Vince Berltrami Pegs Sean Parnell

In a Community Voices column, in yesterday's Anchorage Daily News, Alaska AFL/CIO Chief pegged Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell (R - Saradise) and his lackluster performance at Tuesday's League of Women Voters-KTUU TV Candidate Debate series at UAA's Wendy Williamson Auditorium. Beltrami wrote:

Parnell said, "The Club for Growth has individuals that belong to it that contribute to campaigns ... my entire report to date is made up of individuals contributing to my campaign."

The group is made up of large corporate contributors and multi-millionaire corporate businessmen. So technically, they'd be considered "individuals" if they wrote the checks personally, but likely they were "bundled" from the group as Young stated. That's just a tad misleading.

And when it was Parnell's turn to poke at Young I'm sure he considered asking about major issues like the economy, the energy crisis, military issues, or perhaps education, right? Wrong. He went after the congressman for a vote he made supporting workers rights. Huh? He had one question to take Congressman Young on with, and he challenges his support of workers. Unbelievable.

And worse, Parnell bungled it. He seemed to know very little about the issue. The legislation is actually called the Employee Free Choice Act. He made two absolutely false statements about the legislation. He said it "would require employees in a business to have an open ballot when voting whether or not to organize a union." And he said "it takes away the secret ballot." He's wrong on both counts.

Beltrami is correct to note that, of the five AK-AL U.S. House candidates, only Parnell is opposed to this legislation. But he might have added that Young missed a very important vote last week in Congress. A week ago, the U.S. House passed the Paycheck Fairness Act, despite opposition from most Republicans. Here's what the bill seeks to do, according to Connecticut Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro:

"With this resolution, we take up an effort that began more than 150 years ago when visionary women came together to stand up for women's rights, to better the status of women in our society. In this tradition, more than 11 years ago, I first introduced the legislation that we consider this morning, the Paycheck Fairness Act, and I cannot help but think of all the Aprils we have commemorated Equal Pay Day without legislative movement. But today the legislative inertia we have experienced for years have come to an end. The wage gap is real... Over the course of her lifetime, a female high school graduate will make $700,000 less than the young man she graduates with. Compared to a man, a female college graduate stands to lose up to $2 million in the course of her career. This is true across the board."

Don Young was one of nine congress members who failed to be there for the vote.

image - Vince Beltrami in the middle - courtesy of AFL/CIO