Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Senate almost ready for a vote on EFCA?

Specter tells labor: 'You're gonna like my EFCA vote'
by John Wojcik
People's Weekly World Newspaper

Congressional backers of the Employee Free Choice Act are closer than ever to the 60 Senators they need to break a planned Republican filibuster after Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) told a crowd of trade unionists in Pittsburgh June 6, “I believe you’ll be satisfied with my vote on this issue.”

Specter made his statement to activists demonstrating outside a meeting of the Pennsylvania Democratic Committee that he attended.

U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, Specter’s potential challenger in his Senate re-election contest next year, also addressed the demonstrators, pledging to support the Employee Free Choice Act.

Meanwhile, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is denying reports that she had said she was opposed to the bill. Feinstein is one of a handful of Democratic senators who were quoted as saying they could not support the bill in its original form.

“She will not vote for the bill,” Jeri Shaffery, vice president of the Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of Commerce, told the press last week.

Reached by phone, Gil Duran, an aide to Feinstein, said, “This guy....

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