Letters To The Editor

Congress is considering the misnamed “Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act,” H.R. 980, which would use the power of the federal government to impose unionism and collective bargaining on state and local public safety – police, fire and rescue – departments in states, like Texas, that have not granted public sector unions monopoly bargaining privileges.

H.R. 980 already has 278 cosponsors including about 60 Republicans. Most, but certainly not all, of the cosponsors are from states that would probably be exempt from the bills provisions because their state legislatures have enacted comparable laws.

Cosponsors from Texas include Charles A. Gonzalez (TX-20), Gene Green (TX-29), Ruben Hinojosa (TX-15), Sheila Jackson-Lee (TX-18), Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX-30), Solomon Ortiz (TX-27), Ted Poe (TX-2), Silvestre Reyes (TX-16) and Ciro D. Rodriguez (TX-23).

Hearings were held on this bill in a House Subcommittee on June 5, 2007. It was approved by a vote of 42 to 1.

This legislation is an unwarranted intrusion by the federal government in an area that has been historically and properly the prerogative of the states. As such, it is of very dubious constitutionality.

H.R. 980 is an unfunded mandate of enormous proportions and is nothing short of blackmail. It