Main Street

Eating their own

Anti-worker politicians are starting to show their true colors. Not only do they have a radical agenda for the Middle Class, they also have an agenda for anyone who gets in their way. And it doesn’t matter whether they have a “D” or an “R” next to their name.

From New Hampshire:

A Republican state representative lost his seat on the House Finance Committee yesterday after he opposed the House budget, openly criticized his party and predicted its defeat in the next election.

State Rep. Lee Quandt of Exeter said he received a call from the House chief of staff Tuesday night summoning him to a meeting with House Speaker William O’Brien yesterday morning. At the meeting, O’Brien removed him from the committee.

Rep. Quandt is a rare breed of New England Republican that used to roam free in the Northeast: he is a conservative Republican, but as a retired state probation officer and parole officer, he’s strongly in favor of workers and bargaining rights. But having someone that votes Republican on ninety percent of issues isn’t good enough for the rabidly partisan New Hampshire House majority that’s gunning for union rights through so-called “Right to Work” legislation.

Over in Ohio, the one to be purged was Rep. Bill Seitz, a Republican representing Cincinnati.

…Sen. Bill Seitz, R-Cincinnati, has lost his committee chairmanship for reportedly failing to keep a colleague informed of changes to another bill.

Senate President Tom Niehaus, R-New Richmond, removed Seitz yesterday as chairman of the Government Oversight & Reform Committee, which is working on Senate Bill 3, designed to bring Ohio’s public-employee pension funds back to long-term solvency.

This isn’t the first problem Niehaus and his anti-worker posse has had with Bill Seitz. Last month, Seitz had the audacity to publicly state that SB 5, a bill stripping 350,000 public workers of their bargaining rights, was “overreaching.” Full quote:

“The vast majority of people are concerned about the overreaching of this (collective-bargaining) bill, and that concern is only inflamed by what could charitably be called heavy-handed reactions to those who express honest dissent.” (emphasis mine)

Rep. Seitz is doing his job. He’s seeing crowds of thousands of working people protesting SB 5 and the plummeting approval numbers of Gov. John Kasich. He still thinks of himself as answerable to his constituents, and is responding as such.

Unfortunately, this new crop of anti-worker politicians across the country doesn’t see themselves that way. In their eyes, if you can’t give thousands of dollars to fill their campaign coffers, you might as well be invisible.