With an active presence in 14 states and the District of Columbia, the Working Families Party (WFP) is putting a progressive face on coalition party politics.
Beginnings in New York
The party, which is backed by labor unions and donations from around the country, had its beginnings in New York in 1998. Due to the state's electoral fusion rules, which allow minor parties to endorse major candidates and have them run on their party line, WFP saw early success backing Democrats at the local, statewide, and national levels.
Today, New York and Connecticut are joined in the party's coalition by New Jersey, Maryland, Wisconsin, Rhode Island, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Nevada, West Virginia, New Mexico, Ohio, Texas, Illinois, and Washington, D.C.
Success and pushback
With electoral success has come a push in New York and around the country for progressive policies that has seen some wins for WFP. In 2004, New York raised the minimum wage after years of pressure from WFP; the party also had success pushing the policy forward to adoption in Connecticut in 2014.
Despite the party's success over the years—or perhaps because of it—New York Democrats, led by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, attempted to destroy the WFP by a law requiring all minor parties in the state to get 2% of the vote or 130,000 votes, whichever is higher. The move drew backlash from New York progressives both at the state level, like Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou, and at the federal level, like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and incoming Rep. Jamaal Bowman.
Their efforts were successful/unsuccessful, and RESULTS/CONSEQUENCES.
In other states, the party fared the same/better/worse.
RESULTS.
Charting a new course
The party is looking ahead to 2021 with an eye to solving the myriad crises exposed by the Covid pandemic and the economic crash the disease triggered. A program called the People's Charter aims to prioritize five key points that the party and its allies believe will lead to a fair and just recovery.
The key points, according to WFP, are:
Care for the Wronged: Repair historic harms and end systemic racism.
Emergency care: Help everyone get and stay well, and support workers, families, and small businesses as long as it takes.
A Good Job for Everyone Who Needs One: Working people can’t wait years for jobs to come back, we need millions of jobs now.
Care for Each Other: Address the deficiencies in how our government cares for us that the pandemic has revealed.
Care for the Future: Act now to make us all more resilient to challenges we know we have to confront.
The charter was launched in early October by WFP and its allies in Congress, Reps. Ayanna Pressley, Chuy Garcia, and Rashida Tlaib, as well as incoming Reps. Cori Bush, Jamaal Bowman, and Mondaire Jones, and others.
Building a movement to effect change even before the election was described by the party as a necessity given the challenges faced by the country. The need for working people to be a part of the conversation, the party said, is clearer than ever.
"The United States of America is the richest country in the history of the world," the party said. "We can get ourselves out of the messes we’re in."
"Imagine if the grocery store clerks, the farmworkers, the nurses, the teachers, the bus drivers, and all of the working people in this country were in charge of it," the statement continued. "Imagine how different things would be."
