Rome burns; will legislators fiddle?

That's the question surrounding today's reintroduction of House Bill 1528 and Senate Bill 5446, this year's version of the labor unions' notorious gag rule bill.   Although deceptively titled the "Worker Privacy Act" and cloaked in talking points about rights to conscience and privacy in political and religious matters, the bill is designed to prohibit employers from effective communication about labor unions during an organizing campaign.  It arms the employee with a new right to decide which meetings, communications, and valid job directives he or she will listen to, a right enforced by a new lawsuit against the employer with the threat of punitive damages.  

One problem: The bill would prohibit, with respect to unions, a constitutional free speech right that federal law explicitly protects.  It's pre-empted.  That's why no other state, despite intense national lobbying by the AFL-CIO, has passed this bill.  The only state that came close, California, had their similar 2004 attempt struck down last summer by the US Supreme Court on federal pre-emption grounds.  

Undeterred, advocates have rolled out this bill again with fanfare, exaggeration, and caricature.  But it's a needless diversion.  

In this challenging economy, with the state unemployment rate rising to 7.1 percent and the Legislature struggling with a projected $6+ billion deficit, lawmakers waste their time and the taxpayers' money considering a bill the core purpose of which has already been ruled beyond the authority of states to regulate.    

Cross-posted at Olympia Business Watch.