New 'party' targets work issues
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By Louis Porter Vermont Press Bureau - Published: November 16, 2009
MONTPELIER — A different kind of political party, which has been successful in gaining traction in New York state, may soon be coming to Vermont as well.
The Working Families Party typically does not field its own candidates, as the Republican Party or Democratic Party does. Instead it endorses candidates of any party whose platform lines up with its own — mostly economic — goals.
"We want to get other regular families to understand our issues," said Dan Brush of Woodbury, a labor organizer who is one of those trying to establish a Working Families Party in Vermont. "We are dealing with economic issues. That is all we are interested in."
He added that all of the political parties in the state now address the issues that face working families, even if they don't always agree on the solutions.
In New York state the minor party has been successful, in part, because the state has true fusion voting, in which the same candidate can appear under different party ballot lines and have their votes aggregated. Vermont has a different system, under which candidates can have more than one party after their names, but only one line on the ballot.
Still, the Working Families Party can be a force for advocating for issues on worker pay and paid sick time, health care and other matters, its Vermont organizers said.
"We are going to interview candidates, look at their voting records," said Brush, former president of the AFL-CIO in Vermont. Candidates who agree with the party members on those economic issues will get the party's endorsement in the 2010 election and beyond, Brush said.
"It doesn't matter if you are a Republican, a Democrat or a Progressive," he said
To become a minor party in Vermont a group must have 10 or more town caucuses of at least three people each.
The party will have 14 or more town caucuses over the next week or so, Brush said.
One of those will be at Rick Russell's place in Fletcher. The organic beef farmer and wood shop owner said he is fairly conservative on fiscal issues and he doesn't believe that farmers, at least, have much interest in other social political issues.
"I do think it would help to have people looking at clear-cut economic issues with an eye towards sorting through the various candidates' positions," Russell said. "I think we have just barely touched the tip of the iceberg. This health care issue is not going to go away."
"I grew up a Yankee Republican," added Russell, who has been an independent for the last several decades. "I kind of lost track of them when Nixon wanted to send me to Vietnam."
"I am watching all of my dairy farming neighbors really struggling. We are too," Russell said. "These things are just not being addressed."
How successful the Working Families Party will be in Vermont without true fusion voting remains to be seen. Nationally the party, which has close ties to labor organizations and often endorses Democratic candidates, has chapters in several states including Connecticut, Oregon and South Carolina.
"I don't think their model will translate so well into Vermont" because of a lack of true fusion voting, said Morgan Daybell of the Vermont Progressive Party. He also wonders why the party is needed, when the Progressives agree with Working Families Party on so many issues, he added.
"We are very closely aligned," he said. "I am not sure their issues will be advanced any better if the state was to pass fusion voting and they were to set up shop here as well."
Robert Dempsey of the Vermont Democratic Party said he welcomes more attention to those issues like the laying off of state workers.
"This is a crucial time to talk about these issues," he said. "Any additional voice that can lend a little more clarity to working families is positive."
The Working Families Party's state committee meeting is at 5:30 p.m. Monday, Dec. 14, at the Unitarian Church in Montpelier.
louis.porter@rutlandherald.com
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