The Educated Voter: The Working Families Party and political endorsements

Published on July 29, 2019

The Working Families Party (WFP) is a progressive political organization that was founded in 1998. They are billed as a grassroots coalition of community organizations, union activists and progressive elected officials. By their own account they run aggressive campaigns and from what I’ve seen locally, have had huge successes.[1]

The party first burst onto the Albany political scene in the 2004 race for Albany County District Attorney. The Democratic Party endorsed candidate, Paul Clyne was favored to win due to his long-term relationship with the Albany Dems and his long-term service as an assistant district attorney. David Soares won by a landslide after receiving the support of the Working Families Party, a party that had been relatively unknown on the Albany political scene. The New York Times stated that the Party had "established itself as an emerging political force statewide by getting a little-known candidate elected district attorney in Albany County.”[2]The WFP was also a strong force for change and a champion of women when they campaigned for Margaret Walsh to be chosen as the Democratic nominee for Supreme Court Third Judicial District over Justin Corcoran. Mr. Corcoran received the endorsement and the WFP left their line blank. A Republican woman ultimately won the seat.

They have generally endorsed and campaigned for Democrats and can be credited with the push to the left of the Albany County Democratic Party. Any Democrat not a progressive is labelled a “blue dog Democrat” by the WFP, meaning a moderate or more conservative Democratic.[3]I take it from their Facebook posts they don’t have a lot of love for those Democrats.

Being a progressive party, most of us assume that they would be part of the movement to make sure that more women ran for, and won, political office. However, here in Albany County recently, the WFP has chosen to endorse the politically connected male Democratic candidate in several instances over the very qualified female Democrat.I was surprised then to read the July 17, 2019 Times Union commentary written by Anita Thayer and Karen Scharff, co-chairs of the New York Working Families Party. Despite choosing to endorse male candidates over exceptionally qualified women candidates over the past few years, they write of their disgust that the Albany County Democratic Party chose to endorse a very qualified male candidate over a female candidate. “WFP has been urging the Democratic Party to nominate more women for the Third Judicial District, and WFP has refused to endorse the Democratic Party’s candidates on several occasions when it turned away qualified female candidates in favor of politically connected men.”[4]

If their platform is to support female candidates, we have to question some of their recent endorsements. Susan Rizzo, a very qualified woman and Democrat, was running to become the first female county comptroller of Albany County. The Albany County Democratic Committee chose to endorse the politically connected male and the Working Families Party went along with it. If there was ever a time to split with the party endorsement, this was it, an historic first in Albany County. Fortunately, Ms. Rizzo worked incredibly hard and the voters of the county realized she was the most qualified for the office and she won the Democratic primary. Curiously, the WFP had endorsed her in 2017 when she ran for city auditor.

Likewise, in a 2018 primary for Town of Guilderland Justice, the WFP turned away a qualified female candidate in favor of a politically connected man. Christine Napierski had been appointed as Guilderland Town Justice to fill a vacancy in the position. The town board appointed her in 2017 after interviewing ten attorneys, including Bryan Clenahan, who ultimately won the seat in an election. The town board found Christine the most qualified attorney to fill the position. The Guilderland Democrats decided they would prefer Bryan Clenahan in the position, we still don’t know why, and endorsed him. The WFP followed suit and endorsed him. Directly contradicting their stance as stated by one of their supporters in the 2014 Walsh-Corcoran contest, “To actually select a man – albeit a qualified man – over a sitting judge who is serving in an exemplary manner is just ludicrous and shows what’s wrong with the political party system in Albany County.”[5]

After their recent track record and playing ball with the Albany County Democrats, they now seem shocked, that women aren’t being advanced for political office. Perhaps based on their recent behavior, the Albany County Democrats had no reason to believe they wouldn’t follow suit as they had been in recent years and endorse their chosen candidate.

Like Lucille Ball, the WFP has a lot of explaining to do.[6]Are they serious about getting more women elected to office? Then why did they play political footsie with the Democrats when they had the chance to back two qualified women? Voters need to dig a little deeper and understand what is being done in their name. We need to be better educated about what is actually happening out there. It’s difficult to dissect and understand politics these days, especially when elected officials and their parties put out carefully worded pieces that don’t actually tell us anything or when we are called names and bullied when we ask questions.

Be inquisitive. Question authority. It makes us all better.

[1]Working families party, “About us,” accessed July 20, 2019, http://workingfamilies.org/about-us/.

[2]Slackman, Michael. “Labor-Backed Third Party Emerges as Statewide Force.” The New York Times. November 7, 2004.

[3]Funny side note, a Blue Dog Democrat is named after the character Dino on the cartoon television show The Flintstones. Dino was a blue dog, and the letters DINO stand for “Democrat In Name Only.”While I have given the common definition of a blue dog Democrat, which doesn’t seem like such a bad thing to me, if you google it, you will come up with many not-so-nice descriptions including some believing they have horns on their heads.

[4]Thayer, Anita and Scharff, Karen. “Dems’ insider politics are bad for courts and for the party.” Times Union. July 17, 2009.

[5]Carleo-Evangelist, Jordan. “Insurgent campaign comes up short.” Times Union. September 19, 2014.

[6]For those too young to remember, whenever Lucy did something that didn’t make a lot of sense on the television show I Love Lucy, Desi would declare “Lucy, you got some ‘splaining to do.