Korean War Veterans organization is looking for new members.
The group meets the 4th Tuesday each month (July 27), at noon at
Milwaukie Elks Lodge, 13121 SE McLoughlin Blvd.
For more information, call: Max Loucks at 503-286-1464
Gradine Storms
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Union-backed political party wins
official ballot status in Oregon
As of June 27, Oregon has a new mi-
nor political party. The Oregon Work-
ing Families Party, brought to life by
eight labor organizations and several al-
lied community groups, is meant to
steer politics back to breadbasket issues.
Supporters turned in about 28,000
signatures in mid-June, and on June 28.
Oregon Secretary of State Bill Brad-
bury determined they’d exceeded the
18,908 signatures required to earn mi-
nor party ballot status.
That means the Oregon Working
Families Party can run its own candi-
dates — in statewide and legislative
races — as early as the November 2006
election.
But it’s unlikely to do so this year.
The party’s game plan was never to be a
“spoiler,” running candidates that might
siphon votes from “lesser-of-two-evils”
candidates and helping elect the greater.
Instead, Working Families has been
wedded from the get-go to bringing “fu-
sion voting” to Oregon, either in the
Legislature or by ballot measure. Under
fusion voting, parties can use their bal-
lot line to endorse other parties’ candi-
dates. For example, voters who agree
with the Working Families platform
could vote for Democrat or Republican
candidates endorsed by the party — on
the Working Families ballot line. If
votes on the Working Families ballot
line are greater than the margin of vic-
tory, and help elect a candidate, the vic-
tor would have to remember working
families while in office. Or so the think-
ing goes.
Fusion voting used to be the norm
everywhere. It remains the law in New
York and several other states.
The Oregon Working Families Party
is modeled on a union-backed New
York party of the same name.
Union leaders in the state of Wash-
ington are also trying to form a Working
Families party, and are working to get
fusion voting by ballot initiative in the
November 2007 election.
Oregon supporters have already filed
such a ballot measure, which is ap-
proved to circulate, but they plan first to
try to persuade the 2007 Oregon Legis-
lature to restore fusion voting. If legis-
lators fail to do so, the Oregon Working
Families Party would likely take it to
voters in 2008.
While the Oregon Working Families
Party won’t run its own candidates this
year, it may end up mobilizing support
for candidates.
Who and what to support, as well as
the new party’s structure, leadership,
platform and priorities, will be deter-
mined at a founding convention in Au-
gust.
Up to now, the effort has been led by
Barbara Dudley, former assistant direc-
tor for strategic campaigns at the na-
tional AFL-CIO, and Tim Nesbitt, for-
mer president of the Oregon AFL-CIO,
with assistance from the New York
party and a core of Oregon labor lead-
ers. So far, organizations to have for-
mally backed the effort include Ameri-
can Federation of State, County and
Municipal Employees Council 75;
Communications Workers of America
Local 7901; the Lane County Labor
Council; Teamsters Local 206; Operat-
ing Engineers Local 701; International
Longshore and Warehouse Union; Ore-
gon Federation of Nurses and Health
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PAGE 8
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
Professionals; and United Food &
Commercial Workers Local 555; plus
the Association of Community Organi-
zations for Reform Now (ACORN),
Oregon Fair Trade Coalition and Al-
liance for Democracy.
Union volunteers gathered many of
the signatures needed to qualify, but the
biggest share was collected by door-to-
door canvassers who were already in
the field working for ACORN and
Working America, the AFL-CIO’s indi-
vidual affiliate program.
Sponsors of the Oregon Working
Families Party say it will focus on a
short list of pocketbook issues that af-
fect the family budgets of all Oregoni-
ans, including affordable health care,
family wage jobs, better schools, wider
access to community colleges, univer-
sities and job training programs, and se-
cure retirement benefits.
Nesbitt said a statewide poll con-
ducted in February found that 72 per-
cent of Oregon voters find the idea of a
Working Famlies Party appealing,
while 20 percent find it unappealing.
“Our issues have broad appeal,”
Nesbitt said, “and the major parties
would be wise to work with us to solve
the problems that are squeezing family
budgets.”
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JULY 7, 2006
