KEENAN

BULLOCK

GRACE

ENSMINGER

By SHERRY HALBROOK
If you are fed up and disillusioned with the two major political parties and want to make government and the political system more responsive to ordinary voters, what do you do?
Many PEF members have asked themselves that question. For some, "third parties" have been their answer.

Building a Labor Party
"I just got totally frustrated. I can see no real difference between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party," said Mike Keenan, a PEF activist at the state Department of Environmental Conservation in Albany. "I think the average person is turned off by the entrenched power of incumbents and party hierarchy. That's why many people don't vote."

And that's why Keenan is a tireless builder of the Labor Party and chairs its Capital District Chapter.
Unlike most third parties, the Labor Party will not "cross endorse" the candidates of other parties.

"It's against the Labor Party's constitution to endorse anyone who is not a member," said Keenan, who has been involved since the party formed four years ago.
"We're still in formation. We made the decision not to run any candidates until 2001. When we do, they will be prohibited from accepting corporate campaign contributions," Keenan said.
"For an election to be meaningful," he said, "you need for the common people to be running."

The Labor Party platform includes many issues with meaning for him, Keenan said, such as national, single-payer health insurance for all Americans and the right of everyone to a job with a living wage.
Doug Bullock, an activist at the state Labor Department in Albany, is a close friend of Keenan's and another founder of the Labor Party. But the two men have distinctly different expectations.

"We're going too damned slow for me. We're bogged down," Bullock said.

"The two-party system is what's hampering this country," he said. "But it's important to be realistic. Unless you're in that two-party system, how can you get rid of it? You can't change it from the outside. You have to be in it to change it.

"A third party isn't going to come about separately, but out of the existing Democratic Party. You have to work with what you've got," Bullock said, "whether you like it or not. I'll work with the Democrats until the Labor Party becomes viable.

Working Families option
Out in Buffalo, two other PEF activists support the Labor Party, but have an even more pragmatic approach.
Tom Grace (left) and Rich Ensminger (below), who head PEF Division 167 at the state Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities in western New York, are really active in three political parties - the Democratic Party, the Labor Party and the Working Families Party.

"I became disenchanted with the Democratic Party because of the arrogance of Mario Cuomo who literally would not give us the time of day after we turned out hundreds of people to phone bank for his campaign," Grace said.

"I was attracted to the Labor Party because I hoped it would get involved in cross endorsements," Grace said. "I think that's how third parties build ballot strength."
Grace, who has been a Democratic committeeman since 1984, said he likes the Working Families Party because it usually endorses Democratic candidates.
"When I get PEF members to vote for a Democratic candidate on the Working Families Party line, those candidates know the votes came from the labor movement," Grace said.

"Labor has to have a political voice. If it isn't heard directly through the Democratic Party, then it has to find another way to be heard," he said. "I see the Working Families Party as a way to build labor's voice in the Democratic Party."
"Tom and I went to the first Labor Party Convention in 1996," Ensminger said of himself and Grace. "We have been active in the Buffalo chapter, but we saw it would take years to get that party on the ballot in New York state.

"We then organized in Buffalo the first official chapter of the Working Families Party in this state," Ensminger said. "It cross endorsed Democratic candidate Chuck Schumer for Senate in 1998 and when more than 50,000 votes were cast statewide for him on the Working Families Party line, it got a regular place on the ballot.

"Everyone's attitude changed toward us after that," Ensminger said. "More than 100 local candidates approached us last year in Buffalo for the Working Families Party endorsement.
"And we got a law passed that requires companies doing business with the city of Buffalo to pay their employees a living wage," Ensminger said. "Now, we're going to work on getting it passed by the counties and the state."

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