It was just announced this week that representative Chris Donovan (D, Meriden, CT) is the next Speaker of the Connecticut House of Representatives. What makes this a strike against good government is that Donovan is a former member of the Service Employees International Union. (Donovan info and further bio)

So, we have a former union leader (and former as only having left union leadership a short time ago) now stepping into the role of Speaker of the House where his former colleagues in the unions will be lobbying him for favorable legislation and other goodies.

Sounds like the ideal situation… if you are the type that favors anti-business, pro-union policies, of course. But it does not bode well if you are at all interested in less union control over state business. And Donovan is sure to increase the profile of the unions in government.

Here is the most pernicious thing, though. The SEIU is the biggest public employees union in the country. It controls… actually strangles would be the better term… the budgets of governments all across the country, forcing ever greater levels of unsustainable pension programs and other union giveaways everywhere. And now, as in the case in Connecticut, a union flak is taking the reins of government as an elected official

Right at the time when unions are killing business in this country, right at the time when unearned union goodies are burying state governments in unfunded mandates that they can ill afford, we are seeing plants such as Donovan stepping into commanding roles in government. Not only at the state level, but in the White House itself.

At a time when union favoritism should be being cut back to save the very life of our state’s budgets, union flaks are finding themselves in control of the very purse strings that unions have pulled so prodigiously that little is left inside.

We are at a dangerous time, folks. The creeping socialism for which unions proselytize is about to be realized. We need to stand ready to defeat it.