Four Pennsylvania state legislators recently declared their association with the Forward Party, endorsing the emerging party’s overall mission while still retaining their current partisan affiliations.
In a press release on Wednesday afternoon, the Forward Party stated that four Pennsylvania state legislators, a pair of Democratic state senators and Republican state representatives, are joining the organization as “Forward Affiliates” with the goal of “fighting with other members of the Forward Party for shared-ground solutions to the largest problems facing their communities.” The quartet comprises Democratic Senators Lisa Boscola of the 18th senate district and Anthony H. Williams of the 8th senate district, along with Republican Representatives Marla Brown of the 9th legislative district and Valerie Gaydos of the 44th legislative district.
“The Forward Party is built around shared values rather than a set of policy prescriptions, allowing local leaders to focus on solutions that will work in their communities.,” the Forward Party additionally stated in its release. “The Party’s focus on values allows our elected officials to work across the aisle to find shared solutions rather than engaging in partisan fighting tied to ideologies fail to produce results for Americans.”
“All four state legislators are practical, solutions-oriented leaders who have long fought for what is best for their constituents, bucking party leadership in order to find shared ground with other legislators on ways to move this country forward.”
The Forward Party defines “Forward Affiliates” as elected officials who remain associated with another political party but publicly join in support of Forward and pledge to govern according to the organization’s values-based platform. The platform touches upon several key issues, including support for election reform, the inclusion of diverse thinking, a focus on collaborative solutions, and a “bottom-up, not top-down” approach that looks at individual communities.
The four Pennsylvania legislators now join four other state representatives from Arizona, who, according to the Forward Party, announced their decision to endorse the Forward Party message earlier this year. In April, four Democratic members of the Arizona House of Representatives declared themselves “Forward Democrats” and similarly aligned with the goals of the Forward Party while retaining their affiliations with the Democratic Party.
The names of the four Arizona legislators are not immediately and publicly apparent, and Independent Political Report has reached out to the Arizona state affiliate for clarification.
The phrasing is confusing whey they state their goai is to be “fighting with other members of the Forward Party.”
They probably mean “fighting alongside other members of the Forward Party.
A goal of “fighting with other members of the Forward Party” makes it sound like they are following the LP model.
If you take the view of politics that the Republicans and Democrats are not really political parties in the sense of they have a cohesive viewpoint that 100% of its elected members believe but are instead just Ballot Access Line A and Ballot Access Line B, this is a soft entryist way to get power. What’s special about the Forward case is while most groups that subscribe to the latter view are solely in one party, that way they can maximize their effect on primary elections (Right to Life and the DSA being 2 notable examples of this strategy, Right to Life where I am are perfectly happy and content to lose a general election if it means stopping a pro-choice Republican from winning the primary, DSA doesn’t strike me as that much different).
The problem with this strategy will be in future primaries, and whether the Forward affiliate role means something that can still win the party’s nomination. It also means when people retire, you go back to nothing because voters have no brand identity, which was the problem with the soft lie Ron Paul was this “Republican/Libertarian Congressman”. When he retired, he was not replaced by a Big-L or small-l libertarian.
You can easily replace “Forward Affiliates” with “[redacted] Youth” in any of their statements.
This Forward Party feels like some kind of Front…