Sen. Norm Coleman and a pro-business organization that supports him have been spending a lot of time and money opposing proposed legislation regarding union organizing: Coleman keeps spreading the myth that the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) aims to do away with secret-ballot voting on union matters, while the anti-union Coalition for a Democratic Workplace (CDW) is "spending between $10 and $20 million in five states, including Minnesota, to kill the union organizing bill," according to WCCO. CDW is running two ads that use The Sopranos mob boss Johnny Sack (actor Vincent Curatolo) to dramatize the importance of secret-ballot voting in union matters.

Now there’s a new twist in the story: Coleman once supported the kind of provision he’s now opposing.

WCCO reports that as mayor of St. Paul, Coleman "signed a unanimous city council resolution asking businesses to stay out of union elections and allow unions to form by signing union cards" — the same thing EFCA aims to do.  While hiscampaign argues that Coleman’s support of the city measure doesn’t mean he wants it to be federal law, Democrats are crying foul. Yesterday, DFL chair Brian Melendez called Coleman a "liar" for misrepresenting EFCA as a plan to nix secret voting in union elections (even the the House Committee on Labor and Labor says that’s not the case). Now Al Franken is chiding Coleman for his apparent change in position.

"He simply is shameless and he will say whatever he thinks people want to hear at the time and he doesn’t believe it. He will say anything," said Franken. "You can’t trust the man."