Compromise on “paycheck protection?”

It appears as though Senators are coalescing around a more moderate proposal to advance so-called “paycheck protection” legislation.

While an unamended proposal in the form of Senate Bill 501 moved out of the Senate State Government Committee Wednesday that would prohibit the Commonwealth and public school from collecting union dues from employee paychecks, members spoke of an amendment that would limit the scope of the proposal.

“The concept being, it should be illegal for government to collect monies that would be used for political purposes,” Sen. Chuck McIlhinney (R-Bucks) said of the amendment he is crafting with Senate Bill 501’s prime sponsor Sen. John Eichelberger (R-Blair).

“You don’t identify union dues, if union dues are not being used for political purposes, we should be able to offer [government collection], but if they are going to use it for political purposes, we can no longer collect that.”

He said a blanket rule—like the unamended version of the bill—saying government employers will not collect union dues “is a punitive attack” on unions.

“That’s not the purpose, I think, of what we are trying to accomplish,” he said, noting he would not support this or a similar constitutional amendment without the proposed change.

He explained the rule would not prohibit unions from soliciting contributions from members for political action committees or similarly engaging in the political process.

Matthew Brouillette, president and CEO of The Commonwealth Foundation, a conservative think tank that has been pushing for paycheck protection, said he supports the amendment, but said he would not mind if the proposal were more far-reaching.

“If this ends up being further-reaching, saying there is going to be no commingling of public resources and politics, that’s our objective here,” he told reporters.

In committee, debate surrounded whether or not the State Government Committee should wait to consider the legislation before the amendment is offered.

“Given that we know there is an amendment, and the cat’s out of the bag, I don’t see the harm in waiting a week to figure it out and then we’d know what we are voting on,” said Sen. Daylin Leach (D-Montgomery).

Committee Majority Chairman Sen. Mike Folmer (R-Lebanon) said he wanted to move the bill along to keep the process moving forward.

Debating the merits of the bill, Sen. Leach said he would oppose the legislation because it is aimed at breaking up unions.

“This is an opportunity to drive down wages even further for working people and the working poor and middle class people so more can go into the profits,” he said. “At a certain point you have to ask how much is enough and how much is too much.”

Sen. Eichelberger countered the legislation is about ethics.

“This is an ethical issue that is affecting our governments across the Commonwealth that we are collecting money through government payroll systems that is being used for political purposes,” he said. “We have had people in this General Assembly that are in jail for these same kind of things and this practice needs to stop.”

Chairman Folmer summed up the various stances on the concept.

“The line has already been drawn in the sand, this is a presuppositional, philosophical, world viewpoint here, and you are either going to be for it or you are going to be against it and the lines have already been drawn,” he said.

This article has been updated to reflect the correct bill number, Senate Bill 501, rather than the previously incorrectly stated bill number Senate Bill 500.

Source: The PLS Reporter