Corker not only Republican to take union money
Corker rivals Ed Bryant and Van Hilleary, both former U.S. representatives, have sharply criticized former Chattanooga Mayor Corker for accepting $5,000 this year from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. They say the Chattanooga mayor is aligning himself with traditionally liberal groups.
But campaign records reviewed by the Chattanooga Times Free Press show U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.; Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.; and the four GOP representatives collectively accepted nearly $180,000 from organized labor political action committees beginning with the 2000 election cycle.
U.S. Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., called it “absurd to assume that every member of a labor union or that every labor union is either anti-Republican or that anyone supported by a building trade union is somehow not a Republican.”
Wamp, a Corker supporter, accepted $3,500 from the union’s political action committee, including $1,000 this year.
Hilleary and Bryant say the union money casts doubt on Corker’s stand on laws that stop the practice of forcing employees to join a union.
“There are a whole lot of Democrats in Congress who aren’t liberal enough to get the support of the IBEW’s Washington lobbyists, so it’s real troubling to see Bob Corker lining up with them,” Hilleary campaign adviser Brad Todd said earlier this summer.
Corker campaign manager Ben Mitchell said other campaign disclosures show “it is not uncommon for conservative Republicans to accept an occasional union contribution. What is uncommon is for a candidate, in this case Ed Bryant and Van Hilleary, to try to create differences where none exist.”