Eight Republican Senators Introduce National Right to Work Bill in their Latest Act of Hypocrisy

Today, Senator Jim DeMint and seven of his Republican colleagues introduced the National Right to Work Act. Right to Work legislation allows workers to work on union contracts without ever paying union dues - this weakens the union's ability to negotiate for the best wage and benefits and allows those workers to benefit from any negotiated wages without paying their part towards that negotiation. This legislation would nationalize a policy that many states have adopted to weaken the bargaining rights of workers and therefore, the middle class.

This legislation isn't funny, but what is funny is the level of hypocrisy of half of these Senators (and no, I'm not talking about David Vitter's diaper fetish with prostitutes while he lectures everyone else on traditional family values). Which Republicans are signing onto this effort with DeMint?

Sens. Tom Coburn (R-OK), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Mike Lee (R-UT), Rand Paul (R-KY), James Risch (R-ID), Pat Toomey (R-PA) and David Vitter (R-LA).

Several of these very Republicans signed onto another Jim DeMint effort just last week! This one was a pledge to block any and all legislation that does not meet their specific five point criteria. So, who is a member of the Senate's new gang of obstruction?

Senators Tom Coburn (R-OK), John McCain (R-AZ), Jim DeMint (R-SC), John Ensign (R-NV), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Rand Paul (R-KY), Mike Lee (R-UT) and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH).

One of those five point criteria was very specific about following the Constitution to the letter, so it's kind of funny that - just five days after the pledge - many of the same Senators who made it are jumping onto legislation that will violate it.

Congress Must Not Infringe Upon the Constitutional Rights of the People: Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution grants Congress a very limited set of enumerated powers. Far too often, Congress infringes upon the rights and liberties reserved for the people and the states provided elsewhere in the Constitution. These overreaches are no more than an afterthought when most bills are debated. To restore the intended balance of powers between the states and the federal government and to preserve the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution, all bills must have a clear and obvious basis connected to one of the enumerated powers and must not infringe upon any of the rights guaranteed to the people.

Here's the actual letter with each Senator's hypocritical signature.

Chalk this up as the latest move towards crushing the middle class and destroying all of the labor rights unions have been fighting for since their birth. Pat Garofalo at Think Progress has more on how Congressional Republicans are trying to help their anti-worker Republican friends on the state level destroy the country and reinvent Feudalism for the 21st Century.