Talk:Working Families Party

Center Left?

This party is way to the left of Center Left. They may call themselves center left but that does not make it so. They are mostly union people and welfare addicts or any other con-artist that has some stake in the Socialist Movement in the USA today. Center Left my Ant Fanny. They don't think the Democrats are *progressive* enough. --24.177.6.38 (talk) 23:07, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Agreed, the Working Families Party runs candidates on Long Island (ie: Suffolk County Legislator Kate Browning) and these people are extreme far left. They make mainstream Democrats look like the Tea Party in comparison. There's nothing "center-left" about them, they are far left if not Marxist. 69.115.242.114 (talk) 21:11, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Untitled

Discussions of and articles about the Working Families Party never mention that its leaders, including Executive Director Dan Cantor, Party Chairs Bob Master and Bertha Lewis, and Secretary Jon Kest, have spent the past few years engaged in court battles to prevent party members from forming county parties. They deny registrants the opportunity to select candidates and determine the party's direction by allowing their shadow organization, the Working Families Organization (which requires paid membership and does not require membership in the Working Families Party), to screen candidates; the state committee of the Organization, not the Party, determines who will appear on the ballot and makes policy decisions for the party. The duly elected members of the state committee have been rendered powerless and irrelevant by this process. Eight years after it achieved ballot status, the Working Families Party has county committee members in only one county, Suffolk, and it is actively attempting to quash that committee. Cantor and the WFO failed in their attempts to dismantle the Working Families Party Suffolk County Committee; although a judge ordered the 2004 county convention to be redone, the "do-over" convention held in 2005 produced exactly the same result as the 2004 convention.

to view documents from that court case, go to: http://decisions.courts.state.ny.us/fcas/fcas_docs/2005jun/51002178720041sciv.pdf http://decisions.courts.state.ny.us/fcas/fcas_docs/2005jul/5100217872004100sciv.pdf http://decisions.courts.state.ny.us/fcas/fcas_docs/2005jul/51002178720042sciv.pdf

In August 2005, Judge Thomas Whelan took the Executive Committee of the New York State Working Families Party to task for subverting election law through its attempts to prevent formation of county committees and deny county committee members control of nominations through Wilson-Pakula.

read that decision at: http://decisions.courts.state.ny.us/fcas/fcas_docs/2005aug/51001598520051sciv.pdf

Despite Whelan's decision, the New York State Working Families Party continues in its efforts to prevent formation of county committees and, specifically, to quash the Suffolk County Committee of the Working Families Party. —This unsigned comment was added by Ilsabeaulac (talk • contribs) .

I took the above stuff out because it was awkwardly pasted in at the end of the introduction. While I agree that the information is relevant to the article, in the current state it may violate the Wikipedia:No original research policy. Perhaps it can be revised and inserted into a separate heading in the article that is more appropriate? Also, please sign your posts by adding ~~~~ at the end of your comments. Thank you. --Howrealisreal 15:31, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

If there is some research out there regarding the Working Families Organization it would be relevant for inclusion in this article, a the WFO is clearly influential. I might also suggest discussion of the use of opportunity to ballot campaigns and their impact on the Party (line preservation etc). The section that was removed, however, appears to be motivated by animus, as opposed to desire to document the party structure. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.171.66.112 (talk) 06:00, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Unique Structure of Party

The Working Families Party's leaders, including Executive Director Dan Cantor, Party Chairs Bob Master and Bertha Lewis, and Secretary Jon Kest, have spent the past few years engaged in court battles to prevent party members from forming constituted county committees. They deny registrants the opportunity to select candidates and determine the party's direction by allowing their shadow organization, the Working Families Organization (which requires paid membership but does not require membership in the Working Families Party), to screen candidates. It is the state committee of the Organization, not the Party, that determines who will appear on the ballot and makes policy decisions for the party. Individuals have no vote within the Working Families Organization, instead groups (like ACORN and 1199) are assigned a number of votes based on the number of paid memberships they purchase. The duly elected members of the state committee have been rendered powerless and irrelevant by this process.

Eight years after achieving ballot status, the Working Families Party has county committee members in only one county, Suffolk, and it is actively attempting to quash that committee. Cantor and the WFO failed in their attempts to dismantle the Working Families Party Suffolk County Committee; although a judge ordered the 2004 county convention to be redone, the "do-over" convention held in 2005 produced exactly the same result as the 2004 convention confirming Chuck Pohanka as County Chair, Donna Lent as Secretary, and Dotty Weisgruber as Treasurer.

to view documents from that court case, go to: http://decisions.courts.state.ny.us/fcas/fcas_docs/2005jun/51002178720041sciv.pdf http://decisions.courts.state.ny.us/fcas/fcas_docs/2005jul/5100217872004100sciv.pdf http://decisions.courts.state.ny.us/fcas/fcas_docs/2005jul/51002178720042sciv.pdf

In an August 2005 decision, Judge Thomas Whelan took the Executive Committee of the New York State Working Families Party to task for subverting election law through its attempts to prevent formation of county committees and deny county committee members control of nominations through Wilson-Pakula.

read that decision at: http://decisions.courts.state.ny.us/fcas/fcas_docs/2005aug/51001598520051sciv.pdf

Despite Whelan's decision, the New York State Working Families Party continues in its efforts to prevent formation of county committees and, specifically, to quash the Suffolk County Committee of the Working Families Party. Most recently, it sent letters to elected officials telling them to contribute only to the state party.

Revised

I did some major reworking of this article, both adding information and also organizing it into sections. I had some newspaper clippings and literature around from when I was researching them for a job interview. I hope I was able to highlight the essence of the WFP. --Howrealisreal 01:39, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• It's great that you've added all of this info, but much of it does really look like it came straight out of WFP literature. In fact, some of the wording itself is reminiscent of things I've read before. No matter, with a little friendly NPOVing, all will be safely Wikiassimilated.--Pharos 01:48, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree, which is why I sourced the newspaper article that inspired me for many of the edits. I admit that I am probably not capable of writing a neutral article about the WFP because of my fondness for them, so I hope and anticipate that this article will be re-engineered over time for balance. Thanks for commenting. --Howrealisreal 05:10, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

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progressive and left-wing refer to much different ideas. I'm not sure discrediting the organization by calling it "minor" is NPOV -LegCircus 16:23, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

South Carolina

South Carolina now has a Working Families Party certified for the 2006 election, but I've been unable to find out whether they are connected with the New York party or not. They are taking advantage of the electoral fusion tactics that South Carolina allows and the WFP favors, so I'd say the likelihood is high. (Nomininating the same candidate as the Democratic candidate in all of the races in which they have nominated anyone.) Caerwine Caer’s whines 23:41, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

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Yes. It was set up in order to prevent the Labor Party from garnering support among union members and African-Americans and keep both constieneices tied to the Democrats.DavidMIA (talk) 11:58, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Liberal

Wasn't WFP started by anti-Harding defectors from the Liberal Party? Jim.henderson (talk) 05:34, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't know the answer to Jim Henderson's question. As a decades-long Brooklyn voter, I've joked since the 1980s that The Liberal Party is neither Liberal nor a Party: it became the personal fiefdom and patronage machine of the lawyer Ray Harding. Walter Dufresne (talk) 17:43, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Platform

The Platform section is weasel-wordy. The enaction of certain platform elements were probably not a result of the WFP's support, and the article provides no factual basis to the contrary.

The first substantive paragraph says only that the WFP "saw the enactment" of the change in the minimum wage law, something true of every other party in the state, including parties that opposed it. The article is strikingly vague regarding the legislative action or inaction leading to the minimum wage increase, and more supporting detail would make it sound plausible.

In addition, the election of an Albany County District Attorney is largely irrelevant to whether the state legislature acted a month later to liberalize drug laws. (That paragraph is also particularly poorly written.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.126.184.91 (talk) 03:34, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

ACORN connection

I put a Citation needed tag beside the sentence that connects WFP with ACORN. It should really be deleted if nobody puts in a citation. I did a few quick google searches and all the reporting I can find on the connection is confined to right-wing blogs.Andrew.hammett (talk) 18:24, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

2009 Voter Fraud

Unless someone can persuade me otherwise, I am going to eliminate the section on 2009 voter fraud as this is an extremely limited event with little significance for the rest of the article. 33 potentially fraudulent votes in one election two years ago?--Cjs56 (talk) 04:26, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Whitewash from the Ministry of Truth. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.41.34.45 (talk) 20:27, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

The Working Families Party is the Fraud Party insofar as I am concerned. In Connecticut there are very few actual members. Instead they just cross-endorse the liberal Democrats on national and state elections. On the city and town level they run registered Democrats on their line to get around the minority rule where the Democrats would otherwise be banned from taking ALL the seats. They displace the Republicans on the City Councils and are hastening the days when Hartford will become the New Detroit. Thanks to the Working Families party there is not even a few voices of dissent. I could make a case that all this is racketeering. --24.177.6.38 (talk) 23:16, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Very Weaseley Words

At the end of the first introductory sentence, this phrase (emphasis mine):

"The WFP also has a powerful alliance with Dennis Rivera and Local 1199/SEIU (Service Employees International Union). The intensely activist union is known to contribute more than $100,000 a year of the party's $1.4 million annual budget."

This is uncited and very weasely. I am taking the liberty of removing it since there is no citation or justification for this terminology. Slugmaster (talk) 03:27, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Updates Obstructed

In attempt to update this very out dated entry as my first edit, I'm experiencing a wholesale undoing by JesseRafe (talk) who could undo piecemeal if they find edits unwarranted but instead insists I start over.

Update: Even though I originally did the updates part by part, I'll go ahead and do them part by part again with as-clear-as-possible update comments. JesseRafe (talk), I'm new. you can undo anything you find inappropriate with constructive specific feedback per entry rather than wholesale removal with anecdotal reasons. Appreciate it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eatdrinkbuyrepeat (talk • contribs) 25 January 2016

• From what I saw, your edits were appropriate all in all, Eatdrinkbuyrepest, and considerably improved an article that had been in a poor state before. A number of weaknesses were correctly addressed by JesseRafe but should have been resolved one by one rather than by reverting your edits in whole. Generally, you're not doing yourself a favor when breaking your edits into piecemeal. Do a large edit including everything you're sure is following our guidelines, followed by individual edits of possibly more controversial additions. Welcome to Wikipedia, and most certainly you'll find your edits are usually appreciated by other contributors. --PanchoS (talk) 08:48, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for the advice PanchoS (talk). --Eatdrinkbuyrepeat (talk) 14:52, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Celebrity Collaborators and Endorsers

JesseRafe (talk) argues that my updates that include supporters of note are trivia and don't belong on the page. JR encouraged me to bring this to TALK.

Trivia is trivial. It is not trivia for notable political activists, actors and others who support a small third party as members or allies to be listed. If this were a page about solar powered cars, the first notable adopters of it or supporters of it can certainly be listed and be very relevant.