The Conflicted Superpower by Andrew Kennedy

Author:Andrew Kennedy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: POL063000, Political Science/Public Policy/Science & Technology Policy, POL054000, Political Science/World/Asian
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2018-04-23T16:00:00+00:00

THE FIGHT IN THE STATES

As the HTC was fighting the Dodd amendment in 2004, it was also fending off a wave of anti-offshoring legislation at the state level. In 2003/04, according to one tally, more than 200 anti-offshoring bills were introduced in more than forty state legislatures.85 In 2005/06, 190 such bills were introduced. Organized labor worked nationwide to move this legislation forward. “The AFL-CIO has mobilized support for such bills around the country,” the Washington Post reported, “urging not only outright bans on overseas contracting but also an end to tax incentives that encourage overseas work and measures that force contractors to disclose where their employees are located.”86 As it did at the federal level, labor led the fight against offshoring in the states.

The HTC and its allies in the business community fought back vigorously. In July 2004, the president of the ITAA, Harris Miller, told the press that “offshoring is our most time-consuming issue by far…we’re actively fighting all of these bills.”87 Or, as Miller put it on National Public Radio, “We’re like the volunteer fire department in the middle of a raging drought. I mean, there [are] embers blowing up all over the place, and we just have to keep running around and tamping them down.”88

In the end, the ITAA and its allies were largely successful. Although hundreds of anti-offshoring bills were introduced, only a handful became law. In 2003/04, for example, only Alabama, Colorado, Indiana, North Carolina, and Tennessee passed laws that gave preferences in the awarding of government procurement work to contractors in the United States.89 Moreover, the bills that passed were typically quite restrained. The Indiana law gave price preferences to in-state firms ranging from 1 to 5 percent. The North Carolina law established a preference for domestic products and services, but only if this entailed no sacrifice in price or quality. Alabama passed a resolution that merely encouraged state and local entities to use in-state services, with no mandate or requirement on procurement decisions. Labor leaders were disappointed at the outcome. “It’s incredible the stranglehold the corporate interests have on this issue,” said Marcus Courtney, the president of the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers.90

What explains this lopsided outcome? Simply put, the Coalition for Economic Growth and American Jobs was not only wealthy and well organized, but also savvy in the ways of shaping and blocking legislation. Working at the state level, the group employed several tactics in particular: enlisting large employers to tell lawmakers that they would be hurt by proposed restrictions, warning that taxpayer costs would increase if offshoring were limited, and playing for time to run out the clock on legislative sessions. The Coalition also stressed how legislation could run afoul of trade agreements and reduce foreign investment. These “blocking and tackling” techniques, as one U.S. Chamber of Commerce executive called them, were conveyed to Coalition members through business conferences and other means.91

The ITAA leadership later recalled several keys to success at the state level.92 First, because many companies already had

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