Facing down the Public Sector Unions

By Steven Greenhut:

Orange County Republican Party Chairman Scott Baugh issued in January what OCers are calling the “Baugh manifesto”: a warning to local candidates who are seeking the party’s influential support that they must first reject union funding and also support a now-dead Paycheck Protection initiative that would have limited the ability of unions to tap members’ dues for political campaigns.

Baugh’s speech is “perhaps the riskiest and most courageous I’ve heard by a local politician – and I say that without passing judgment about whether he’s in the right,” reported Orange County Register columnist Frank Mickadeit. “No matter where you stand on the influence of public employee unions in elections, it’s undeniable the Baugh Manifesto has the potential to reverberate through O.C. politics for a long time.”

Sure enough, the reverberations are now being felt in Orange County and could well be felt statewide. Baugh has said that he has thrown down the gauntlet, but even in conservative Orange County, the unions have so much power that they have decided to throw the gauntlet back in Baugh’s face. The big showdown is ongoing in the run-up to the June 8 election that will fill the supervisorial seat vacated by Chris Norby, now an Assemblyman who represents a large portion of north Orange County.

HT Pension Watch