Victory for Socialist Ballot Access in Seattle

An important, hard earned victory was won this Summer when Judge Robert S. Lasnik upheld an earlier temporary injunction allowing Linda Averill, a Freedom Socialist Party (FSP) candidate for Seattle City Council in 2003, to keep confidential the names of campaign donors. In August, the City of Seattle bowed to public pressure by dropping its plans to appeal the ruling, after spending thousands of city dollars in hard economic times (including a $350 per hour expert witness) to fight the case. Additionally, Averill’s legal team was awarded $70,000 in attorney’s fees.

The battle began when the openly Socialist-Feminist candidate filed for an exemption as allowed in the city’s campaign disclosure law. Exemptions have been a part of Seattle’s disclosure process for decades, and past socialist candidates have been granted such exemptions. However, the Seattle Ethics and Elections Committee (SEEC) dismissed the request without any real consideration or due process.

Campaign donation rules generally exist to aid the public. For example, a look at the list of big corporate donors for any high-level Democrat or Republican candidate allows a glimpse beyond campaign rhetoric to where real allegiances lie. Conflicts of interest by office holders can also be flushed out with this information. However, disclosure has an opposite effect on socialists, because of a long and continuing history of government-driven harassment of socialists and other radicals.

Forced disclosure has a chilling effect, causing many supporters to think twice about contributing to avoid reprisals. Candidates end up running campaigns solely on donations below disclosure limits. In Seattle, each donor of $25 or more must be disclosed, while in San Francisco disclosure of all donors is required when a candidate raises $1,000 or more. For example, Moises Montoya, running a strong campaign for the San Francisco City College Board of Trustees in 1998 coinciding with important City College labor negotiations, stopped taking donations after collecting $999. Candidates running on such small amounts of money and/or fear of reprisal are marginalized and trivialized, amounting to systemic discrimination against socialist parties.

VICTORIOUS CAMPAIGN
In keeping with its Trotskyist roots and 40-year history of strong organizing campaigns, the FSP won by presenting a thorough, well-organized legal defense. Needing to prove that harassment actually does exit, the legal team brought “boxes and boxes” containing hundreds of documented complaints of harassment spanning the 40-year party history, both in Seattle and elsewhere.

In an interview for this article, Averill outlined a number of instances of harassment in recent years in Seattle. The FSP received streams of death threats by neo-nazi and right wing Cuban organizations, after having led a successful fight to prevent organized these dangerous groups from putting down roots in the local community. A supporter employed as a city attorney was threatened with firing because he “could not be objective” in his work due to socialist affiliation. The San Francisco branch reported streams of e-mail and voice mail threats for speaking out publicly against the war in Iraq as part of the Bay Area United Against War coalition. Clara Fraser, a key FSP/RW founder won a landmark labor discrimination case about 20 years ago. She won back her management job at Seattle City Lights, the local power company, after being fired for walking out with and publicly supporting striking workers. A key to the defense was her boss’s public statement “if she was as loyal to me as she is to Karl Marx….”

While city lawyers were asserting in court that no current threats exist in Seattle’s “liberal climate”, a campaign indymedia activists can relate to well broke out and was reported in the trial. This past May, the FSP and Radical Women were victims of a flurry of protests and death threats after pro-war talk radio station KVI repeatedly urged listeners to participate in organized protests after learning about a sign on the party headquarters building which called for “Victory to the Iraqi resistance”, including organized actions at specific times announced on air.

CAMPAIGN TACTICS
Averill was able to raise $14,500, much of it after winning the preliminary injunction, and got 11,000 votes (10%) in the primary. The legal victory was made possible by strong community support. Street heat was applied to bring the suit into the public realm to pressure the court and city government towards fairness and objectivity. FSP organizers hit the streets with public education, leafleting, and speaking events. Supporters packed an SEEC meeting, many testifying eloquently for the Party. City bureaucrats were besieged by e-mails, phone calls, and letters demanding that they drop plans to appeal the ruling. Thousands of dollars and public consciousness was raised through a campaign to donate $24.99 for first amendment rights. Lead attorney Todd Maybrown called the victory “an important affirmation of the first Amendment, one that reinforces the rights of dissident parties to participate in the election process”.

In recent years, the FSP has made its mark in Seattle in resistance to neo-nazi infiltration, working for an elected civilian review board to investigate police brutality cases, working on defense cases for arrested WTO protestors, and organizing the local contingent for the Million Workers March.

SOCIALIST-FEMINIST PLATFORM
Averill, a City Metro bus driver and official with the Amalgamated Transit worker’s union, ran on a comprehensive Socialist-Feminist platform. Campaign literature included calls for taxing “corporate freeloader” to fund jobs, schools, healthcare, and expanded public transit; enacting rent control; ending poverty and homelessness, including public housing expansion; raising the minimum wage to $12/hour; strengthening women’s rights, including abortion on demand, free child care and combating domestic violence; creating an elected civilian police review board; no City compliance with the U.S. Patriot Act; and public ownership of utilities and major industries.

At an event in San Francisco this summer, Averill explained that fair ballot access and the ability to raise adequate money and campaign openly is crucial for socialist campaigns to be taken seriously. She noted that high filing fees also serve as barriers to entry for working-class candidates. I get disappointed observing Socialists jumping into the Green Party to run campaigns which include some socialist platform, while hiding their true affiliation and watering down anti-capitalist platforms and rhetoric.

Averill reported that during the campaign, some Democrats called for getting rid of the disclosure exemption all together. Seattle Greens were split; many opposed the FSP campaign, having a difficult time coming to grips with the extent of harassment that anti-capitalist radicals receive. Socialists, along with all other members of alternative parties, need freedom to vote their politics and conscience, not choosing the “lesser of evils” or watered-down reformist alternatives. Congratulations to Linda and everyone who contributed to a really important victory!