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Poll on card-check could be misleading

Liberals are in an uproar about the recent poll stating that Pennsylvanians oppose the Employee Free Choice Act, also known as “card-check.” They say questions in the Susquehanna poll, which showed more than half of the state’s voters against the bill, were misleading.

Our newest blogger Tammy Alonso, in particular, makes some good points on this issue.

When polls break it’s our tendency to quickly get the information online, including the original source documents, so people can have an immediate look at it and judge for themselves.

And while, as a non-partisan reporter, I try not to take sides on these issues, I think the liberals have a point here.

Specifically, the poll questions say at least twice that the legislation “effectively ends” employees’ rights to secret-ballot union elections. The questions are, in some ways, correct in implying that most secret-ballot elections would go the way of the Florida hanging-chad. However, a mandate getting rid of secret elections simply isn’t in the legislative language.  As the liberals have noted, it’s the option of moving away from a secret-ballot that the bill would provide.

In other words, just because a law lets me cross state lines to buy a beer doesn’t mean I’m legally required to go to New Jersey to buy that beer. It’s an option.

Perhaps more importantly, the small print notes that the poll was sponsored by Citizens to Protect PA Jobs, which has been lobbying against EFCA.

I still think this poll has value—while surely partisan at some level, Susquehanna Polling & Research is no political-hack polling firm.

The question is how much value.

You can check out the full EFCA text for yourself. If you think I’m giving the liberals too fair a shake, let me know by posting a comment or e-mailing. Regardless of where you stand, I think we can all agree this is an important issue, one that needs to be debated openly and with the full facts in hand.

Check out the House bill here and the Senate version here.

UPDATE, 11:48 am: I’ve changed the poll on the front page of the site to be about this issue. Make your voice heard!

June 10, 2009 at 10:05 am

--Dan Hirschhorn

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