What Americans for Prosperity gets wrong about right to work
This is so bad?
I watched CNN and MSNBC the last few days. I should be packing my bags for any northern European country because it’s so much better there. I wonder why 11 million illegal immigrants stay here because of the miserable conditions. How MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle takes it is beyond my comprehension.
However, I will stay and endure what is here.
Chris Anderson
Basehor
What’s left out
The recent guest commentary on right to work by Jeremy Cady, director of Americans for Prosperity-Missouri, makes a major omission. (Aug. 24, 11A, “The question over right to work isn’t settled”)
Cady says there was a Supreme Court decision that ruled unions are free to negotiate members-only contracts. What he leaves out is about as big as the tax savings his billionaire sponsor, Charles Koch, got from President Donald Trump: The union would have to give up its right to exclusive representation, which is the heart and soul of U.S. labor law and collective bargaining.
Indeed, there would be no more “collective” in collective bargaining, because if the union doesn’t represent and negotiate for all the workers, then what compels the employer to sit down and negotiate with it at all? What would prevent management from cutting a deal with non-members and forcing it on the members?
Right to work is and always has been an assault on working people by greedy corporations. Cady’s claim that union membership has risen in right-to-work states is also phony.
Judy Ancel
Kansas City
A better way
I don’t understand why Steve Kraske is trying to blame the two teenage candidates for the outcome of the Kansas Republican gubernatorial primary. (Aug. 31, 9A, “Do those high schoolers running for governor seem so cute now?”)
They were eligible, so it isn’t as if they were doing anything wrong. It also isn’t their fault the party had a primary vulnerable to vote-splitting.
If Kraske wants a solution to the problem, he should advocate for election reform. Many systems around the world are unaffected by vote-splitting. Ranked choice voting is gaining popularity in the United States. If it had been used in this primary, those who voted for one of the teenage candidates would have had their votes transferred to their next choice if they selected one.
This would also have happened to those who voted for Jim Barnett, Patrick Kucera or Ken Selzer. Ultimately, most of those voters would have ranked Secretary of State Kris Kobach or Gov. Jeff Colyer, and the winner would have had a majority.
If we want a healthier government, we should encourage more candidates to run for office, not fewer. We should also have a system that encourages voters to vote for the candidates they truly want, rather than pressuring them to pick the lesser of two evils.
Richard Pund
Overland Park
In a name
When I receive a call from the Republican Party wanting my vote, I reply that I’m a Democrat. And when the Democrats call wanting my vote, I tell them I’m a Republican. When they both call back and want to know if I’m an independent, I tell them no, I’m a dependent.
Jack L. Hatchitt
Lee’s Summit
Energy leadership
Thank you to Sen. Roy Blunt for his leadership and support of Missouri’s biodiesel producers. Missouri is the third-largest biodiesel-producing state, with more than 200 million gallons annually.
In late August, Blunt wrote to acting Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler — with bipartisan signatures from 38 of his colleagues, including Sen. Claire McCaskill — urging him to increase Renewable Fuel Standard volumes.
The biodiesel industry produces more fuel than the volumes Congress set more than a decade ago. I agree with the senators that EPA should show more confidence in the program’s ability to drive growth in Missouri’s biodiesel industry.
The letter also accurately notes that the EPA recently granted an extraordinary number of exemptions to the standard, reducing demand for biodiesel by 300 million gallons. By failing to ensure that annual Renewable Fuel Standard volumes are met, the EPA is essentially wiping out more than a year’s worth of Missouri’s biodiesel production.
Every 100 million gallons of domestic biodiesel production creates several thousand jobs throughout the state’s economy. Moreover, biodiesel is an advanced biofuel that can cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than half compared with petroleum diesel.
The Renewable Fuel Standard program’s future is vital to Missouri’s economy.
Jim Galvin
CEO, Lakeview Energy
Moberly, Mo.