The West Wing Cast Comes to Washington to Lobby Card Check
By Nikki Schwab, Washington Whispers
If Congress won't listen to the real president push for the pro-union Employee Free Choice Act, maybe the popular fake president from TV's West Wing can win passage of the bill. Cast members of The West Wing, including Martin Sheen, Bradley Whitford, and Richard Schiff, will hit Capitol Hill Tuesday to debut a new grass-roots campaign to boost support for the controversial "card check" labor legislation. It was dealt a blow last week when Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, most likely the deciding Senate vote, said he wouldn't vote for the bill. "I think it couldn't be a more appropriate time for them to be coming to town to help draw focus to this issue and draw focus to the workers," says Josh Goldstein, a spokesperson for American Rights at Work, which is hosting the event.
Although The West Wing went off the air in 2006, many of the cast members remained tied to Washington by their political activism—mostly for progressive causes. Allison Janney, who played Press Secretary C. J. Cregg, now does work for EMILY's List, while Whitford is on the board of directors of American Rights at Work and was instrumental in bringing part of the cast back to Washington to fight for this bill. "He has been highly involved in activist work for fighting for the rights of America's workers," Goldstein says.
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Reader Comments
Card Check
I'm pro-union and have paid attention during the horrid eight years of Bush. But the Card Check bill is unfair.....to employers? Yes. But to workers who will be put under profound pressure by organizing workers. I hope unions will make a comeback but not through slashed tires and broken windows.
More Acting
If you can recite a script and pretend that you are someone else, then your opinion on significant issues is somehow more important than that of less visible but better informed citizens?
Politicians who pay any attention to this event are identifying themselves - they are more interested in show than substance.
Aren't these the same people?
The people the play make believe for a living. The people that read a script and are most sucessfull if they make us belive it?
The same people that pushed to elect "The Obama"?
Secret ballots are the root of FREEDOM, remember?
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