Union Members Highlight Sen. Coleman’s Anti-Worker Votes + video

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/03/27/union-members-highlight-sen-colemans-anti-worker-votes/

by Seth Michaels, Mar 27, 2008

Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) kicked off his campaign for re-election yesterday—and he was met by union members who are trying to tell the truth about Coleman’s poor record when it comes to issues that matter to working families.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9WAI3kMaxc

Coleman flew to three events around the state and at each one, union members were out in force to confront Coleman about his anti-worker record. In St. Paul, Rochester and Duluth, labor leaders and activists talked about Coleman’s tight ties with big-money special interests and his deeply flawed votes.

Laura Askelin, president of the Southeast Minnesota Area Labor Council, points to Coleman’s voting record and his allegiance to the Bush agenda and says that Coleman won’t make the changes needed (see video above).

I’m here today to make sure that everyone knows that Norm Coleman is not on our side….Norm Coleman consistently puts special corporate interests and the Republican Party ahead of the best interests of middle-class Minnesotans…we are determined to put a stop to the Bush-Coleman agenda.

Coleman was a Democrat during the 1990s, but he switched parties in 2000 and worked hard to elect Bush. In 2002, he replaced the late Sen. Paul Wellstone, a champion of working families, in the Senate. Coleman has been a die-hard supporter of the Bush agenda and a reliable vote for Bush’s priorities in the Senate. In July 2004, Coleman’s home paper, the Star Tribune, said Coleman had “morphed into an attack dog for President Bush.”

Coleman’s record in the Senate shows a clear pattern of votes benefiting the special interests who contribute to his campaign.

For example, instead of fighting for better health coverage for all, he’s sponsored bills to create “association health plans” that would raise premiums and reduce benefits and “health savings accounts” that shift costs from employers to employees. And, no surprise: Coleman has taken in hundreds of thousands from insurance companies and drug companies.

Coleman has voted against laws that help home owners in times of crisis, even as foreclosures in his state have shot up 69 percent in the last year. Meanwhile, he’s taken thousands in contributions from the mortgage banking industry.


FULL story at link.

Paid for by the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education Political Contributions Committee, www.aflcio.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.