Greetings from New York and the Committee for a Unified Independent Party. I am
thrilled to be here and very impressed with what IT has accomplished. As you
know I am counsel to the NYS Independence Party and a member of its state
Executive Committee.
I
would like to talk to you today about the growth and development of the
Independence Party of New York that now has some 260,000 enrolled members and
occupies row C on the ballot, having received 650,000 votes for its candidate
for Governor last year. While, of course, our situation is particular to New York there are,
I think, ways in which our story and how we became players in New York politics
can be helpful to independents in other parts of the country. While NY is not
as big as TX, it is not R.I. either.
First,
some background on NYS politics. Like TX
and every other state, politics in NY is dominated by the two major parties.
And, New York has a
history of active minor parties. 50,000 votes for a
party’s candidate for governor gives it legal
recognition (the right to hold primaries, nominate candidates etc.) until the
next gubernatorial election when it must accomplish the same thing. In recent
years, in addition to the Independence Party, ballot status parties have
included the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party, the
Right to Life Party, the Green Party and the Working Families Party. In the
2000 election, the Liberal, Green and Right to Life Parties lost ballot status.
A
significant feature of New York politics
and one shared by only a handful of other states is that it allows fusion or
cross-endorsement. This means that a candidate can run on more than one line in
the general election.
The
origins of the Independence Party are multiple, but the main currents that
combined in its creation were efforts led by Lenora Fulani and Fred Newman both
longtime progressives who built an independent party, with a base in the Black,
Latino, gay and left-leaning communities, and the millions of Middle American
radicals who became visible during the presidential candidacy of Ross Perot in
1992.
The major
organizing principle that guided Fulani and Newman’s work as they fused their
base with Perot’s, was the building of left/center/right populist coalitions.
Such a coalition was non-ideological and did not take positions on divisive
wedge issues like abortion, the death penalty and affirmative action. The
coalition was based on restoring democracy and fairness to the political
process and demanding that elected officials run the government according to
principles of fiscal responsibility. It was, in Fulani’s words, an alliance of
the overtaxed and the underserved.
Others in
the independent political movement adhered to the principle of centrism.
Centrism accepts the existing left/center/right paradigm and considers the
proper location for a new third party to be “in the center,” an odd form of
political architecture since they also maintain that there is no difference
between the Democrats and Republicans. Mathematically and logically, there is
no space between two things that are identical,
consequently there is no space for “the center” to be. In actuality, centrism
has turned out to be very exclusionary, not just ideologically, but racially
and culturally as well. A fight between populism and centrism became a main
feature of the
development of the Independence Party. And the populists won.
The
Independence Party organization that achieved ballot status in New York in 1994
was dominated by centrists allied with our first (and so far only!)
gubernatorial candidate, Rochester
billionaire Tom Golisano. They proceeded to organize
a top-down party structure, typical of New York’s minor
parties, but espousing a centrist philosophy. All of New York’s minor
parties typically allied with one or another of the major parties. The Liberals
allied with the Democrats, for the most part. The
Conservatives with the RP, etc. The IP’s centrism consisted of playing
both sides - Republicans and Democrats - while first and foremost maintaining
top-down control of the party, mimicking the standard model for New York minor
parties.
In spite of
the domination at the top by centrists, the party also included a strong
populist base, with significant strength in New York
City (where Fulani and Newman’s supporters lived and
worked), as well as other parts of the state. But the Golisano
forces dominated, in large part because the party rules, (which his lawyer
drafted), allocated voting power on the State Committee, the Independence
Party’s elected governing body, on the basis of the number of votes Golisano received in the prior gubernatorial election.
Since Golisano focused his campaign heavily upstate,
this meant that a State Committee member from Golisano’s
home county cast as much as 15,000 votes while one from Bronx County, the
state’s poorest, cast 150.
The
Golisano forces built an alliance with like minded
centrists around the state. They elected a former corporate engineering
products salesman, Jack Essenberg, as State Chairman
and created an Executive Committee that they controlled. Under the “Golisano rules” county leaders were appointed by the
Executive Committee and served at its pleasure. So intent was Essenberg on maintaining his top-down control that if a
local Independence Party leader showed his or her independence by backing a
candidate or an issue that Essenberg and Golisano did not sanction, they would be removed from their
position to be replaced, all too often, with a local politician or a supporter
of one.. In response, local party leaders, particularly those with a more grass
roots, populist bent began looking for ways to get out from under Essenberg’s thumb. And, they were righteously indignant
that a party that grew out of the populist Perot movement with its vast appeal
to ordinary Americans looking to take our country back was now controlled by a
group of political hacks. These Perot populists, based mainly in rural or
smaller urban areas, found that their natural allies were the Fulani/Newman
forces in New York City.
Essenberg’s vision for the Independence Party - a vehicle
to achieve patronage and insider political influence through granting and withholding
of its ballot line in NY’s cross endorsement game - viewed the party as nothing
other than a new player in the existing political paradigm. He was far more
interested in patronage than in democracy. This was dramatically different from
Fulani and Newman’s goal of a mass based populist party
bringing together left, center and right in a non-ideological coalition to
challenge the prevailing paradigm. They sought nothing less than transforming
the state and country’s political culture to one of democracy, inclusion and
the exercise of political power by ordinary Americans.
Newman,
Fulani and their allies, me among them, began to look closely at the Party’s
rules and structures for a way to give organizational expression to the growing
discontent with Essenberg and the Golisano
rules. We searched for a way for populism to assert itself in a battle for the
heart and soul of the Independence Party. We focused on two aspects of the
party’s rules - the weighted vote and the control by the state executive committee
of the county leadership and the party’s ballot line in local races. After
considerable dialogue within the left/center/right populist coalition that was
stirring “on the ground” it was clear that the means to bring together a broad
democracy coalition that bridged the traditional upstate/downstate ideological
and cultural divide was the fight for local control giving local party
activists the right to govern the local affairs of the party.
The fight for local control was, for me, and
the others involved, an exhilarating exercise in democracy and an opportunity
to combine populism with a measure of hard ball legal and political
sophistication, achieved in 15 years of electoral battles in New York
City, that traditional populists too often lacked.
The
emerging democracy coalition agreed that local control was the necessary step
in taking the party away from Essenberg. The
coalition was as broad and diverse as New York. It
included: conservative Perot supporters from Syracuse and Poughkeepsie; a couple of
close Golisano allies from Rochester who felt
that Essenberg was out to steal “their party;”
relatively inexperienced and democracy minded activists from Albany, Ithaca and Buffalo, and the
Mayor of Watertown near the Canadian border. It included Black welfare
recipients from Brooklyn who’d grown tired of
political manipulation by the Democratic Party. And it included Frank MacKay, a
dynamic young leader from Suffolk County, on the
eastern half of Long Island, who had become politicized
by the Perot movement and made his living managing rock bands. Key figures from
the Fulani and Newman grouping were Cathy Stewart, a dynamic grass roots
organizer and talented hard ball political player, and Harlem physician
Jessie Fields, an inspiring public speaker.
I was
commissioned to draft an extensive amendment to the Party’s rules that gave
local control to something we called “interim county organizations” or ICO’s that we said could be formed in any county with at
least two elected State Committee members. New York election
law allows for local control through the election of county committees. In
larger counties, that meant many hundreds of people, a difficult task for a new
and independent party. The interim county organizations - the ICO’s - were specifically suited to the level of
development of the Independence Party and, moreover, gave expression to the
power of the State Committee as the highest elected body of the party by
empowering its members to govern the party at a local level. We invented them as the form of
organization needed in the effort to democratize the party and bring together a
left-center-right democracy coalition and, in turn, the process of binging them
to life, politically and legally, was the process by which the populist forces
took power in the Independence Party.
As the
fight for local control proceeded, the democracy coalition came to represent a
significant majority - close to seventy five percent of the State Committee’s
weighted vote. Cathy Stewart and Frank MacKay developed a close working
relationship. They shared a deep respect for local control and never let their
political views on other issues stand in the way of bringing the party’s newly
emerging leadership together. Meanwhile, Essenberg,
the party chairman had already made clear that he did not support the effort
and would call on members of the Party’s rules committee loyal to him to
obstruct the changes the democracy coalition was working towards.
At
its meetings the democracy coalition leaders worked on the content of the rules
changes and the tactics and strategy of how to get them passed and implemented.. As important, these diverse New Yorkers - upstate,
downstate, urban, suburban and rural, Black, White and Latino, progressive,
moderate and conservative - began to practice a new culture of politics. They
learned how to talk to and listen to each other. They had to. The
populist principles, i.e. democracy through local control - required that they do so.
Though
the democracy coalition had a decided majority on the state committee, Essenberg had the support of NY’s political establishment,
particularly the Republican Party, which hoped to secure IP as a permanent
endorsement partner. The Republicans provided Essenberg
with the services of Thomas Spargo, a leading Republican
election lawyer with insider contacts among judges and election officials
across the state. (Spargo
would later join the Republicans’ legal team in Florida in 2000.)
Further, Essenberg’s view of how a minor party should
function - authority exercised by a small group of people at the top pursuing
limited objectives -
was the accepted one in New York State’s corrupt
political culture. Finally, Essenberg had the support
of Tom Golisano, the Independence Party’s billionaire
founding father who had his own ties to Bill and Hilary Clinton and the state’s
Democratic Party. The democracy coalition and the state committee had never
before wielded political power. As the fight for local control unfolded, it
would do so, and in doing so, would confront enormously powerful forces in the
state. No one of us could have predicted what that would look like and how the
battle would unfold.
The
attorneys for the democracy coalition - myself among them - produced a set of
local control rules amendments. The proposal was taken to the Essenberg appointed rules committee which tried to sandbag
the effort by dragging its feet. By February of 1999 it was apparent that Essenberg was not going to cooperate in allowing the
proposed changes to come before the State Committee for a vote. Essenberg’s hand picked rules committee chair tried to
avoid even calling a meeting of the rules committee where a vote might be
taken. When a meeting finally occurred, Tom Golisano
attended and tried to intimidate us from pursuing our local control objectives.
Finally
Essenberg made it clear that he had no intention of
convening a meeting of the State Committee where the new rules could be voted
on. The existing Independence Party rules, however, allowed twenty percent of
the members of the State Committee to petition for a meeting, and we did. Essenberg set the meeting for a weekday morning - when most
everyone had to be at work - in Glen Cove, Long
Island near his home and announced that the agenda would
consist of an address by Tom Golisano. There was no
mention of the rules changes. Leaders
of the democracy coalition prepared for the April 1999 Glen Cove meeting by
studying Roberts Rules Order and coming up with a set of parliamentary
maneuvers to take the necessary steps towards adopting the rules amendments. We
also prepared to set in motion the removal of Essenberg
as party chair and his supporters as officers and members of the State
Executive Committee for abrogating the democratic rights of the duly elected
members of the State Committee. We remained in close contact with coalition
members and supporters across the state and urged as many as possible to come
to the meeting. Our perspective was simple. We did not know what Essenberg was going to do or what legal plays Tom Spargo was going to make. However we had the majority of
the State Committee; the State Committee was the governing body of the
Independence Party; and it was going to stay in session until its objectives
were accomplished. The State Committee was - on paper - the highest governing
body of the party, though de facto Essenberg and Golisano controlled the party. This was the moment when the
State Committee began to exercise that “on paper” power in real political life.
Some
150 people assembled in Glen Cove at 10 a.m. Essenberg
called the meeting to order, introduced Tom Golisano
and, as soon as Golisano had finished speaking, an Essenberg loyalist from Buffalo moved to adjourn the
meeting. Ignoring demands for a roll call vote on the motion to adjourn, Essenberg declared the meeting closed. He and Golisano walked out.
But the
democracy coalition was not to be stopped. We took control of the lectern,
conducted the roll call in Essenberg’s absence,
defeated the motion to adjourn, adopted an agenda, and proceeded to hold the meeting.
The body voted to set up a subcommittee to conduct a hearing on the removal of Essenberg and his clique for corruption and disloyalty
pursuant to Section 2-116 of the Election Law. It also voted to hold another
special meeting of the state committee. A new petition for a special meeting
went into circulation immediately and plans were made to be sure the proposed
rules changes were sent out well in advance, in compliance with the notice
requirements of New York State law. The
coalition was now wielding political power. And the fight was joined.
Essenberg commenced a court proceeding to declare the Glen Cove meeting
illegal. The populist democracy coalition commenced a “cross proceeding”
seeking explicit authority to send out the rules amendment for a future
meeting, on the theory that the Court would still have the right to decide on
the legality of what had transpired at a subsequent time, but at least the
rules would be before the body prior to the meeting. Judge Bernard Malone of
the State Supreme Court in Albany County (where Tom
Spargo now sits as a judge along with him) was
assigned to hear the two proceedings. He signed an order allowing the rules to
be sent out, but reserved decision on whether or not this would meet the
requirements of the Election Law until a later date. He also ordered that the
removal proceeding against Essenberg and his crew not
go forward.
A
second State Committee meeting was held in June at which, after Essenberg’s adjournment maneuver was again voted down, the
rules amendments were adopted. Within days, Judge
Malone - in a desperate bid to help Essenberg and Golisano stamp out the populist insurgency inside the party
- declared the actions taken at this and the prior meeting invalid on the
grounds that as Chair, Essenberg and Essenberg alone controlled the agenda of the
meeting. The democracy coalition, now the overwhelming majority of the State
Committee, united against the dictatorial tactics of Essenberg,
appealed Judge Malone’s decision to the appellate court. In October 1999 the
appellate court ruled that the adoption of party rules was within the province
of the party and not subject to judicial review and, further, that the removal
proceeding could go forward. The populists had won a major victory!
The
removal committee held a hearing and found Essenberg
and his allies on the Executive Committee guilty of corruption and disloyalty
to the party by reason of their effort to obstruct the State Committee majority
from carrying out its functions as the governing body. A petition was
circulated calling for special meeting in February, 2000 to vote on removing and
recalling the Essenberg clique and electing a new
Executive Committee and officers. When the meeting convened Spargo
served a restraining order and the coalition’s lawyers, Gary Sinawksi and I, went immediately to the Appellate Court
which directed Judge Malone to hold a hearing on the retraining order
forthwith. As the attorneys began their arguments 100 State Committee members
from all across NY trooped into the courtroom. Malone lifted the restraining
order, and the body reconvened and took care of business. The Essenberg clique was removed and recalled and a new
Executive Committee was elected which included Fulani allies Cathy Stewart, Jessie Fields and
myself along with other members of the democracy coalition. Frank MacKay was
elected chair.
Judge
Malone made one last effort to overturn the results of the meeting but was
quickly reversed by the Appellate Court in a ruling which held, explicitly,
that the State Committee had the right to set its own agenda. Populism had
prevailed!
In the
three years since it assumed power the democracy coalition has effected local control across the state. Courts have
recognized the ICO’s as the governing bodies of the
Independence Party at the county level. The democracy coalition has elected the
Mayor of New York, providing the margin of victory for Mike Bloomberg’s
election, having backed him on the condition that he lead
a fight to install nonpartisan municipal elections in the city. We pressured Governor George Pataki into
winning support for initiative and referendum in the Republican controlled
Senate, part of the Democracy Coalition’s condition for Pataki receiving our
support in his effort to win the Independence Party nomination. The coalition
led the Party though a hotly contested primary in which Tom Golisano
spent over $35 million to win the IP line. Though the Democracy Coalition
forces backed Pataki, and Fulani and Stewart carried the city for him 2 to 1, Golisano eked out a victory by 400 votes.
He went on
to get 650,000 votes on the Independence Party
line, (spending another $30 million in the process), helping us to secure the
third slot on the ballot again. But even beyond Golisano’s
vote, the mere fact that a billionaire and a sitting governor contested for the
line, established it as New York’s major
minor party.
In
the 2002 election for state committee the democracy coalition grew stronger and
reelected Frank MacKay chair by a ninety percent majority. Cathy Stewart was
elected one of the Party’s Vice Chairs and Lenora Fulani was voted a member of
the Executive Committee.
The
bipartisan establishment is still reeling from the fact that this unlikely
(some would say motley) group of populists organized a democratic takeover of New York’s third
largest political party. What lessons are there for ordinary Americans across
the country who are fed up with politics as usual and
looking for a way to take their democracy and their country back?
Organize on a populist basis - bring
together ideologically and culturally diverse elements of the population united
by a commitment to grass roots democracy.
Beware of centrists who
preach moderation, but practice exclusion and top down control.
Remember that the
activity of exercising power and building the organizational tools to wield it
is what gives us power.
Never stop organizing.
Never stop reaching out and bringing new people in. Don’t be afraid to give up
control. Organize, Organize, Organize. Numbers count.
Learn to listen. Don’t
be preoccupied with who is right. Use what people say to build, even if you
disagree.
This story
of successful populist activity took place in and around a ballot status
political party. However, you don’t need a party to organize and make powerful
political moves. Indeed, as the sad experience of the national Reform Party
demonstrated, it can even be a hindrance. Linda Curtis tells me that
Independent Texans is searching for ways to wield power here. That’s great. My
advice is to choose the path of populism in practice. Nationally, independents
from across the country are organizing towards a mass meeting to choose a
presidential candidate in New Hampshire where the
presidential primaries kick off in January 2004. We don’t have a blue print for
how to do it. We are learning and creating this independent populism as we
build.
The key to
remember is this: populism is a strategy, a perspective on democracy. The
leaders and organizers have to maintain and express that perspective in the day
to day life of the organizing process. We’ve succeeded in doing that in the
Independence Party of New York. We succeeded - along with some of you - in
doing that for a time in the Reform Party. When the populist coalition created
a power sharing situation at the Reform Party’s 1999 convention in Dearborn -
the convention where Dr. Fulani got 45% of the vote of the delegates for Vice
Chair - it was the most explosive and hopeful moment in the party’s history.
While we have sustained that populism in New York, it was
destroyed in the Reform Party - and caused the party to fragment and spin off
to the right.
There are dangers in the
independent movement. Dangers that centrism will dominate. Or even that
party-building will dominate, at a time when independents need to freely
associate in the most flexible forms of organization - as IT has done. The key
is to keep going in a populist direction. Grassroots democracy is both the issue
and the form of expression which defines political independence.
![[IPNYC logo]](/images/nyciplogo.jpg)
![[stripe]](/images/stripe.gif)