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A potentially troublesome bill on "worker privacy" has been shelved according to multiple reports. Most interesting is this bit from the Times coverage:

Gov. Chris Gregoire and the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate announced this morning that they will no longer consider taking action on a worker privacy proposal because of an e-mail that linked action on the bills to campaign contributions...

[snip]

Gregoire, Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown and House Speaker Frank Chopp issued a joint statement that said the matter has been forwarded to the State Patrol for investigation.

The Democratic leaders said that "Immediately upon becoming aware of an email linking potential action on the bill to campaign contributions, bringing the bill forward was no longer an option....The email raises serious legal and ethical questions."

It would appear someone, or multiple persons, in the organized labor community may have crossed a specific line in lobbying on the bill, by specifically stating that campaign contributions would be tied to action on the legislation in question.

That creates an explicit problem. Compare for example languages expressed via resolution by some local WEA affiliates in opposing the original education legislation covered here by Publicola. The assembled affiliates passed a resolution, forwarded to the Legislature, noting they:

will not recommend, support or endorse in any manner, a [legislator] who votes for [the original legislation] as currently constituted or as may be amended or such other legislation that incorporates the intent or components of [said bills].

They, "will actively oppose the re-election in 2010 and 2012, of any [legislator] who votes in favor of [the legislation]" and furthermore "will not participate-in, condone or support in any manner efforts to modify or amend [the legislation]."

The resolution concludes noting that its text will be disseminated to a number of persons and organizations, including "all WEA-PAC members" relevant to the objecting WEA affiliates. Gee, what does a PAC do? Give money by chance?

Either way, both are examples of organized labor playing absolute hardball. The WEA affiliates in question objected mightily to prudent education reform [pdf], that happened to have impressive cross-aisle support. Not only did they object, they said they refused to participate in even working on the bill. Their message: take your proposed accountability and shove it!

They just weren't foolish enough to explicitly link campaign contributions to their preferred legislative action.

For background, the Everett Herald mostly recently opined on the "worker privacy" bill in question:

Labor issues are also key. Now is not the time for the Legislature to be entertaining dramatic changes in labor law, particularly the "Worker Privacy Act" now being considered. Such a law, which exists in no other state, would prohibit employers from requiring workers to attend certain meetings, including ones dealing with labor relations. It addresses a problem that we don't think exists, and sends exactly the wrong signal to employers in aerospace and other industries.

The Seattle Times weighed in earlier as well:

This bill is entirely one-sided: It restricts employers but not unions. It tilts the balance in a way that has not been done in any other state. And already Washington is one of the most union-friendly states.

The Legislature should scrap this bill and focus on balancing the budget.

Nice of the Governor and the Legislature to oblige, though probably not via the means anyone might have guessed.

UPDATE: Jerry Cornfiled has a helpful timeline of how the email in question quickly led to shutting down all consideration of the bill.

UPDATE II: The Seattle Times article on the affair has identified the Washington State Labor Council as the potential culprit:

Knowledgeable sources who have read the e-mails said they came from the Washington State Labor Council. All calls to the group were referred to its president, Rick Bender. He could not be reach for comment.

However, Bender e-mailed a statement to the news media saying: "We regret the incident. It was a result of frustration with the Legislature's failure to protect workers' rights in the workplace. Our job is to always protect workers' rights. We do not believe that any law has been violated and we have no additional comments until we know where this will go."

UPDATE III: The Seattle Times has the text of the offending email:

Union leaders would send a message to the State Democratic party and to the Truman and Roosevelt funds from the House and Senate that "not another dime from labor" until the Governor signs the Worker Privacy Act.

It will be interesting to see what the actual legal problem is here. This language is not wildly different than that which passionate interest groups send to their members in the heat of policy fights. That said, the "not another dime" could clearly have taken things over a legal line. Moreover, if labor were actually serious about no money to all the referenced Democratic organizations then we're taking about A LOT of left-of-center campaign cash up in the air.