By Chuck Ring (GadaboutBlogalot ©2009 – 2010)

Quote Freely From The Article – Leave The Pseudonym Alone

Fox News reports that the President‘s choice of Andy Stern for a position on a new 18 member government panel has gained him serious criticism in the business world and among conservative groups.  The lead paragraph in the Fox story has this to say:

President Obama’s decision to appoint his close political ally, union leader Andrew Stern, to the newly created National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform has set off a firestorm of criticism from business and conservative groups who charge he is a political radical who should be investigated for failure to register as a lobbyist.

Stern is the subject of a request for investigation of his alleged violation of lobbying laws with at least two groups having looked into his activities.  The Fox story reports that the groups used a variety of records (including Twitter messages) to compile records which purport to show that Stern has utilized more than 20% of his time to communicate with or to contact policymakers.  A law passed in 2008 requires anyone spending that much time attempting to influence those in government to register as a lobbyist.  Stern has spent a relatively large sum of time in contact with the White House as indicated in this paragraph from the Fox story:

Stern, whose union funneled $60 million to the Obama election campaign, has been a regular visitor to the White House since Obama’s inauguration. White House logs released last October showed he visited the presidential mansion 22 times since Obama took office, including seven meetings with the president. But most of the visits were for group events, and it is an open question whether his attendance would count as lobbying activity.

To paraphrase; we wonder if this is much ado about very little … or, is there a grand amount of scoffing of the law piling up around Stern.  You can read the rest of the article by clicking right here.

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