FEDERAL LEGISLATIVE REPORT June 22, 2007

[Omaha Steve]

Below are the top stories of the week from Capitol Hill.

AFSCME LEGISLATIVE REPORT
June 22, 2007

In this issue:

* AFSCME Members Rally and Lobby for the Employee Free Choice Act
* Senate Vote on the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA)
* Public Safety Collective Bargaining Bill Advances
* Senate Passes Head Start Reauthorization
* Senate Committee Approves Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations Bill
* Bush Nominates Nussle to Head Office of Management and Budget
* National Online/Phone Presentation Addressing Threats to Child Support Enforcement Funding
* Higher Ed Bill Moves in the Senate

AFSCME Members Rally and Lobby for the Employee Free Choice Act
On Tuesday, 2,000 AFSCME members and retirees attending the Union's National Leadership Conference stormed Capitol Hill to demand Senate passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). Joined by other union members and activists, the crowd of nearly 4,000 cheered to expressions of support from House and Senate leaders. After the rally, AFSCME members and retirees met with Senators and their staff to urge passage of EFCA. AFSCME delegations from Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Ohio visited Senate offices, delivering thousands of postcards signed by AFSCME members in support of EFCA.

In addition to EFCA, AFSCME members and retirees lobbied their Senators and Representatives to support increased federal funding for services provided by state and local governments and to stop the large subsidies to private health plans. These growing subsidies threaten the financial soundness of the Medicare program and soak up general fund revenues that could be used to cover more low-income children under the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).
(Barbara Coufal- [e-mail])

Senate Vote on the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA)
This week, the Senate began debate on the Employee Free Choice Act. GOP leaders responded with a filibuster, forcing supporters of EFCA to secure 60 votes in order to end the filibuster and move to a vote on the bill. We expect the vote to end the filibuster will take place on Tuesday, June 26.
(Marge Allen- [e-mail])

Call Your Senators to Support the Employee Free Choice Act

A majority of the Senate supports the Employee Free Choice Act. But opponents are using a procedural obstacle to require a super-majority of 60 votes. Call your Senators today at 1-888- 460-0813 and urge them to vote for the Employee Free Choice Act so that workers can choose to join a union without being intimidated by their employer.

Public Safety Collective Bargaining Bill Advances
After nearly 10 years of lobbying, a new Democratic majority in the House has finally allowed the Public Safety Officers Employer-Employee Cooperation Act (H.R. 980) to be successfully reported out of the House Education and Labor Committee. The vote was nearly unanimous, 42 to 1. H.R. 980 requires each state to provide for collective bargaining for public safety officers. During the Committee's debate, Chairman George Miller (D-CA) said that "officers who put their lives on the line everyday to safeguard the public deserve to be able to sit down with management and bargain over working conditions and compensation." Supporters of the bill fended off amendments to weaken it. Outnumbered, Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN) withdrew his amendment to prohibit card check union recognition. The next step is a vote on the floor of the House. With over 270 cosponsors, the bill has a high likelihood of passage. AFSCME's efforts will then focus on the Senate where introduction of the companion bill is imminent. The bill covers police and corrections officers, firefighters and emergency medical workers.
(Jayne Clancy- [e-mail])

Senate Passes Head Start Reauthorization
On June 19, the Senate passed the Head Start for School Readiness Act (H.R. 1429), legislation to reauthorize Head Start. The House passed its version on May 2, 2007. The Senate bill authorizes $7.3 billion in funding for FY 2008–$400 million more than was provided this year–to expand the Head Start program. The House bill contains a similar funding increase. Both bills expand eligibility for additional low-income children from 100 percent to 130 percent of the federal poverty level. The Senate bill establishes new education attainment goals (rather than requirements or penalties) for the Head Start teaching workforce. These include all Head Start teachers nationwide having an associate's degree in five years; half of all teachers in each state having a bachelor's degree in six years; and all Head Start assistant teachers having at least a child development associate credential in five years. This differs from the House bill, which requires that 50 percent of Head Start teachers nationwide to have a bachelor's degree by 2013. Both bills retain the cost of living adjustments contained in the current law, and increase the portion of funds that must be directed towards improving quality. Both the Senate and House bills terminate the use of the National Reporting System, the controversial test required of all four-year-olds enrolled in Head Start, and they both increase the portion of funding that must be used for Early Head Start.

AFSCME and allies were successful in keeping two harmful provisions out of both the Senate and House versions of Head Start reauthorization. First, neither bill allows states to convert Head Start into a block grant, which would have threatened the comprehensive services provided to children and their families. And, both houses of Congress rejected attempts to allow faith-based Head Start programs to discriminate based on religion when hiring Head Start workers. The bills will now go to a conference committee to work out differences between the House and Senate versions.
(Fran Bernstein- [e-mail])

Senate Committee Approves Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations Bill
On June 21, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved the FY 2008 spending bill for the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education (HHS), the largest domestic spending bill. It contains $9 billion more in spending than President Bush proposed in his budget. The bill contains modest additional federal funding for Head Start, state unemployment and employment services, special education, and the Community Services Block Grant. Programs slated for more substantial increases include Community Health Centers (13.6 percent), nursing education (13.4 percent), child abuse programs (12.6 percent), grants to schools with large low-income populations (10 percent), and school improvement grants (300 percent). In a major disappointment, the Committee flat-funded the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), which provides child care subsidies for low-income families. Yearly-appropriated funding for the CCDBG has not increased since 2001, and since then 150,000 children have lost assistance. The House Labor, HHS and Education Appropriations Subcommittee approved a $75 million increase for CCDBG.

The Senate bill also allows federally-funded research on stem cell lines that were derived before June 15 of this year, including a moratorium on competitive sourcing activities at the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) until 60 days after the Committee receives a report from the Government Accountability Office on the DOL's use of these activities. The bill further requires the Departments of Labor, HHS, and Education to provide quarterly reports to the Committee with information on all grants and contracts awarded for over $100,000 that were not competitively bid. The full Senate is expected to vote on its Labor, HHS and Education funding bill in July. The full House Appropriations Committee has not yet scheduled a vote on its bill. After both houses of Congress pass their bills, they will go to conference to resolve differences in funding levels. The final bill will go to President Bush, who has already vowed to veto it.
(Fran Bernstein- [e-mail])

Bush Nominates Nussle to Head Office of Management and Budget
In a move calculated to increase partisanship in the federal budget process, President Bush nominated former House Budget Chairman Jim Nussle (R-IA, 1991-2007) to be the new head of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). When he chaired the House Budget Committee, Nussle aggressively pushed through Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy in 2001 and 2003, and opposed adequate federal funding for vital domestic programs. If confirmed by the Senate, Nussle will replace Rob Portman, who announced he will be leaving the job to return to Ohio. The shift in leadership at OMB comes at the same time that the President is threatening vetoes of FY 2008 appropriations bills because the congressional budget resolution allows an additional $23 billion in spending over the President's budget for domestic programs that receive annual funding. Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad (D-ND) predicts strong opposition to Nussle's confirmation.
(Fran Bernstein- [e-mail])

National Online/Phone Presentation Addressing Threats to Child Support Enforcement Funding
On Tuesday, June 26 at 2:00 p.m. EST, national experts both on and off Capitol Hill will be speaking about the imminent threat to billion of dollars in federal support to state and county child support enforcement (CSE) programs. The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 ended the federal match on incentive payments to states. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that states' CSE programs will lose $6.7 billion over 10 years, and that $11 billion in support owed to children will go uncollected. The cuts are scheduled to take effect in October.

You can participate by phone or, on-line, where you can both see and hear the presentations. You can access this discussion by registering at: http://www.bostonconferencing.com/ncsea/1. You will then receive participation instructions.
(Fran Bernstein- [e-mail])

Higher Ed Bills Move in the Senate
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP) approved two bills intended to boost financial aid for college students while requiring student lenders and university financial aid offices to change the way they do business. The Committee approved the Higher Education Act (S. 1642), which governs financial aid programs by a 20 to 0 vote. The Higher Education Access Reconciliation Act, approved 17 to 3, would cut student lender subsidies by more than $18 billion, devoting the savings to grant aid and loan relief for students and to deficit reduction. The bill would make funding for Pell grants an entitlement, not subject to the annual appropriations process. It also would boost the maximum Pell grant by more than $1,000, to $5,400 by 2011. A new "Promise" grant for the neediest Pell recipients is created and student loan repayments are capped at 15 percent of discretionary income. In addition, first responders, law enforcement officers, firefighters, nurses, public defenders, prosecutors, early childhood educations would receive loan forgiveness of $5,000 and complete loan forgiveness for public sector employees after 10 years of service.
(Marge Allen- [e-mail])

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AFSCME Department of Legislation
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Website: http://www.afscme.org/
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