March 29, 2006

Flex Line
Cross-nomination could put labor issues on the ballot

By CYDNEY GILLIS
Staff Reporter

Attention, dissatisfied Democrats: a new political party that backs living wages, health care, and education is coming.

It’s called Working Families and, in Washington, it’s backed by a coalition of more than 20 labor and community organizations that will decide this week whether to move forward this year with an initiative that would make the party’s model legal.

Unlike other third parties, which many people steer clear of to avoid “wasting” a vote on a Green or Libertarian candidate who’s unlikely to win, Working Families relies on cross-nomination or fusion voting, which is currently banned in Washington and Oregon, where party activists are already collecting signatures to form a WF party this year.

Once prevalent in the United States, fusion voting allows a minor party to nominate a mainstream Democrat or Republican as their candidate, putting candidate John Doe’s name on two ballot lines, one for each party.

By voting on the Working Families line, as voters have done in New York state since the WF first formed in 1998, says Steve Williamson, who worked for the party’s organizing coalition in March after stepping down as head of the King County Labor Council, working-class people send the mainstream candidate a message about their issues.

“ It’s really about how do we move our issues rather than how do we move Joe or Jane [candidate],” says Williamson, who has spent the past month explaining the model to labor and community groups. “People cock their heads when they first hear about it,” he says, “and then they start nodding.”

In Oregon, where activists are working to collect the 19,000 signatures they need to form a WF party, organizer Barbara Dudley says working-class voters love the idea.

“ They don’t flinch,” Dudley says. “They say, ‘This is for me’ because they are so painfully aware of how inadequate the Democratic Party has been to their economic needs.”

The Washington and Oregon efforts are different, Dudley says, in that Oregon activists are forming the party first and plan to ask Oregon’s legislature to legalize fusion voting next year.

In Washington, the plan is to get the law changed first through an initiative, which has already been filed, and form the party later.

The decision to be made this week by Washington’s WF coalition, which includes ACORN, the Service Employees International, the United Food and Commercial Workers, Washington Citizen Action, and New York’s Working Families Party, is whether to start collecting signatures to proceed with the initiative this year or wait until 2007, says David Rolf, president of Seattle’s SEIU Local 775, which is spearheading the effort.

David Olson, a retired political science professor from the University of Washington knowledgeable in state politics, doubts the coalition can pull it off.

“ I hate to rain on anybody’s parade,” says Olson, “but the cross-filing is going to be very difficult to get in the state of Washington. It’s a very complex measure that introduces uncertainties. And when voters are confused or uncertain, they vote no.”

State Democratic Party Chairman Dwight Pelz expresses similar doubt. He says the Working Families coalition hasn’t met with him to lay out the concept and platform, which he says sounds far left of center for mainstream voters.

SEIU’s Rolf counters that the New York party has been a centrist organization in focusing attention on pocketbook issues that matter to a majority of families.

Among the wins in New York, says Clare Crawford, regional director for ACORN, a nationwide community action group, support from Working Families made it possible to override a veto by Gov. George Pataki to pass an increase in the minimum wage.

“ It’s gotten elected officials from both parties to vote along lines of what working people need,” Crawford says.

In today’s elections, “People feel like they’re choosing between the lesser of two evils,” says David Groves of the Washington State Labor Council, which has yet to take a position on the initiative.

“ It stands to reason that some idea will come along to offer creative alternatives. The question is: will it be this year?” n

[Resources]

More information on the Working Families Party and fusion voting can be found at www.workingfamiliesparty.org or www.oregonwfp.org .