Howard Berman: “I have a somewhat different position than many of my party on this particular proposal. I think many of its provisions…”

“I have a somewhat different position than many of my party on this particular proposal. I think many of its provisions are very interesting. The idea of strengthening political parties, frankly, prior to the amendments the gentleman made in the Committee on Rules, the notion of opening up larger individual contributions made sense to me. There are many interesting ideas for participation in this process that I respect and that I think are worth seriously discussing. But I would suggest the provisions the majority has included in this bill dealing with union members and union dues demonstrates a level of animus, hostility, and hypocrisy. A deregulatory majority that speaks with such passion about the onus on the average person of government regulation, in the context of a series of laws that protect and require union democracy, elected representatives, have prohibited closed shops, have made compulsory unionism through union shop agreements weaker by allowing dues, who through the Beck decision have provided for rebate of monies spent that are not directly related to the collective bargaining process, by adding to all those existing schemes, a process that is so regulatory, which is so costly to the union movement, and which so denies the premises of elected representation and rule of the majority in that political process, demonstrates a hypocrisy which undermines the credibility of the entire bill. This should never have been put that in.…”