> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>
> Instead of losing one congressman we will probably lose two congressman
> here in Ohio if the Clinton/Sweeney plan goes through. The Republicans
> will in all probability control the re-districting process in Ohio after
> the 2000 census and both congressional seats lost will be labor
> Democrats.
Aside from it being the right thing to do and a boon for labor organizing by getting rid of an easily exploitable group of employees, the plan will help win progressive Congressional seats in places like California and hopefully Texas. Bob Dornan was defeated because of his anti-immigrant attitudes and the GOP lost control of the state legislature largely because latinos and even traditional GOP groups like the Vietnamese turned so decisively against the anti-immigrant attitudes of the GOP.
So if there are a few seats lost because of white male backlash, so be it. In the long run, labor and the Dems will gain far more over time as the population because increasingly non-white. GOP racism against immigrants left a long memory with a whole range of Eastern European and other immigrants earlier in this century, and the GOP took another fifty years to woo those groups to even consider voting their way. Jack Kemp noted this in 1994 when the GOP lined up behind Prop 187-- his predictions were fulfilled even sooner than he expected with the near extermination of GOP power in California.
So three cheers for labor on taking the right stand. They will have to spend some time explaining the advantages of this stance to their members and key districts, but explaining the right thing is a hell of a lot easier than explaining the wrong thing in other districts.
-- Nathan Newman