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Dean’s November: The outsider now has the inside track in the race for the White House (Harold Meyerson, 11/13/03, LA Weekly)

As the nation’s largest public sector union, AFSCME was built for political action; to sit out the Democratic primary season would all but negate its raison d’être. As well, McEntee did not feel he could let Stern, with whom he’s developed a rivalry (both unions organize health-care workers), have the inside track with the man most likely to become the Democratic nominee.

The joint endorsement of the two unions strengthens Dean where he’s already strong, in America’s cosmopolitan centers. AFSCME is as concentrated in New York as the SEIU is in California. Neither union has much strength in the anti-union South, though AFSCME does have politically active locals throughout the Midwest. And those are the two regions where Dean could use their help — or anybody’s — the most.

Federalist #43: The Same Subject Continued (The Powers Conferred by the Constitution Further Considered) For the Independent Journal

"To exercise exclusive legislation, in all cases whatsoever, over such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular States and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States; and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislatures of the States in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings."

The indispensable necessity of complete authority at the seat of government, carries its own evidence with it. It is a power exercised by every legislature of the Union, I might say of the world, by virtue of its general supremacy. Without it, not only the public authority might be insulted and its proceedings interrupted with impunity; but a dependence of the members of the general government on the State comprehending the seat of the government, for protection in the exercise of their duty, might bring on the national councils an imputation of awe or influence, equally dishonorable to the government and dissatisfactory to the other members of the Confederacy. This consideration has the more weight, as the gradual accumulation of public improvements at the stationary residence of the government would be both too great a public pledge to be left in the hands of a single State, and would create so many obstacles to a removal of the government, as still further to abridge its necessary independence. The extent of this federal district is sufficiently circumscribed to satisfy every jealousy of an opposite nature. And as it is to be appropriated to this use with the consent of the State ceding it; as the State will no doubt provide in the compact for the rights and the consent of the citizens inhabiting it; as the inhabitants will find sufficient inducements of interest to become willing parties to the cession; as they will have had their voice in the election of the government which is to exercise authority over them; as a municipal legislature for local purposes, derived from their own suffrages, will of course be allowed them; and as the authority of the legislature of the State, and of the inhabitants of the ceded part of it, to concur in the cession, will be derived from the whole people of the State in their adoption of the Constitution, every imaginable objection seems to be obviated. The necessity of a like authority over forts, magazines, etc. , established by the general government, is not less evident. The public money expended on such places, and the public property deposited in them, requires that they should be exempt from the authority of the particular State. Nor would it be proper for the places on which the security of the entire Union may depend, to be in any degree dependent on a particular member of it. All objections and scruples are here also obviated, by requiring the concurrence of the States concerned, in every such establishment.

Of all the things that would alarm the Founders, perhaps none stands out above the influence that government employees now wield over our politics.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 15, 2003 7:26 AM