Blog - The Money Behind EFCA

As I’m sure you have heard, the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) was re-introduced into the 111th session of Congress today. It’s expected to be brought to a vote by Congress sometime this summer, and the PR and lobbying leading up to the vote is going to be both dramatic and expensive.

OpenSecrets has info on the special-interest money fueling the debate:

Sen. Thomas Harkin [D, IA], who introduced the bill in the Senate today, has collected more money from the labor sector than any other senator since 1989, at $1.7 million.

And,

Business PACs not only gave nearly five times more in campaign contributions than labor PACs did in the last election cycle ($365.1 million versus $77.9 million, including contributions to leadership PACs) they are backed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which spent $144.4 million on lobbying efforts in the 2007-2008 election cycle, or more than $400,000 for every day Congress was in session.