On the AFL-CIO Mailer for André Carson: Working People Deserve Better Than This Deal

A Congressman's Silence Shouldn't Be For Sale. And Working Families Shouldn't Be Pitted Against Each Other.

Tuesday, April 14

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Indianapolis, IN — George Hornedo, candidate for Congress in Indiana’s 7th District, released the following statement on the AFL-CIO mailer for Congressman André Carson.

 

“I have enormous respect for the labor movement. The AFL-CIO and its member unions have fought for the working people of this country for generations…for safe workplaces, living wages, and dignity on the job. That fight matters. That history matters.

 

Which is exactly why I have to be honest about what happened in Martindale-Brightwood.

 

The AFL-CIO is now sending mailers on behalf of André Carson. And it’s not lost on me that labor unions—which stand to benefit from construction contracts at the Metrobloks data center—were present at the City-County Building in support of a project that the Martindale-Brightwood community loudly, clearly, and repeatedly opposed.

 

André Carson was silent through the entire process. He issued no statement before the vote. He took no public position. He offered the community nothing but a tweet calling it "an opportunity to be heard" all while the people funding his political operation showed up to push it through.

 

I don't think that's a coincidence. And I don't think Indianapolis should either.

 

Here’s what I believe about data centers. I’m not against them categorically. I’m against bad deals, bad policy, and bad process. The Martindale-Brightwood project was all three. A relatively small number of permanent maintenance jobs doesn’t justify higher utility bills for every working family in Indianapolis. It doesn’t justify placing heavy infrastructure next to homes, a daycare, and one of the neighborhood's only grocery stores. It doesn’t justify ignoring a community that has already been told too many times that its voice doesn't matter.

 

And here’s what troubles me most…working people are being pitted against other working people. Union members who will build this project are working people. The residents of Martindale-Brightwood who will live next to it and pay higher electric bills because of it are working people. A good deal would have protected both. This deal protected neither. It protected the developers and the investors who profit from it.

 

A congressman who stays silent while his donors push a project through a resistant community, and then gets rewarded with AFL-CIO mailers, is not standing with working people. He’s being a cheap date.

 

Indianapolis deserves better. Working people deserve better. And the labor movement—at its best—has always known the difference between a good deal and a bad one.”