When it comes to Sen. Al Franken, sometimes it's hard to tell if the joke's on him or on all of us.
In early October, Franken -- a former Saturday Night Live comic and now the junior senator from Minnesota -- presented legislation designed to paint Republicans into an uncomfortable corner, to let him claim the moral high ground of standing up for women's rights, and to enrich some of his biggest campaign donors. Specifically, Franken introduced an amendment to the defense appropriations bill that would bar the Pentagon from doing business with any contractor or subcontractor that requires its employees to submit to arbitration (and thus avoid court proceedings) over any civil-rights claims or actions related to sexual assault.
Franken and the Left styled the measure as "anti-rape" legislation, when in fact it's really a thinly veiled gift to trial lawyers, to whom the Democratic party is largely in thrall. Federal law already precludes arbitration for such serious crimes, and the amendment would sweep in all manner of ordinary employment disputes.
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That's why 30 Republican senators voted against it. For their efforts, they were lambasted in the liberal blogosphere as "pro-rape" politicians harboring a deep-seated hatred for women. A scurrilous website emerged called RepublicansForRape.org, while Huffington Post bloggers and Jon Stewart teed off on the GOP's supposed patriarchy.
No matter that the Defense Department itself opposed the amendment, or that the Obama White House would go only so far as to support its "intent," but not its content. Republicans would be made to suffer for Franken's clever sleight-of-hand.
... By lumping these relatively minor (although costly) torts with the horrifying and attention-grabbing crime of rape, it becomes impossible -- in the eyes of liberals -- to oppose the legislation without also promoting sexual assault. Democratic candidates have wasted no time trying to capitalize on Republican opposition. Rep. Charlie Melancon (D., La.), who's chasing Sen. David Vitter's (R.) seat, slammed Vitter in a campaign mailer for "allow[ing] taxpayer-funded companies to sweep rape charges under the rug." And at a town-hall meeting in Baton Rouge hosted by Vitter in late October, a woman identifying herself as a rape victim challenged the position of the senator, who took refuge in the Pentagon's and White House's opposition to it.
Yet Franken's amendment does something more than make Republicans whipping boys for liberals: It moves the employer-employee relationship one step closer to a key goal of the plaintiffs' bar, namely, the abolition of arbitration clauses. For all the reasons explained above -- higher legal costs, bigger jury paydays -- trial attorneys have long loathed the power of employers to bypass court battles via arbitration.
And it's not surprising that Franken and his brethren are doing their bidding. Indeed, Franken between 2005 and 2009 raked in over $1.2 million in campaign contributions from the legal profession, more than from any other industry group. According to Paul Mouton, a political consultant who specializes in tracking contributions, Franken's legal take exceeds $1.6 million. Likewise, during the same time period, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D., La.), who co-sponsored the amendment with Franken, raised more than $1.2 million from lawyers -- in her case, four times more money than she raised from any other industry.
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When it comes to Sen. Al Franken, sometimes it's hard to tell if the joke's on him or on all of us.