PERHAPS YOU'VE seen the Geico TV ad featuring "the
oldest trick in the book."
It reprises, comically, an ancient version of tricking
someone with "look over there" where there's nothing to look at.
It's misdirection. It's pretending. And it's like
Pennsylvania politics.
Take the issue called "paycheck protection."
This is a national conservative Republican effort ostensibly
offered to help members of public-employee unions keep more of their pay.
It would do this by banning deduction of union dues from
government paychecks because taxpayer-paid government services are used to
effect such deductions.
So, look over there: Conservative Republicans are simply
extending their well-documented empathy and compassion with and for working
folks.
You know, just as they do with regard to unemployment
benefits or minimum-wage reform.
It is not, they will tell you, "union busting" or
anything close to a partisan effort to reduce union money and/or clout.
And if you've seen reports in, for example, the Wall Street
Journal that after GOP Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker got "paycheck
protection," unions in his state took a dive? Well, that's probably
coincidental.
(The Journal reports that an AFSCME local near Milwaukee
County lost a third of its dues income in 2012 and that the Wisconsin chapter
of the American Federation of Teachers dropped from No. 1 in spending among
state lobbies to 40th.)
Union leaders fight this as a "war on workers"
aimed at ending unions.
Overreaction?
Sort of like Second Amendment absolutists opposing expanded
background checks for gun buys as foot-in-the-door moves toward firearm
confiscation.
Reality can be a movable feast.
The political reality here is that troublesome GOP issues
such as selling off state stores, getting school vouchers or cutting public pensions
could be more easily tackled if not for the influence of pesky unions.
So conservative lawmakers, Gov. Corbett and others favoring
"paycheck protection" should simply pitch it as a political tool, not
a payday present to workers.
Speaking of political tools.
Corbett's crack legal team, evidently seeking to extend its
string of losses in high-profile cases, is asking a Commonwealth Court judge to
reconsider rejection of the voter-ID law.
This is the lookest-over-there law pretending to purify
elections by ending never-substantiated fraud. If it happens to result in lower
urban/aged (read Democratic) turnout in a state that voted Democratic in the
last six presidential elections, well, that's probably happenstance.
Or political pickpocketing.
Judge Bernard McGinley this month ruled that the law
"unreasonably burdens the right to vote." Because the governor's
asking nicely, perhaps McGinley'll reconsider and say, "Oh, wait, maybe it
doesn't."
Voter ID, its lame defense and the current effort to keep it
on life support might not be the oldest trick in the book. But it's not far
from a flaming bag of dog poop on the doorstep.
Other tricks include calling legislation mandating vaginal
ultrasounds "to protect the health of women" seeking abortions the
"Women's Right to Know Act."
It got pulled in early 2012 after women got to know it. And
after Republicans started to sense that it might not help them politically.
Then there was a GOP effort to redistribute the state's
electoral votes to bring "fairness" (a/k/a Republican gain) to the
process.
Senate Republican leader Dominic Pileggi offered two
versions of change: One awarded electoral votes by congressional districts; a
latter version (still in a Senate committee) awards votes proportionately.
All these measures are slick. All are ambitious products of
ideologies pushed along by raw politics.
Why not call them what they are - rather than tap the public
on the shoulder and point to something else?
Source: Philly.com
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