SEIU Local 205 endorces Conservative Council Candidates: Crafton, Jakes, Duvall, Dominy

Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 205 announced their endorsements today for Metro Council races. I am pleasantly surprised! SEIU Local 205 is supporting several of the same candidates I am supporting.

For Council at-Large they are endorsing Eric Crafton, Ken Jakes and Tim Garrett. Tim Garrett is a Democrat but he is a conservative Democrat. Of the current five At-large Council members, only Charlie Tygart may be considered equally as conservative as Tim Garrett. Eric Crafton and Ken Jakes are both Republicans. To bypass incumbent liberals to select two Republican challengers took courage.

In the district races, SEIU endorsed Emily Evans (23), Jason Holleman (24), Davette Blablock (27), Duane Dominy (28), and Robert Duvall (33). Several of these candidates such as Dominy and Duvall are openly Republican and some of the others, while Democrats, have not always voted with the Mayor and have shown a lot of independence.

Nationally the SEIU is perceived as extremely liberal if not radical. They were active in supporting the candidacy of Barack Obama in 2008 and spent $28 million in that effort making the SEIU the biggest spender by an independent organization. They were active in the healthcare issue often showing up to counter protest at tea party event. They have been accused of ballot rigging and using intimidation to persuade workers to vote in the SEIU as their union. In unionizing efforts, many of their activities have been considered thug-like.

Locally, the SEIU represents most government unionized workers who are not represented by either the Fraternal Order of Police, the International Association of Fire Fighters, or the Metro Nashville Education Association. They represent health care workers, janitors, school support staff and people who work for Public Works.

The endorsement of Republicans and conservative and independent Democrats by the SEIU just goes to show that in a big organization their can be diversity and one should be cautious about assuming too much. I know many Metro employees are conservative and if the rank and file really are the ones choosing which candidates to endorse then I should not be surprised that good public servants like Duvall and Dominy get the SEIU endorsement. I applaud the SEIU Local 205 for their independence and courage.

Below is the press release issued by the SEIU.Candidates I am supporting are highlighted in red.

SEIU Announces Metro Council Endorsements

Metro Employee Organization Urges Election of Pro-Worker Candidates

(Nashville) The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 205 today announced a list of candidates endorsed by the organization for Nashville's Metro Council elections, to be held on August 4, 2011.

“These candidates were chosen by rank and file members of our union who are directly affected by the decisions made by the Metro Council,” said Doug Collier, President of SEIU Local 205.

“We need candidates who will stand up and support working class families and who believe in our values. Working class families are the backbone of Nashville and we make Nashville strong,” said Billy Deaderick, a meter technician for Nashville Electric Service who served on the union’s candidate committee.

“Over 80% of SEIU members and their families live and vote in the county, so we believe that our members will make the difference in many of these races,” said James Brown, a telephony technician working for Metro Schools who also served on the union’s committee.

The endorsed candidates are:

At-Large

Megan Barry
Eric Crafton
Tim Garrett
Ken Jakes
Vivian Wilhoite

Dist. 1

Lonnell Matthews, Jr. 

Dist. 2

Gloria Jones

Dist. 3
Walter Hunt

Dist. 4

Brady Banks 

Dist. 5
Priscilla Eaton

Dist. 6
Peter Westerholm

Dist. 10
Doug Pardue

Dist. 11
Darren Jernigan

Dist. 14
James Bruce Stanley

Dist. 16
Anna Page

Dist. 18
David Glasgow

Dist. 19
Erica Gilmore 

Dist. 20
Buddy Baker

Dist. 21
Edith Taylor Langster

Dist. 22
Seanna Brandmeir

Dist. 23
Emily Evans

Dist. 24
Jason Holleman

Dist. 26
Chris Harmon
Brock Parks

Dist. 27
Davette Blalock

Dist. 28
Duane Dominy 
 

Dist. 29
Karen Johnson

Dist. 30
Jason Potts 

Dist. 31
Fabian Bedne

Dist. 32
Jacobia Dowell

Dist. 33
Robert Duvall

Dist. 35
Bo Mitchell 

Early voting runs from July 15-30. For information on polling locations and other election information, contact the Davidson County Election Commission at 862-8800.

SEIU is the largest single labor union in North America, with a membership of 2.1 million members who work in the public and private sectors. In Nashville, Local 205 represents thousands of public employees in Metro Schools, Metro General Government, the Metro Action Commission, Metro Nashville Hospital Authority, Metro Development and Housing Authority, and Nashville Electric Service, as well as workers in private sector companies including Meharry Medical College and the Nashville Auto Diesel College.

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Bush signs gay rights bill

December 24, 2008

Yesterday, Bush signed into law the Worker, Retiree and Employer Recovery Act of 2008 (WRERA), requiring employers to allow employees to roll their retirement plans over to nonspouse partners. The Human Rights Campaign hailed the bill for allowing gay couples to share benefits. (link)

Commentary

Currently if you are a married person and your employer provides you with a retirement plan with a death benefit and you die, your spouse can receive the death benefit directly deposited into an IRA in his or her name. If this rule was not in place and the surviving spouse was required to withdraw the entire benefit all at once, that would result in severe tax penalties due to early withdrawal. Also, if the surviving spouse was required to withdraw the money all at once, he or she could be bumped into a higher tax bracket.

This benefit has only been available for married people until now. The bill Bush signed into law expands this right to gay couples as long as the person with the employee benefit registers his or her partner as the beneficiary.

While extending to gay couples a benefit that married couples have, it also gives benefits to gay couples that straight people do not have. Let me explain. In my job, I often work with clients who may have multiple children together and either live together or have lived to together off-and-on but they have never gotten married. If these people had a retirement benefit like this, they could not do the same thing that now a gay couple will have the right to do. I think a better law than this one, would be a law that allows a person to pass on his or her retirement benefit to anyone he wishes without regard to familial status or special relationship or sexual orientation. I would let a son give it to his mother, or a father to his daughter or any person give it to his or her best friend. Since this is not what was in the bill however, I think Bush was correct to sign the bill into law. It addresses a real-life wrong that needed to be corrected.

While I oppose gay marriage, I think we must make accommodations to gay couples. This bill was a small step but it corrected an injustice that needed correcting. If we can address the needs of gay couples with laws such as this, then the demand for gay marriage will lessen and at the same time real problems will be resolved and injustices corrected.

I am still undecided on the issue of Civil Unions but am leaning toward acceptance of some form of it. It does not have to be called “civil unions” necessarily, although I see nothing wrong with that term. Maybe we could call this new status simply a “domestic registry.” If a union were registered, the registered couple (or more) would be eligible for a bundle of the rights now given only to married people. If a mother and her adult son wanted to be registered as a couple that would be OK by me as long as we do not call it marriage.

I am not so sure that all state sanctioned "marriage" should not be anything more than “civil unions” or a registration on a “domestic registry.” How about letting the state register the union and the church join people together in holy matrimony if that is what the couple desire and they meet that faiths requirements? Face it; marriage does not carry the same weight it used to. Many couples wait until they have their first child to get married or they live together without ever getting marriage. Marriage also is certainly not until “death do us part.” When a couple can void a marriage simply by declaring incompatibility, marriage is not such a terrible commitment or strong bond. I do think society has an interest in promoting strong families, but I am not so sure that government conferring certain benefits only on “married” couples is the vehicle for promoting strong families.

As to the politics of this issue, I am surprised that this story has not gotten more coverage. I was out of town for the holidays visiting family on the day this news occurred and I missed it. I did not read a newspaper or watch TV on that day, so I don’t know if this got much coverage or not, but I assume it did not. An Internet search does not reveal a lot of coverage by mainstream news sources covering the issue or big name commentators commenting. I read a lot blogs and chat groups and this is not big news in the blogosphere. I don’t understand it.

I do not expect liberals to say anything praiseworthy of George W. Bush, but would have thought that Bush signing a piece of pro-gay legislation would have been news. I am also very surprised that the religious right has not been all over this story. I would have expected them to nail Bush to the wall over this. Is Bush so unimportant that he is not worth criticizing? I would expect the televangelist, Focus on the Family, Phyllis Schlafly and the various pro-family organizations to be ballistic. Why are they not? I am pleased that the right has not been in an uproar over this issue. If the voice of the religious right is growing faint then I think that is a good thing for the Republican Party. I don’t think there is much benefit for Republicans to be seen as the party of gay bashing.

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