Who are these "ballot box bullies"?

It is a little disingenuous for the Oregonian to call out public sector unions for “ballot box bullying” or riding on a “sea of labor cash”.  For unionized workers, the hoards of cash and ballot-box assaults arrayed against them from those with infinitely deep pockets are precisely the reasons why those unions are so uppity in the first place.

If you are lucky enough to be immune to cuts in public services and underfunded schools, then anything on the ballot that looks like a tax increase is going to be viewed as a “threat” to you.  Families with children in the public schools  or the citizens in southern Oregon who are cutting their police departments might feel differently about a shortage of state revenue.  It's rather self -centered to take a proposed tax increase so personally.  There might be other reasons for a tax increase than an opportunity to "shake a fist" at high-income earners.

The argument that union dues paycheck deduction is a freedom-of-choice issue is also specious and disingenuous.  Most people who rely on a paycheck for a living will be annoyed, if nothing else, by deductions for state and federal income tax, union dues, payroll tax, their share of health benefits, and all the rest.  But we pay them and accept them.

The people who pour money into the various right-to-work initiatives care nothing about civil rights or First Amendment protection.  To paraphrase Obama, they just want to make sure that you have the right to work for less money.

In Oregon, if you're looking for the cynical moneybags threatening the rights of workers, look instead at Andrew Miller, Freres Lumber and Loren Parks.   Art Pope is cutting a wide swath in North Carolina. For a national agenda look to the Koch Brothers and ALEC.