DSA Statement on the 2000 Election and Democracy
January 11, 2001
The presidential election is over, yet the struggle for democracy continues, as it has in our nation since the struggle against slavery and in favor of women’s suffrage down to contemporary struggles to defend and extend civil rights to people of color, immigrants, gays and lesbians, and trade unionists.
Five conservative ideologues on the Supreme Court determined that their desire for an expeditious conclusion to the presidential contest, one conforming to their own political preferences, should take precedence over the most fundamental principle of representative democracy: the equality of suffrage. The entire state of Florida’s contested under-and-over-counted votes could have been recounted by standard hand-counting procedures in a matter of days. But in a blatant perversion of logic, the Court’s majority suspended the recount only to then claim that this suspension precluded the recount from being completed in a “timely manner.”
Democratic Socialists of America believes that protesting the theft of the 2000 presidential election must go beyond short-term outrage to the building of a long-term, mass movement for the achievement of true political and social democracy in the United States. One person-one vote, legally achieved only in 1965 through the heroic sacrifices of the civil rights and suffragette movements, exists more in rhetoric than in reality. Voter turnout is abysmally low in this nation for clear systemic reasons. We are the only democracy where elections do not take place on a weekend or on a national holiday. Only in American “democracy” must the individual make a time-consuming, conscious effort to register to vote. In almost all other democracies, the state prepares the voter rolls, using census data or other public records. And the individual voter can easily update the rolls, even on election day, if they are not properly listed. How can we supervise “demonstration elections” around the world when “the American way” of democracy yields an electorate disproportionately whiter and richer than the nation as a whole.
In addition, the Electoral College is a profoundly anti-democratic institution. Created by the founders to build a firewall between political elites and democratic voters, it also formed an integral part of the “Great Compromise” which, through the Senate’s guarantee of two seats per state and the inhumane “3/5ths compromise,” gave disproportionate representation to the slave states. Even today, a state’s electoral college vote of two Senate seats plus the proportionately determined House seats means that a citizen of Wyoming’s vote counts six times more for president than does a Californian’s.
Absent reforms to make registration and voting easier, American democracy will remain an unfulfilled promise. But the theft of the election in Florida reveals an even seamier side of American democracy: persistent and widespread practices aimed at denying the suffrage to poor, working class, and minority communities remain widespread, some thirty-five years after the Voting Rights Act. Often police harass voters of color driving or walking to the polls. All too frequently, county poll workers illegally demand picture ID or citizenship papers of legal voters who are already registered. State election officials have hired private firms to construct lists of alleged felons and purge those names from the voter list, regardless of whether, in reality, those named individuals have any criminal record at all. And our restrictive immigration and naturalization laws mean that millions who contribute to our nation’s economic well-being cannot choose those who make the laws that govern their lives. And many newly naturalized citizens are subject to degrading, intimidating, and illegal identity-checks when they choose to exercise their right to suffrage.
But if conscious acts by state or party officials were not enough to skew the electorate in favor of the white middle class, economic and racial apartheid insures that if the elite crooks don’t get you, then their voting machinery probably will. This election has taught us that faulty, outdated electoral machinery (and confusing ballots) are disproportionately found in low-income communities. In Florida, alone, minority communities were 30 per cent more likely to use the infamous punch card ballots that yield a two per cent “undercount” rate. More affluent communities disproportionately had new, expensive “optical scanning” machines, which only yield a rejection of one in 500 ballots! A simple reversal of these figures would have yielded a clear Gore victory in Florida. These separate and unequal voting situations thwarted the intent of the massive increase in African-American turn-out in Florida, up an unbelievable sixty-five per cent over the 1996 presidential turnout!
The absence of both public financing of campaigns and equitable access for candidates to the mass media reduces electoral campaigns to a horse race between two corporate advertising conglomerates. The quality of deliberation about public policy in our campaigns and legislatures has reached an all-time low. For example, the corporate media and political leaders of both parties trumpet the purging of five million families from welfare as a triumph of the work ethic. Yet initial evidence shows that many, both on and off the welfare rolls, are worse off economically and will continue to be so, absent major investment in child care, health care, transportation subsidies, and job retraining. A nation cannot have a healthy, deliberative democracy if discussion of public policy is overwhelmingly shaped by a corporate-dominated mass media. Thus, we must also campaign for more diverse, democratically-funded forms of mass media.
The control of executive and judicial appointments by George W. Bush poses a greater threat to civil and labor rights and environmental protection than would have an inadequate, neo-liberal, centrist Gore administration. That is why some members of Democratic Socialists of America reluctantly worked for a Gore victory. Others chose to protest the corporate domination of the national leadership of both parties by supporting the third party candidacy of Ralph Nader.
The task for DSA now is not to rehash these difficult tactical choices, but to rededicate ourselves to the political strategy of building a vibrant coalition among labor, people of color, feminists, gays and lesbians, and independent progressives to defeat the right and build a mass democratic left. The tactics we choose, be they protests against the criminalization of inner city youth; community and trade union organizing; electoral work in favor of small “d” democrats are just that: tactics. We occasionally have sororal differences about such means. But we remain steadfastly united in our belief in democracy. True representative democracy will always be one crucial form, among many, of democratic decision-making.
Thus, DSA joins with the NAACP, the AFL-CIO, NOW, the Congressional Black Caucus, the Black Radical Congress and other groups of conscience in protesting the undemocratic outcome of the 2000 presidential election. But we do not solely look backwards in despair; rather, we recommit ourselves to the ongoing fight for radical electoral, campaign finance, and socio-economic reforms. Only if we win those battles will the promise of American democracy be achieved. Thus, DSA will rededicate itself to work for:
public financing of electoral campaigns
equitable access of candidates to the mass media and the elimination of privately-purchased campaign ads
limits on the size of individual campaign contributions and on total campaign spending
the abolition of corporate PACs
same-day registration voter-registration and 24 hour voting on weekends or a national holiday
the elimination of the undemocratic electoral college
experiments with proportional representation, electoral “fusion,” and single-transferable and “instant run-off” voting, in order that people may vote for what they believe in without fearing their vote will be wasted
Equitable financing and provision of crucial public goods – not only standardized, high-quality voting machinery, but also education, child care and health care.
We call on all people of good conscience to protest in Washington and across the nation on January 20th against the inauguration of a president who does not have the support of the majority of the American people, nor the voters of Florida. But the movement for American democracy must go beyond a day or week of protest. DSA rededicates itself from this day forth to vigorous political action aimed at achieving the promise of American democracy. This come only come about through the adoption of the radical reform agenda sketched out above. We remain proud to call ourselves Democratic Socialists of America; for in addition to our steadfast belief in political and civil rights, we also hold that absent social rights and social equality – the end to racism, sexism, and class privilege – the promise of democracy will remain unfulfilled. It is to the achievement of full political, civil, and social rights for all residents of the United States that DSA rededicates itself in the aftermath of the 2000 elections.
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Before the Vote
The National Political Committee consciously chose not to endorse any major party presidential candidates. While understanding that for pragmatic reasons many progressive trade unionists, environmentalists, and African-American and Latino activists have chosen to support Al Gore, DSA’s elected representatives believe that Gore, like the now defeated Bill Bradley, represents a centrist, neo-liberal politics which does not advocate the radical structural reforms — such as progressive taxation, major defense cuts, and real universal health and child care — necessary to move national politics in a genuinely democratic direction.
Gore’s strong support for “free trade” fails to integrate the need for international solidarity and global regulation of transnational capital required for egalitarian politics at home and abroad. Nor is it sufficient to talk of getting “soft money” (unlimited contributions directly to the political parties) out of politics. Corporate influence over electoral politics can only be curtailed through public financing of campaigns and access to free media. It is a sad commentary on the state of American politics when dyed-in-the-wool conservative John McCain is portrayed by mass media as a “progressive reformer” of campaign law.
Some DSAers may support Ralph Nader for president, if he appears on the ballot in their state. Others may support our Socialist Party comrade David McReynolds. Nader’s campaign is likely to appear on more state ballots and it has the potential to harness the energy of the protests in Seattle and Washington against the WTO and IMF. This time around, DL hopes he runs a serious campaign and does not again dismiss issues of racism and sexism as “divisive” or “gonadal” politics.
But in states where the presidential race appears close next November, it is likely that DSA members with ties to mass constituencies will engage in pragmatic lesser-evilism and hold their nose and vote for the Democrat. These are all understandable tactical choices. DSA Vice-Chair Harold Meyerson’s electoral analysis in this issue concludes with a case for “critical support” of Gore. This position is by no means an official DSA “line,” but a perspective held to by many in the organization, but dissented from by numerous others.
It is inaccurate to describe DSA as primarily working within the “left-wing” of the Democratic Party.” The 1993 DSA convention in fact resolved “that the imperative task for the democratic Left is to build anti-corporate social movements which are capable of winning reforms which empower people. In so far as such social movements and coalitions wish to influence state policy they will, at times, intervene in electoral politics. The fundamental question for DSA is not what form that electoral intervention takes, whether it be through Democratic primary races, non-partisan local elections, or third party efforts. Rather, our electoral work aims at building majoritarian coalitions capable of not only electing public officials, but capable of holding them accountable after they are elected.”
DSA’s main task is to build grassroots, multi-racial, progressive coalitions. There is no short-cut to doing so other than the hard work of “education, agitation, and organizing.” Neither flying the flag of a third party which lacks a mass social base, or placing uncritical faith in isolated progressive Democratic politicians will build a powerful Left. A successful third party would have to command sufficient strength in mass constituencies that it could split one of the two major parties.
DSA is no more loyal to the Democratic Party – which barely exists as a grassroots institution – than are individuals or social movements which upon occasion use its ballot line or vote for its candidates. The peculiar nature of the American constitution renders third party politics difficult at both the national and state level. Myriad structural factors mitigate against viable third parties, and various constitutional blockages are exceedingly difficult to amend: executive-based federalism makes parliamentary-style coalition-governments impossible, winner-take all districts, absence of proportional representation, open primaries in which party membership is regulated states not parties themselves — allowing both Klansmen and Communists to be members of the Democratic Party, In the GOP, white libertarian upper-middle-class suburbanites contend with white working-class fundamentalists for influence in that party. Veterans of the left will remember that the 1968 Peace and Freedom Party and the 1980 Citizens Party arose at moments of greater left-wing strength and did not significantly alter the national electoral landscape. Nor has, unfortunately, the New Party, which many DSAers work with in states where “fusion” of third party and major party votes is possible (such as the DSA co-sponsored Working Families Party in N.Y. State).
DSA recognizes that some insurgent politicians representing labor, environmentalists, gays and lesbians, and communities of color may choose to run under Democratic auspices, as in the 1988 Jesse Jackson campaign, or operate as Democrats like Senator Paul Wellstone, and the 59 Democratic members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, one-half of whom are Black and Latino and all of whom possess strong labor backing and operative social democratic politics.
Electoral tactics are only a means for DSA; the building of a powerful anti-corporate and ultimately socialist movement is the end. Where third party or non-partisan candidates represent significant social movements DSA locals have and will continue to build such organizations and support such candidates. DSA honored independent socialist Congressperson Bernie Sanders of Vermont at our last convention banquet, and we have always raised significant funds nationally for his electoral campaigns. At the same time, we were pleased to have Democratic Congressperson and Progressive Caucus member Bob Filner of San Diego introduce Sanders at the convention, and note that Progressive Caucus member Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) will be honored at our annual Debs-Thomas-Harrington dinner this Spring in Chicago.
DSA is a modest, sometimes effective organization, whose members have greatest influence in community-level electoral politics. DSA is not an electoral organization, but rather a democratic socialist political organization which aims to bring socialism into the mainstream of American politics. We endeavor to do so through a two-pronged strategy of education and organizing. Much of our work is cultural and ideological: forums, debates, publications. But our voice can only be heard if we simultaneously play a central, activist role within struggles relevant to working people, communities of color, women, gays and lesbians and other oppressed constituencies. We operate within progressive coalitions as an open socialist presence and bring to these movements an analysis and strategy which recognizes the fundamental need to democratize global corporate power. We do not see ourselves as a vanguard speaking for the masses nor do we romantically believe that a small socialist organization can unilaterally transform the U.S. electoral map.
DSA strives to be a crucial socialist leaven within a mass movement for social justice. In the 2000 elections, most electorally-active, progressive constituencies will endeavor to elect progressives to Congress and to the state legislatures. These state legislatures will engage in the post-census redistricting which will influence electoral politics throughout the coming decade. For better or worse, it is unlikely that presidential politics in the year 2000 will structurally transform the landscape of American politics, however important the outcome.
DSA will continue to be a voice inside — and outside — the electoral process, to argue against panaceas of ‘fixed’ markets, and for a bottom-up democratic, decentralized and environmentally sane economy.
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