The War On The Secret Ballot

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Investors Business Daily:

The Obama administration has fired its opening salvo against a cornerstone of democracy: the right to secret ballot.

Last fall, voters in four states voted overwhelmingly to amend their constitutions to protect the right of workers to vote by secret ballot in deciding whether or not to form unions. That right has been enshrined in federal law for 75 years but is threatened by bills pending in Congress.

Nonetheless, the Obama National Labor Relations Board has filed a lawsuit against Arizona seeking to halt its protection of the right to secret ballot. Federal law governs labor relations, the NLRB asserts, and states cannot provide greater security for worker rights.

Why is the Obama administration taking such a profoundly anti-democratic position? The answer is simple: It's pay-off time for the massive labor union support Barack Obama received in the 2008 election.

Private-sector unionization has been dwindling for a long time. To reverse that, unions pushed a "card-check" system that would replace secret-ballot union-recognition elections with a system by which unions are automatically created once 50% of employees in a workplace sign cards requesting them.

The card-check system is an open invitation to intimidation by both unions and employers. Only in the privacy of the ballot booth can workers express their true views.

The card-check legislation failed in the last Congress, but the NLRB may try to impose it through bureaucratic mandate. The threat from our nation's capitol led the Goldwater Institute to draft a model state constitutional amendment to protect the right to secret ballot, and inspired activists mobilized to enact amendments last fall in Arizona, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah.

With support from liberals and conservatives, union members and non-members alike, the measures passed overwhelmingly in all four states, averaging over 70% of the vote and sweeping 153 out of 154 counties. In the real world, that amounts to a popular tsunami. In politics, it's called a serious mandate.