Obama administration to sue 4 states to void constitutional amendments

For a couple of years now, labor union bosses have been pushing a proposed law called "card check." Sounds innocuous, doesn't it? But it would ban the use of the secret ballot in unionization elections--meaning all workers would have to publicly declare their vote on whether to unionize.

About half of Americans would probably shrug and say "What's wrong with that? Don't we want everything to be out in the open?"

Not how you voted--especially in the thuggish environment of socialist-leaning unions, where opposing the union can get your windshield busted and your tires slashed, if not worse.

Seeing the federal government edging ever closer to supporting this abomination, last November voters in four states--Arizona, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah--passed amendments to their constitutions requiring that unionization elections in their states use the secret ballot.

The amendments were hugely popular: In South Carolina the measure was approved by 86 percent of the voters; 79 percent in South Dakota, 61 percent in Arizona and 60 percent in Utah.

But the Obama administration--ready to do anything for continued union support--wasn't about to allow these amendments to stand, and last January Obama's "National Labor Relations Board" announced it planned to sue those four states to overturn the duly-passed amendments.

"On what grounds?", you may ask. Where does the U.S. Constitution give the federal government the right to bar states from requiring the secret ballot in an election?

The board said that the amendments "conflict with federal law by closing off a well-established path to union representation recognized by the Supreme Court and protected by the National Labor Relations Act.”

But wait, I hear some of you saying: wasn't the ghastly federal "card check" bill defeated or withdrawn or something, due to conservative opposition?

Why yes, yes it was.

Well then, how in the world can the NLRB say the state amendments "conflict with federal law"?

Great question. And a good answer would be "It would appear that the folks on the NLRB--like all good, aggressive Dems in gubmint--simply make up snappy sound-bites that support whatever the hell they want to do."

And the media dutifully pick up the chant: The NYT quotes a lefty professor of labor law at NYU saying “Secret-ballot elections... are not the only way permitted by federal law. The states have no authority dictating which method employees use in deciding whether to be represented by a union.”

"The states have no authority?" Tenth Amendment? This guy never heard of it.

Anyway, now the NLRB has announced that it will only be suing TWO of the four states--Arizona and South Dakota. According to the NY Times the stated reason was--you'll love this--"to save money."

This of course is nonsense. The real reason is to reduce the number of opposing legal scholars, since half as many defendant states would have fewer resources to mount a winning defense, thus increasing the administration's chances of winning. And if the NLRB won it would cite the verdict as legal precedent to get the remaining two states to fold.

The federal government is fast becoming a tyrant. After all, the feds successfully sued a poor farmer to prevent him from growing wheat to feed his own chickens without gubmint permission. Forced the poor guy to burn it. His poor chickens starved.

And you think I'm making this up.