Brown's first vote not the deciding one

Feb 10, 2010 — The Boston Globe

By Lisa Wangsness and Matt Viser

Feb. 10, 2010 (The Boston Globe delivered by Newstex) --

WASHINGTON - Senator Scott Brown accelerated his swearing-in last week to make sure he could have a say on key pending legislation. But by the time he cast his first vote on the Senate floor yesterday, much of that drama had evaporated.

Storm drives lawmakers home. A2.

Brown, whose election to replace the late senator Edward M. Kennedy gave the GOP the crucial 41st vote it needed to block Democratic legislation, joined Republicans in their successful move to halt President Obama's appointment of a union lawyer, Craig Becker, to the National Labor Relations Board, which certifies unions and resolves disputes between workers and employers.

But Brown did not make the decisive difference in the partisan vote, as some observers had anticipated. Fifteen senators were absent because of back-to-back snowstorms hitting the capital, and Democratic Senators Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas joined the Republicans. By a 52-to-33 vote, Democrats fell far short of the 60 needed to overcome a threatened GOP filibuster.

Brown described his decision against Becker as pro-jobs, not antilabor.

``My first priority in coming to Washington is to create jobs and put people back to work,'' he said in a statement. ``Craig Becker's theories about how the workplace should function, if ever put into practice, would impose new burdens on employers, hurt job creation, and slow down the recovery.'' Brown was not available for an interview after the vote.

But labor unions, furious about the vote, characterized Brown's decision as a display of unabashed partisanship.

``So much for his alleged independence,'' Rich Rogers, executive secretary-treasurer of the Greater Boston Labor Council, said last night in a telephone interview. ``He's immediately capitulated to the Republicans.''

Brown's initial votes will be closely watched in the coming weeks, as the political world tries to gauge whether he will, as he promised in his campaign, carve out an independent voting record despite enormous partisan pressure, or whether he will behave more like a member of the Senate Republican caucus, whose members - like their Democratic counterparts - tend to stick together on important votes.

His first vote on major legislation is expected to be on a jobs bill, but leaders of both parties are still trying to craft legislation that could win broad bipartisan support.

Brown spent much of the rest of yesterday becoming acquainted with his new workplace. Dodging mounds of plowed snow, he jogged about 5 miles around Capitol Hill, then took his wife, WCVB-TV reporter Gail Huff, to lunch for her birthday. Senate aides brought in a birthday cake to his nondescript office inside a trailer connected to the Senate Russell Office Building.

Brown, who has been temporarily staying in an apartment, is starting to look for more permanent housing, having driven his pickup truck in from Boston on Sunday.

President Obama has not said whether he will consider renominating Becker during the upcoming recess, which would allow him to circumvent Senate Republicans but could risk antagonizing them just when he is trying to get a bipartisan deal on the jobs bill.

Becker is associate general counsel of the Service Employees International Union, one of the country's largest and most politically connected unions. He supports the SEIU's top priority before Congress - legislation known as ``card check,'' which would make it easier for unions to organize by allowing for certification of a union if more than half of workers signed cards supporting one. A secret ballot vote would not be required.

Business groups such as the US Chamber of Commerce argue card check would allow unions to unduly pressure workers into forming unions. Union leaders counter that it would give workers leverage against antiunion employers.

Republicans warned that, in his legal writings, Becker suggested card check could be accomplished by regulation, without a vote by Congress. Such an approach, Republican Senator John McCain said, would undermine the authority of Congress to debate and decide labor law.

``Mr. Becker's interpretation of the labor laws casts serious doubt on his ability to administer our nation's laws in an unbiased manner,'' McCain said during the floor debate.

Senator Tom Harkin, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, has said Becker was making the card check argument in an academic context, not as a government arbiter. Yesterday, Harkin bemoaned the holdup of what he said should have been a routine nomination ``due to criticisms that are based on misinformation and misleading descriptions of his views.''

Asked about Scott Brown's vote to block Becker's appointment, Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, said, ``I wish that he would come into this with an open mind and understand the tradition of giving the president whom he wants unless there is a real ethical problem.''

The Greater Boston Labor Council, like many unions in Massachusetts, endorsed Brown's Democratic opponent, Martha Coakley, but Brown was able to attract many of the rank-and-file workers through his image of a truck-driving everyman.

``We worked hard for Martha Coakley. But our members for whatever reason are angry and voted for Brown,'' Rogers said. ``And this is what we're getting.''

Globe reporter Susan Milligan contributed to this report.

Newstex ID: BGL-1035-41941597