Thursday, October 22, 2009

Shannon Celebrates Halloween a Week Early


Democratic candidate for attorney general Steve Shannon tried to masquerade as something other than Big Labor's favored candidate in the final debate with Republican Ken Cuccinelli.
Despite arguments to the contrary, the Berkeley California native Shannon was unable to conceal his lifetime perfect record on issues championed by the AFL-CIO, his heavy reliance on financial contributions from large organized labor organizations and a record of opposing Virginia's Right-to-Work law.
Shannon told the audience of Virginia voters, "I have a track record of being a pro-business, centrist, law and order public servant," Shannon said during the debate. And if you don't look at his record you might believe that.

However, the facts, and his voting record suggest the opposite.

Big Money from Big Labor

According to the Virginia Public Access Project, Shannon has accepted over $136,000 from big labor organizations in this election and more than $162,000 since 2003.
"In July and August, he got eleven donors of over $10,000. Seven of them were unions," Cuccinelli said. "That's unprecedented in a right-to-work state."

100% Rating from the AFL-CIO

As a member of the House of Delegates, Shannon received a 100-percent rating from the AFL-CIO for every year he has served in the legislature: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009.
"The notion that now all of a sudden - here we are twelve days before the election - that now [Shannon is] gonna start support Virginia's economy, that's a long shot," Cuccinelli said of Shannon's sudden conversion. "There's a reason that small businesses - NFIB - have supported me in this race."

Voting Against Right-To-Work
Shannon voted twice against a Constitutional amendment for Right-to-Work (HJ640, 2009). The amendment would have provided that it would be the policy of the Commonwealth that people cannot be denied employment for declining to join a union. The amendment would have protected Virginia's Right-to-Work statute from assault by federal changes or attempts to weaken or overturn Virginia's statute.

"Steve has voted twice against protecting our right to work laws," Cuccinelli said. "We tried to protect it by putting it in the state Constitution because of the challenges we've seen coming down the road from the federal government."

Photo by wikipedia.org

No comments: