August 8, 2006: James Hoffa officially ducked out of the August 25 debate between the two General President candidates, by notifying the Election Officer on August 7 that he would send his stand-in, Tom Keegel.

The debate will go forward in Washington DC on August 25, with an impartial moderator, questioners, and an audience of Teamsters. Thousands of DVDs will be made available to Teamsters for watching at home, and it will be available for downloading from the www.ibtvote.org and www.tdu.org.

TDU went to court last year to win the new Election Rule requiring a debate, and is now going back to court to try to make it an event that is useful for all Teamsters, and that will increase informed Teamster participation in our union.

TDU is calling for the DVD of the one-hour debate to be mailed to all Teamster members; it can be packaged with the Teamster magazine to eliminate any extra postage cost, and done very cost efficiently.

The IBT is planning to spend more money on “getting out the vote” programs than this one measure would cost, and it would do more to increase voter participation.