Mitt Romney has been launching a sustained attack against rival Rick Santorum for being allegedly “pro-union.” This week, Romney even sent out a press release entitled: “RICK SANTORUM: BIG LABOR’S FAVORITE SENATOR.” Today, the Romney press shop circulated an email headlined, “RICK SANTORUM: RIGHT FOR BIG LABOR,” claiming “when it comes to Big Labor, Santorum has been about as conservative as Barack Obama.”
While Mitt Romney’s union-busting credentials are unassailable, his attack on Santorum is false. Here are Santorum’s scores from the AFL-CIO during his years in Congress:
Byron York noted that Santorum’s scores are comparable to — and sometimes even lower than — those of Sen. Jim DeMint (R-NC), widely considered one of the most anti-union Senators ever.
The New Republic “reached out to a number of prominent union leaders from Santorum’s home state of Pennsylvania, [and] they didn’t have many warm recollections about him to share.” Further, “no union, national, statewide, or local, appears to have ever supported his candidacies, and in 2006, the AFL-CIO’s vociferous support for his opponent Bob Casey factored prominently in Santorum’s 18-point defeat.”
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