Mitch McConnell is very, very concerned about the Employee Free Choice Act's abrogation of the secret ballot. In this he joins such electoral process wonks as Mickey Kaus and the Chamber of Commerce, all of whom seem to forget their fealty to small-d democracy when elections (with their attendant suppression) come around, and rediscover it whenever the unions want card check.
But fine: Let's separate one from the other. I'll happily accept a sort of card check where a majority of cards trigger an instant secret election (no time for captive meetings, etc), where penalties for employers firing unionizing workers are severe (maybe $100,000 for smaller companies and a $1 million for larger corporations?), where captive meetings are outlawed and threats are actionable. There are many ways to clamp down on employer intimidation. The test for someone like McConnell -- or Kaus, or the others -- is whether they support any of them, or have just alit on some brand new affection for the secret vote in order to kill a pro-union measure they loathe.
