HILDA SOLIS IS ANOTHER LIAR~A LOBBIEST FOR LABOR SECRETARY ?

THIS WOMEN IS A CROOK IN SHEEPS CLOTHING. VOTE NO TO HER CONFIRMATION. CARD CHECK IS ILLEGAL AND SHE IS A STRONG ADVOCATE FOR IT. THIS IS NOT FAIR. UNIONS HAVE RUINED AMERICAS WORKFORCE.
JUST SAY NO !!
















This congresswoman was on the board of a Union Lobbying firm as its Treasurer, approving expenditures.

Then she approves lobbying funds to lobby her own sponsored house bills aimed at benefiting the unions.

This one is right up there with a tax-cheat in charge of the IRS

The Nominee Who Lobbied Herself

A seemingly innocuous letter sent to the Clerk of the House of Representatives last Thursday by President Obama's Secretary of Labor nominee Hilda Solis raises serious and troubling legal questions about her nomination and apparent violation of House ethics rules. Not only was she involved with a private organization that was lobbying her fellow legislators on a bill that she has cosponsored, but she apparently kept her involvement secret and failed to reveal a clear conflict of interest.

Solis was a co-sponsor in 2007 of the so-called "Employee Free Choice Act," the card check legislation that would effectively eliminate the secret ballot and destroy the ability of employees to make an anonymous decision (without fear of retribution) on whether they want to join a union. She was also a co-sponsor of the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act, legislation that would force states to allow public safety officers to form unions. At the same time, however, Solis was a board member of a pro-union organization, American Rights at Work, that has been lobbying Congress on both of these bills. According to a letter filed by Solis with the House Clerk on January 29, 2009, she was not just a director of the ARW, along with fellow travelers like David Bonior, Julian Bond, and John Sweeney, she was actually the treasurer. In other words, she is the official legally charged with the fiduciary duty of approving and signing off on all spending by the organization. And to make matters worse, she did not reveal to her colleagues in the House of Representatives that membership on her financial disclosure forms, which may constitute a separate ethical violation.

Activists Rally for Bill Requiring Open Voting to Form Unions
Union activists are rallying on Capitol Hill Wednesday in support of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for workers to unionize.
Union activists are rallying on Capitol Hill Wednesday in support of the Employee Free Choice Act that supporters say would make it easier for workers to unionize but opponents call a "card check" intended to intimidate.

The key provision stirring debate is a measure that eliminates the secret ballot that is now required in votes among employees deciding whether to organize.

Under current law if 50 percent of a company's workers sign union cards, the company may choose to recognize their workers as unionized. Otherwise, if 30 percent of the workers show interest in unionizing, the decision goes to a secret ballot, and if 50 percent vote for a union, then they can form one whether the company wants it or not.

Under the Employee Free Choice Act now up for debate, workers could still use the 30 percent mark to use a secret ballot route to unionize but if a majority signs union cards, then the workers would be unionized. The company would have nothing to do with it.

Supporters and opponents say that is a much likelier scenario under the new law, and critics argue that it will result in workers being forced to sign cards even when they don't want to.

Among the supporters attending the rally were Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa and Rep. George Miller, D-Calif. They say the bill protects employees from employer violations of labor laws.

Organizers said they brought a petition of more than 1 million signatures to urge Congress to pass the bill. Yet with about 16 million union members in the country, the petition represents only a fraction of organized workers supporting this effort.

The bill does have support of two powerful players: President Obama and his nominee for labor secretary, Rep. Hilda Solis, D-Calif. In fact, Solis co-sponsored the bill in the House last year and may run into opposition in her confirmation hearing because of her support for the measure.

The bill passed the House last year but didn't pass the Senate. With more Democrats in the Senate this go-round, it's possible the bill has enough support to get passed.


Labor nominee Hilda Solis hits GOP roadblock
Her appointment has been in limbo since her confirmation hearing, in which Republican senators say she was evasive on key questions.
Reporting from Washington -- President Obama's choice to head the Labor Department is trying to overcome resistance to her nomination from Republican senators, who contend she dodged important questions during her confirmation hearing.

Rep. Hilda L. Solis, a Democrat from El Monte, is one of several prominent Cabinet nominees still awaiting confirmation more than a week after the president took office.


Eric H. Holder Jr., tapped to be attorney general, is likely to be confirmed by the Senate on Monday.

Tom Daschle, a former Senate majority leader, is expected to win confirmation as Health and Human Services secretary. The Senate Finance Committee's ranking Republican, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, said the committee's vetting of Daschle was nearly complete.

Solis' nomination has been in limbo since Jan. 9, when she failed to impress Republican senators during a confirmation hearing before the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, chaired by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass).


The committee has taken no action on her appointment and has none scheduled. In Solis' camp, frustration is mounting.

Solis, who was elected to Congress in 2000, has compiled a reliably pro-labor voting record. But during the hearing, she said she was not "qualified" to answer when she was asked her position on "right to work" laws, which are often strongly opposed by labor unions. "Right to work" laws say employees cannot be compelled to join a union or pay dues as a condition of employment.

Solis also gave noncommittal responses to questions about the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for workers to form bargaining units. Under the act, employees could form a union by filling out a card, rather than voting in a secret election. Labor and business groups are prepared to spend millions of dollars dueling over the legislation, which could be taken up in the House in a few weeks.

Solis, the daughter of union members, was a co-sponsor of the card check-off legislation in 2007.

Republican members who questioned Solis about the bill left the Jan. 9 hearing disappointed.

Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) said in an interview: "She was at best evasive in answering questions." Isakson said he had not made up his mind about whether to vote for Solis.

One Republican Senate aide said members bristled at Solis' contention that she was not qualified to give certain answers.

"Members expect the nominee to be qualified to answer questions," said the aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont and member of the labor committee, defended Solis. "That's her crime -- standing up for working people and not big money interests," he said in an interview. "Based on the last eight years, there are a number of Republicans who think the function of the secretary of Labor is to represent big money rather than working families."

After the hearing, Republican members sent Solis a series of questions. In one reply, which was obtained by the Tribune Washington Bureau, Solis described her support for the union-organizing proposal as unambiguous. She said that if she became Labor secretary, she "would expect to continue to advocate for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act."

"Not all workers, of course, want or feel they need a union," she wrote in answer to another question. "But where a majority of the workers in a given workplace have decided that they want a union, it is a matter of basic fairness that they should be allowed to have one. That is why I support the Employee Free Choice Act."

The top Republican on the labor committee, Sen. Michael B. Enzi (R-Wyo.), has sent other questions to Solis and is awaiting answers. The White House said Solis had responded to more than 15 sets of written questions from the committee. A Democratic committee aide said Solis' appointment was being delayed while Republicans reviewed her replies.

No date for a committee vote has been set, but an Obama spokesman on Thursday described the nomination as "on track."

Rep. Hilda L. Solis (D-Calif.) will take over the Labor Department in an imploding job market, while Big Labor is licking its chops for payback in Washington.

So why is she giving up a potential leadership track in the House for one of the more daunting cabinet jobs?

Solis, the daughter of a Teamster and a leader in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, surprised even some of her colleagues with the move.

Solis didn’t say a word about the potential job offer in a recent conversation with California Rep. Lois Capps. “If she was being considered then, she’s good at holding it to herself,” Capps said.

Colleagues viewed Solis, a close ally to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), as a strong candidate for the party leadership one day. Just this month, her name floated as a potential successor to Rep. Xavier Becerra as vice chair of the Democratic Caucus before Becerra withdrew his name from consideration as U.S. trade representative.

But Solis’ strong ties to labor seem to be a factor in the choice, and she’s already winning praise from union chiefs. In this cabinet job, she’ll not only carry the expectations of Hispanic political leaders but will have to navigate between the heavy hand of labor unions and the well-funded business lobbyists on K Street.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney was one of the first to laud her selection.

“We're thrilled at the prospect of having Rep. Hilda Solis as our nation's next labor secretary,” Sweeney said in a statement shortly after news leaked out. “We're confident that she will return to the Labor Department one of its core missions — to defend workers' basic rights in our nation's workplaces.”

Since coming to Congress in 2001, Solis has had a 97 percent AFL-CIO voting record and been a major recipient of union political donations. In fact, she first made her name as California state senator with a successful 1996 campaign to pass a minimum wage hike initiative.

Most Democrats were quiet about the news on Thursday, waiting for Obama’s transition team to make the news official before showering their colleague in praise. Her own office would not comment on the news Thursday. A spokeswoman said, “It’s a sensitive process and we want to abide by the rules.”

The genial and soft-spoken lawmaker comes across as disarmingly sweet in conversations with reporters, advocates and colleagues, but she came to Congress in 2000 by knocking off a longtime incumbent from her own party, out-raising him by a 4-1 ratio with help from the unions, EMILY’s List and Sen. Barbara Boxer, according to the Almanac of American Politics.

Solis has earned kudos from organized labor during her tenure in the House, fighting legislation that would weaken on-the-job safety requirements.

One of the top union priorities in the new Congress is the Employee Free Choice Act — aka card check bill — which would make it much easier for nonunion shops to organize, and Solis supported that bill when it passed the House last year. The legislation stalled in the Senate.

Most recently, Solis sought direct federal funding and other incentives to create more so-called green jobs in the renewable energy sector. An environmental advocate with strong support from groups like the Sierra Club, she helped author legislation the House passed last year to bolster job training programs in the field, like teaching workers how to install solar panels or retrofit buildings to be more energy efficient.

She also served on the speaker’s select committee to address global warming and has co-sponsored legislation to limit carbon emissions across the board.

Solis has a far lower profile than some of the other rumored nominees for the labor post, a fact that could diminish the clout of the agency with the new administration. She is, however, close to Pelosi and has worked with Obama’s newly appointed chief of staff Rahm Emanuel to help recruiting Latino candidates.

Capps called Solis Thursday to tell her she is “a wonderful fit” for the job of labor secretary.

“Her whole background has been working families,” Capps said. “She knows what everyday Americans are living through. She will bring to the table so many concerns that she’s lived with her whole life in the working class areas of East L.A.”

Solis hails from a working-class Hispanic community in Southern California. According to the Almanac, her dad, a Mexican shop steward with the Teamsters, met her mom, a Nicaraguan assembly-line worker, during citizenship classes in Los Angeles.

Capps said she expects Solis to remain an advocate for the immigrant community — not always the most politically popular topic on the presidential campaign trail, even within the world of organized labor.

The nomination would make her the third Hispanic to join the incoming Obama administration, following New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson as the president-elect’s nominee to head the Department of Commerce and Colorado Ken Salazar at the Department of the Interior.

“She will bring a compelling voice on behalf of working families, particularly women and Hispanics,” Capps said, adding that Solis will be “mindful of any newcomer population that tends to do the hard work.”

Solis returns home every weekend to spend time with her elderly parents and her husband, who owns an auto repair shop in the district.

“I know that my seven siblings and I would not be where we are today without the wages and other protections my parents earned with the help of their union,” Solis wrote in the Huffington Post in March.

Former staffers describe Solis as a tenacious fighter, pointing to a congressional delegation Solis recently led to El Paso, Texas, where hundreds of women have been murdered over the past decade in towns near the U.S. border.

“What’s the political gain from that,” said a former Washington aide. “It really is all about the working class for her.”