UPDATES BELOW!: Bill passes 241-185, McIntyre joins the other N.C. Dems

Why have six of North Carolina’s seven Democratic congressmen (including our own David Price but excluding 7th District Rep. Mike McIntyre) co-sponsored legislation to outlaw secret ballots? No, not for people who go to the polls to vote for them. They want to end it for workers who would prefer not to have a union in their workplace.

The legislation, co-sponsored by 234 Democrats, is Orwellianly called the Employee Free Choice Act of 2007. It would require workers to sign cards to signify their preference for a union. Obviously, those who don’t choose to sign will be known as soon as the list of pro-union workers is revealed. With the current system of secret balloting only the final vote tally is known, thus allowing a voter protective anonymity.

The five Democrat co-sponsors from North Carolina are 1st District Rep. G.K. Butterfield, 2nd District Rep. Bob Etheridge, 4th District Rep. David Price, 11th District Rep. Heath Shuler, 12th District Rep. Melvin Watt, and 13th District Rep. Brad Miller. Interestingly, H.R. 800, as the bill is called, does not show up on the “Co-sponsored Legislation” lists of Butterfield, Etheridge or Miller. Watt has no list of co-sponsored legislation on his site, and while it shows on the lists of Price and Shuler, it is not mentioned elsewhere on their sites.

None of the members mentions the bill on his issues pages, nor have they issued any press releases explaining why they want anti-union workers to be identified and face probable intimidation by pro-union co-workers. But that’s a small concern when campaign contributions from Big Labor are at stake.

UPDATE: U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, chief deputy Republican whip, has produced this video showing what’s at stake with this bill. (h/t Powerline)

UPDATE: H.R. 800 passed the House 241-185. Thirteen Republicans voted for it, only two Democrats voted against it (Oklahoma’s Dan Boren and Mississippi’s Gene Taylor). Mike McIntyre joined the other N.C. Democratic co-sponsors of the bill in voting for it (Price, Etheridge, Watt, Butterfield, Shuler, Miller). All N.C. Republicans voted against the bill (Foxx, Coble, Jones, Hayes, Myrick and McHenry).

UPDATE: Correction made in the first paragraph. I wrote that five of six Democrats co-sponsored the bill instead of six of seven.