The bill in question is HB 1021, and it is designed to get government out of union’s business by: banning automatic dues collection for public sector unions; and requiring union leadership to get permission from individual members before using those dues for partisan politicking. The bill passed 74-40, despite the rather strenuous objections of Big Labor: a similar bill (SB 830) is making its way through the Florida Senate. The success of HB 1021 should help with the success of SB 830, which has been fought every step of the way, naturally; the Democratic-Big Labor governmental alliance has zero interest in seeing their profitable feedback cycle disrupted by the ability of mere workers to decide whether they like having their money go to keep one party in office.
Should the bill make it to the state Senate floor, it should pass relatively easily – both branches of the Florida legislature are solidly Republican. In fact, they were like that before the last legislative elections… and that detail is something that I’d like to highlight, because it’s important. Given that Florida is in fact a Right-to-Work state already, it may seem surprising that union reform is progressing even further in that state. Well, there may be a reason for it, and that reason may be Wisconsin: specifically, the puerile, undemocratic, hooliganish, contemptuous, and generally infantile way that Democrats/Big Labor attempted to avoid dealing with the simple notion that elections have consequences. The Left’s cheerleaders are currently ‘bragging’ – scare quotes because I’m not sure why anybody would be proud of the fact that they’re being vocal defenders of a political party’s deniable corruption slush fund – that their shrill, petulant extended whine against labor union reform in Wisconsin galvanized the Left nationwide. That may or may not be true, but I can tell you one thing: it definitely galvanized the Right.
And, hey! – We control more state legislatures than you do!
Moe Lane (crosspost)