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  Legislative Update 11-26-08

NW Mountain Legislative Update

November 4th, 2008 was a huge day for NATCA and in particular the Northwest Mountain Region. It was the culmination of a year and a half of hard work and dedication from a lot of committed people. While constantly working every possible legislative angle during the 110th Congress, our regional activists were simultaneously positioning themselves for election-day dominance. We never quit on the bills we had in play, and always pushed harder and harder for more support and leverage on our issues, but we also knew that the path to contractual victory with the FAA would be much, much easier with a President that will sign our bills, a Department of Transportation that will work with us and give us a fair chance, an FAA administration that respects our profession, a Senate that will work rather than filibuster, and the removal of labor unfriendly Members of Congress.

Very early on, we set into motion a plan to systematically identify and pressure Members of Congress that were anti-NATCA. We gave them every opportunity to see that we had a legitimate gripe and a true bi-partisan cause. We did this by constantly being a presence on Capitol Hill and repeatedly bringing our issues to the front burner. There were many different avenues to approach this and the depth and breadth of our attack as well as the passion of our activists was a huge advantage for us. Some relationships strengthened, some new ones were forged, and some relationships were broken beyond repair and we moved on. By collecting and analyzing this data we had a true representation of our friends, our enemies and the indifferent. The fundamental idea was to protect the Members of Congress that supported our issues and to fight like mad to help challengers oust the ones that didn’t. We knew early on that this would be a special year when Scott Querry (ZLC) stepped up to lead the charge to take out 12 year veteran Chris Cannon in UT-3. Since this is an overwhelmingly Republican district we had no chance to replace him with a labor friendly Democrat. Instead Scott got into challenger Jason Chaffetz’s ear early and planted the NATCA seeds. He also helped this guy catch fire and Chaffetz whipped Cannon. While Chaffetz, who easily won the general election, may not be the perfect pro-NATCA choice, through the efforts of Scott Querry and his support crew in the Salt Lake valley, we now have the chance to at least have our voices heard in this district and we have a great opportunity to build a solid relationship with a Republican who could likely end up on a committee with jurisdiction on our issues. Additional facts for Utah: we were able to keep our friend Rep Matheson in office again and we also noticed that Utah had its best result by a Democrat since 1968. Hard work by NATCA members and some progressive thinking has finally shed Utah of the reputation as being the most Republican state in the nation. The title now belongs to Oklahoma!

Another early decision was to go after Rep Marilyn Musgrave, one of the worst Members of Congress in terms of support for our issues or respect for our profession. There are more NATCA members in CO-4 than any other district in the Northwest Mountain region and their frustration with this representative went well beyond our issues with the FAA. Since several members had pleaded with this office for help on various personal issues and all had received no assistance from Musgrave, it was not too difficult to get this ball rolling early. Betsy Markey emerged as the leading challenger and immediately NATCA members from ZDV started solidifying the relationship. We were the first group she addressed when she delivered her platform speech at the ZDV PAC drive in January. We had her into the facility early for a tour and we attended over 20 fundraisers on her behalf. Linda Miller (ZDV) led the way for Betsy, transcribing her campaign website into Spanish, going door to door with the candidate as personal translator in Hispanic neighborhoods, registering hundreds of new voters, volunteering twice a week for the Markey for Congress campaign for over 6 months, and motivating dozens of northern Coloradoans to step up and help out on this campaign. In the end, Markey crushed Musgrave and we now have a solid ally representing this congressional district.

With anti-labor Senator Wayne Allard retiring, Rep. Mark Udall emerged as the early favorite to move from his post as representative for CO-2 to win this seat. Udall gained from all the effort poured into the Obama and Markey campaigns and became a no-brainer to win by election day. Udall did indeed win handedly and incidentally we claimed another friend in Jared Polis, who stepped up to easily win Udall’s vacated seat. We established our relationship with Polis once it was determined that he had won the primary. Colorado was also successful in turning from red to blue in the presidential race for the first time in 44 years. Overall, CO held the seats we were supposed to and added a NATCA friendly House and Senate member. That leaves just 2 NATCA unfriendly spots in CO, one filled by a new Republican which we worked on his campaign early and have a chance to add to our bipartisan NATCA supporters and one Republican that could emerge as the odd man out in 2 years and be the victim of NATCA’s mobilization efforts in 2010. Our success in Colorado was the culmination of the hard work of the hundreds of NATCAvists and family members that stepped up. Special thanks to facility reps from ZDV, D01, DEN, and APA for their support to the cause above and beyond the call of duty. Oregon was another state where early strategies and some tough decisions paid off perfectly. Rep Hooley’s retirement added a little wrinkle to the mix but we were able to maintain all of our NATCA friendly seats in the House. We had to wait to see how the primaries would shape up before we went full bore on OR-5. Once it was determined it would be Schrader vs. Erickson we put the full court press on and helped Schrader to victory. Simultaneously, we had to use extreme caution in the Merkley vs. Smith Senate campaign. We made a decision early in 2008 to stop funding Smith through the PAC, because time and time again he had not stepped up for NATCA. However, since we had to deal with Smith’s office on our reauthorization attempts, we couldn’t fund Merkley either. Therefore, we volunteered much time and funneled money indirectly through the Oregon Democratic Party to Merkley in order for him to get the support he needed from NATCA without stepping on Smith’s toes in the process. At about the time it would have been realistic for NATCA to bail on Smith and go publicly for Jeff Merkley, Sen. Smith decides to cosponsor our latest version of FAA reauthorization. While this was purely desperation from Smith, it only strengthened our volunteerism for Merkley. NATCA has a tradition of standing behind those that support us, regardless of political party. Let there be no mistake, Sen. Smith’s actions were too little, too late. We had moved on to Merkley, but we did give Sen. Smith his due respect for his cosponsorship by not supporting his opponent in an over the top fashion. Incidentally, we will be providing debt relief PAC support to Jeff Merkley in order to let him know that NATCA will be there for him as a true friend. Thanks to state coordinator, Richard Kennington (PDX), for his excellent leadership in OR, his ability to get volunteers to emerge, his behind the scenes work on how these races were shaping up and his help in developing and executing a successful strategy in Oregon 2008.

This year, the stalwart of NATCA Idaho legislative reached into the depths of his resolve and stepped up bigger and better than ever with surprising results. Mark Griffin (BOI) has always had a tough draw with the political makeup of Idaho, but because of his extremely hands on approach, we finally had a chance. Once challengers emerged, Mark penetrated the campaigns and had an unprecedented level of access to these candidates and their events and he brought all of this knowledge and access back to the facility through a series of membership meetings attended by House challenger Walt Minnick and Senate challenger Larry LaRocco. Unfortunately, with Sen. Larry Craig stepping down in shame instead of remaining a beatable incumbent, LaRocco had an uphill battle with well known Republican Jim Risch. NATCA did all it could to assist, but ultimately Risch was not to be denied and we maintained our bridge with him to garner some support for NATCA from across the aisle. On a better note, an incumbent that should have stayed home but didn’t was Congressman Bill Sali, ID-1. Walt Minnick dodged his first bullet when Sali squeaked out a narrow victory in the Republican primary. The door was now open for Walt and NATCA then showed up to keep pushing with Mark Griffin volunteering and PAC checks rolling in. As hard as Walt campaigned, Sali did not and Walt broke through the Republican wall in Idaho with one of the most surprising upsets of the entire nation. NATCA will have to begin now to work towards keeping Minnick in office, because he will be a great asset for us thanks to the efforts of Mark Griffin, and we need to keep him. Idaho had its highest percentage voting Democratic in 20 years this cycle and all signs point to this trend continuing in the Rocky Mountain west.

While we neither picked up nor lost Congressional seats in Montana, the NATCAvists in this state were highly active in influencing the presidential race. In a state that is traditionally a Republican lock, the closer election night came, the tighter the race between Obama and McCain was in the Big Sky. NATCA members in MT benefited from the early and often exposure they had to Barrack Obama and his energizing grassroots effects. Montana ultimately voted for McCain, but Democrats gained by over 12% in the polls which is a good indication of things to come in MT. Sen. Max Baucus, and a key chairman for NATCA, easily won his re-election. Sen. Tester should follow suit in 2012 and this Democratic upswing in Montana should pressure Rep Denny Rehberg to become more pro-NATCA and labor friendly in general or he may soon face a viable challenger. The final tally had McCain winning with less than half the total vote with 49% compared to Obama’s 47%. Todd Knowles (GTF) is to be commended for his efforts in getting the vote out in Montana and by rallying the NATCA troops to show up and help the cause like never before. Well done.

If there was any disappointment in our regional results, it would be found in Wyoming. While Obama did make some gains in percentage over the Bush administration, they didn’t come close to having as good a result as during the Clinton administration. Both Senate seats were up for election and both Republican incumbents won easily. We didn’t support their challengers as we expected this result and have been working on strengthening our relationships with Senators Enzi and Barrasso instead, to encourage them to focus on efforts to benefit the NATCA members at Casper ATCT. With Rep Cubin retiring and her last election being won by only 1000 votes over Gary Trauner, we were extremely optimistic that Trauner would be able to break through in Wyoming in his second attempt. Wyoming voters weren’t ready for change of party for their representative and Cubin stepping down saved the seat for the Republican party. We will have to aggressively pursue a relationship with the new freshman Cynthia Lummis and hopefully she can be sympathetic to the needs of NATCA or we will work harder in 2010 to find a candidate that will be NATCA friendly. I would like to thank both Linda Miller (ZDV) and local president Mike Rosenbaum (CPR) for their hard work to make the chance of victory in Wyoming a realistic possibility.

Washington is a particularly polar state, meaning Democrats maintain their seats easily and Republicans traditionally have no problem keeping their smaller slice of the pie intact. However, there is one major exception, WA-8. Normally, we would be more apt to support a Democrat challenger over a Republican incumbent because of the Democrats’ strong ties to the labor community, but this is a special case and it happens to be the district for a large number of controllers at Seattle Center. What happened in WA-8, the final race in our region to be called, was textbook grassroots activism, textbook NATCA loyalty, textbook bipartisan action and an epic win for Rep Dave Reichert. This is the example of how NATCA does not turn its back on those that support us. Rep. Reichert is a Republican and a valuable Republican to NATCA as he sits on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and its Aviation Subcommittee and he supports us. Rep Reichert faced a tough challenger for the second time, Darcy Burner, and because of the motivated Democrat voters supporting Obama his odds were even slimmer than before. The Seattle legislative machine, led by Denise Spencer (ZSE), absolutely won this election for Rep Reichert. The race was so close that the votes delivered by NATCA and its network were the difference makers. Countless hours of phone banking, canvassing, strategizing, and targeting swing voters through focus group participation by NATCA members in the Seattle area helped put Reichert over the top again. No one put more on the line for Rep Reichert than Denise, who was filmed as a Union member/Democrat in Reichert’s final pre-election television commercial. This commercial was widely distributed and very well received and likely sealed Burner’s loss in the final days. Had Burner won, that would have been a very icy relationship for Denise to deal with and a potential lost cause for NATCA, but Denise’s dedication to the cause and her bold risk paid off another key victory for this Union. Thank you Denise.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Boots on the Ground participants that were from our region and/or assigned to our region this year. All of these retired members were positioned in Colorado as that is where the greatest possible return on investment was to be had. Chris McKeever (ZSE), Dave Johnson (ZHU), Mike Coulter (DEN) and Dennis Zoss (ZDV) were instrumental in our success in CO. With all their activity and our NATCA legislative contacts working at full speed, we were able to gain unbelievable access on the campaign trail and during the Democratic National Convention in Denver affording an amazing amount of participatory opportunities for hundreds of NATCA members and their families during the 2008 campaign season.

Tangible results for NATCA as a result of this election cycle remain to be seen. The sky is really the limit and our chances for resolution are better than they have been in years. There has been nothing left to chance and each decision we made has gradually strengthened our position over time. My gut says that as far as the pendulum has swung against us, it will go that far the other way, in our favor. It is just a matter of patience at this point. With that being said, when we do get our just desserts, it will not be a time for the fence-sitters to bail on the Union. Quite the contrary, it is a time to be stronger. We must build defenses that will prevent this ship from leaking in the future. It will be a time for the younger generation to receive the torch of leadership from their elders and take NATCA into the future. It is a future that is no longer in danger and is extremely bright, and we must capitalize on the momentum gathered in the past years. We don’t quit when we achieve a goal, we set new and better ones and work towards them.

It is also not a time to quit the NATCA PAC. The PAC, the tenacity of the membership that stepped up to fight back, and the fact that we had a legitimate case were the main factors in the battles we have won and the war we will ultimately win. The past 2 years show without a shadow of doubt, the power and influence of the NATCA PAC. Again, just because we have achieved this goal does not give you the luxury to cut and run. If anything, you should feel proud of the administration of our PAC and its results and wonder what a little more would do. There were hundreds of elections across this nation that we influenced to our benefit and if you like to have pro-NATCA politicians working for you, you should join the PAC if you are not a member. Perhaps, you should up your PAC in appreciation if you already “get it.”

There are some upcoming events that may interest both the experienced legislative veterans and those that have recently had their first taste of this branch of the NATCA team. First up, the first week of February 2009 will be a Mini-Lobby Week in Washington DC. This is a smaller, more targeted event aimed at hitting the Hill with our issues the first week after the new Congress is in session. This will be a time to meet new Members of Congress in their new offices, reacquaint ourselves with staff members/friends and to meet new ones, and to place NATCA’s need for justice back in the spotlight. The dates are Feb 1-5 and space is limited so if you are interested or know someone from your facility that is, please submit their names through your state legislative coordinators for approval. This event is geared toward the more experienced grassroots lobbyists that are comfortable working without instruction, but there will be some exceptions based on NATCA members’ involvement in campaigns for new Members of Congress and the necessity to tap into new areas with our activism. By no means let anyone be discouraged from volunteering based on inexperience. There will be enough talent present to get any newbies spooled up and confident quickly.

Consequently, the event designed for recruiting and training new activists is NATCA in Washington (NiW). This is a large event with about 400 NATCA activists descending from all corners of the country onto Capitol Hill in order to make one large statement to Congress about the strength, unity, and passion as well as the issues concerning all NATCA members. This is the place to learn from years of knowledge gathered. There are basic training courses, issues briefings, fiery speeches from NATCA Congressional champions, and tons of solidarity. The event culminates with a round of appointments on the Hill with your Senators and Representatives. During the course of the week, you will learn all the tools you need to successfully conduct yourself and to spread NATCA’s message to your elected officials and their staff, in DC and locally. The dates of NiW are May 18-24 and attendance is at the discretion of locals with the intent of having a diverse representation of as many facilities and Congressional districts as possible. If anyone has any interest in this event, have them work towards getting the time off and when we determine the numbers of attendees I will try my best to accommodate all that want to be apart of this team.

In closing, I would like to thank everyone that helped out this year. No effort was too small or went unnoticed. We could not have asked for much more in terms of success regionally and it is a true testament to the amount of effort we all exerted. I would also like to recognize the many spouses, families and friends that lent a hand or tolerated your time away from them in order to get the job done. I look forward to working with you all again on future campaigns and other legislative efforts.


Brody McCray
NATCA Legislative Committee