Labor groups may start political party
Working Families Party would focus on pocketbook issues
STEVE LAW
Statesman Journal
February 14, 2006
Oregon labor activists, accusing the Democratic and Republican parties of neglecting pocketbook issues, are forming a statewide political organization to represent working people.
They call it the Working Families Party, modeled after a New York party of the same name formed in 1998. Organizers hope it will help reshape the political debate to be geared toward everyday concerns of most Oregonians, such as wages and health care.
"People are kind of hungry" for change, said Tim Nesbitt, the former Oregon AFL-CIO president and a consultant for the fledgling party. "With the enthusiasm I've been witnessing about it, I think it has a good chance of qualifying for the ballot this year."
The party should appeal to young voters wary of corporate donations to the major parties, Nesbitt said.
By focusing on economic issues instead of divisive social issues such as gay rights and abortion, "You win back the Reagan Democrats rather quickly from the Republican Party," said Barbara Dudley, a part-time Portland State University professor and the co-owner of a West Salem vineyard.
Dudley, who knows the New York party's founders, brought the idea to Oregon. In October, she persuaded the Oregon AFL-CIO to adopt a motion supporting an exploratory effort for the new party.
Since then, many union and community leaders have joined the effort.
"Things are starting to roll right along," said Tom Chamberlain, the Oregon AFL-CIO president.
Organizers are beginning to gather the 18,908 signatures needed to get on the statewide ballot. The Praxis group, a club of progressive students and faculty members at Western Oregon University, voted to help the new party in the Salem area, sociology professor Dean Braa said.
To raise money, organizers formed a political-action committee called Oregonians for a Working Families Party. Chamberlain, the state labor federation chief, is the treasurer; Nesbitt and Dudley are the co-chairmen.
Supporters also recently filed a November 2006 initiative petition that would enable minor parties to put a candidate of the major parties on their ticket.
Such "fusion" voting is crucial to the success of the new party, Dudley said.
Candidates nominated by the Democrats and Republicans could seek to be on the Working Family Party's ticket by agreeing to work on its priority issues. Libertarians could put a sympathetic Republican on their ticket.
Supporters say minor parties would gain more influence, reducing voters' sense of futility about their potential.
"You're not left to voting the lesser of two evils, or the evil of two lessers," Braa said.
Melody Rose a political scientist at Portland State University, is skeptical about the Working Families Party strategy.
There are too many barriers that stand in the way of building an effective third party in this country, Rose said. Party leaders might be better off persuading the Democratic Party to stress economic issues more, she said.
Rose suggested that Democrats need to frame social issues in terms of morality, as the Republicans have done so well. Democrats must speak about the immorality of children going hungry or people going without health insurance, she said.
Still, the Working Families Party might have some allies on the right, at least for its goal of getting fusion voting.
The conservative-dominated Oregon House of Representatives passed a bill in the 2005 session that would allow fusion voting in Oregon. The measure passed 49-2 but died in committee in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
Two Mid-Valley conservatives, Rep. Jeff Kropf, R-Sublimity, and Rep. Brian Boquist, R-Dallas, sponsored the bill at the request of the Oregon Libertarian Party.
"I could go seek their nomination and as a Republican, I could get that," Kropf said. Candidates receiving the Libertarians' nomination would have to pay more attention to their issues, he said, and the same would be true for the Working Families Party.
Kropf said the bill could have passed the Senate if it had arrived there earlier in the 2005 session.
"Most people couldn't find a reason to say 'no,'" he said.
Working Family Party leaders will decide in the next few weeks whether they will proceed with their fusion-voting initiative or ask the 2007 Legislature to pass the bill again, Dudley said.
slaw@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6615 |
