Modern News

The misnamed Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) will take away the secret ballot for potential union members and force them to openly declare their preferences for or against a union, causing that worker to be easily open to intimidation by union thugs. This is a law currently in the table in Congress, one that Barack Obama has pledged to push through regardless of how it eliminates one of the oldest democratic rights there is.

But, now Missouri is trying to head off the possible federal enactment of “card check” (the provision that eliminates the secret ballot) by legislating that a secret ballot is protected by state law.

So, the question remains, can a state law supersede a federal law? After all, if Missouri passes their new Constitutional provision, it will come in direct conflict with the federal EFCA law if that bill gets passed in Washington.

Secret ballots would not only be guaranteed but required by Missouri law under a proposed constitutional amendment pitched yesterday.

State Sen. John Loudon, a Republican from Ballwin and co-chairman of the so-called Save Our Secret Ballot, or S.O.S., initiative in Missouri, filed for a citizen initiative petition that would put the amendment on the 2010 ballot.

Information of the S.O.S. initiative can be seen at the website: http://www.sosballot.org/.

The S.O.S. campaign maintains, in part, that:

There is an option: We can use state laws and state constitutions to create protection for secret ballots even if the federal government refuses to guarantee this right. We benefit from the wisdom of our Founding Fathers, who created a federal system so that states can protect rights even if the national government does not.

Let’s give this initiative all the support we can.