Unions Won Big in Primary
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Unions were the big winner in Tuesday’s primary, taking most of the races for state rep that they targeted and potentially extending their control over the General Assembly.
“We had a good night. Yes we did,” said George Nee, Rhode Island AFL-CIO president. “We were successful in getting our vote out and I think our efforts were rewarded.”
The AFL-CIO won 14 out of the 21 races it was involved in, according to Nee. In many cases, the AFL-CIO defeated incumbents who it views as anti-labor, but it also defended some incumbents. “I’m hopeful we’ll have more power but we won’t know until it happens,” Nee told GoLocalProv. “You don’t know until the fights start taking place.”
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTThe Rhode Island chapter of the NEA, which is not affiliated with the AFL-CIO, was active in four of those 14 races with a pro-union outcome—the ones that saw the defeat of Democratic reps. Al Gemma, David Caprio, Doug Gablinske, and Mary Ann Shallcross-Smith, according to Pat Crowley, the government relations director for the union.
In a statement to GoLocalProv, House Speaker Gordon Fox said there was a “mixed bag of reasons” for why so many incumbents had been defeated, but he credited unions with an effective get-out-the-vote effort in four or five of the races. “This is more easily accomplished in a very low-turnout Democratic primary like we saw on Tuesday,” Fox said. “I have to give the unions credits in some of these races because they got their people out.”
Future of Gordon Fox as Speaker
The string of defeated incumbents has raised questions about Gordon Fox’s future as Speaker of the House, but Nee wouldn’t speculate on what might happen in the next session. “He’s a Speaker who I believe shares a lot of the values of the labor movement in terms of who he is and where he comes from,” Nee said. “We disagree on a number of issues, but also we understand that he is a Speaker in tough times and has to make some tough decisions.”
Crowley agreed. He said his organization’s mission in the primaries was simple: send a message to Democrats that they have to stop blaming union members—a key base for their party—for all of the state’s economic problems.
Like Nee, he said it was too early to predict how the primaries might affect who is in the House leadership next year. “I consider myself a progressive and Gordon Fox is a progressive,” Crowley told GoLocalProv. “I would like to see progressive legislation and progressive public policy come out of the House of Representatives in 2011 and however that happens I want it to happen.”
Republican Gains in the General Election?
Fox indicated that it would be harder for unions to have the same impact in November.
“The Democrats running in November will all be working very hard and will certainly not take anything for granted, particularly after Tuesday’s results,” Fox said. “With so many more voters expected, it is much harder for any group to target single elections.”
Instead, Crowley thinks the political Right will make significant gains in the general election.
“I would expect them to pick up a number of seats. I would expect them to have the biggest change in seats since the banking crisis (in) the early 1990s,” Crowley said. “I think our successes in the primary were just that and I think we’ll have a few successes in November. I think in the general election, what happens in the nation will happen in Rhode Island—it won’t be as widespread.”
Nee said the AFL-CIO will be involved in general election races, but has yet to determine which ones.
"That's what a democracy is all about. The funny thing is, the people who complain the most, they do the least. They want to complain without playing. We play," Nee said.
