loan program $12.7 billion; and welfare changes would require states to increase work participation rates by 69 percent, without additional program funds, or pay stiff financial penalties.
Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, raised a series of procedural points of order against the budget bill. And, when the Senate Parliamentarian ruled in Conrad's favor on three of the four provisions, Senate GOP leaders were forced to send the amended bill back to the House, even though most House members have left for the year. With House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (CA) announcing that she would object to "this immoral bill" being considered under expedited procedures, the measure will be held over until next year.
AFSCME President Jerry McEntee said, "courageous GOP moderates and the entire Senate Democratic Caucus raised the stakes on the right wing's misplaced budget priorities by forcing the debate into election year 2006." No Democrats voted for the budget bill (in either chamber), and five moderate Senate Republicans also opposed it: Sens. Gordon H. Smith (OR), Olympia J. Snowe (ME), Susan Collins (ME), Lincoln Chafee (RI), and Mike DeWine (OH). President McEntee added that "Americans will now have the opportunity to see that the congressional leadership's so-called deficit reduction plan is a thinly veiled attempt to cut vital services to give billions in tax breaks to millionaires."
Defense Spending Bill Includes Mixed Bag of Unrelated Measures
The Senate agreed Wednesday night to strip contentious provisions to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) from the defense spending bill and then send the bill back to the House for approval. The agreement came after a day of tense negotiations as the Republican leadership sought an exit strategy. Once the agreement to drop ANWR was reached, the Senate engaged in a flurry of legislative activity and adjourned just after midnight. Before leaving, it passed the DOD spending and authorization bills and the Labor, Health and Human Services spending bill. It also passed a six-month extension of the Patriot Act.
A number of important unrelated spending measures were added to the Department of Defense spending bill. As part of the GOP leadership's drive to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy, the Defense spending bill included a 1% across-the-board cut in all discretionary programs. Combined with cuts already made in the spending bill for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Departments, the across-the-board cut reduces Community Development Block Grants by $777 million or 15.7%; Children and Families Services Programs by $350 million or 3.8% (Head Start would be cut 2.8%, eliminating Head Start slots for about 25,000 low-income children); and EPA's state revolving funds for clean water and drinking water would be reduced by $243 million or 12.3%. Other measures tacked onto the Defense spending bill include:
Restoration of Funding for New York's 9/11 Workers: The bill includes $125 million in funds promised to New York for workers injured while working on the recovery and clean-up operations at Ground Zero. President Bush had insisted on taking this money back, and almost succeeded when it was kept out of the FY'06 bill funding the Department of Labor. AFSCME Council 37 worked extensively with the New York congressional delegation to win back the funding.
Pandemic Flu Funding: Another measure that Republicans and Democrats agreed to include was funding for pandemic flu preparedness. The bill includes a total of $3.8 billion for preparedness with $350 million to go to state and local preparedness efforts by way of state grants. The amount provided for state and local preparedness was about half of what Democrats in the House and Senate had pushed for, but much more than was requested by the President.
Funding for Katrina: The bill includes additional funding for the Gulf Coast region. AFSCME had lobbied to secure funding for Charity Hospital in New Orleans, a public hospital where AFSCME members stayed on the job to care for patients until patients and staff could be rescued several days after Hurricane Katrina struck. The damage to Charity was so extensive that it has been shuttered. Unfortunately, the bill does not provide funding directly to Charity Hospital, but it does provide grants to the State of Louisiana to be used for health care institutions that are trying to reestablish health services.
Legal Immunity for Vaccine Manufacturers and Compensation Program: After the House and Senate had completed negotiations on the bill, GOP leaders added a controversial measure granting unprecedented and sweeping immunity against lawsuits for makers of pandemic flu vaccine and other products that may be used to respond to pandemic flu. AFSCME had urged that if legal immunity were to be granted, it should be coupled with an alternative, no-fault program to provide health care and lost-wages to individuals who may be seriously injured due to an adverse reaction to a vaccine. Such a program exists for serious injures caused by other vaccines, such as the annual flu and childhood vaccines. At the last minute, a compensation program was added to the bill, but it has a number of deficiencies. The most glaring problem is that there is no funding for the compensation program, indicating that there may not be a true commitment to compensate injured individuals.
Private School Vouchers: AFSCME strongly opposed the inclusion of a private school voucher scheme within the Katrina relief package. Rather than more adequately addressing the need to restore normalcy for 300,000 displaced students, Katrina assistance has been used to set a new precedent for a national voucher program.
AFSCME Announces Opposition to Judge Alito
On December 19th, AFSCME formally announced its opposition to the nomination of Judge Sam Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court. Irasema Garza, Director of the Women's Rights Department at AFSCME, made the announcement at a press conference on Capitol Hill. Citing Judge Alito's hostile record towards workers and efforts to take away important protections from state employees, Garza said, "Judge Alito clearly wants to drastically limit the power of the federal government to protect individuals who work for state government."
Judge Alito is a staunch advocate of the federalism movement, a movement that poses a tremendous threat to employees of state governments. The federalism movement seeks to limit the power of the federal government to protect individuals who happen to be employees of state governments. Judge Alito also wrote an opinion in a Pennsylvania case where he stated that the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) did not apply to state employees. The Supreme Court disagreed, upholding the family care provision of the FMLA. Several courts since then have concluded that state employees should have access to the entire range or protections under the FMLA, thus rejecting Alito's earlier ruling.
As a judge on the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, Alito's extreme views can be seen in his rulings where he consistently limits Congress' authority to pass laws that protect the rights of workers and individuals, including the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the National Labor Relations Act. And, although the majority of his fellow judges disagreed with him, Alito set a standard so high that victims of all kinds of discrimination would find it virtually impossible to prove their case.
Hearings on the nomination begin January 9th.
House Approves Punitive Immigration Bill
Before adjourning for the year, the House passed a punitive immigration bill (H.R. 4437) by a vote of 239-182. The legislation would authorize the construction of vast border fences, would require all employers to verify the legality of their workers and would tighten security on the nation's frontier. The bill was designed to demonstrate to voters a new resolve on border security before the House adjourns for the year. But it also revealed deep divisions in the Republican Party between lawmakers who believe that a strict clampdown alone cannot work without a guest-worker program for non-citizens, others who are resolutely opposed to any plan that would keep undocumented workers flowing into the country and would even deny citizenship to children born in the U.S. of undocumented workers, and still others who contend that any immigration reform must include a way for the approximately 11 million undocumented workers who already reside in the U.S. to achieve legal status.
Bush had made the immigration issue a top item on his domestic agenda, hoping a carrot-and-stick approach to dealing with a growing number of illegal immigrants and undocumented workers would satisfy conservatives while advancing his efforts to reach out to Latino voters. But in the face of unyielding conservative opposition in the House, leaders abandoned the President's guest-worker plan, which would have allowed foreign workers into the country under temporary work visas.
The House bill was adamantly opposed by an unusual coalition of business lobbies; ethnic groups such as the National Council of La Raza; religious organizations; and labor unions, including AFSCME, that contend the measure is too harsh on illegal immigrants and imposes unworkable requirements on employers. The Senate will probably consider a very different version next year that includes a guest-worker provision.
Intergovernmental Relations — Update
The following is a periodic report on the activities of state and local government interest groups and other advocacy organizations.
- States' Fiscal Health Much Improved — States' finances improved markedly in FY 2005, according to a report released December 20th by the National Governors Association (NGA) and the National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO). Due to improved tax revenues in all states, many states are beginning to restore funding to programs that were cut during the last several years of economic downturn, and to rebuild budget reserves to adequate levels. One manifestation of improved state budgets is only five states made across-the-board cuts in fiscal year 2005 — compared to recent years when nearly every state used this blunt budget-cutting instrument. However, the report found that states continue to face many budgetary challenges: "On the spending side, states still face growing health care costs, an aging population, infrastructure needs, high corrections costs and in many cases underfunded pension systems," noted NASBO Executive Director Scott Pattison.
- Governors Oppose Stricter Standards for Taxing Businesses — The NGA recently issued a press release strongly opposing the Business Activity Tax Simplification Act (BAT), which imposes a stricter requirement of business presence within states before they may tax companies' earnings within their borders. The NGA, Multi-State Tax Commission and Federation of Tax Administrators estimate that states could lose more than $6 billion annually if the BAT became law. The NGA stresses that state officials should be allowed to make decisions about state revenues.
- State Legislators Oppose Immigration Reform Bill That Shifts Enforcement Costs to States — In a strongly-worded statement issued last week, the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) declared its opposition to the "Border Protection, Antiterrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005" (H.R. 4437) which criminalizes violations of federal immigration law. "Enforcement [of immigration laws] should be clear, balanced, predictable, non-discriminatory, fully-funded and consistent," noted William Pound, NCSL's Executive Director. "This legislation misses the mark on most of these, creates unfunded federal mandates on states, compromises state law enforcement activity and ignores state costs of incarcerating and detaining criminal aliens."
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