Where’s Warner?

Virginia's new Sen. Warner, Mark, continues to maintain radio silence about his party's No. 1 priority: the card check bill. Perhaps that's an indication he harbors doubts about the measure. But it would be even better if Warner would publicly announce his opposition.

The card check legislation, formally -- and misleadingly -- called the Employee Free Choice Act, threatens to rob American workers of the right to vote for unions by secret ballot. Although it does not technically forbid secret ballots outright, in practice it would permit union organizers to browbeat co-workers into signing authorization cards. Material from the unions' own archives shows that many employees who would vote against unionizing in private sign such cards under duress, simply to "get the union off my back."

Proponents of card check never explain why secret-ballot elections are bad per se. At most, they complain that the National Labor Relations Board does not sufficiently police the behavior of employers during organizing campaigns. But their proposed remedy would only make matters worse, by reducing NLRB oversight even further. Surely the proper response to employer abuses is more NLRB involvement, not less.

Warner's vote on card check could be crucial. The legislation already has passed the House and likely will do so again. Republicans stopped it in the Senate -- but the scales are tipping. Counting two independents, Democrats enjoy a 57-seat majority. That edge might rise to 58 if Minnesota's Al Franken is seated. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has not accepted Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's appointment of Roland Burris to fill Barack Obama's seat, but it seems likely some Democrat eventually will fill it -- bringing the Democrats within one vote of a cloture-proof 60-seat majority.

Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas has indicated provisional opposition to card check -- she said recently it is not necessary right now -- but her opposition is hardly categorical. What's more, Republican Sen. Arlen Specter has supported card check in the past, so even if Lincoln opposed it his vote would cancel hers. And if she changed her mind . . . .

Barack Obama supports card check, and so does his labor secretary-designate, Hilda Solis. Opponents of card check hope that as it gets closer to actual passage, some senators who supported it when it seemed like a "free" pro-labor vote will get a case of cold feet. Maybe so -- or maybe that's just whistling past the graveyard. With party leaders, union bosses, and the White House all putting the muscle on, the pressure on waverers will be intense. It will be intense on Warner, too.

Virginians well remember Warner's categorical pledges not to raise taxes when he ran for governor -- pledges he broke into smithereens once in office. Will the man who ran for the Senate as a "radical centrist" act like one by opposing card check -- or will he cave in to party bosses, and prove once again that his campaign promises were nothing but pretty words meant to mask his true intent?