Obama splits with billionaire donors on legislation (card check)

Billionaire Donors Split With Obama on Law That May Hurt Hotels

By John Lippert and Holly Rosenkrantz


May 7 (Bloomberg) -- Three Chicago billionaires who helped fund President Barack Obama’s election campaign are fighting legislation he backs that would make it easier for unions to organize hotels they own.

Penny Pritzker, Obama’s campaign finance chairwoman and a director of Global Hyatt Corp., has told the president she is opposed to the measure, known as card check, said a person familiar with the situation. Neil Bluhm, a partner in Walton Street Capital LLC, also opposes the bill, the person said. Lester Crown, chairman of Henry Crown & Co., criticized the proposal in an interview.

For the city’s business leaders who nurtured Obama’s White House bid, card check is a gut check on support for their hometown president. Labor, which spent $100 million on Democratic campaigns last year, made it a top priority to enact a bill giving workers bargaining rights based on signing cards instead of winning a secret-ballot election.

Voting privately is “an American prerogative and shouldn’t be overturned,” said Crown, 83, whose family holdings include the Ojai Valley Inn & Spa in Ojai, California, and the Little Nell hotel in Aspen, Colorado. “The recommended legislation is absolutely the wrong thing to do.”

Pritzker, 49, and Bluhm, 71, declined to comment.

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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=a6A3G.MZZqIw

... who either turned down a rumored job offer or was expected to be offered or something .... or maybe it had to do with the Blago Senate thing. I forget, but she was def. in the mix somewhere.

or couldn't pass the vetting without causing the new admin some embarrasment. Basically she did what Bill Richardson should have done.

...from a Walmart commercial railing against it as taking away workers' rights to privacy. I immediately knew Walmart was full of shit and that this must a pro-worker legislation.

But I find it interesting that Warren Buffet opposes EFCA and he's very pro-worker.

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