NAM president ruffles Senate Majority Leader's feathers

Manufacturing & Technology News, July 31, 2008

A recent meeting with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and John Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, to discuss means in which the Democratic majority in Congress could improve manufacturing in America turned politically uncomfortable, according to sources familiar with the meeting.

Reid asked that NAM bring along members of its ad-hoc "Domestic Manufacturing Group." DMG is comprised of about 100 small- and medium-sized manufacturers that have tried without success to get NAM to embrace a "fair trade" agenda that would benefit U.S. manufacturing companies. Reid thought it was important for DMG members to know that the senior-most leadership of the Senate is aware of their efforts.

Discussion at the meeting centered on how the Democratic majority and NAM could work on issues that are important to the health of the U.S. industrial base: energy, infrastructure, health care and immigration. Reid mentioned that he did not think it was appropriate for Engler to be using NAM as a platform to lobby Congress on judicial nominations. The manufacturing industry's primary lobbying organization should not have a reputation for being partisan due to the personal interests of its president.

Engler had discussed the need for NAM to get involved in pushing conservative judicial appointees just as the Senate was embroiled in the "nuclear option" debate over Bush's judicial nominees.

Toward the end of the meeting, Reid raised the judge issue again, but instead of saying the politically correct thing--that his previous efforts were a misunderstanding--Engler told Reid something to the effect that "we still don't have our judges approved."

According to sources familiar with the meeting, it was the wrong time for Engler to raise a Republican talking point with the majority leader on one of the most bitter partisan fights in Senate history.