Late last week, AFSCME President Gerry McEntee endorsed former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel in the Chicago Mayoral Election. McEntee told Politico, "If I lived in Chicago, I would vote for him for mayor." The president of the giant public workers union said that Emanuel's record was, on balance, "for progressive forces and ideas."
McEntee's words carry a lot of weight within the labor movement. Since 1990, AFSCME has donated $42 million to federal election campaigns, with over 95 percent of that going to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. He made headlines in 2007 by telling the Washington Post that "I'm the sheriff of the incumbent-protection program." McEntee's opposition to the labor movement knocking corporate Democrat out in primaries has led one union political director to privately label him "the Democratic Party's representative on the executive committee of the AFL-CIO."
