12-30-06, 10:33 am
WASHINGTON (PAI) – Organized labor’s successful mobilization that retook Congress in 2006 is the first step in a multi-year plan to restore primacy of progressive political forces and ideas in the U.S., AFL-CIO Political Director Karen Ackerman says.
That plan includes not just the 2008 presidential race, for which at least one union – the non-AFL-CIO Service Employees – is already gearing up. It includes down-ballot races that year and in 2010, 2012 and beyond, with the 2010 vote being a key.
That’s when most state legislatures and governors are up, she explained to AFL-CIO Organizing Summit conferees in early December. And election of pro-worker state candidates especially in 2010 will put those new officeholders in position to draw pro-worker congressional district and state legislative lines after that year’s 2010 census.
Ackerman’s comments dovetail with a new push to recruit and elect state lawmakers over the next half-decade, launched by AFSCME and other progressive groups at a conference earlier this year in Memphis, Tenn. They noted then that the GOP was able to skillfully remap Congress after the last census to ensure what seemed to be a long-lasting U.S. House majority.
It did so, AFSCME and the others noted, by electing state lawmakers and governors who could then use sophisticated computer technology to draw one-person one-vote districts, often with extremely bizarre shapes, to maximize GOP strength.
In so many words, Ackerman said labor should follow the same road to political power through the state capitols. This is “how we end up with a progressive majority by 2013,” she said. Ackerman gave no details, but AFSCME and its allies plan intense candidate recruitment and training in coming years, on the local level. “What we want to have is redistricting in 2011 with progressives leading it in state after state. Then by 2013, we’ll have the country led by pro-working family leaders,” Ackerman added.
That long-range plan led the federation to focus on governorships and state legislative races in this past election, leaving congressional and U.S. Senate races more to its affiliated unions. The AFL-CIO concentrated its local race efforts on California, the Midwest and the Northeast “and states started flipping from red to blue,” she added.
Wins included both legislative chambers with big majorities in Minnesota, plus the Michigan House, one chamber in Wisconsin, and takeover of the Iowa legislature along with retention f the governor’s mansion. There were also gains in Indiana.
The gains will pay off even before the 2011 redistricting, Ackerman noted, citing Iowa and New Hampshire as examples. Though she did not say so, those two states are the first two in the 2008 presidential campaign season.
“Iowa is a right-to-work state. With Democratic control of the governorship and both houses, it will be a union state. In New Hampshire, we’re not going to face right to work legislation any more” after Dems won its legislature for the first time in 150 years.
“This is why we do political work,” Ackerman declared. “Not to elect Democrats, but to create an environment where workers can thrive and succeed.” She ended her slide presentation with the slogan for next year: “Labor 2007 – Kicking Ass For The Working Class.”
From International Labor Communications Association
