From AP Arkansas, “Lincoln: ‘Card-check’ proposal not necessary“:

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - Sen. Blanche Lincoln said Tuesday she doesn’t believe federal legislation that would allow labor organizations to unionize workplaces without secret-ballot elections is necessary, but gave herself room to support the measure if it’s brought up later.

Business and labor groups are pressuring the Democratic senator from Arkansas for support either way, and Tim Griffin, a potential challenger to the senator’s 2010 re-election bid, has said her stand could be an issue in the race.

We don’t find the full AP immediately online, but here are key quotes and excerpts from Senator Lincoln:

“I think the question is, is there a need for this legislation right now? And for multiple reasons, I don’t think there is,” Lincoln said in an interview with The Associated Press….

Lincoln said that the majority of efforts to unionize workers are successful anyway and that the nation has bigger problems to deal with.

“I don’t see this bill as being the solution to those problems, and I don’t see us focusing on that bill as helping us to solve those problems,” Lincoln said. “If what we want to do is strengthen our economy, create jobs, create a better working environment for working families and workers in this country and create a better environment for business to be successful, then it’s not focusing on the Employee Free Choice Act.”

Lincoln said she thinks the act has “room for improvement,” and indicated she’d be more open to talking about the measure once other issues are addressed first.

“Just to bring this up and say this is going to solve problems, we try really hard to not do things that way,” Lincoln said. “The point is, we try to go through the hearing process, which is what we’ve tried to do on health care and tax reform and other things we’ve had all these hearings on.”

That’s an excellent assessment of the state of play, from which we infer that organized labor’s priorities aren’t the nation’s priorities. It’s especially gratifying to see Senator Lincoln acknowledge that unions win a majority of representation elections, more than 60 percent in 2007.

Meanwhile, The Hill reports that Senator George Voinovich (R-OH) is sticking to his guns, declaring, “To just have a situation where somebody can go out there and get X number of cards and then say, ‘By the way, we’ve got 50-plus-one, now you’re unionized’ — it’s undemocratic.”

UPDATE (11:30 a.m.): Brian Faughnan at The Weekly Standard does some Senate vote-counting and finds the 60 votes for cloture more difficult to reach. Beware the faux compromise, though.

(Note: NAM’s Executive Vice President Jay Timmons is blogging from the National Democratic Convention in Denver this week.)

The capstone event the NAM team attended on Wednesday was a reception hosted by the Third Way Democrats. Third Way is a group of thoughtful policy professionals who believe partisan politics get in the way of creative solutions.

NAM is a proud supporter of Third Way. Although we won’t always totally see eye-to-eye on all issues, the organization is one of the few in Washington willing to look past campaign rhetoric in order to bring together non-traditional allies to devise policy proposals to help real people in the real world, and make America more competitive.

Senator Tom Carper (DE) was in attendance. NAM’s CEO, John Engler, worked closely with Senator Carper when the two were Governors. That productive relationship has extended into their new leadership roles as they have collaborated on common sense proposals to reform our litigious legal system in order to reduce the cost of doing business in the United States.

Senator Blanche Lincoln (AR), another attendee, is expected to be a major player in the next Congress when tax reform proposals are offered. Senator Lincoln has a history of reaching out to stakeholders, and the NAM expects to work closely with the Senator and her staff next year on tax policies that will enable U.S. manufacturers to better compete and succeed against our major trading partners.

Free trade, in particular, is an area where the Third Way can make an extraordinarily positive impact next year. The NAM has been actively working with the group to craft meaningful proposals to advance pending trade agreements, pursue new agreements that would open additional markets to U.S. products, reduce non-tariff barriers, and enforce our existing agreements.

Third Way is clearly in touch with members of their party: Fully 62 percent of Democrats say they benefit from free trade, according to a nationwide poll conducted by the Consumer Electronics Association this month. Data released today by the Commerce Department explains why this perception is a reality. Second quarter Gross Domestic Product figures show a stronger than expected 3.3 percent annual rate of increase in real GDP. Exports contributed 1.65 percentage points of that 3.3 percent growth. And “net exports” (trade balance – exports minus imports) contributed 3.1 percentage points of that 3.3 percent growth, because real imports (price-adjusted) fell.

Third Way Democrats understand free trade works. Hopefully their philosophy and the realities of the positive impact of free trade will prevail after the campaign rhetoric subsides.