GOP blasts Boyda on union proposal

Here are today’s headlines from the Kansas congressional delegation:Rep. Nancy Boyda (D) !(The Hill) House GOP strategists take aim at Dem freshmen on union organizing measure : As House Democrats and Republicans prepare to face off on a bill touted as the first clash between business and labor in the 110th Congress, GOP strategists are eyeing vulnerable freshman Democrats who have put their name on the legislation. Ken Spain, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), said that several freshmen are taking a political risk by support the legislation, which has produced sharp partisan divisions. One of its most contentious provisions would eliminate the requirement of a secret ballot for workers attempting to unionize. “In return for half a billion dollars in contributions to Democrat candidates in 2006, House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is delivering the lock-step support of members like Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) and Nancy Boyda (D-Kan.) in an effort to destroy a worker’s right to privacy in an election,” said Spain. “Their support for such anti-worker, small-business-stifling legislation is completely out of step with their districts. This will certainly not go unnoticed for them back home.” … On her part, Boyda rejected the implication that her vote was out of step with her district. “I have never met an American that doesn’t believe in the right to organize,” she said. “We are a working-family district. I strongly believe that people have a fundamental right to organize and that right has been severely diminished. “I think Kansans will stand behind me,” she added.Sen. Pat Roberts (R)![(KC Star) Rural cuts: Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas says the Bush administration’s budget proposes to cut $143 million from the rural health-care delivery system. “The proposed budget has drastic cuts in payments to rural physicians, hospitals and home health-care providers,” Roberts, a Republican and member of the Senate Rural Health Care Caucus, said at a recent hearing of the Senate Finance Committee. “I don’t see how these providers, often the sole provider in many communities, can sustain these cuts.” Roberts said 88 out of 105 Kansas counties are considered rural or frontier and that more than 75 percent of the state’s community hospitals are in rural areas.