On April 8, the North Carolina affiliate of the Service Employees International Union declared that it will attempt to qualify a new party for the North Carolina ballot this, to be called North Carolina First Party. The Washington Post, on April 19, has this story.
The SEIU says it has hired over 100 circulators to obtain the needed 85,379 signatures before the May 14 deadline. The Washington Post story erroneously says the petition deadline is June 1. The story confuses the deadline for turning in signatures to the counties, with the deadline for turning in signatures from the counties to the state.
The SEIU has 2,000,000 members nationally. Nurses, janitors, and bus drivers comprise the core of the union. The SEIU left the AFL-CIO in 2005 and is in a competing national alliance of labor unions called “Change to Win”, which contains six other nationally-organized unions. Andy Stern, outgoing president of SEIU, chose North Carolina for this effort because he wants the new party to run U.S. House candidates against the three North Carolina Democrats who voted against the recent health care bill. Those three Democrats are Mike McIntyre in the 7th district, Larry Kissell in the 8th district, and Heath Shuler in the 11th district. The latter two districts are swing districts.
New parties in North Carolina nominate by convention, not by primary. Therefore, the leadership of the new party, assuming it gets on the ballot, is free to choose not to run candidates for other partisan office. For instance, there is a U.S. Senate election in North Carolina this year, but the party has no interest in entering that race. Thanks to Bradley Jansen for the link.
If North Carolina had reasonable requirements for independent candidates for district office, it is likely that the SEIU would have chosen to sponsor independent candidates in each of the three U.S. House districts. However, the independent procedures in North Carolina for district office are so difficult, no one has ever qualified as an independent candidate for U.S. House in North Carolina in the entire history of government-printed ballots, which began in 1901 in that state. Those requirements are under attack in two pending lawsuits, one in state court and one in federal court. They require the signatures of 4% of the number of registered voters in each district. In some districts, that is as many as 20,000 signatures. No candidate for U.S. House has ever overcome a requirement greater than 12,919 signatures, in any state (for Illinois, this statement only includes instances at which a petition was challenged; Illinois lets people on the ballot with fewer than the required number of signatures, if no one challenges).
Interesting that there is no mention of the Working Families Party in the article. SEIU seems to be going it alone, again.
The New Age Donkeys are NOT leftwing enough for the SEIU top folks ???
Separate is still NOT equal — even in NC.
Brown v Bd of Ed 1954 — a mere 56 years ago.
I also noticed that this effort seems disconnected from the WFP, and the Labor Party. With the only Labor Party chapter with ballot access being right here in South Carolina, it would seem that the SEIU could work with the LP to create another state chapter with ballot access.
I think this is an idiosyncratic response from an organization which considers itself to be a player in the Democratic Party still working within and for the national Democratic Party.
Politically, Andy Stern (outgoing president of the SEIU) has been one of the most vociferous supporters of Obama’s healthcare plan.
Organizationally, SEIU is run too much like a corporation to cooperate with the LP, I think. SEIU has been forceably merging locals, dismissing and even suing local labor leaders who resist or leave to form independent unions. This seems too heavy handed to work with the Labor Party’s rank and file approach.
In my opinion, the NC First initiative seems designed to punish Heath Schuler and other NC Blue Dog Dems – who voted against the plan – rather than establish an ongoing independent party, even of the WFP variety. Plus, most of the WFP’s union supporters (Communication Workers, etc.) are in the AFL-CIO, which SEIU left a few years ago.
If it turns out that the WFP has been involved, then I’ll reevaluate my opinion somewhat, but not in terms of this being intended as a intra-Democratic party fight. And then if this works and the party does get on the ballot, then hey, it could turn into something good. Its hard to get on the NC ballot, probably only a big union like the SEIU could do it. I just worry that the SEIU would shut the new party down rather than see it evolve into a real membership organization. This is what the AFL essentially did with the Labor Party: shut it down in favor of the WFP. If it weren’t for some very stubborn and independent unionists in Charleston, the Labor Party would be kaput.
Here is a hostile article on Stern, from a 40 year veteran organizer with CWA:
http://www.counterpunch.org/early04162010.html
And a sort of Machivellian love letter to Stern from a yuppie ex-SEIU staffer:
http://www.theawl.com/2010/04/andy-stern-you-were-never-ruthless-enough
Yeah, It is interesting [wink, wink] how people are always more interested in creating something new that they can be in charge of rather then working to build upon what has already been done.
Setting aside political rights, it undermines the argument that someone is trying to build a serious alternative party (as opposed to stroking ego, or intra-organizational bickering) when they pull these sorts of stunts.
We have never had an especially strong Labor Party as they did in developed liberal democratic European nations. Lots of regional, racial, religious, cultural, moral issues divide working class and lower middle class Americans that its hard to unite them into one party that focuses on defending their class interest. Beyond the electoral law barriers.
The Working Families Party tries as did the New Party (remember them?). I have sometimes seen blips about a third party called the Labor Party in the U.S. but its a difficult idea to really get these working and lower middle class people backing a party.