Right Voices

Corruption?

Sen. Barack Obama won the endorsement of the Teamsters earlier this year after privately telling the union he supported ending the strict federal oversight imposed to root out corruption, according to officials from the union and the Obama campaign.

It’s an unusual stance for a presidential candidate. Policy makers have largely treated monitoring of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters as a legal matter left to the Justice Department since an independent review board was set up in 1992 to eliminate mob influence in the union.

Sen. Obama’s rival for the Democratic nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton, has declined to take a stance on Teamsters oversight. During his eight years in office, President Bill Clinton took no action to end the special board. Democratic presidential nominees in 2000 and 2004 ” Al Gore and John Kerry ” didn’t address the issue, according to Teamsters officials.

Neither Sen. Obama nor Teamsters President James P. Hoffa has spoken publicly about easing up federal oversight, a top priority for Mr. Hoffa since he became union president in 1999. On the campaign trail, Mr. Hoffa stresses Sen. Obama’s criticism of the North American Free Trade Agreement as the big factor in winning the 1.4-million member union’s support.

But John Coli, vice president for the Teamsters central region, who brokered the Teamsters endorsement, said Sen. Obama was “pretty definitive that the time had come to start the beginning of the end” of the three-member independent review board that investigates suspect activity in the union. Mr. Coli said that Sen. Obama conveyed that view in a series of phone conversations and meetings with Teamsters officials last year.

Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor confirmed the candidate’s position in a statement to The Wall Street Journal, saying that Sen. Obama believes that the board “has run its course,” because “organized crime influence in the union has drastically declined.” Mr. Vietor said Sen. Obama took that position last year.

It just went away all on its’ own?  Ed has the link to Sawyer interviewing him:

SAWYER: Want to turn to the news of the day. Front page of “The Wall Street Journal” today, it says before you won the endorsement of the Teamsters, you indicated to them you would support ending strict federal oversight of the union, which was imposed back in the early ’90s to deal with corruption. Was that commitment made to them?

SEN. OBAMA: You know, I wouldn’t make any blanket commitments. what I’ve said is that we should take a look at what’s been happening over the Teamsters and at all unions to make sure that, in fact, you know, organized labor is able to represent its membership and engage in collective bargaining in accordance to what we’ve always believed.

SAWYER: But if they heard you to be saying that you did support, you did support lifting this strict federal oversight, are they wrong?

SEN. OBAMA: No, what I’ve said is that I would examine what is going on in terms of the federal oversight that’s been taking place, but it’s been in place for many years, the union has done a terrific job cleaning house, and the question is whether they’re going to be able to get treated just like every other union, whether that time has come and that’s something that I’ll absolutely examine when I’m president of the United States.

If the oversight is constitutional, and corruption is ebbing, why mess with it?  Just as the Canadians told us the truth about Obama’s real stance on NAFTA, so too are the Teamsters.

From Powerline:

The Teamsters union has had a long and storied relationship with the Mafia. To take just one vivid example, consider the case of Anthony Senter. Senter was the Mafia hit man who arranged a deal with a Teamsters local for a pension after he was convicted of being a member of a mob hit squad in New York City that committed 25 murders and dismembered most of the victims.

Senter’s attempt to secure a pension from his friends at the Teamsters was disrupted in 1994 by the Independent Review Board. The IRB is the body created by a 1989 consent decree to monitor the Teamsters for corruption. Since 1999 the Teamsters has sought to have the consent decree dissolved. The Department of Justice has not thought that such a good idea. The Teamsters would like new leadership at the Department of Justice with a better attitude.

In 1989 the Teamsters entered into the consent decree with the government. The decree was entered into before, and signed by, Judge David Edelstein of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The consent decree resolved the government’s prosecution of the Teamsters for racketeering.

Certain provisions of the decree were enforced by a permanent injunction. The injunction ordered the Teamsters to refrain from racketeering activity (as defined under federal law) and from knowingly associating with the Mafia. The consent decree also provided for the creation of the three-member IRB in 1992. The jurisdiction of the IRB is limited to the prevention of corruption, including bribery, embezzlement, extortion, loan sharking, and other serious violations of federal law, or control and influence of the Teamsters by the Mafia.

Today’s page-one Wall Street Journal story shines a spotlight on the Teamsters’ endorsement of Barack Obama. According to the Journal, Obama advised the Teamsters prior to its endorsement of him that he supported dissolving the permanent injunction to which the Teamsters agreed in 1989 and under which it has been operating ever since. Dissolution of the consent decree would require judicial blessing, but if the government were to seek dissolution of the decree, it would be highly likely to secure it.

Taking a leaf from the Clinton scandal management playbook, the Obama campaign dismisses the Journal story as old news. Even it it is old news, the Journal story provides the detail and attention that the story richly deserves.

In 2002, the left-wing Nation magazine frankly condemned Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa’s goal of eliminating federal oversight of the Teamsers as “a bad idea.” It still is. Are the corruption and exploitation of the Teamsters no longer a serious threat? Someone really should ask Barack Obama why not.

The Nation article notes that in May 2002 the IRB permanently barred from the union two of Hoffa’s closest associates (William Hogan Jr., president of Chicago’s Joint Council 25, and Dane Passo, Hoffa’s former Midwest campaign manager and special assistant). According to the article, they were disciplined for trying over an extended period of time to force the Las Vegas local to permit a mob-linked labor broker (of which Hogan’s brother was vice president) to provide low-wage, nonunion workers for convention setup work, thus threatening to undermine the Teamsters contract and displace union members.

Some Democrats recently sought the impeachment of an attorney general for politicizing justice by the firing of eight United States Attorneys. Many Democrats joined in driving the attorney general from office on the charge. I believe the charge was bogus in the case of Alberto Gonzales. But Democrats are now about to nominate a presidential candidate who is engaged in something that looks very much like the genuine article.

JOHN adds: Barack Obama, old-fashioned corrupt pol! Well, of course, a lot of those corrupt Democratic pols got elected.

Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, Rosemary’s Thoughts, Right Truth, Kodera’s Korner, Shadowscope, DragonLady’s World, The Amboy Times, Democrat=Socialist, third world county, Woman Honor Thyself, DragonLady’s World, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, , Dumb Ox Daily News, Stageleft, Pooh Flinging NeoCons, A Blog For All, 123beta, Big Dog’s Weblog, Cao’s Blog, , Conservative Cat, Diary of the Mad Pigeon, Nuke Gingrich, Faultline USA, Allie is Wired, McCain Blogs, The World According to Carl, Gulf Coast Hurricane Tracker, Wolf Pangloss, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.