Conservative group caught in "pay for play"

[CJJ]

This news report from Politico raises an interesting point regarding “pay for play” politics.

The central issue is a bill winding through Congress regarding the classification of FedEx under national labor laws. Currently, FedEx enjoys labor status as an airline company, while its package-delivery competitors like UPS are all classified as trucking companies. This allows FedEx to negotiate contracts under the Railway Labor Act, where rules are tougher on striking union workers than under the NLRB. The new legislation would class FedEx as a trucking company the same as UPS, and so force FedEx into collective bargaining with the Teamsters.

Naturally both sides want to line up political support for or against the bill; what’s interesting is how one conservative PAC has chosen to enter the fray:

The American Conservative Union asked FedEx for a check for $2 million to $3 million in return for the group’s endorsement in a bitter legislative dispute, then flipped and sided with UPS after FedEx refused to pay…

In the three-page letter asking for money on June 30, the conservative group backed FedEx. After FedEx says it rejected the offer, Keene signed onto a two-page July 15 letter backing UPS. (ACU Chairmain David) Keene did not return a message left on his cell phone.

Here is the first letter sent by the ACU to FedEx, and here is the second letter sent two weeks later that implicitly supports UPS. The second letter is not as much of a “flip” as Politico claims; in the main it chastises FedEx for “dishonest” and “deceitful” labeling of the NLRB legistation as a “bailout” of UPS; the ACU currently argues that it still supports FedEx’s position but just wishes it would fight fair. Nevertheless, while the first letter claims the ACU has “reviewed your concerns regarding the NLRB and we believe we could strongly support your position”, the second states that UPS is seeking “regulatory reform that would insure equal treatment of both companies under our nation’s labor laws,” and that UPS must “compete in the economic race while wearing proverbial army boots”–words that sound like ACU has indeed changed its position in the intervening time.

Now, I could see how economic conservatives would be legitimately divided on this issue; sure they’d like to encourage fair competition in the transportation industry, but they may also be uneasy about supporting organized labor against business. Howerver, it’s hard to read ACU’s actions as anything but opportunist.

It would be a cheap shot to say that conservatives apaprently take the metaphor “marketplace of ideas” literally, and I’m certain there are left-leaning PACs that follow a similar “shop it around” ideology. As a topic of debate though, I wonder what others think of this, especially since the ACU solicits public donations…

[Bricker]

I’d certainly want to see some sort of rebuttal or explanation from the ACU.

It seems to me that this goes beyond, “Give us money and we’lll say we support you.” For the money, ACU was promising a very targeted campaign, which is undoubtedly expensive. I don’t see anything wrong with that. However, ACU gives the impression that it has undertaken to fight the battle on purely ideological grounds, when in reality it’s asking for underwriting from the group whose interests its promoting.

Since it’s fair to say that extensive support is expensive, I don’t see such support as a show stopper. So what would solve the problem here is transparency: as long as ACU discloses the money being paid by FedEx (or any organization) then it seems like a workable deal.

[Sinaijon]

The ACU is a lobbyist group. In fact, they bill themselves as “the nation’s oldest and largest grass-roots conservative lobbying organization".