John Sarbanes: “I want to respond to the questions put by the Senator from Arizona. The Senator seems to proceed on the premise that you…”

“I want to respond to the questions put by the Senator from Arizona. The Senator seems to proceed on the premise that you are entitled to have an election officer to supervise a union election, although he referred to them as "private unions" and said, "Why are we paying for this with public funds?" Now, the deal that was made in 1989 by the Bush administration and by Attorney General Thornburgh was that the 1991 election would be held with an election officer, paid for by the union. The Government obviously wanted to have an election officer in the picture in the next election, the 1996 election. But part of the consent decree was, if the election officer was going to be in the picture for the 1996 union election, the cost of that election was going to be paid for by the Government. Now, you all talk about how anxious you are to keep the influence of the mob out of the union. I certainly subscribe to that. But what you are doing by this amendment is you are setting up the possibility that the union can conduct its election without an election officer because it is out from under the consent decree. The consent decree required the 1996 election to be done with an election officer. That election has not been certified. It is that election about which there are questions, which the judge is now going to hear. Now, you are going to come in and, in effect, undo part of the consent decree.”