Rep. Chuck Burley of Bend has been making noises like a moderate since he was narrowly elected to the state legislature two years ago, but according to SEIU Local 503 he’s voted like a Republican, at least on four issues the public employees’ union rated the lawmakers on.
The SEIU’s report card on legislators gives Burley an F on workers’ rights, an F on consumer protection and another F on public services. His only (barely) passing grade was on health care, on which the union gave him a D.
Burley’s Republican colleague from Sunriver, Gene Whisnant, amassed a perfect score – straight F’s.
All the Democrats in the legislature outpointed all the Republicans on the SEIU report card. Sen. Ben Westlund of Tumalo received two A-pluses (workers’ rights and health care) and two A’s (consumer protection and public services). For all the scores, see seiu503.org.
This article appears in Jan 10-16, 2008.








Unions want people in power to bend over and grab their ankles. Sen. Ben Westlund gladly complies, maybe even enjoys it. Unions are only in it for themselves and their members, including the teacher unions. What about the school kids? Fork the kids; give us more PERS, more COLA, more salary, more benefits. So what if it means more class sizes!
As a former member of said union, I wouldn’t take what they say seriously. We all know how well the Howard Dean campaign went with SEIU money.