There is a disconnect between the ferocity with which unions are pressing for the Employee Free Choice Act—better known as card check—and their representation of the bill. If, as they assert, it does not do away with the secret ballot and would make no radical changes to existing labor law, then why are they so desperate for its passage?

The people who build and repair Dominion Virginia Power plants today challenged the people who own them to hire more state workers for the jobs.

It was the political equivalent of a pig pile, with U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner, D-Va., stuck at the bottom. Warner, still silent on the latest effort to make unionizations easier, came under pressure from friends on both sides to take a stand.

IIn a recent sit-down with the Editorial staff of this newspaper, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe was asked for his thoughts on education. McAuliffe heaped praise on Gov. Tim Kaine’s efforts to expand pre-kindergarten. He advocated smaller class sizes in kindergarten through the third grade. Spending more money on the front end, he said, would save money in later years. He noted that teacher salaries in Virginia lag behind the national average, and suggested higher pay—along with assurances of teacher quality.

Union workers began voting yesterday morning on a tentative agreement between Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. and United Steelworkers Local 831 that could result in the loss of at least 400 jobs at the company’s tire manufacturing plant here. Voting continued all day and into the evening. The agreement would reduce production from a seven-day operation to five days a week, with from 300 to 400 layoffs and as many as 200 buyouts of employees.

For a couple of picoseconds there the other day, the political world was shocked—shocked!—to learn that congressional aides don’t always behave like choirboys. After union groups launched a television ad critical of Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor, Cantor’s new press secretary, Brad Dayspring, responded to a reporter’s inquiry by e-mailing a long-circulated, richly profane (and—let’s face it—mildly funny) YouTube spoof of a union promotional video. Dayspring says he meant it as an off-the-record joke.

Economic stimulus has largely consumed congressional attention to this point. But sooner or later Congress is bound to get to other matters, including the No. 1 priority of unions and the Democratic majority: the card check bill. Already, movement is afoot to bring the bill back to the front burner. The other day California Rep. George Miller wrote a letter to his colleagues in the House seeking co-sponsors. In addition to repeating the usual talking points about the bill’s advantages, Miller added a new wrinkle:

Unions don’t have that same access to workers. Organizers depend on workers to educate and organize their peers. Many union locals don’t have the massive budgets to allocate toward organizing that businesses use to prevent a “yes” vote in favor of a union. Passage of this act won’t require workers in Virginia to join a union since we are a rightto-work state that prohibits compulsory membership.

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.“