Davis-Bacon: GOP Congressmen Facing the Music in Six Months?
[Update] See Congressman Miller's post for the gist of Bush's illegal action in suspending Davis-Bacon without formally declaring a national emergency, but below are some more details.
It appears based on this Congressional Research Report that Bush violated the 1976 National Emergencies Act in failing to follow proper procedures in suspending Davis-Bacon wage regulations. Dems at the Education and Workforce Committee are denouncing Bush for this illegal behavior.
Now, whether Bush said the right "magic words" may not matter to any court that could potentially rule on the issue.
But here's the important clause in the National Emergencies Act (NEA) (50 USC 1622(b)) that could land "moderate" Republicans between a rock (Delay & Bush) and their constituents:
(b) Termination review of national emergencies by CongressWhy is this key?Not later than six months after a national emergency is declared, and not later than the end of each six-month period thereafter that such emergency continues, each House of Congress shall meet to consider a vote on a joint resolution to determine whether that emergency shall be terminated.
Because in six months, a bunch of Republicans in swing districts who claim to be pro-labor may have to vote on whether to continue the suspension of Davis-Bacon.
If they vote with Delay, this could be the vote to knock a number out of them out of office. And if they vote with labor, it would be a massive national defeat for Bush and Delay.
The GOP has been able to control the agenda and prohibit most votes that might embarass those "pro-labor" Republicans (or give them a chance to rebel). But the NEA may require a mandatory vote.
Avoiding this possibility may be why Bush didn't want to formally invoke the NEA.
Whether there's a loophole for Bush and Delay to avoid that vote in six months in unclear at this point, but it's an enticing idea to have an up-or-down labor vote in the Spring right before mid-term elections. In any case, it gives all of us a good reason to begin quizzing these swing Republicans on where they stand on whether US reconstruction money should be going to sweatshop contractors.
Thanks for looking at this issue. Is someone looking into initiating litigation to bring this to a head (or to roll the rock over to the hard place)? Btw. you have an extra period in your link to the House Committee Democrats page which causes page not found error.
September 16, 2005 4:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just in case people aren't checking the TPM memo home page, here's a link--Josh Marshall is sort of doing a unofficial 'roll call' on where Congressional members stand on this, and obviously encouraging everyone to um, check on their representatives. This really strikes me as one that might not be that hard to do with some blogosphere buzz to get it moving! The media picks it up from there and then you have others calling their reps.
Why is this key?
Because in six months, a bunch of Republicans in swing districts who claim to be pro-labor may have to vote on whether to continue the suspension of Davis-Bacon.
Yes! You in particular probably won't like me saying this, but I can even see an appeal to the anti-immigrant-Lou-Dobbs crowd on this one...fair wages for Americans is part of the whole meme there.
This one shouldn't be that hard of a sell.
September 16, 2005 9:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why are the democrats so cowed by Bush? Bush is very unpopular right now, and even worse for him, the people that hate him loath him with a passion usually reserved for people like Hitler. And yet the dems are curiously silent. America badly needs the democrats to stick up for us. Instead they roll over on CAFTA, the bankruptcy bill and probably on Roberts. When are they going to start acting like people who actually care about the American people, instead of some cowering idiot bowing down to the man behind the curtain.
The dems have to realize America wants them to speak up. My God man, have they no sense of decency.
Come on Democrats, get back to planet earth.
September 16, 2005 9:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
If, by statute, suspending Davis-Bacon requires invoking the NEA then we should force the administration to do so. It will ensure that there is a vote and a vigorous public review of wages paid for the reconstruction.
I think it is quite obvious that the suspension of Davis-Bacon was a partisan political ploy by Bush to make his base happy...if he wants it to be political, so be it.
On top of all the misery in the Gulf they must be made to defend why they want to lower the wages of the people of the region.
September 16, 2005 10:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Anything we can do, Libertine. To me, the tragedy of New Orleans isn't just that the poor couldn't leavr but that it took an act of nature to bring attention to how poor some in that region have been. I really don't get why th government response was not the obvious: "Help us rebuild this place and we'll help you have a life here that will be better than it was before Katrina even existed."
Republicans are siupposed to be all about "markets as a step iup," after all. Why are they now so against using the market to improve lives? Don't they get that. by their own rhetoric, that this is an opportunity to turn those who are struggling now and whi hae been strugglubg, without notice for decades into builders and entrepeneurs?
September 16, 2005 10:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
My latest letter to the usual suspects.
http://www.ctj.org/pdf/gwbdata.pdf
Read it and weep. 33% of Bush tax cuts go to the upper 1% of wage earners. 44% goes to the upper 5%. By comparison, the bottom 40% of wage earners only receives 7% of Bush tax cuts.
Keep these facts in mind when you think about virtually the first thing Bush did after hurricane Katrina was to overturn the Davis-Bacon act from 1931. This action by Bush basically amounts to a huge pay cut for thousands if not hundreds of thousands of workers who will do the actual work of rebuilding New Orleans. So while Bush is more than happy to give 33% of his tax cuts to his rich buddies, the vast majority of Americans get a pay cut. These pay cuts come with gas prices soaring. These pay cuts come with health care costs soaring.
Now keep in mind that the front burner legislation for the GOP controlled congress is to repeal the estate tax. This tax cut will go to the upper 0.3% of Americans. The ten year price tab for repealing the estate tax is $294 billion dollars in lost revenue. http://www.cbpp.org/5-25-00tax.htm
The cost of rebuilding from Katrina is estimated at 200 billion. Bush would rather put this cost on a charge card, to be paid predominantly by the working class, instead of keeping the estate tax in place and letting the upper 0.3% of Americans pay their fair share.
Bush would rather cut the budget for things like repairing the levees in New Orleans, or properly funding Medicare, and instead give a windfall to his rich buddies.
Add this to the boondoggle in Iraq which is costing 5 billion dollars per month, and you can see Bush really is the worst president in the history of the United States.
Any working class person who voted for Bush is an idiot.
September 16, 2005 10:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I also understand the frustration of some re: the Democrats, as SimMike expressed. But what has to be understood - or is it remembered? - is that we have no leader and are in the minority everywhere. People don't recognize Senator Reid or Rep. Pelosi, because they just don't have good face-name recognition. This is what happens when you lose elections, boys and girls... and I know I'm venting to people who know, so, I'll stop here...
September 16, 2005 10:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Democrats aren't cowed by Bush, they are cowed by the slime machine (Rove and Co) and by the money machine (corporate America). They are looking at who butters their bread, which is why I do not believe we can revive the Democrats unless a few of the bolder ones step forward (I don't mean Dean, who seems belligerant enough, but not as politic as one would like, rather someone as pugancious and more appealing to the populists).
September 17, 2005 6:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
The link you gave for the new Congressional Research Service report on the National Emergencies Act does not work for anyone outside of Congress. (Others are automatically redirected to Thomas.)
But the CRS report was published by the Federation of American Scientists and is available here:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/98-505.pdf
It was reported in the FAS newsletter Secrecy News here:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/2005/09/091605.html
September 17, 2005 6:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
And if the wage rollback wins in February, there will have to be another vote six months later - six weeks before the 2006 elections. The wingbat at my bus stop was going on about how we needed the suspension to show that we are serious about rebuilding, and that the people of New Orleans needed to pitch in too. (Yeah, he homeschools his kids and tries to get people to go to his church with him.) Nine dollars, I told him, the prevailing wage is nine dollars. Even he showed a bit of surprise, but then the bus showed up.
What Dem will push for holding everyone hired to government pay rates? If $9 is too much for the laborers, isn't $90 / hour enough for the lawyers, engineers and consultants?
September 17, 2005 6:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
How many Republican Congressmen and Senators facing re-election will be facing serious well-funded opponents? As much as I would like to see a Democratic president in 2009 I believe it is even more important that the Democrats take back one House of Congress and I gather that is not likely. If Howard Dean wants to do the nation and the Party a good turn he will work very hard at finding Congressional candidates and fight the gerrymandering that goes on by both parties that makes ousting incumbents nearly impossible.
September 17, 2005 9:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wasn't the Haliburton contract to clean up the naval base awarded before the emergency declaration as well?
Carl Pope mentions this anyways:
http://sierraclub.org/carlpope/
Quick to award a Haliburton contract, slow to go to the gulf on-scene cutting vacations short?
September 17, 2005 9:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
This country is not one for indignant outrage, nor for having a long memory. Particularly in the south, voters have a tendency to vote against their own best interests. So, I seriously doubt that this is the sort of issue that's going to get the troops fired-up and result in political payback at the polls for Republicans. Even with all the very obvious screw-ups in preparation for and response to Katrina, nobody (apart from liberal bloggers) is really laying the blame at the feet of the president and the idealogical conservatives who dismantled and mismanaged FEMA and other public agencies. It certainly would be nice if our democracy worked correctly, with people being voted into and out of office on the basis of job performance and the specific things that they do, but it doesn't.
September 17, 2005 12:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
To prevent trolling about the amount we're talking about (which happened in comments on Congressman Miller's post), I have excerpted one of the background documents on the referenced House Committee web page. The remainder of my post is quoted from the given link.
INFORMATION ON WAGES
Davis-Bacon requires federal contractors to pay workers on construction projects the \u201cprevailing wage.\u201d There has been some confusion in the last two weeks about what \u201cprevailing wages\u201d are. Simply put, prevailing wages are what workers are typically paid to do a certain job (i.e., pipelaying) in a local area. The prevailing wage is NOT the union wage.
The table below includes samples of prevailing wages for specific job functions in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Prevailing wages are determined by the Department of Labor.
Job Type (Prevailing Wage)
Alabama
Louisiana
Mississippi
Wages in Katrina-affected areas. *Mobile
As you can see, these prevailing wages are modest by anyone’s standards. If you do a back-of-the-envelope calculation, a carpenter in Louisiana working 40 hours a week for 50 weeks a year at the prevailing wage of $13.75 would earn $27,500 annually.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, a single parent raising a single child in New Orleans needs $27,192 in annual income just to pay for basic needs like food, housing, and transportation to school and work. EPI notes that this “basic family budget” is not enough to pay for lots of items many Americans take for granted – including renters’ insurance to guard against flood or fire. (See http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/datazone_fambud_budget for the calculation).
September 17, 2005 12:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
What areas are covered by this suspension, just the damaged areas, or did it cover the major migration destinations of the homeless?
Is it possible that Bush and Rove are just a little smarter, maybe a few steps ahead of the Dems? Maybe what he is doing is an American 'Enclosure Movement'.
The movement has two components:
For the life of me I couldn't figure out why you would move tens of thousands of people out of the State of La, when the northern part of the state was closer and more familiar. But here is a senario: Bush de-populates the state of the poor, low income, and infirm, pushing them (mostly) into the major inner-cities of Texas. Most will never return, most probably cannot afford to return.
Except for Houston, most cities are Democrat strongholds. What you have left in La is the insured, the well off, those that can work. You also have an over-abundance of work. Regardless of what contractors have to pay, they will likely need to pay higher wages to attract workers to the area.
Personally I would watch out for 'cost-plus' contracts which would encourage contractors to pay high wages to under-skilled workers (for their particular task), who would work less efficiently, and reap higher rewards for the employer.
Those left in the state would be very happy with this arrangement, likely to politically support their masters, the Repubs, in Local, State and Federal offices.
September 18, 2005 9:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
"For the life of me I couldn't figure out why you would move tens of thousands of people out of the State of La, when the northern part of the state was closer and more familiar. But here is a senario: Bush de-populates the state of the poor, low income, and infirm, pushing them (mostly) into the major inner-cities of Texas. Most will never return, most probably cannot afford to return. "
I think most sociologists agree that it is not a good idea to have large numbers of poor people concentrated in one area. As I understand it, NO had one of the highest concentrations of poverty in the U.S.
Perhaps this is an opportunity to assist some ot these people to find better lives elsewhere.
September 18, 2005 1:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Robert, in theory, segregation (racial and/or class based) is bad. In practice, the key question that should be asked of any "desegregation" policy initiative is: Who gets and who pays? You can fairly easily answer this question by assessing who is -- and isn't -- at the table when establishing and implementing the policy initiative. The history of urban reform movements has amply shown that top-down processes run by elites invariably move the poor around like pawns in a chess game they have no hope of winning. Bush's Katrina reconstruction plan can be harshly criticized on this score, but so too could much of LBJ's "War on Poverty." This is why I get real antsy any time a person of privilege -- on the right or the left -- insists they know what is good for poor folk.
September 18, 2005 7:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am not interested in a grand desegregation policy. Rather, I think that it would be better to allow poor people to resettle elsewhere if they so choose instead of offering any kind of incentive to return to NO.
September 19, 2005 4:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Of course most were bused out of NO without the choice of where they wanted to go. I don't think it is desegregation to ship the poor to the inner cities of Texas, or to (in the future) build concentration camps like those in Florida from hurricane Charlie.
September 19, 2005 7:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
The following from John Edwards in his 9/19 talk at the Center for American Progrss. We need a presidential candidate that supports labor organizations. Nuff said?
"Today, a single mom with two kids who works full-time for the minimum wage is about $2000 below the poverty line. The erosion of the minimum wage is a disgrace; we need to raise it to at least $7.50 an hour. Unionized workers make 30% more, so we need to give them back a real right to organize. And we need make sure that people can enter the workforce and change jobs without losing their health insurance."
September 19, 2005 10:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
In an emergency, people may not get a choice about their temporary shelter. My point is that it may not be a good idea to encourage all the poor people to return to NO as they begin to seek permanent digs.
September 20, 2005 4:21 AM | Reply | Permalink