Highlights
& Quotes
George W. Bush's first choice for labor secretary, Linda Chavez is a right-wing pundit, anti-union demagogue, and foreign policy hawk. She has supported or worked for a string of rightist outfits, including the Manhattan Institute, the Independent Women's Forum, and the Center for Equal Opportunity. She signed an April 2002 letter from the Project for the New American Century urging President Bush to remove Saddam Hussein from power and to aid Israel in a region-wide effort to combat terrorism. Other signatories included William Kristol, William Bennett, Daniel Pipes, Ken Adelman, Gary Bauer, Norman Podhoretz, Robert Kagan, Midge Decter, and James Woolsey. (10)
In a 2003 fund-raising letter for her advocacy outfit Stop Union Political Abuse, Chavez argued that "liberal politics" were aiding terrorism: "My name is Linda Chavez. You may remember me as President George W. Bush's original choice for Secretary of Labor. Big Labor Bosses like the AFL-CIO's John Sweeney pulled out all the stops to defeat my nomination. After all, members of the media were calling me 'Big Labor's Worst Nightmare.' And they were right! I'm completely opposed to the special privileges given to Big Labor unions …powers that no other private organizations have. … AFL-CIO boss John Sweeney is an avowed Socialist, by his own admission. And he's put BILLIONS into pushing the Socialist agenda. … We can cripple liberal politics in this country by passing the Workers' Freedom of Choice Act. If we stop now, the terrorists win." (4)
Two years earlier, just after she withdrew her nomination for labor secretary, Chavez was singing a very different tune, telling CNN's Wolf Blitzer: "I think organized labor, I think quite mistakenly, somehow thought that I was going to be their worst nemesis. I had a very nice talk with John Sweeney this morning, by the way, and I don't think ... that would have been the case. I think I would have actually been very helpful in trying to bridge a gap that exists between the Republican Party and organized labor." (4)
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Institutional
Affiliations
Project
for the New American Century: Signatory (10)
Center
for Equal Opportunity: President and Founder (1)
Republican
Issues Campaign: Chairman (1)
Fox News:
Political Analyst (1)
Stop Union
Political Abuse: President (2)
Foundation
for Teaching Economics: Board (1)
Campaign
to Prevent Teen Pregnancy: Board (1)
The Manhattan
Institute for Policy Research: Research Fellow (5)
Capital
Research Center: Board of Advisors (5)
Council
on Foreign Relations: Member (6)
American
Civil Rights Union: Emerita Policy Board Member (8)
Center
for the American Experiment: Board of Advisers (9)
Independent
Women's Forum: Member: Former Advisory Board member (11)
Government
Service
United Nations
Human Rights Commission: U.S. Expert to the U.N. Sub-commission
on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities
(1)
National
Commission on Migrant Education: Chairman (1)
U.S. Commission
on Civil Rights: Staff Director (1)
Administrative
Conference of the United States: Member (1)
Corporate
Connections/Business Interests
ABM Industries,
Inc.: Board of Directors (1)
Greyhound
Lines, Inc.: Board of Directors (7)
Education
University
of Colorado: B.A. (3)
University
of California at Los Angeles: Doctoral study (3)
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