Supreme Court upholds denial of ballot access to write-in candidates

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Workers won strike battles in the 1930s based on militant mobilizations on the picketline and in the plants.

The following is a letter we received from Rich Winger, editor of Ballot Access News, a newsletter which gives overviews and updates in regard to ballot access court decisions and legislation.

Because of its importance, we are publishing the letter as if it were an article. the Editors Earlier this month, a federal court shattered the oldest protection that courts in this country have given to voting rights.

For over a century, state courts, followed by federal courts, have always protected the right of a voter to vote for any qualified candidate that the voter wished to vote for.

But on March 1, a federal court ruled for the first time that the government may prevent a voter from voting for a candidate who is legally entitled to hold the office for which the candidate is running (Burdick Takushi, no. 90-15873, Ith circuit.)

The decision upholds a total ban on write-in voting in Hawaii. Never before has a federal court upheld such a ban. U.S.

... Labor Party (continued from previous page) to create a broader third-party coalition?" His answer is insightful:

"No. The trade unions are the best possible base on which to build an alternative party in the United States.

"First, we command the kinds of resources necessary for a long term organizing effort. Other efforts to launch a third party have failed because they lacked access to a steady stream of income over a period of years. Local unions could help provide this income, but we are not likely to support an effort we do not identify with.

"Second, the great majority of local unions are democratic institutions which enjoy the support of their members. Working people are the largest potential constituency for an independent labor party in the United States. We are more likely to want to join a party based on the trade unions-which whatever their problems are working-class institutions-than a coalition party.

"Third, one of the primary reasons for wanting to organize an independent labor party is to give political expression to the desire of many working people in this country to fight against the increasing power of the corporations, a power which we have experienced first hand at work. A coalition party —made up, say, of trade unionists, environmentalists and church activists—would be more likely to blunt its anti-corporate message than would a party built primarily by local trade union leaders." These are pretty good arguments.

A spoonful of tar Unfortunately, Mazzocchi also raises some bad arguments, which, even with the best intentions, serve to undermine his main points.

From the outset, Mazzocchi muddies up his main line of argumentation. He starts out with what, at first sight, might appear to be diplomacy: He grants that there are "a handful of labor Democrats who are genuine friends of the trade-union movement and of working people." He seeks to balance this by immediately noting that, "However, they are without any real influence in their own party."

But this is, nevertheless, a major concession to the basic premise of those inside the labor movement who have rationalized the policy of supporting the bosses' candidates by promoting the myth of "friends of labor."

There are no friends of labor in either capitalist party in the sense this phrase has premise that there is a community of interest between capital and labor-an assertion that collapses under the least critical examination. And when it counts most they are found on the side of the enemy or, at best, put up token resistance, as part of their shell game.

The interests of capital and labor are diametrically opposed. This opposition is made crystal clear when we take note of the fundamental relation between wages and profits: When wages go up-all other things being equal-profits go down, and vice versa. This District Courts in Hawaii, Indiana, Kansas and Ohio have struck down such bans, as have the State Supreme Courts of 17 states. (See most of the state court citations Canaan v. Abdelnour, 710 P 2nd 268, California Supreme Court, 1985.)

Some of those precedents are over 100 years old.

Although the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the [restrictive] ballot access laws of California, Georgia, Texas, and Washington, all of those states permitted write-in voting, so despite the existence of the ballot access hurdles, a voter was still free to vote for any qualified candidate in those states. Forty-five of the 50 states permit write-in voting in general elections; the only ones which do not are Hawaii, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Nevada and Louisiana.

The write-in is frequently used to elect people. U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond, STRIKE WUN BE 00.5 conflict between class interests determines all economic and social relations between classes.

The fact is that labor's "friends" in the capitalist parties are the first to acknowledge that this friendship is subordinate to the interests of the "nation as a whole." Or, as the head of General Motors Corporation once declared, "What's good for General Motors is good for the country."

Mazzocchi's effective arguments are further undermined by his position that it wasn't always wrong to support "good" capitalist politicians. Thus, he argues:

"The New Deal under President Franklin Roosevelt promised to establish a model of American democracy where working people would have the power to defend themselves against Corporate America...The New Deal also put in place a worker-oriented economic policy that sought to ensure growth and protect working conditions by giving money and power directly to workers. These policies worked. But, they have been slowly dismantled by successive Republican and Democratic administrations." That is, by the "bad" capitalists.

This line of argumentation does more than undercut Mazzocchi's pro-labor party stand. It leaves the door open to being sucked back into capitalist politics. We can be certain that when the developing economic crisis breaks out of control, there will be new Roosevelts willing to shout their friendship for working people to gain leverage for derailing a political fightback when it begins to take off.

A lesson from labor history Roosevelt, contrary to the myth, didn't give workers the right to peacefully organize into unions. Neither section 7(a) of Roosevelt's National Recovery Administration (NRA), nor the Democratic Party sponsored Wagner Act give workers union rights. Art Preis, author of Labor's Giant Step', summarizes the real history of this 1 Labor's Giant Step, by Art Preis, Pioneer Publishers, New York. California Congressman Ron Packard, and New Mexico Congressman Joseph Skeen were first elected to Congress by write-in votes at general elections. In 1988, Jackie Stump was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates by write-in votes at the general election. In 1990, Mark W. Dailey was elected to the Rhode Island House by write-in votes at the general election.

There were no government-printed ballots in the U.S. before the 1890s (see the Winter 1991 Harvard Journal on Legislation for the article by Bradley Smith which discusses this), so the voters were free to prepare their own ballots (although most voters chose to use a party-printed ballot).

When the government began the job of preparing the ballots, it always preserved a blank space for a write-in vote, so as to preserve the original common-law right of period. He writes:

"The Wagner Act proved no more effective than section 7(a) [of the NRA] in protecting the workers' right to organize and bargain collectively. It took a couple of million workers in the 1936-37 sit-down [strike] wave to actually seize that right by the seizure of hundreds upon hundreds of factories and other places of work [in sit-down strikes]."

Mazzocchi's declaration, "We need another New Deal," contradicts his labor party theme. It will come back to haunt supporters of a genuine labor party—especially when such a political movement actually gets off the ground and threatens to challenge the ruling capitalists for control over the economic, social and political life of the country.

Mazzocchi may be sincere in his advocacy of a labor party. He eloquently describes the merciless assault on the living standards of working people. Moreover, he takes account of the developing economic crisis and how that will aggravate workers' misery. "Who is responsible for this outrage?" he asks. He answers:

"The Democrats in Congress blame the Republicans in the White House. The Republicans in the White House blame the Democrats in Congress. In fact, both are to blame. And millions of Americans including many trade union members, know it. In the 1990 Congressional election, only 35 percent of the electorate bothered to go to the polls. The rest of us stayed home-voting, in effect, for None of the Above.

"Enough is enough. The bosses have two parties. Working people should have at least one. It is time for the labor movement to organize its own independent party of working people."

But then further along he again mucks up the labor party message. He asks:

"Does someone have to break their ties with the established parties in order to be a Labor Party Advocate?" Strangely, his answer is: "No. Labor Party Advocates as an organization will not run its own candidates, and individual Labor Party Advocates will therefore be free to work for the candidates of SOCIALIST a voter to vote for any qualified candidate, whether the candidate was on the ballot or not. That is the origin of the write-in space on American ballots, and thousands of write-in candidates have been elected.

At the November 1990 election, when Indiana permitted write-in voting for the first time since the 1970s, 40 write-in candidates were elected (according to Indiana State University Professor Dean Myers; see the January 21,1991 issue of Election Administration Reports, a biweekly publication from Washington, D.C.)

What's the local (California) angle? There is one. Secretary of State March Fong Eu signed an amicus curiae brief in this case, on the side of the Hawaii Attorney General, arguing that the courts should not tell Hawaii whether or not to permit write-in voting, She holds herself out as a friend of the voter, but in this case, she was the foe of the Hawaii voters. Hawaiians especially need write-in space on ballots. Over half their legislative races in 1990 had only one candidate on the ballot!

any of the major parties." [Emphasis added] Clouding the issue further, he asks: "Will supporting the creation of an independent labor party interfere with the on-going electoral work of the trade unions?" "No." he says, "In fact, local unions could increase their political leverage by supporting Labor Party Advocates and calling for the creation of an independent labor party."

Thus, deliberately or not, Mazzocchi implies it is okay to support capitalist party candidates.

Don't let bureaucrats off the hook How is this contradictory line of argumentation to be explained? Mazzocchi, who is himself a top union official, evidently is concerned that his attempts to reform the unions not be interpreted as an attack against his peers within the labor bureaucracy-that is, those who fashioned the bad policies and who continue to carry them out. The most generous explanation of his approach is that it is based on his hopes of convincing the labor bureaucracy, or at least a section of it, to reform itself.

This further suggests that Mazzocchi has a flawed understanding of labor history. It was not the "progressive" labor bureaucrats who were responsible for the labor upsurges and conquests of the past, it was the ranks of the working class and the new leaders emerging from their ranks that sparked and carried the movement forward to win labor's historic gains.

The likelihood of American workers forming an independent mass labor party based on the unions in the not too distant future is promising. But it will not come as a result of bureaucratic initiative.

The best that can be expected from the top labor bureaucracy is that some of them will be swept along by a militant and spontaneous upsurge of millions of rank-and- file workers who will have no choice but to defend and advance their class interests. And they will not stop at the level of economic action, they will go beyond, to social action in opposition to racism and sexism, as well as to independent class political action.

The formation of Labor Party Advocates will best serve the interests of working people if those like Tony Mazzocchi, who may sincerely seek to advance labor interests, educate workers in the true history of class struggle. Any objective reading of labor history will reveal two central lessons to guide the coming generation of class-struggle leaders and fighters:

First, the boss class and their political representatives are the enemy. Workers must be organized as a class in economic, social, and political struggle against the enemy class.

Second, those officials within the ranks of the labor movement who block effective struggle in defense of our class interests, may not be the enemy, but their function as the "labor lieutenants of the capitalist class" must be exposed and combated.

These are the first steps toward the construction of a new leadership, a mass revolutionary labor party, a winning strategy, and finally, decisive victory.

Those interested in finding out more about LPA, write to: Labor Party Advocates, clo Tony Mazzocchi, 94 Linden Lane, Princeton, NJ 08540.

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