From Ballot Access News:
National Review has this article about the Working Families Party, with an emphasis on how influential it is in New York.
From the article cited, “Bill de Blasio’s Other Party”, written by John Fund:
In contrast, the Working Families party (WFP), a 15-year-old left-wing, union-fueled group with just 20,000 members, now holds the whip hand over much of the dominant Democratic party in New York — and is already spreading its wings to other states. The WFP not only was a major force behind Bill de Blasio’s victory for mayor last November; it dominated the rest of the election, too. “They propelled all three citywide officials in New York City into office, and have a huge chunk of the city council allied with them,” says Hank Sheinkopf, a leading Democratic consultant who has worked for Hillary Clinton. “They are a real force.”
In New York, the WFP’s power is magnified by state laws that allow minor parties to cross-endorse major-party candidates, which has given rise to a number of influential third parties. (Incidentally, one such upstart, the Conservative party, provided the ballot line for WFB’s mayoral campaign in 1965 and his brother’s successful Senate campaign in 1970.) But cross-endorsements are especially crucial in New York City: Rudy Giuliani won the mayoralty in 1993 only by running on the lines of both the Republican party and the heavily left-leaning Liberal party. He rewarded the Liberals with patronage jobs and hefty pay increases for their teachers’-union allies. Mike Bloomberg won in 2001 only by having both the Republican- and Independence-party lines, and in 2009 he even actively negotiated with Working Families for their endorsement, until his representative admitted “the price was too high.”
But Mayor de Blasio isn’t going to have to negotiate with Working Families, because he is in large part their creation. He helped found the party, used the discounted services of their grassroots organizers to win election to the city council in 2001, and then won the citywide office of public advocate with their backing in 2009. Their agenda might as well be his: a new city-wide “living” minimum wage, tax hikes on upper-income New Yorkers, requirements that developers build “affordable” housing units on a massive scale in exchange for building permits, tougher rent controls, retroactive wage hikes for public employees, and severe curbs on the growth of non-union charter schools.
Depends on your definition of socialism.
Andrew Cuomo got 2,900,000 votes. Approx. 150,000 of them were on the WFP line.
I think this article only was published to give conservative minded readers an unfavorable impression of the WFP. It’s in National Review. They want their readers to think that the Left is corrupt. What else could have been the point of publishing the article?
This is just tabloid stuff. It’s like reading US weekly.
I’d like to see an article which analyzes the results of candidates running against themselves In New York State.
In the race where John Doe runs against himself on four lines which party wins, and what do the results tell us?
That’s way more interesting.
So did Letitia James have a falling out with Dems. Or, did she figure that being just a Working Family Party candidate she wouldn’t win?
James was on both lines. She has always been a Democrat as far as I know.
It was the Republicans (an incredibly weak party in NYC) who lacked a candidate for Public Advocate in 2013. Even the Libertarians managed to run a candidate for that important city-wide race.
Letitia James, who was recently elected as a Democrat as new York City Public Advocate, was re-elected to the NYC City Council as a Working Families Party candidate. If I remember she started her city council re-election as a Democrat and a WFP candidate, but something happened and she ended up as the WFP candidate in the November election. But James was never solely a WFP member or activist. To the best of my memory.
^ I think there was one on the NYC Council last term; I can’t remember her name. I’m not sure if there is now, though.
Are there any Working Family Party members elected without being a Dem as well?
Mr. Axxin, your use of the term “socialist” is ahistorical and incoherent. Various political parties may make use of ideas and plans socialists have developed, but only to use as shock absorbers for capitalism. Make it appear less barbaric and predacious. And keep social discontent tamped down. And this is also what the Working Families Party is all abt. Being a bait-and-switch grift to keep the Left voting Democrat, and acting as shock absorbers for capitalism – create the appearrance that there is a Left response organized.
Thanks Gene for the history about ALP, Roosevelt and LaGuardia.
Your overall point is also spot-on.
Here’s a story of WFP and the Dems. in a recent spat:
I live on the Upper East Side. Micah Kellner, the Democratic assemblyman last year, wanted to run for City Council. Working Families endorsed him so he had its line and then it came out that he was abusing young men he found attractive in his assembly office.
The Democrats endorsed someone else but Micah refused to quit and so every day I got mail from one or the other about which was the “true” Democrat, etc.
Micah lost and the establishment Democrat won, proving that open homosexuality and sexual harassment are too much for the NY Democratic Party, but not for Working Families.
Since they both espoused socialist policies, their politics were irrelevant, just which one could throw up more dirt.
No argument here, but occasionally they have run their own candidates. It is rare though.
The Working Families Party is in some ways inspired by the American Labor Party that was formed in 1936 to get socialists to vote for Franklin D Roosevelt. The Democratic county committees helped collect signatures to qualify the ALP for the ballot, assuming it would be temporary.
In 1937 the ALP allied with Republicans to re-elect Fiorello LaGuardia as Mayor. In various races for Congress and state office from 1937 through 1948, the ALP sometimes backed Democrats, sometimes provided a ballot line to left-wing Republicans, and often ran their own candidates. They elected Vito Marcantonio to Congress, and elected various members to the New York state Assembly.
The Working Families Party, by contrast, always backs the Democrat nominee. Sometimes their favorite Democrat might lose a primary, in which case it looks like they have their own candidate, but the WFP is a scam to get independent progressive voters to always back the Democrats, and it is properly not considered an alternative party.
As the NR article and previous exposes in the Village Voice have shown, the Working Families Party is basically a political campaign business with its own ballot line as just one of its asset.
>”The WFP is why there is no significant socialist electoral presence in New York.”
I disagree.
There clearly is a socialist electoral presence in New York. It is called the Working Families Party. It is also called the Democratic Party in some parts of the state and even called the Republican Party in some as well.
Socialism is alive and doing quite well here.
The WFP is why there is no significant socialist electoral presence in New York. They are Democrats who use NY bqllot fusion to siphon of the Left vote for the Democrats. I think the key thing abt de Blasio is that he was Clinton’s senatorial campaign manager, and de Blasio had Bill Clinton officiate at an inauguration ceremony. And who was standing beside Clinton at that ceremony? Stern, the jefe of the WFP. And who had Clinton for Senate on their ballot line besides the Democrats? The WFP. And what with their power in NY, and their infection of other state politics, I would think IPR could likst the WFP in the side bar?