Breaking Point

Now that Arlen Specter has pretty much killed EFCA, it didn't take long before other supporters mysteriously started turning on the President and the legislation, not wanting to upset business interests in their home states.

In what is, perhaps, the most devastating blow yet to the fate of the Employee Free Choice Act, Sen. Blanche Lincoln said on Monday that she will oppose the union-backed legislation.

The Arkansas Democrat, whose home state includes WalMart, one of the major business groups fighting EFCA, announced her decision during a meeting of the Little Rock Political Animals Club.

"I cannot support that bill," Lincoln said, according to Arkansas Business. "Cannot support that bill in its current form. Cannot support and will not support moving it forward in its current form."

Labor forces can ill-afford to lose any Democrats in this legislative battle, given the partisan lines of the EFCA vote in 2007. Already, Sen. Arlen Specter, the lone Senate Republican to vote for cloture on the Employee Free Choice Act back then, has indicated he will oppose cloture if the bill were to be brought up in this Congress.

Lincoln, long considered a crucial Democratic vote on EFCA, was the focus of intense political pressure. Union groups were courting her support while the business community had made her a primary target for defection. Indeed, WalMart hired her former chief of staff for the precise purpose of lobbying on EFCA. Lincoln is up for reelection in 2010.

A red state Dem up for reelection, from the home of Wal-Mart.

Yeah, nobody could have predicted, etc. yadda yadda.