President's Message
Members made a difference in fall elections
By ROGER E. BENSON
November's general election results showed
what our involvement in political campaigns can do. PEF endorsed 230 candidates in the
general election, and 225 of them won.
While PEF can take some credit for many of those victories, PEF's major focus was on 22
state legislative races and two statewide races. In those specific races, our members had
a major impact.
On target
PEF, for the first time, worked with the leadership in both houses of the state
legislature to target New York State Senate and Assembly races where we could
significantly affect the outcome.
Twenty-two races were targeted as competitive and we focused much of our efforts and
resources on those elections.
While not completely successful, we were able to help 20 of our endorsed candidates in
those races get elected.
Our success in the general election at the state level was the result of the efforts of
many individuals, political activists, PAC chairs, our rank-and-file membership, and
retirees, as well as our ability to focus our resources on the races that counted the
most.
We worked closely with Carl McCall and his campaign and endorsed him early on in our
process with extremely positive results.
However, the race that has done the most to raise PEF's political profile across the state
and even at a national level, was the election of Charles Schumer as United States
Senator.
I am extremely proud of our ability to endorse a candidate through a fair and open
process, and of the way we backed up that endorsement.
PEF's early endorsement gave Charles Schumer the push he needed to win his primary, and
then we worked tirelessly and coordinated with other unions to make sure he won in the
general election.
Tough session ahead
As a result of our success in the general election, we will have more influence in the
legislature in the upcoming session. Next session promises to be a difficult one; the
governor, in an interview with the Albany Times Union editorial board, has already
indicated that he intends to continue downsizing the state workforce.
Contract negotiations will begin shortly, and there are already several major
privatization initiatives in the Office of Mental Health, Office of Mental Retardation and
Developmental Disabilities and Department of Transportation that must be dealt with.
We must continue to build PEF's political organization to meet these challenges head on.
Our ability to organize around candidates must now be turned to organize around issues.
We must lobby those same individuals that we helped get elected, and shouldn't be shy
about reminding them of the role we played in their election.
We can pause now and reflect on our accomplish-ments over the past month, but let us not
become complacent.
We must be prepared for the year ahead.
Thanks to your help, we have put ourselves in a position where we have many of the
ingredients
for success.