WASHINGTON, April 2 (UPI) -- Former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey threw cold water Thursday on the idea of a Democratic Kerry-Kerrey ticket in the fall election. "The chances of that happening -- of him asking or of me accepting -- are slim to none," Kerrey told the New York Daily News.
Now president of the New School University in New York City, Kerrey, like Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass., is a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War. As one of the few to ever earn the Congressional Medal of Honor, America's highest award for valor, Kerrey's presence on the ticket might have helped Kerry, the Democrats' likely presidential nominee, counter the GOP's charge that, based on his 19-year voting record in the U.S. Senate, the senator from Massachusetts is weak on national security issues.
At the same time, a Kerry-Kerrey, or a Kerry-McCain ticket -- another possibility that was bandied about before it was shot down -- would subtly underscore the fact that neither George W. Bush nor Dick Cheney served in combat during the Vietnam War. "The only way I'm going to run is if I'm willing to tolerate the consequences of having two ex-wives," Kerrey said, "And I'm not!"
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Posters more than 10 years in the making notifying workers employed by federal contractors and subcontractors of their "Beck rights" will soon appear on the walls of work sites all over the United States.
"Beck rights," named for a 1988 decision by the United States Supreme Court in the case of the Communications Workers of America vs. Beck, have been something of a "cause celeb" among Republicans who think they are the foot in the door in the fight against union soft money being spent on behalf of Democrats running for office.
The Beck ruling found that, under the terms of the National Labor Relations Act, a union may not, over the objections of non-member employees, "expend funds collected from their compulsory agency fee payments on activities that are not related to collective bargaining, contract administration, or grievance adjustment."
Under Beck, workers for whom a union negotiates a contract but who are not members of that union can apply for a reduction in their payments and, potentially, for a refund of any overpayments used to underwrite expenditures outside what Beck allows.
In 1992, President George H.W. Bush issued an executive order requiring the U.S. Department of Labor to engage in activities to notify workers of their rights under Beck, an order that was repealed by Bill Clinton in his first days in the White House.
In February 2001, President George W. Bush signed an executive order similar to the one issued by his father, again setting the labor department on the path to promulgating Beck rights.
Copies of the poster can be downloaded from the department's Office of Labor-Management Standards at olms.dol.gov.
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The subject of an investigation led by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., into activities involving the representation of a handful of American Indian tribal organizations is, apparently, quite perplexed at some of the probe's recent turns.
Attorney Abbe David Lowell and his client Jack Abramoff, whose work as a lobbyist has received a great deal of attention from writers at the Washington Post, are wondering about a story that appeared in the Post on March 30 that quoted extensively from "a letter sent to Abramoff late yesterday" by McCain.
The problem, Lowell stated in his own March 31 letter to McCain, is that neither he nor Abramoff had received the letter "or even knew about it" until they learned of its existence as a result of the Post's story.
In his letter to McCain, Lowell says he wants to bring to his attention "conduct taken in your name which I am sure you will want to address and prevent in the future," specifically, he says, "the outrageous behavior of and leaks coming from someone or some people associated" with the investigation.
Suggesting that someone associated with the probe is more interested in playing the Washington game of "Gotcha!" than with conducting a fair and impartial investigation, Lowell goes on to recall that as an attorney doing work in the 1980s for an Arizona client, "I witnessed how you yourself were victimized by leaks and other irregular conduct during investigations involving your dealings" with financial executive Charles Keating as part of the investigation of the Lincoln Savings and Loan scandal.
A spokesman for McCain, reached late Friday, said that she was aware of Lowell's letter but had not seen it and would not be able to comment on the issues it raises.
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-- That's Politics! looks at the inner workings of the American political process and is written by UPI's Peter Roff, a 20-year veteran of the Washington scene.
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