Why Do We Keep Endorsing Democrats?
By Ed
Hershey, Delegate Lindblom High
 |
| The CTU endorsed state rep Cynthia Soto and others. |
The Political Department
presented a resolution to endorse six state representatives early for next
fall's elections. This writer thinks working people need their own
political organization, their own party. I think CTU ultimately should not be
endorsing Democrats – because the Democratic Party in Chicago and in Illinois
is fundamentally a party of the ruling class.
What has the Democratic
Party done in Illinois and Chicago lately? For starters, Madigan and company
passed the PERA law, which implemented our hated REACH system; then they did
Emanuel a favor and passed SB7, which allowed him to lengthen the school day without
any extra funding, and put the ridiculous legal limits on our right to strike.
Pat Quinn spent his last term attacking public worker pensions, and capped off
his term by picking hated former schools CEO PAUL VALLAS as his running mate.
That record is as responsible for Rauner’s victory as anything Rauner ever
did. And then Barack Obama promoted Arne
Duncan, and took Renaissance 2010 national, with its closings, charter schools,
test-test-test and Common Core. That’s
the education policy of the Democrats.
That’s why endorsing and voting for Democrats is a dead-end that we need
to break out of.
At House of Delegates, we
got a six page document in our packet asking us to vote to endorse seven
Illinois Assembly candidates. Does
anyone else think it’s a problem that we’re expected to vote things like this,
without having time to read – much less come to any kind of considered
decision?
In any case, at House of
Delegates, there was some debate on these endorsements. In particular, Jim Vail, delegate at Hammond,
took issue with endorsement of Cynthia Soto (IL District 4). Soto is
presented as an ally of the union. Cynthia Soto did push a law in winter of
2009 to put a moratorium on school closings, turnarounds and other school
actions. Of course, the moratorium was
nixed. The sop the Democrats were
willing to throw to the opponents of school closings came that fall, when the Illinois
House voted to pass the Chicago Facilities Bill, which established the Educational
Facilities Committee, and required the Board to follow a timeline and to hold a
set of public hearings for any school action.
Progress perhaps, but it certainly has done little to stop the tidal
wave of school closings and turnarounds.
Soto is not a consistent
defender of public education. In summer
of 2012, Soto voted for the “charter full funding bill,” which would have given
more funding to charter schools. The
union pointed out to her at the time that her vote was contrary to the spirit
of her earlier work, as charter school proliferation is one of the forces
driving school closings.
Vail pointed out, from the
floor of the House, that when Emanuel wanted a waiver to push back the schedule
of hearings for school closings, after the strike in fall of 2012, Soto did not
speak up against it. When he and others tried to get her on the phone, to
ask why, she made herself scarce. The political director said this was a
"mischaracterization", but she spoke to the fact that Soto supported
the union during the school closings fight -- in spring 2013. That’s
exactly the point: Soto could make a symbolic show of support, in spring, when
it did not matter. But she did not take a stand a few months earlier, when it might
have thrown a speed-bump in front of Emanuel’s school-closing bulldozer.
And there you have it – a
case-in-point of why endorsing Democrats is a dead end. Emanuel and Quinn are
clearly enemies. The union’s best “friends” like Soto occasionally get a law
through for something like the CEFTF. It’s window dressing – it did not do
anything to seriously impede school closings.
And as soon as those minor
restrictions threatened to inconvenience the mayor’s plan to pull off the
largest school closing in history, no one was around to make the law stick.
Democratic politicians
like Soto are allowed a small margin of maneuver. They can get a bill passed to
pose as “our friend”, but they need to operate within the Democratic Party,
which means they cannot fundamentally oppose its policy. The problem being, the Party represents the
ruling class, and the ruling class’s policy right now is to take apart public
education in Chicago (and elsewhere). We make a mistake to endorse them, or to
think of them as “friends” – they cannot and will not consistently represent
the interests of working people, while at the same time maintaining any hope
for a future within their party. This is
why I voted “no” on those endorsements, though the vote was overwhelming to
endorse. And this is a big part of why I
ran as a candidate for alderman – to raise that we need our own organization
and our own party, independent of the Democrats.
Details of Soto’s history
of working with CTU and CORE can be found in Back issues of Substance, for
example:
Initial “Soto Bill”
http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=982
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