Obama: Teamsters' New Ally?

The Teamsters, a union that has been under the government's watchful eye for nearly 20 years due to its past connection with organized crime and the mafia, may have found a friend in Barack Obama.

The Wall Street Journal reports today that Obama won the endorsement from the organization of James P. Hoffa's (son of former Teamster's President Jimmy Hoffa, whose 1975 disappearance is still fodder for lore and mystery) in February after the Democratic presidential hopeful said privately he was in favor of ending the strict government oversight of the group to root out corruption. Monitoring of the union has largely been left to the Justice Department. Hoffa - who has been campaigning for Obama in Pennsylvania and Indiana, the latter of which has its primary tomorrow - has been advocating for an easing of oversight since he became union president in 1999.

Hoffa says it's Obama's criticism of the North American Free Trade Agreement that won the group's support.
Both camps say there was no quid pro quo between the endorsement and oversight issue. Obama today denied any sort of agreement between the two.

"I wouldn't make any blanket commitments," Obama said this morning on "Good Morning America." "What I've said is I would examine what is going on in terms of the federal oversight that's been taking place.

"The union has done a terrific job cleaning house. The question is whether they're going to be able to get treated like every other union. Whether that time has come is something I'll absolutely examine when I'm president of the United States."


But John Coli, vice president for the Teamsters central region, told the Journal that in a series of phone conversations and meetings with Teamsters officials last year, Obama was "pretty definitive that the time had come to start the beginning of the end" of the three-member independent review board that investigates suspect activity in the union. An Obama spokesman confirmed the senator's position to the Journal. A Teamsters spokesman said only the courts can get rid of oversight, not the president. But the president can appoint people to the Justice Department and the courts who favor ending the oversight.

As for Hillary Clinton, Coli said was more "wishy washy" on lifting the consent decree during discussions with the organization. Politico's Ben Smith obtained audio of Clinton's endorsement meeting with the Teamsters, in which she may have also suggested that the decree should be lifted.