Staten Island Goes Purple
Voters on Staten Island—long the only Republicn corner of New York City—have turned their Republican Congressman Dan Donovan out of office. New York’s 11th District—which the island shares with a couple of neighborhoods across the Verrazanno Bridge in Brooklyn—was the last part of the city to be represented by a Republican in the U.S. House. Although Democrats in the district outnumber Republicans by a 2-to-1 margin, Donald Trump won 58 percent of the vote there in 2016. The President retains some popular support on the island, his policies less so.
The surprising victory of Democrat Max Rose signals that Staten Island is genuinely a swing district—something that New York Democrats have precious little experience with. The combination of gerrymandering and “big sort” demographic shifts created a sort of district-by-district one-party domination in New York State that has resulted, at least within the city, in neither party knowing how to run in competitive elections.
In a deep-blue city like New York, political posts are handed down like family heirlooms. More politicians leave office in handcuffs or a pine box than because of voter will. As a result, the county—or, in NYC-speak, borough—political organizations are hollowed out. They’re less machines than automatons that go through the motions with little if any involvement from actual people.
A Purple Heart military veteran, Rose was recruited to move to Staten Island and run for office by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. His campaign messaging included complaints about “both sides” and swipes at Mayor Bill DeBlasio, a focus on opioid addiction and an allergic reaction to Medicare-for-All, with a wonkish focus on expanding access to health care within the framework of the Affordable Care Act.
Centrist Democratic consultants will point to Rose’s campaign messaging as a lesson for Democrats in 2020, but there’s probably more of an organizing lesson to be learned. The Rose campaign activated hundreds of volunteers who canvassed the district to identify over 86,000 likely voters, and then turn them—and more—out to win with a decisive 52.8 percent of the vote.
Rose has staying power, and Staten Island’s political landscape will never be the same. The election is no less than a political realignment in New York’s most conservative borough, which can no longer be written off as Republican territory. Now comes a day of reckoning for both parties’ local organizations, and some badly-needed soul-searching for New York’s unions about how they approach the question of “electability” and “sure-things.”
WHEN DISTRICTS REALIGN, both parties’ old orders are threatened.
The Republican party operation on Staten Island was once a nigh-unstoppable machine that was crucial to the election victories of Ronald Reagan, Alphonse D’amato, and Rudy Giuliani. In recent years it’s been dependant on low-turnout special and midterm elections to retain its competitive edge.
For four decades, the Staten Island GOP was led by Guy V. Molinari, the politician who first flipped what had been a reliably Democratic congressional district in 1980—the year of Reagan’s presidential election—before moving on to become Borough President. Molinari passed away this summer, but his party machine never outgrew him or his grudges. He openly feuded with Representative Donovan as well as James Oddo, the current Republican Borough President. In a healthy organization either of these elected officials would be their party’s official leader. Instead Molinari threatened them both with primary challenges. He encouraged his protege, ex-con ex-Representative Michael Grimm, to run against Donovan for his old seat. That bruising primary campaign fatally damaged Donovan’s credibility as a moderate by compelling him, as Republican primaries do, to move further to the right.
One party operative publicly blamed “years of neglect and years of trying to make the county organization smaller and subservient to its leaders” for the historic loss of Molinari’s old seat.
Lawn signs ordinarily might not be an indication of anything significant, but it was notable how few Dan Donovan lawn signs could be seen around the island—especially compared to Max Rose’s and even the faded Michael Grimm signs from his failed primary bid. I don’t know a single friend or neighbor who had a Donovan volunteer knock on their door or call on the phone. None of my fellow commuters could recall seeing the Donovan team passing out campaign lit at the Staten Island Ferry, which is the barest minimum that any local political effort must do.
We all assumed that the Republicans had some secret weapon or really reliable internal polling, but the post-election public recriminations in our local paper of record, the Staten Island Advance, confirm that there was nothing; just a misguided assumption that the rubes would keep on voting Republican in sufficient numbers.
It is all but certain that there will be a significant personnel shake-up at the Staten Island GOP.
On the Democratic side, the county committee has been a baffling mess. Earlier in the year, one of Staten Island’s few elected Democratic state legislators, Matthew Titone, decided to forego re-election for his safe seat in order to run for the borough-wide position of Surrogate Judge. Party chairman John Gulino strong-armed his county committee to deny Titone the party’s endorsement—possibly because Titone is an out gay man, and Gulino has some notion that such a thing is political poison in Staten Island’s more conservative enclaves (or it could be for an even dumber reason that we’ll never fully understand).
Nonetheless, Titone trounced the party’s hand-picked mediocrity in the primary and cruised to victory in the same general election that saw Rose upend the borough’s political calculus. In the interim, the rusty S.I. Democratic machine failed to even file the necessary paperwork for its down-ballot judicial nominees, allowing the Republicans to win those races free from competition.
In 2014, with Michael Grimm running for re-election under the cloud of a 20-count indictment, the SI Dems allowed the Brooklyn machine to fob off an inarticulate city councilman from the other side other side of the Verrazzano who bumbled his way to an ignominious defeat. Before that, they ran the son of the crook who had lost his seat to Molinari four decades ago.
Clearly there are going to be big changes in the thoroughly-discredited Democratic county committee, and Rose would be the natural party leader. One close observer of S.I. politics speculates that Rose’s chief of staff, Kevin Elkins, will replace Gulino and turn the party into the kind of GOTV organization that put Rose over the top.
MOSTLY ABSENT FROM THE STORY of Max Rose’s ground-breaking victory are unions. The New York state AFL-CIO endorsed Donovan, the Republican incumbent. Although 1199 SEIU and the Staten Island-based local 1102 of the Communications Workers put a lot of feet in the street on Rose’s behalf, the rest of the labor movement took the cautious approach of issuing paper endorsements of the GOP incumbent who was favored to win re-election.
Their calculation was as simple as it was cold. Donovan picked up the phone when they called. He could do them small favors and GOP leadership gave him permission to vote no on the really big bad bills like the billionaire tax cut and health care repeal. That those bills came to the floor at all was because Donovan caucused with the death cult that is the congressional Republican party, but his permission from Paul Ryan to avoid getting his hands dirty allowed him to avoid hardcore opposition from the unions. For the unions, the question was why risk losing access to a flawed Republican when a good Democrat who wins without labor’s backing can be expected to forgive and forget (and count on their backing for re-election)?
Staying away from Rose’s long-shot campaign was hardly the most embarrassing inaction by New York’s unions this political season. The most electrifying primary election in the country saw newcomer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeat 10-term congressman Joe Crowley. The idea that the fourth ranked Democrat in Congress and chairman of his county’s Democratic machine could be crushed by a 28-year-old democratic socialist with no financial war chest stunned the political establishment. And in New York unions are very much a part of the political establishment. With nearly a quarter of New York workers belonging to one, unions remain powerful and influential—and exceedingly cautious when it comes to political endorsements.In that primary, the unions reflexively endorsed the incumbent, Crowley.
Nationally, 2020 likely will see more left wing primary challenges in deep blue districts—and the general election will see the last of the moderate Republicans in the fight of their political lives. Unions that back centrist Democrats and moderate Republicans will have some difficult decisions to make.
[This article originally appeared at The American Prospect.]
AUDIO: On America’s Workforce Radio discussing the mid-term elections and why we should all go on strike.
Supreme Court Guts Workers’ Rights in Murphy Oil
With their decision Monday, May 21, 2018 in Murphy Oil, the Supreme Court has just gutted workers’ rights to act collectively to battle wage theft and discrimination. Murphy Oil is a gift to corporations, allowing them to force their workers to sign a class action waiver as a condition of employment. Justice Neil Gorsuch authored the 5-4 decision that might as well have read, “Because we have the votes.”
A class action waiver is when a worker waives – that is, gives away – their right to band together with other workers, access the courts, and force their employer to stop doing something discriminatory, dangerous, or otherwise wrong.
Class action lawsuits had been one of the most powerful ways for workers to win back-pay awards for employer misconduct. Arbitration, which takes place outside of the courts, is far more favorable to employers. That is doubly true when a worker must go it alone. Even if a worker can afford legal representation (instead of pooling the cost with dozens or hundreds of workers), they face the employer with only the facts and circumstances of their individual case.
The Murphy Oil decision consolidated a number of cases weighing the legality and constitutionality of class action waivers. In one case, Epic Systems, the Seventh Circuit Court ruled that the waivers violated the National Labor Relations Act’s protections for workers of workers’ concerted activity. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) agreed, and so did President Obama’s Solicitor General – until President Trump took the unusual step of reversing the United States’ official position on a pending Supreme Court case.
Murphy Oil follows a series of Supreme Court decisions favoring arbitration since 1991. Employers have matched that enthusiasm by increasingly requiring workers to sign employment agreements that include mandatory arbitration clauses. Most non-union employers now require employees to sign one – and 30% explicitly forbid their workers from taking class action, restricting their legal rights.
Arbitration is a funny thing in U.S. labor history. Although union activists tend to think of it as a positive thing – a recourse to a neutral third party at the end of a grievance procedure – it has not always been seen as, well, neutral.
Leftist critics frequently decried arbitration during the era where employers refused to sign contracts or formally recognize unions as the legitimate representatives. In the early 20th century, many unions called off early bruising strikes after the employer agreed to abide by an arbitrator’s decision.
In those days, “arbitration” basically meant asking for a nominally “progressive” lawyer or politician to the throw the workers a few scraps while almost always rejecting the union’s demand for formal recognition as the on-going bargaining representative of those workers.
The sea change in unions’ appreciation for the value of binding arbitration dates to 1935. That’s when the newly created NLRB provided the force of law to make employers bargain with duly recognized unions. What resulted was a routine of signed, written contracts covering wages, hours and working conditions – and dispute resolution procedures that included an appeal to a neutral third party over a violation of the contract or a disagreement about what some of the words on the page meant.
The crucial distinction here is that by being included in collective bargaining agreements, the recourse to arbitration was, by definition, the exercise of a collective right and the culmination of the collective power that it took unions to win those rights. That’s what the conservative majority on the court just stole from non-union workers.
In the Seventh Circuit, Judge Diane Wood first asserted that class action waivers violate labor law. She has been incredibly creative in the way that she issues pro-labor opinions. She also advanced the legal theory that so-called “right-to-work” laws violate the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Why was she not President Obama’s nominee to replace the late Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court?
It’s a reminder that any party that wants labor’s support must advance judicial nominees who “look like America” and who have a demonstrated track record of protecting, if not expanding collective rights, including workers’, consumers’ and others.
Class action waivers have come under scrutiny in the #MeToo era, where high-profile harassment survivors are arguing for a “carve out” when class-action waivers hinder redress for gender discrimination. But as writer E. Tammy Kim writes in yesterday’s New York Times, “For decades, the spread of forced arbitration and its twin demon, the class-action waiver, have slowly eroded Americans’ civil rights….To unleash the full power of #MeToo, we must fight for much more: a rejiggering of the economy that begins with collective action and unbridled access to the courts.”
As with many matters in the Trump era, workers can still defend their rights at the state level. Many community organizations are looking to replicate a California law called the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) of 2004. It grants workers the power of the state when seeking redress on a wage and hour claim. Because the state is not a party to employment agreements, the forced arbitration clauses are unenforceable when workers use the PAGA process.
Workers have won big through PAGA, upheld by California’s highest court in 2014. Wal-Mart, for instance, paid out $22.7 million in minimum wage violations. “The possibility of a PAGA case changes the calculus for a company, so that they would invest more in compliance and not be as cavalier about the labor standards,” Rachel Deutch of the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) told Bloomberg news. CPD is a network of community organizations and unions pushing, among other policy reforms, the PAGA strategy in cities and states. That’s where the fight continues tomorrow.
[This post originally appeared at Unionist.com]
Republicans Are Hard at Work to Turn Staten Island Blue
Is Donald Trump an albatross around the neck of congressional Republicans? By appealing to his base and embracing the polarizing strategies that he has brought to new heights, will they cost themselves the last few swing districts in Trump-abhorring blue states?
We New Yorkers might have the best view of the GOP’s struggle to stay afloat in America’s big cities right here on Staten Island. Republican Dan Donovan, who has represented New York’s 11th Congressional District for all of a term and a half, is in the fight of his political life in the June 26 GOP primary.
Our ex-con ex-Congressman, Republican Michael Grimm—fresh out of jail—is running against Donovan to reclaim his old job. Grimm has gone full fascist in order to win the backing of former White House consigliere Stephen Bannon, as part of Bannon’s effort to destroy what’s left of the Republican establishment.
Grimm gushed over Bannon’s early and enthusiastic endorsement. His campaign materials studiously avoid any policy stances of substance. Instead they emphasize his past military and law enforcement credentials and—of course—putting America first. He has pledged—and maintained—fidelity to what he calls “President Trump’s agenda,” adding, “Anyone that’s against that agenda needs to get out of the way.”
On the Democratic side, Purple Heart veteran Max Rose is leading a crowded field. He has more cash on hand than any candidate vying for New York’s 11th District, raising three times as much money as Donovan this year. (Full disclosure: I knocked on doors to get signatures to put Rose on the Working Families Party ballot line. I found a lot more enthusiasm for him than my Republican neighbors demonstrate for Donovan.)
In recent weeks, Donovan has been scurrying to the right. His latest “Hail Mary pass” was to introduce a bill in Congress banning so-called “Sanctuary Cities” from receiving federal funding, despite having voted against a similar bill last June.
Indeed, until recently Donovan had been doing all of the things a moderate Republican would traditionally do to win re-election in a swing district in a blue state. This time last year, he was co-authoring an op-ed in The Washington Post with a Dreamer, grasping for “common ground” with the most sympathetic of group of undocumented immigrants. He’d even won the backing of the state AFL-CIO.
That was before Grimm began taunting him in the Staten Island Advance as “Desperate Dan” and initiated a juvenile slap war in which each besmirched his rival as a “liberal.” In far-right Bizarro World, each had committed the unforgiveable sin of not always voting in lock-step with John Boehner and Paul Ryan to keep health insurance as expensive as possible for working people.
These attacks seem to have made Grimm the favorite of the party’s shrinking base. A recent poll commissioned by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee showed Donovan trailing Grimm by ten percentage points in the upcoming primary. Donovan’s camp has dismissed the polling as so much fake news, but his complete about-face on immigration issues suggests the poll is a lot closer to the truth than they’re willing to admit publicly.
Hence his complete reversal on immigrants and sanctuary cities. And a costly reversal it is: His attempt to save himself in the primary will make it exquisitely difficult for him to win in November—should he even make it that far.
I realize that Staten Island has a national reputation as a conservative enclave in perpetual rebellion against the rest of “liberal” New York City—but the reality is a lot more complicated. There are more than twice as many registered Democrats and independents (even a sprinkling of socialists) on Staten Island than there are Republicans. One in five residents were born in another country, and anti-immigrant rhetoric still sounds anti-immigrant to the documented and undocumented alike.
The ongoing demographic “big sort”—where people choose to live in communities where their neighbors are more likely to share their values—encourages the political parties to campaign to their base and focus on turnout. That probably means that the Democrats’ best hopes for retaking the House lie in California, New Jersey, and—yes—Staten Island, NYC.
As the GOP’s rural voters increasingly embrace an extremist and reactionary agenda, the party becomes more of a fringe movement in diverse working-class communities like Staten Island’s north shore and the Brooklyn neighborhoods that have been saddled with us in NY 11. Winning the majority of a Republican minority is not going to be enough to win elections in a district like ours.
Whatever your opinion on Sanctuary Cities policies—which commit local law enforcement to do the barest minimum of cooperation with federal immigration authorities seeking to deport law-abiding undocumented residents—the fact is that it is currently settled law in New York City, and that is not an issue that is on the ballot in November. Yet Donovan’s bill proposes to deprive his constituents of a lot of our federal tax dollars. How do you stand before the voters in a general election on that kind of track record?
Grimm—the apparent GOP primary frontrunner—has long been a national embarrassment for Republicans. You might remember him from the time he threatened to “break” a reporter “like a boy” on live camera. He was under a cloud immediately after he won his first election when suspicious cash bundles raised by a foreign national quickly sparked a federal investigation.
Grimm’s former girlfriend got a slap on the wrist conviction for the clumsy violation of campaign-finance law. She didn’t roll on her former paramour, however, so he didn’t get convicted for that particular crime.
But the FBI investigation revealed a sordid history of tip-stealing at his Upper East Side health-food store. He was indicted on 20 counts ranging from tax evasion, lying under oath, and hiring undocumented workers. He eventually pled guilty to one count of tax evasion and served eight months in prison (but not before he won re-election in a 2014 race that the national Democrats also had high hopes for).
Would Grimm’s ignominious presence as the once-again standard-bearer for the GOP cause the establishment to beg Donovan to stay in the November race as a kind of “Never (Again) Trump?” Unless he withdraws, Donovan’s name will be on the ballot in the general election no matter what. Thanks to New York’s fusion voting laws—which allow third parties to co-endorse candidates as a kind of ideological “Good Housekeeping” seal of approval—his name will appear on the third- and sixth-place lines—the Conservative and Independence parties—on the November ballot. The choice for the Republican establishment may well come down to their deciding to split the vote of their diminished legions or let ex-con Grimm carry their banner in an ugly—and presumably embarrassing—defeat in November. There are not a lot of scenarios here that look good for the GOP retaining a toehold in NYC.
[This article originally appeared at The American Prospect.]