ACSBlog

by Nicole Flatow

For farm workers, mistreatment of many types is all too common. But in a Florida town with a history of slavery, farmers and contractors are taking this abuse to shocking new levels, subjecting men to a modern-day form of coerced labor “that begins with indebtedness and sometimes doesn't end until a worker is dead,” according to the stories of workers reported by the Tampa Bay Times reports.

In a sobering report, LeRoy Smith describes how he was coerced into coming to work for a farm where workers are kept in “an overcrowded bunkhouse full of elderly, drug-addicted black men and one decrepit bathroom.” The workers, many homeless, are picked up on the streets of nearby cities or from shelters, and taken to a “middle-of-nowhere camp” surrounded by potato fields and dirt roads, where workers are “paid” less than they are charged for food and housing, and told they are indebted to the farm, according to the newspaper.

"The only reason there's no shackles is because now they make the people submit to the cocaine,” Smith told the newspaper. “That's what they use to basically control the people."

One well-known contractor who employed these practices, Ron Evans, was sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2007 for luring homeless laborers to his camp, giving them drugs and keeping them in debt. But while the punishment was intended to send a message, laborers say other contractors who heard about Evans’ tactics after the raid are now copying his methods.  

Smith and another man are suing contractor Ronald Uzzle, who refused to show the Tampa Bay Times reporter the laborers’ living quarters and has a history of Department of Labor investigations and injured worker incidents. Uzzle denied the recent allegations, and claimed he had never been sued, though the newspaper revealed that he has been a defendant in three previous labor and racketeering suits, all of which were settled with payouts from the defendants.

by Jeremy Leaming

Obstructionism in Congress, as Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein argue in their new book, is largely, if not solely, born by Republicans. The obstructionism, which has, among other things, kept the number of vacancies on the federal bench consistently high, is finally prompting Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to rethink his opposition to reforming the filibuster, which has been the primary tool for Republican obstructionism in the Senate.

The public interest group, Common Cause, has also gotten into the act by lodging a federal lawsuit against that the filibuster, which conservatives in the Senate have used in an unprecedented manner, helping to create a Congress where not much is accomplished. (The Tea Party and the nation’s super wealthy, of course, like it this way. Economic policy continues to exacerbate economic inequality and brain-addled Tea Party leaders believe the Constitution established a weak central government, though in reality they just long for the Articles of Confederation, which really did establish a weak central power.)

Writing about the lawsuit for the Common Cause blog, Common Blog, Bob Edgar, the group’s president and CEO, who served 12 years in Congress, claims “ideological purists” in both parties have learned how to wield the filibuster to “pretty much shut the place down.” The filibuster he maintains is supposed to extend debate, not stop it.

“Here’s how the obstructionists work,” he writes. “To begin debate on a bill, senators must first adopt a ‘motion to proceed.’ But debate on that motion, as on most everything else that comes before the Senate is unlimited unless at least 60 senators vote to end it. That means a minority of as few as 41 can block any action simply by refusing to permit a vote on the motion to proceed.”

The group, representing members of Congress and children of undocumented immigrants who would have benefited from enactment of the DREAM Act, says the Constitution intends for the filibuster’s use in specific circumstances.

Attorney Emmet J. Boundurant and Common Cause Staff Counsel Stephen Spaulding prepared and lodged the lawsuit. The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein in a blog post about the constitutionality of the filibuster cites a 2011 article in which Boundurant explains his constitutional case against the filibuster. Klein also provides historical context for the filibuster, calling it a mistake. Klein cites Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison containing arguments against the use of a supermajority.