Christopher Shays: “Mr. Chairman, when we drafted this bill, we wanted to be true to Beck. We did not want it to be less. We did not want it…”

“Mr. Chairman, when we drafted this bill, we wanted to be true to Beck. We did not want it to be less. We did not want it to be more. We wanted it to be just what the Court said. What we had was a situation where Harry Beck, who was an employee of AT&T but was not a member of the Communications Workers of America, the CWA, objected to his agency fee also including political activity, and this ultimately was brought to the Supreme Court. And they said his political activity, since he was not a member of the union, should not be covered and he should only pay for true collective bargaining. That is what the Beck decision decided, and that is what we did in our bill. This is not paycheck protection, but we also didn't think we needed paycheck protection because we eliminate the sham issue ads and call them campaign ads so one cannot use union dues money. We eliminate soft money, which is the other way union monies get into campaigns. So we thought that was even more powerful than even paycheck protection. I have personal experience in this legislation. My wife was a member of a union, and her money was going to support a Democrat candidate for governor and she supported the Republican candidate. And she objected.”