Roll Call has a story discussing the role of organized labor groups in the Pennsylvania Senate primary race between Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) and Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA.) It discusses the role that the jobs-killing Employee Free Choice Act plays in the race. While Senator Specter came out strongly in opposition to this card check legislation, he has been keen to express his interest in putting forward an alternative version of the bill.

In reference to the bill, the head of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, Bill George, says that labor’s highest priority is “…like water over the damn,” [sic] George added:

That first bill’s gone and consequently, it’s time to move forward. And Arlen Specter was very instrumental with other Senators getting an agreement.

What agreement?

We’ve heard a lot of discussion about a possible alternative-EFCA bill, but any proposal based on the fundamentally flawed EFCA would be devastating to employers and employees alike. If an agreement has been reached, why is nothing is available on it? As we enter the campaign season, we hope that maneuvering over versions of a bill that would cost hundreds of thousands of American jobs doesn’t become part of a political strategy to woo one key interest. Any elected official should soundly reject the Employee Free Choice Act, in any form.

The cover of the latest “Skeptical Inquirer” prompts us to go back and review the testimony of a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing held on Monday, September 14, on the health effects of cell phone use. Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) noted he had called the hearing at the request of Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) and commented:

[It] is not the intention of this subcommittee to create undue alarm. But one thing that we’ll want to discuss today is whether we need more NIH research in this area and how that research should be conducted. Our expert witnesses will also discuss if there are precautions we should be taking now to reduce our exposure to cell phone radiation in case these fears turn out to be well-founded.

I’m reminded of this nation’s experience with cigarettes. Decades passed between the first warnings about smoking tobacco and the final definitive conclusion that cigarettes cause lung cancer. If more people had heeded those early warnings or if we could have established the link between tobacco and cancer more quickly, many lives would have been saved. We don’t know yet whether cell phone radiation poses a similar danger. I hope today’s hearing will begin to address that question.

Sen. Specter (and we’ve added links to his statement):

The subject was brought to my attention by a distinguished doctor who has written extensively on cancer, Dr. David Servan-Schreiber, from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. And he wrote a book on cancer which I found to be very illuminating. [Anticancer] I’ve had a couple of bouts with Hodgkins and was fascinated to hear Dr. Servan-Schreiber’s views on sugar and white flour feeding into cancer. And if you’ve had chemotherapy a couple of times, you look into any conceivable source to minimize the risk.

This was an appropriations hearing, so the core issue was money for research, and the portions we watched were not alarmist. Still, when a hearing starts out with comparisons to tobacco, you have to look around the room (or the IP log) for representatives of the litigation industry.

And … here are some headlines prompted by the hearing:

• KTVU, “Cell Phone Radiation May Cause Brain Tumors”
• WebMD, “Senators Want Research on Cell Phones, Cancer”
• USA Today, “Experts urge more study of cellphone radiation”
• Pittsburgh Post Gazette, “Cell phone warnings by the earful”
• Reuters, “US senator promises look into cellphone-cancer link”

Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) chaired a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week on his bill, S. 1551, the Liability for Aiding and Abetting Securities Violation Act. Specter’s legislation would return securities fraud litigation to the world before the Supreme Court’s ruling in Stoneridge v. Scientific Atlanta, that is, allow suits against third-party vendors (for example, manufacturers and suppliers) not directly involved in fraud schemes.

The National Association of Manufacturers regarded the Stoneridge case as one of the most important decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2008. The NAM had filed a brief in 2007 arguing that expanded liability was not provided for in the statute, and that such expansion would have chilled legitimate commerce, harmed the economy, encouraged frivolous claims, increased the costs of litigation, and encouraged coercive settlements.  The arguments would obviously apply to Sen. Specter’s legislation, as well.

Hence we cite the prepared statement of Adam Pritchard, Frances and George Skestos Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School:

S. 1551 would tear down the safeguards that the Court adopted in Stoneridge and Central Bank, creating the potential for the securities laws to be injected into a wide range of ordinary commercial transactions. As Justice Kennedy recognized in Stoneridge, expanding liability to secondary actors would undermine the United State’s international competitiveness and raise the cost of capital because companies would be reluctant to do business with American issuers. Issuers might list their shares elsewhere to avoid these burdens, thereby further fueling the flight from America’s securities markets.

Commercial counterparties of the sort named as defendants in Stoneridge and Central Bank are just a sideshow to S. 1551’s real purpose. The goal of the bill is to rope in more “deep pocket” defendants to feed the plaintiffs’ bar’s lucrative class action machine. That class action machine generates enormous fees that support the “pay to play” political contributions that plaintiffs’ lawyers use to persuade state pension funds to bring the lawsuits that help keep the machine rolling.

By offering up additional targets to the class action bar, S. 1551 promises to worsen the fundamental problems that make America’s securities class action regime so dysfunctional and destructive of shareholder wealth. Securities class actions are already an enormous drain on America’s capital markets. S. 1551 would make a bad situation worse.

Consider the effects of a more litigious, expensive and capricious economic environment on manufacturers planning for expansion as the recession comes to a close and growth returns.

The Wall Street Journal editorialists consider the language a modified Employee Free Choice Act that Senator Specter claims will be the basis of legislation that could pass the Senate, judging by his comments to the AFL-CIO in Pittsburgh, that is. From “A Gift for Labor“:

In place of this proposal to automatically unionize if more than half the employees sign union cards, they are proposing an election within a week or so of a minority of employees petitioning for a union. This shotgun vote is intended to deny employees the kind of educated choice that comes with a proper discussion of the merits of unionization informed by both management and labor.

The new old “card check,” according to Mr. Specter, also gives unions unprecedented access to the workplace and meetings between employers and employees before a vote to unionize. Last we checked the Constitution, even in the age of Obama private companies haven’t signed away their property rights.

An equally problematic binding arbitration provision stays in. This idea would let a federal arbitrator impose a contract if the employer and a newly organized union aren’t able to agree within three months. In other words, a government-sponsored agent would decide what salaries and benefits management will have to pay its employees. Throw in the expanded access to company property, and this so-called compromise bill may be worse than the original.

The National Association of Manufacturers’ position is that the Employee Free Choice Act is at its heart a destructive, jobs-killing piece of legislation from which no compromise can be drawn. Senator Specter’s version proves the point.

The Hill, “Senate Democrats pull back on Specter’s card-check prediction“:

Democratic senators on Wednesday downplayed Sen. Arlen Specter’s (D-Pa.) prediction that the chamber would pass a contentious union-organizing bill this year, saying they are in the process of shoring up support for a compromise that is being hashed out.

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), one of several negotiators working to reach agreement on a modified version of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), also known as card-check, said they have made progress toward a deal but have yet to ink one.

Several Democrats on Wednesday confessed to knowing nothing about a proposed deal, and the party’s top two leaders in the conference called the card-check proposal a work in progress.

The remarks of Sen. Specter that prompted this flurry of checking and double-checking were delivered to the AFL-CIO convention in Pittsburgh, where the Senator declared, “We have pounded out an employees’ choice bill which will meet labor’s objectives.” The Hill today quotes Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who, when asked about a deal, said, “I’m not aware of any.”

A month earlier Sen. Specter sparked a similar flurry of speculation when he told the lefty bloggers at Netroots Nation that he would vote for the Employee Free Choice Act. The comments were followed up by clarifications, explanations, and the recognition that nothing had actually changed since a group of Democratic Senators met in July to kick around possible changes to the Employee Free Choice Act.

As for this week’s news: Nothing has actually changed since a group of Democratic Senators met in July to kick around changes to the Employee Free Choice Act.

Reacting to Sen. Specter’s claim that he had “pounded out” an agreement on the Employee Free Choice Act that labor could accept. From The Wall Street Journal, “Specter, Unions Disagree on Path for Overhaul of Labor Laws“:

Union leaders and business groups kept their distance from Mr. Specter’s effort.

Incoming AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said card check legislation was still in play. The chairman of AFL-CIO’s organizing committee, Larry Cohen, said that until there were 60 Democratic-controlled votes in the Senate, “We don’t even want to finalize a bill, because who are we discussing it with?”

Business groups expressed continued opposition. The National Association of Manufacturers said the modified version outlined by Mr. Specter was unacceptable.

“The prompt certification that he’s talking about is code for ambush elections,” said Jay Timmons, the trade association’s executive vice president. He added that the arbitration proposals still allowed “a government-appointed bureaucrat to make decisions which need to be made at a local business level.”

Speaking to the AFL-CIO’s Annual Convention this morning in Pittsburgh, PA, Senator Arlen (D-PA) claimed that a deal has been “pounded out” on the Employee Free Choice Act that would be totally satisfactory to organized labor.

The Senator said that framework of such a deal would embrace the core principles of the original legislation, including quick certification of labor unions and some form of binding arbitration for union contracts. The Senator expressed hope that such a deal could be passed by the Senate before the end of the year.

While the Senator didn’t say that actual legislative text has been written, the framework that he laid out in his remarks today demonstrates that any such alternative bill will still be based on the Employee Free Choice as originally written. That bill’s fundamental goal is to create an environment that skews the balance of our labor law system in favor of union organizers.

Seth Borden at the EFCA Report has more information on what the impact of Specter’s proposed outlines would mean.

The NAM remains opposed to any proposal that may stem from the fundamentally flawed card check bill, including provisions that would allow government-appointed arbitrators to set the terms of labor contracts.

Netroots Nation, the Pittsburgh conference of peevishly progressive (and effective) online activists, heard this morning from Pennsylvania’s two candidates for the state’s Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate: Sen. Arlen Specter and Rep. Joe Sestak. A questioner asked Senator Specter about his position on three major pieces of legislation pending in the Senate — health care, cap and trade, and the Employee Free Choice Act. The Senator has previously said we would not vote for cloture on EFCA, but today he seems to have a different position. The exchange:

Ari Melber: “…we’ll go to the third question. In stitching these together is it fair to say that on the climate change legislation, on employee free choice, on a public option health care plan, those will all be areas where you’ll be with the majority for cloture to have these up or down votes?”

Sen. Specter: “Yes, no doubt about those three issues at all.”

To see the video of his remarks, click here. The Hill has an account of the remarks here.

EFCA is a moving target these days, and it’s unclear what theoretical legislation Senator Specter was referring to. He has expressed support for a “modified version,” perhaps a “compromise” he works out with Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA).

But the Employee Free Choice Act is fundamentally flawed, designed to force to employees into unions against their individual self-interest and to damage any businesses that resist unionization. There is no compromise that can flow from any version of the Employee Free Choice Act. A vote for cloture by Senator Specter would do a great disservice to his constituents and the nation’s economic vitality.

UPDATE (2:37): Good insight from Greg Sargent at The Plumline, his Washington Post blog, “Specter To Netroots Nation: I’m Voting For EFCA. Specter To National Press: I’m Voting Against Card Check.” The unions are indeed blogshouting their supposed victory today, but as Sargent notes, “It’s understandable that EFCA backers are psyched by Specter’s declaration today. But it seems worth keeping in mind that Specter has been known to, shall we say, tailor his message to his audience.”

UPDATE (Monday, 10:55 a.m.): More from The Truth About EFCA.

At today’s townhall meeting in Lebanon, Pa., Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA), responded to a questioner who objected to the Employee Free Choice Act. The Senator’s response:

You raised a question of Employee’s Choice. That bill is in a process of being negotiated. There will not be a timeline which will be so fast that people will not have an opportunity to understand what the issue is.

You comment about the secret ballot. I think we have to maintain the secret ballot, which you agree with. (Applause). We tried to work through the other facet of it, arbitration for last-best offer, but we’re….bearing in mind the concerns and worries that you raised.

Thereby confirming that final-offer arbitration remains the supposed point of “compromise.” (Background on arbitration from The Competitive Enterprise Institute and a recent AP story.) And we repeat the observation that Sen. Specter and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) are talking “compromise” only in the most narrow of senses, i.e., an agreement between the two men. A more accurate description is a “a version of the legislation that could reach 60 Senate votes.”

And, oh yes, it was a raucous, loud, combative townhall meeting. Shown on live national television.

To the media, townhall meetings are this year’s version of shark attacks. Looking back at the risible coverage of summer of the shark, we should now know that hamsters bite more often than constituents.

UPDATE (2:40 p.m.): In the Mid-Atlantic states, we also experienced The Summer of the Snakehead. It’s quieted down in Crofton, Md., since then.

UPDATE (2:50 p.m.): Granted, snakeheads have established themselves in the Potomac. The Washington Times recently had good column on catching and cooking them.

As noted here and here, Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA) is sponsoring a $1.6 billion tax break for trial lawyers, allowing them early deductions for loans to finance contingency fee lawsuits.

The Senator has now introduced another bill that benefits the litigation industry, in this case, the class-action securities lawyers. (Remember “King of Torts” William Lerach, who went to federal prison for his schemes.) The bill, S. 1551, is called the Liability for Aiding and Abetting Securities Violations Act and is is meant to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in Stoneridge Investment Partners LLC v. Scientific-Atlanta Inc.

The Wall Street Journal’s opinion page today describes what that means. From “The Specter of Unlimited Liability“:

In 2000, Scientific-Atlanta and Motorola agreed to sell cable boxes to Charter Communications, which was creative in booking these deals and had to restate its financial results. Scientific-Atlanta and Motorola had done nothing more than enter into contracts with its customer, Charter, on terms requested by that customer, and had accounted for the deals properly. Nonetheless, the Stoneridge investment firm sued the two suppliers, alleging a “scheme” against Charter investors.

In striking down this suit, the High Court called the case “a private cause of action against the entire marketplace in which the issuing company operates.” It also pointed out that Congress decided not to provide a private cause of action against secondary parties when it passed the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act in 1995 and Sarbanes-Oxley in 2002. The Securities and Exchange Commission already has the authority to punish fraud and distribute fines to victims. Private lawsuits are about trying to use expansive liability claims that distort justice and harm the shareholders of innocent but deep-pocketed companies.

And private lawsuits are what the bill from Senator Specter and Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) would encourage.

The NAM filed an amicus brief in the Stoneridge case. More …

• Am Law Litigation Daily, “There He Goes Again: Arlen Specter Now Wants to Roll Back Stoneridge, Too
• WSJ Law Blog, “Specter, Other Dems, Looking to Reverse Huge Securities DecisionSpecter Law Would Let Investors Sue Fraud Accomplices
• Bloomberg, “Specter Law Would Let Investors Sue Fraud Accomplices“