Monday, November 24, 2003
The battle is holding up a $280 billion spending bill.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sen. Arlen Specter, working Thursday to block Bush administration plans limiting worker overtime pay, has received nearly twice as many campaign contributions from labor unions this year than any other Republican senator, records show.
Specter's ties to liberal-leaning labor unions could pose a problem in his Republican primary race for re-election against conservative Rep. Pat Toomey, R-Pa. But, if he survives that fight, union support would give Specter a much-needed boost against the Democratic candidate in the general election.
Pennsylvania's senior senator was working Thursday night to broker a compromise with House Republican leaders who are pushing new Labor Department regulations changing how employers decide which workers qualify for overtime. Critics, including Specter, said the plan could jeopardize overtime for more than 8 million employees.
Spending bill
The battle is one of the last remaining issues holding up a massive $280 billion spending bill to finance dozens of government agencies for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1.
"It's going to eliminate a lot of overtime for a lot of people," said Specter, whose compromise would establish a commission to revise the outdated regulations within 90 days, but without cutting overtime pay.
"With the economy being in its current shape, that would be very, very unwise," Specter said.
Toomey accused Specter of "personally obstructing a major, major piece of legislation."
"There's been a long pattern of Senator Specter consistently siding with organized labor," Toomey said. "And here's a case where organized labor is adamantly opposed to what the president has suggested, which is nothing less than the modernization of a several-decades old and clearly outdated reg."
Campaign finance
So far this year Specter has raised $72,250 from labor political action committees, according to Federal Election Commission data compiled by Political Money Line, an Internet service that tracks campaign finance. That's nearly twice as much as the $44,000 raised in 2003 by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who has pulled in the second-highest amount of labor money among the GOP Senate conference.
In all, Specter has raised $187,750 from unions since he last won re-election in 1998, the FEC data show.
Specter is also poised to next month win the primary endorsement of the Pennsylvania State Education Association. The PSEA, which boasts 167,000 members and is the state's largest teachers union, earlier this year co-sponsored a direct-mail flyer with the National Education Association that touts Specter as "putting children and public education first."
"Senator Specter has a good voting record on public education," PSEA spokesman Wythe Keever said.
But Republican primary voters in Pennsylvania tend to be conservatives who might view Specter's labor ties as proof of the liberal tendencies that Toomey has accused him of having.
"You're talking about a very skewed audience who happens to show up in Republican primaries in Pennsylvania -- a very conservative audience who is not necessarily sympathetic to many of the agenda items that the unions are worried about," said Pittsburgh-based political consultant John Brabender, who represents many of the state's top GOP officials, including Sen. Rick Santorum.
But, Brabender said, "there's a legitimate effort by labor to play both sides of the fence these days. ... Labor does want to support some Republican candidates throughout the country to show that they still want to be asked to the dance."
Democratic competition
If Specter survives the primary, he will be forced to battle for labor support against the Democratic nominee. Party favorite Rep. Joe Hoeffel, D-Pa., also staunchly backs labor priorities, and boasted an 89 percent approval rating in 2002 by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the nation's largest public employee union.
By comparison, Specter's AFSCME rating last year, the most recent available, stood at 38 percent.
Hoeffel spokesman Tom Hickey brushed off suggestions that Specter could snare substantial union support by noting the senator sided with President Bush's tax cuts that Democrats charge have hurt working families.
"During this campaign, the decisions that Arlen Specter has made, that have driven Pennsylvanians out of work and into unemployment lines, will become more and more apparent," Hickey said.
But Specter, a 23-year veteran of the Senate, is used to the political balancing act in Pennsylvania. His independent voting record generally reflects the state's moderate politics.
"My loyalties run to the people of Pennsylvania, whether they're in labor or business," Specter said. "And I've got a very strong record to support it."