AND NOW IT'S WEBB.

Greg Sargent talks to Jim Webb's spox and learns the senator isn't supporting the Employee Free Choice Act.

“He doesn’t believe this is the appropriate time to introduce this legislation or to be debating it,” Webb spokesperson Jessica Smith confirms to me. “He’s always been a strong supporter of the right to collective bargaining, but as written, he would look towards improving the legislation in a way to make it more fair and equitable.”

In another blow, Webb’s also won’t say whether he’ll support bringing it to the floor for debate. “He’s not publicly going to say at this point,” his spokesperson said.

While this is a labor bummer, Webb is a little late to be a real newsmaker on this one -- enough senators have defected that compromise negotations are already on-going between labor and several congressional offices to reshape the bill to make it more moderate-friendly -- more on that here. Similarly, his mystery position on cloture doesn't matter too much; any bill that comes out of the compromise discussions must be good enough for the likes of Blanche Lincoln and one to-be-decided Republican, so it will probably satisfy Webb as well. All that said, this isn't exactly a profile in courage on Webb's part, however. It'd be interesting to hear what he thinks is unfair and inequitable about the current legislation, and what he thinks is fair and equitable about the status quo.

Despite vociferous efforts and a broad national campaign, Labor has had a hard time gaining momentum on EFCA in the past months in the institution where it has stalled. In their defense, one doubts business interests would be spending as much money and energy on their anti-EFCA campaign if they thought the legislation was a paper tiger, destined to fold. Now, like so many pressing public policy issues, everything hangs on senate negotiations.

-- Tim Fernholz

Related: Employee Free Alternative?