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)

---

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)

---

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.

You're actually solidifying the claim that this is trivial. Please read WP:TRIVIA and Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not in general. A list of celebrities who drive solar-powered cars is exactly the kind of platitude that would be removed from an encyclopedia article, as is a list of celebrities who support a political party. JesseRafe (talk) 16:06, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

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City Hall News - not paying rent article

An IP user just removed the paragraph alleging that the WFP didn't pay rent for some time in the last decade with an article that quoted another article without links that couldn't originally be found. The ref was to this TheRealDeal dot com article and the in-line citation and the reffed link referred to a publication called City Hall News which now appears to be defunct. However, it would seem that the original article in question was cross-posted to the Huffington Post, found here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wires/2009/08/18/erratic-reported-rent-pay_ws_262665.html with a byline that it is from an author with a City Hall News email domain. It is reasonable to assume this is the same article and the same information is still pertinent to the subject and the prose can be restored (without reference to the publication, just the facts) and the ref updated. JesseRafe (talk) 16:04, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

RFCs on Third Party inclusion in the election infobox

FYI, there are two RFCs asking about third party inclusion in election infoboxes. They can be found here at talk page for project E&R.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:27, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

source

Ideologically, the party is akin to the New York third parties—the American Labor Party and the Liberal Party—established in the 1930s and 1940s by the social democratic leaders of the clothing and garment unions who backed Franklin Roosevelt but didn’t want to vote for him on the line of the Tammany-dominated Democratic Party. We’re garden varieties of social democrats, trying to use the state to make people’s lives a little less hard. Cantor says. The crisis of social democracy is real. If the 20th century was the century of the working class, it’s not clear yet what the 21st century will be. We are all Keynesians, but we need to be more than Keynesians. Our answer is to win massive investment in public goods, so you don’t have to be rich to have a decent life. Add in the climate crisis, and this grows still more complex.

http://prospect.org/article/meet-working-families-party-whose-ballot-line-play-new-york

That doesn't exactly support the edits you recently made. Please read the links on your user talk page and also WP:SYNTHESIS. Wikipedia can't make inferences about things like labels, but require reliable sources to outright say it, not alluding to it or with unclear hedge wording like "garden variety". If it were established party platform another source with more direct statement should not be too hard to find. JesseRafe (talk) 19:00, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/09/opinion/working-families-party.html, https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/democrats-watch-out-on-your-left/, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/harold-meyerson-the-working-families-party-brings-andrew-cuomo-back-into-the-fold/2014/06/04/437eb1b6-ec0e-11e3-93d2-edd4be1f5d9e_story.html, https://www.jacobinmag.com/2013/11/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-working-families-party/, https://newrepublic.com/article/117933/andrew-cuomo-has-real-problem-his-left, etc. ArtisticSeal (talk) 19:45, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Please actually make a cogent ARGUMENT on those sources in the talk page, don't just paste them. The Jacobin and WaPo pieces do not call the org soc-dem, nor does Harold Meyerson's opinion/categorization or the same Michelle Goldberg piece you linked to from two diff sources (excellent research!) distinctly cite a current leader or spokesperson or press release stating this political orientation. It's a confirmation bias and synthesis that you're looking for circumstantial evidence to make an inference, not providing a clear, concise, explicit source. JesseRafe (talk) 21:51, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Speculation by Jacobin is not a substantive piece of information regarding the Working Families Party

The speculation on precise vote totals by the Jacobin author is essentially a brief opinion piece and starts with an unsourced and unsupported assumption that Sanders won the online membership poll and relies on a faulty reading of the WFP press release that "more than 80% of voters listed Warren and Sanders as their top two picks" as "80% listed Warren or Sanders as their top pick" to create the speculated numbers. Furthermore, including the numbers in the page creates an appearance of greater reliability than the core (and unsupported) assumption it hinges on (that Sanders won the membership vote). Wikipedia shouldn't be including every piece of opinion posted online just because it can be sourced and per Wikipedia:Relevance an opinion from a third party requires higher levels of scrutiny regarding weight and NPOV. The opinion of one Jacobin writer is definitely not NPOV and also isn't a significant or authoritative voice worthy of nearly half of the content of the Warren endorsement paragraph. SyntheticKnowledge (talk) 22:12, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Keep it, as it was noteworthy and a large part of the conversation at the time and brought a lot of notice onto the WFP from a national perspective. It's properly attributed to the opinion of one writer and even explicitly labeled "speculation" so it passes all of Wikipedia's standards for adequate sourcing. SK is conducting original research to debunk the Bruenig piece, which is probably something they should do in an op-ed or blog post and not use WP for. Per BRD, you made a bold edit and I reverted, now we are discussing, you are not to re-revert and remove the sourced material again. JesseRafe (talk) 12:27, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for engaging. My argument is not about sourcing, but that a third party opinion requires greater adherence to NPOV, reliability, and weight, and that whatever their opinion, speculation by a Jacobin author is not relevant of the weight and specificity it is given here. My points on Bruenig's numbers above are not intended as "original research" to be included on Wikipedia or as a co-linked counter-article, merely to point out that we're giving prominence to what's essentially just someone's mistake, and including the numbers (particularly with "mathematically" as a descriptor) implies some sort of importance and validity to them, particularly when not paired with information about the mistaken assumption required to generate them.SyntheticKnowledge (talk) 23:27, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

See also

I've removed the reference in this section to the UK Co-operative Party, which said that it was similar. Other than both being Centre Left Parties they have little in common. The Co-op Party has had a formal electoral pact with the Labour Party since 1927, with both parties agreeing not to stand candidates against each other. The WFP doesn't have any such pact with another party, as the cross-endorsement of other Party's candidates that it operates through fusion voting is a quite different and more ad-hoc process.BobBadg (talk) 20:29, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Inane editing dispute

There is currently an inane editing dispute in which User:JesseRafe has accused me of removing sourced material without consensus. In fact, as I have repeatedly stated in my edit summaries, I have not removed sourced material; rather, I have moved sourced material from one section to another. The ongoing reverts of my edits result in the same material appearing in multiple sections. Is there some reason to include identical text in multiple sections? I can't think of one. If User:JesseRafe or anyone else can identify a single piece of sourced material that I have removed altogether, please let me know and I will reinstate it. Otherwise, please stop with the nonsense reverts and the nonsense warnings on my talk page. The page is actually much improved since I worked on it; apparently, no good deed on Wikipedia goes unpunished. Merry Christmas! 74.67.6.88 (talk) 21:36, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

1, assume good faith. 2, you are edit warring, full stop that puts you in the wrong. 3, four separate editors over the course of weeks have undone you "contribution", which is a clear indication of consensus against your edits. 4, your edit summaries are falsehoods and your claims to not have received an explanation are also false. 5, this section heading word choice is further illustration of you not taking this seriously and makes it questionable whether you are here to contribute meaningfully or just to be cantankerous when you do not get your way. 6, and finally you added "citation needed" tags to sections about running their own candidates after removing the sources about how WFP have run their own candidates, e.g. Tish James's first run or Edwin Gomes. Running candidates is, one may say, the sine qua non of electoral strategy, and your repeated claim that this is in the wrong section is, again, your own musing and clearly against consensus. Please read the warnings on your talk page, for they are not "nonsense", and your glib replies and edit warring risks your ability to edit under this IP address if you continue to violate our policies, as the increasing level of the various warnings you've received this month state. JesseRafe (talk) 21:49, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

JesseRafe, you win. If you and other editors want to have redundant content in multiple sections of this article, have at it. I'm done trying to fix the problem. As to your accusations: I have not been dishonest. Also, you are the one who is questioning motives, not me. It is beyond ridiculous for you to accuse me of dishonesty and question my motives, especially when you led off your screed by admonishing me to assume good faith. Knock it off. Now. 74.67.6.88 (talk) 00:38, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

Seats in the House?

What's up with the thirteen Seats in the House that the party is supposed to have? Where is that coming from? Cephskop (talk) 10:53, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Honestly, the fact that the infobox lists active officeholders of different government bodies as actual members of the Working Families Party, under the guise of electoral fusion, is a farse. If an officeholder identifies with the Working Families Party, sure that would make sense. But currently, it appears that this is an absurdly powerful minor party, all because of electoral fusion. 50,000 party members are not represented by 13 members of the U.S. House, that isn't happening, and to illustrate that in the infobox gives unfounded legitimacy. WFP is not mentioned in the United States Congress article, nor the 117th United States Congress, United States Senate, Governor (United States), Governor of New York, but does appear in the Kathy Hochul article (since she was the nominee). The point can be noted plainly in the text, but the illustration in the infobox is a horrible representation of political parties in the US government. --PerpetuityGrat (talk) 15:50, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Election symbol

File:Working Families Party Symbol.svg is currently being used under the "election symbol" portion of the page, but I see no official support for that symbol being used, and I was wondering if it is actually an election symbol that is being used as the party. Looking around, there is this article regarding the party's stylistic change but that does not use the same symbol as the one found here.

@DenbyDoo: as the person who made the original file it might be helpful to have your input, but anyone who is familiar with the party can put their input. I am just concerned whether the symbol is factual is not. Ornithoptera (talk) 03:54, 12 August 2022 (UTC)