DCCC Moving Headquarters to Union Hotel

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee will move its headquarters from the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel, the site of a heated labor dispute, but will retain the dozens of rooms it had booked there for the four-day Democratic convention next week. The DCCC will move a few blocks north to the unionized Fairmont Miramar Hotel. The decision came after John Wilhelm, national president of the hotel workers union, wrote House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) that “Democrats should not check out” but support the workers from inside. Gephardt, Wilhelm and hundreds of labor delegates will protest outside the hotel Sunday night. The union is seeking to organize several hundred low-wage hotel workers. The dispute could prove embarrassing because Loews Chief Executive Jonathan Tisch is a major donor to Vice President Al Gore’s campaign.