More
Evidence Of Lieberman’s Republican Nature – His Support
From The Chamber Of Commerce
By Ralph Nader
04 August, 2006
Countercurrents.org
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce,
through its front groups such as the Institute for Legal Reform (ILR)
and Voters Education Committee (VEC), has been deeply involved in opposing
or supporting hundreds of state and federal candidates for both legislative
and judicial offices. (See "The Secret Chamber: The Inner Workings
of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce..") (http://centerjd.org)
Chamber CEO Tom Donohue bragged
in 2004 about defeating Senator Tom Daschle (S.D.), the leader of the
Democrats in the Senate.
A Chamber endorsement leads
to more business campaign contributions and other supportive activities
from mass mailings to phone calls and media strategies that have involved
"dirty tricks" against their opponents.
Citizen groups that have
contended with the Chamber's agenda and lobbyists view this giant organization's
pursuit of corporate greed and power, at the expense of peoples' economic
well-being, health and safety, to be without peer in Washington, D.C.
By a large margin, the Chamber is the worst of them all.
The Chamber demands that
the federal government subsidize corporations, take the federal cop
off the corporate crime, fraud and abuse beat, weaken its laws protecting
the environment, workers, consumers and small taxpayers, keep enlarging
the bloated, wasteful military contracting budget and generally accede
to the Chamber's ideology of becoming a corporate government.
This year, the Chamber endorsed
many Republican Senators, but only two Democratic Senators - - Senator
Ben Nelson (Neb.) and Senator Joseph Lieberman (Conn.).
In supporting Senator Lieberman,
the Chamber wrote that "his cumulative voting score with the Chamber
is the highest of any Democratic Senator in the Northeast."
The Chamber praised Lieberman
for supporting the latest globalization boondoggle - - CAFTA - - a cousin
of NAFTA - - and for backing one of the Chamber's top priorities - -
so-called "class action reform." This law allows corporate
defendants to move most state class action lawsuits to federal courts
in ways which place aggrieved consumers and workers under serious disadvantages.
Senator Lieberman is the
Chamber's favorite Democratic Senator east of the Mississippi. He voted
with them for the notorious Cheney/Exxon energy bill, prompting one
political observer to say "he cannot be both against global warming
and for this energy bill."
He supports every globalizing,
outsourcing, pull-down trade agreement - - NAFTA, WTO and CAFTA - -
notwithstanding their rejection of labor, consumer and environmental
safeguards for the American people.
Senator Lieberman is waffling
on asbestos legislation (pending) that would drastically reduce the
financial liability of corporations for this long epidemic of cancer
and lung disease and would create a large corporate bailout of liability,
with costs to the taxpayers.
In 1998, he voted to give
immunity to the tobacco industry in return for weak FDA regulatory authority.
Eleven years ago he backed one of the Chamber's top objectives - - weakening
the litigation rights of defrauded investors and shielding accounting
and law firms from proper accountability. Then he voted to over-ride
President Clinton's veto of the bill.
Although Senator Lieberman
is straying from their "tort deform" stable on the medical
malpractice legislation, Senator Lieberman has sided often with the
Chamber's relentless drive to weaken the civil justice system's ability
to recognize the rights of wrongfully injured plaintiffs and federally
pre-empt the common law of Connecticut and the other 49 states. In 1996,
for example, he voted three times to federalize and weaken the law of
product (defect) liability.
The Chamber also likes what
Senator Lieberman does not do. He has not met a weapons system he doesn't
like, ignoring repeated, critical reports by the Government Accountability
Office (GAO) of the Congress. It is not for Senator Lieberman to be
worried about what President Eisenhower warned Americans about - - the
military-industrial complex. Such a background helps to explain his
continuing support and cover for George W. Bush's serial and costly
war crimes invading and occupying Iraq.
Senator Lieberman has emitted
many signals over his 18 year tenure that he can accommodate business
lobbyists. He has been and is generously rewarded with
contributions from corporate
PACs and such powerful corporate groups as the Associated General Contractors
of America which the New York Times reported "give 90 percent of
its campaign contributions to Republicans."
Other corporations - - insurance
companies, nuclear electric utilities and corporate law firms, which
give overwhelmingly to Republicans, have found money for Senator Lieberman.
All the foregoing and much
more in the public record - - see, for example, the U.S. Chamber's policy
Priorities for 2006 (including positions that are anti-labor, anti-universal
health care coverage, pro even more corporate tax cuts) raises a basic
question for Senator Lieberman:
Are you going to repudiate
publically the endorsement* and campaign support of the U.S. Chamber
of Commerce and its operating groups that are working overtime to undermine
your Democratic Party and its more progressive candidates?
If not, are you going to
explain why not?
* P.S. Senator Lieberman's website does not list the Chamber as one
of his supporters