It appears that in the eleventh hour of Janet Napolitano’s reign as the Democratic Governor of Arizona, the lady who is being tapped be President-elect Barack Obama’s Homeland Security Secretary—is making certain to assure the financial security those who padded her political coffers.
There appears to be nothing more than that to her recent executive order to grant unprecedented “meet and confer” status to state public employee unions. The unusual order mandates that government agencies meet at least four times a year to review (and, if past is prologue, accede to) the union bosses’ latest demands. Included in the order was provision for union organization at the agency by ballot should 30 percent of the workplace request it.
Why would Ms. Napolitano have issued such a controversial order? According to Nathan Nascimento, Executive Director of Arizonans in Action, “In the past year alone, since the 2008 primary season, the AFSCME and SEIU have made over $500,000 in contributions to the Arizona Democratic Party.” In short: Follow the money.
Mr. Nascimento believes that the executive order amounts to a quid pro quo, and in a recent press release labeled it “nothing more than a payback to special interest groups and unions…”
In truth, the order would probably not make all too many waves in the Arizona political establishment beyond the initial press about it had Mr. Nascimento not raised the issue. And he is to be lauded for bringing the slight-of-hand eleventh hour order to the Arizona public’s attention, and to question it.
He is right when he states, “This is an end-run around the legislature, who would normally enact such workplace rules.” The Governor, Mr. Nascimento contends, cannot by fiat demand that state agencies “meet and confer” with union bosses.
Yet that is what she has done.
And unless the people of Arizona, their duly elected representatives—and perhaps most importantly, the august members of the Fourth Estate—express their outrage this brazen political payback by Governor Napolitano will be allowed to stand. And public workplace security will fall to political chicanery.
Robert Romano is the Editor of ALG News Bureau.
