A Dem Defector for Card Check?

Amanda Carpenter | December 17, 2008 9:52 AM

This is big news (especially because I am in the middle of writing a magazine piece on card check for February that's due Friday).

Democratic Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln told the Associated Press labor-supported "card-check" legislation is not "necessary" to organize workplaces, although she isn't opposing it outright. It sounds like she's facing a tough re-election in 2010 and knows how toxic this issue could get in a campaign--especially in the South.

As you probably know the Orwellian Employee Free Choice Act (which would kill the secret ballot requirement to organize workplaces) went down by a narrow margin in the Senate in 2007 and that Big Labor is planning to aggressively push it in the 2009 with the Democratic President and Congress.

The 2007 Senate vote, when there were a lot more Republicans around, failed 9 votes short of getting the 60 needed to advance. Lincoln voted FOR it that time around, so this could be a lost vote for the Democrats.