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Primary Elections Update

Thursday, September 11, 2008

We won. The two primaries in which AFT-Wisconsin played...we won in them! In the 73rd Assembly District, our endorsed candidate, Nick Milroy, won 50% of the vote in a four-way primary. Nice work to TAA activists Aaron Jossart, Alice Astarita, and Joe Abisaid for knocking this one out of the park and handling the bulk of the voter contact for AFT-W members and AFL-CIO households. This race wouldn't have been won without them - and we have a new progressive in the Assembly because of it.

In the 22nd Assembly District, our endorsed candidate Sandy Pasch won with 37% of the vote, beating her next-closest competitor by 1% of the vote and just a couple hundred total votes. Jim Draeger of the MGAA was really a driver behind that.

Congrats to Nick and Sandy - and congrats to the AFT-Wisconsin political team, especially the grad student worker locals, who really drove the bus in winning these races!

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posted by Peter

Primary Day

Monday, September 8, 2008

Today is primary day all around Wisconsin. Our statewide union, AFT-Wisconsin, has made some endorsements in contested primaries. While none of them are right here in our backyard, there are two major primaries where we have endorsed - and there are a few primaries here in our neck of the woods worth watching.

Our political organizing program has indeed worked on one primary. Up in the Northwoods of Superior, in the 73rd Assembly District, we worked to elect the AFT-endorsed candidate Nick Milroy. Nick is a Superior City Councilor who is running to replace the estimable Frank Boyle in the legislature. Frank has been one of our union's best friends over the years, a progressive champion who always stood up for labor and working families. Frank has himself endorsed Nick and sent a letter to AFT members in the district on our letterhead asking people to vote for Nick. Frank isn't the only endorser of Nick Milroy. He's joined by US Congressman Dave Obey and State Senator Bob Jauch and they both represent the area of the seat.

AFT was joined in the labor community in endorsing Nick by the local labor council, specifically because he will be the strongest champion for working families. And Nick is part of our union family - his wife is a K12 teacher and member of the Superior Federation of Teachers, one of our strongest locals. His parents were too before they retired. Nick get it - he's a self-identifying progressive who will be there with us on all the key issues. And not just as a good vote. He's going to be a leader in the Assembly for working families.

So the TAA political team worked on the district by contacting almost all of the AFT members and their households to encourage folks to vote for Nick and to identify supporters. This weekend, we also helped with the labor GOTV by first making GOTV calls to our identified AFT household supporters and then cruising through the list of AFL-CIO households in the area to get out the vote for Nick. With the strength of labor in the district, we could account for a significant chunk of Nick's votes - and be the margin of victory for him in this Democratic primary. This is a heavily Democratic area, so whomever wins the primary actually wins the seat. We'll be pulling for Nick on Tuesday!

Another contested primary where AFT-Wisconsin endorsed is in the 22nd Assembly District on the North Shore outside of Milwaukee. There, we joined with Progressive Majority, part of our progressive coalition of groups in Wisconsin, in endorsing and supporting Sandy Paasch. Sandy is a nurse and nursing educator running to replace Sheldon Wasserman who is vacating the seat to take on the odious Alberta Darling for the local State Senate seat. But it's not the AFT and PM who endorsed - so did the local labor council, sticking out their neck in a race where Herb Kohl's nephew is running along with another prominent candidate. Sandy was the choice here because she is so strong on healthcare issues, working families issues, and on education funding.

Our brothers and sisters in the Milwaukee Graduate Assistants Association have been doing for Sandy what we did for Nick Milroy, building support, identifying voters, and conducting GOTV. We'll also be pulling hard for Sandy on Tuesday, this being another seat where the winner of the primary will take the seat.

Here in South Central Wisconsin, there are three major primaries. Right here in Madison and in Dane County, the 81st Assembly District race has six candidates in the Democratic primary. Again, it's a seat where the winner of the (D) primary wins the seat. AFT did not endorse in this race, and we'll have a champion no matter who wins. The two frontrunning candidates are friends of our union, Justin Sargent and Kelda Helen Roys. Justin is the chief of staff to State Senator Judy Robson and has been instrumental in moving along progressive legislation for years. Kelda is the former executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin and has been an advocate in the Capitol on healthcare issues. We'll look forward to working with whomever wins here as a strong champ for the UW.

North of the 81st District is the 47th, where the winner of the primary will take on the hand-picked successor of the odious Gene Hahn. He is retiring after decades of do-nothing "service" to the district being a reliable conservative vote and not much else. In this primary, AFT did not endorse because there are two great candidates running. Paul Fisk is the former mayor of Lodi and Trish O'Neil is a nurse and former UW clinical faculty. Both are proven progressives that will be strong allies of ours in the statehouse.

South of us in the 80th District, the primary includes two candidates running to take on George Bush Republican Brett Davis. He is a radical conservative privatizer who literally worked in the Bush Administration for years before carpet-bagging on back to southern Wisconsin to run for the Assembly. This is one of the most progressive and Democratic districts still represented by a conservative Republican incumbent. In this primary, it looks like Kris Wisnefske, a nurse at the Monroe Clinic and active community member, will win over John Waelti, a former University of New Mexico professor. Both Kris and John are themselves committed progressives. But the winner will have a tough row to hoe against Davis. He works the district hard and is a likable enough fellow - it's his policies that suck and are hurting his district and the state of Wisconsin.

No matter what happens Tuesday in the primaries around our state, we'll keep driving forward to our goal of building a progressive, pro-labor, pro-education, pro-UW majority in the statehouse. We're just three seats away and we can get it done this year!

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posted by Peter

There's An Election This Year?

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

As it turns out, yes, there is an election this year. You've probably heard we're electing a new president. Not a moment too soon. Or eight years worth of moments.

But while the campaign for the White House is in full swing - and something we cannot escape, whether we try or if we'd rather revel in this orgy of the democratic political process - there are other elections at hand that are perhaps as important as the presidential race.

Here in Wisconsin, all 99 seats of the state legislature's Assembly are up for election. And this, for us, must be a priority and a focus. See, the state legislature has tremendous impacts upon us as graduate students, grad student workers, and members of the UW community - not to mention as citizens at-large.

As a progressive union, we are committed to building a pro-labor, pro-education, pro-UW majority in the statehouse. Back in 2006, we of the TAA and of our parent union, AFT-Wisconsin helped to win a progressive majority in the State Senate. The results have been astounding. From taking on tax & budget reform that put people before profits of corporations to tackling universal healthcare to supporting the UW system and guaranteeing all workers the right to organize, our progressive State Senate charted a course of an excellent policy agenda.

But, as we learned either in high school civics or via Schoolhouse Rock, with a bicameral (i.e. "two houses") legislature, bills must pass in both houses. And the State Assembly was where all good things went to die. And where all bad things were spawned. They wanted to take away the rights of voters, they wanted to defund the UW system, they wanted to cut taxes on the rich and powerful while refusing to invest in Wisconsin's economic development. And this is the same crowd that brought us the discrimination amendment back in 2006. Same players, same politicians, same prejudice.

As we were building a progressive State Senate in 2006, we also added nine new Assembly representatives that were strikingly progressive themselves. They've been leaders on higher education, environmental, and economic justice issues. And there are more to come.

By adding nine new progressives to the State Assembly in 2006, we came within three seats of having a majority in that body. And only a few thousand votes statewide in key districts separated us from winning outright the progressive majority we needed then - but need more desperately now.

Since 2006, failed conservatism at the national and state levels have left our economy in shambles, our UW system struggling to maintain its world-class status on proverbial life-support, and our vision for social justice blowing in the wind of a politics that does not account for real morality.

So here we sit, three seats from a progressive majority in Wiscosin's legislature. But now, we need to stand up and fight. The 2008 elections give us an incredible opportunity - to align a progressive State Senate with a progressive State Assembly, ready to tackle an agenda for social and economic justice, investment in higher learning, and an end to the politics of fear and despair.

We're so close I can feel it. I can taste it. With twenty seats statewide really up for grabs, six of them are right here in our backyard. That's why we're organizing and mobilizing like hell to win a progressive majority. The opportunity is there, it's there for us to grab, and the possibilities are truly exciting.

Want to learn more? Want to learn how you can get involved to make an impact?

Come on out to our Wisconsin Politics 101 seminar on Monday night. We'll have the whole story, the truth and the facts about our politics hung around a narrative that is at once frustrating, fascinating, and exciting. See you then.

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posted by Peter

John McCain: Four More Years of Being Dead-Wrong on the Economy

Monday, September 1, 2008

We've suffered through eight years of George Bush. Where to begin in outlining his failures as a president and of this country (and the world)? There's no convenient place. There are just too many of them.

But one place where it's crystal-clear where he's been dead-wrong is on the economy. From pursuing a right-wing corporatist agenda that leaves workers struggling and corporations profiteering off the misery of the broader population, Bush's tenure has consolidated the abject disaster that is conservatism's low road economics. We need to get on the high road, where we all come together for a shared prosperity economy. An economy that works for working people. An economy that rewards work, and just just wealth. From the professional to the low-wage immigrant, workers need a president that puts the broader needs of our economy and the common good ahead of corporate power and wealth.

But John McCain wants for more years of George Bush's failed policies. He wants four more years to showcase the conservative vision for an America that fails its peoples. They don't call him McSame for nothing. If it's four more years of an economy in the dumps, John McCain is your man.

George Bush has been dead-wrong on the economy (and pretty much everything else). John McCain is four more years of more of the same.

We need to stop that in its tracks. We need to get on the high road. We need a pro-worker president. We need Barack Obama.

But right now, John McCain enjoys the advantage of having his "base" be that of the media. Entirely subservient for most of the Bush years, the media is the lapdog John McCain needs to con his way into the White House. They aren't telling the real story. And they're not going to.

That's why we need to take the message of change - especially on the economy - directly to the people. We need to speak with them directly, bypassing the filters of the corporate media and of the Republican spin machine.

So that's why we're mobilizing for a day of action. A National Day of Action at that. We're going to head out into the neighborhoods of Madison to speak directly with union members and their families about how John McCain, like George Bush, is dead-wrong on the economy. We need to spread the message about McCain - and the good news about Barack Obama.

Labor is a swing vote in Wisconsin this year. The spectres of racism and bigotry still loom over a country, even with Barack Obama giving his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, 45 years to the day Martin Luther King gave his historic "I Have A Dream" address. And in a state like Wisconsin, a must-win set of electoral votes for Obama, we cannot ignore that it might exist, even in the justice-minded homes of union members.

We need to make sure that fellow union families know that John McCain is wrong on the most critical issue of the day, our economy. And they need to know that even while Barack Obama is the candidate for labor and for workers, it's not just his policy positions versus McCain's that matter. It's that we are electing a president to lead this nation in a time of economic crisis - and that the strength of solidarity exists upon the base of banding together for our common interests and the common good of our country. Union members should be voting for a president that will stand with them, black, brown, white, yellow or red.

Let's make sure that they all get the good news about Obama. So come on out Thursday for our AFL-CIO National Day of Action here in Madison. It's just down the street at the Madison Labor Temple on Park Street. A few hours of your time can have a big impact. We're two months out - the time to activate and mobilize is now!

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posted by Peter

Northwoods Primary

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Way up north, way on the tippy top of Wisconsin sits Superior. You might not know it just by looking at a map - unless its an election-results map - but Superior is one of the most Democratic parts of the state and one of the most pro-education and pro-labor in how they vote and what they support. In fact, in the Assembly race up there this year, for the 73rd District as Frank Boyle retires, there isn't a Republican candidate. Whomever wins the Democratic primary wins the seat.

Now Frank has been about as good a friend of AFT-Wisconsin and the TAA as anyone in the state legislature. He's been a stalwart progressive and strong voice for education from pre-K through PhDs. With him retiring, we lose a good friend in the Assembly. But we have a chance to make a new friend.

As Frank retires, he endorsed a candidate to replace him in the Assembly, his good friend Nick Milroy. Nick is a Superior city councilor - and he's a member of the AFT family. Both his wife and his parents are members of AFT-Wisconsin as teachers in the Superior Federation of Teachers. The SFT is one of our union's strongest locals and with nearly 800 household members in the district, they are a large part of the voting population up there. Nick's good people too - he's a strong progressive that has said he wants to be a "Frank Boyle Democrat" when he's in Madison. We in the AFT thought that sounded pretty good. So we endorsed him.

Actually, it's more complext than that. There's a candidate running in the Democratic primary that is no Frank Boyle Democrat. In fact, most of the folks in the world of AFT members from up in Superior say she's not much of a Suprerior Democrat at all - she's even running as the "moderate" voice for "moderate" people in Superior. Sounds good on paper maybe, but not to progressives.

In their endorsement interviews, Nick and the other candidate couldn't have been more difficult: Nick spoke about being a progressive voice and leader like Frank had been, making his top priorities public education and getting our state's economy on-track for working families, while explicitly referring to himself as a progressive without running away from an ideological defintion for himself; the other candidate just kept referring to herself as a moderate, didn't stake out any progressive priorities, and just didn't seem like the Frank Boyle Democrat we want.

Two of the leaders of our Superior locals drove down for the endorsement interviews AFT-Wisconsin held in Madison, and both of them voted as part of a unanimous 'majority' to endorse Nick Milroy. So along with AFT, Nick is endorsed by Frank Boyle, the Building & Construction Trades in Superior, Congressman Dave Obey (a progressive leader if ever there was one), and the progressive industrial union United Steelworkers.

When one of the Superior AFT leaders and I were speaking after the endorsement vote, she said she'd be grateful for any help that the TAA could give to help get Nick elected. I said we'd do whatever was asked of us. And we got asked...

This past week, TAA political activist members have called through our entire AFT-Wisconsin membership list in the district, having conversations with member households about the 73rd Assembly District race and sharing with folks that AFT-Wisconsin has endorsed Nick Milroy. We've identified supporters of Nick, and we're getting ready to make the final push for Get Out the Vote (GOTV) in the crutical final 72 hours before the primary election on September 9th.

So we're going to be working to get our TAA members plugged in to help with GOTV in the 73rd Assembly District primary because this Northwoods area is one where we can win for a progressive 2 months out from the general election. We could really use your help on Saturday the 6th and/or Sunday the 7th and/or Monday the 8th.

So can you come on out for a few hours worth of political action to help a progressive win a seat? We can elect someone who is going to be a strong ally of ours - a new friend - in the fight for better pro-labor, pro-education, and progressive policy in the state legislature. Remember, elections don't win themselves - only real people engaged in the real work of political action win elections and build power. Come on out to be a part of it!

Saturday, 1 PM to 5 PM
Sunday, 5 PM to 8:30 PM
Monday, 5 PM to 8:30 PM
First half-hour of each session is training and education

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posted by TAA Political Action

TAA-UFAS 2008 Political Action Kickoff!

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Clear your calendars! Save the date! Whatever it takes, be there!

The TAA Political Action organizing team and our good friends at UFAS (our brothers and sisters of United Faculty & Academic Staff) is proud to announce our TAA-UFAS 2008 Political Action Kickoff event! We'll rally with fellow union members as well as union and political leaders.

The event will take place on September 16th at 5:30 PM over at Grainger Hall. We'll hear from a great list of speakers that will cover topics ranging from what's at stake in 2008 from the presidential election through the state legislature, what a pro-labor, pro-education, pro-UW majority in the state legislature will look like, the political lay of the land - and perhaps most importantly, what we can do about it.

Here's the list of speakers right now:

AFT-Wisconsin President Bryan Kennedy
AFL-CIO Wisconsin Executive Vice President Sara Rogers
62nd Assembly District Rep and former AFT-Wisconsin Political Director Cory Mason
78th Assembly District Rep and potential future chair of the state legislature's (all-important) Joint Finance Committee Mark Pocan
A high-level surrogate from the Barack Obama campaign.

So check out the details with the event listing on our TAA Politics Facebook page and we'll see you there! Don't forget to RSVP and to share this with your friends...let's pack the place!

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posted by TAA Political Action

Saturday's AFT Higher Ed Solidarity Action

This Saturday, higher ed unionists from around AFT-Wisconsin came together for a joint action as part of our 2008 political program. Member-activists from the TAA joined with our brothers and sisters from AFT-Wisconsin higher ed locals for a political action around this year's elections. They included union members from the Milwaukee Graduate Assistants Association, United Faculty & Academic Staff, and The Association of University of Wisconsin Professionals (the latter two being the unions for faculty and academic staff at UW-Madison and other UW-system campuses, respectively). But the TAA definitely led the pack.

As many of you know, we have two major political opportunities this year. One, which I'm sure most are familiar with, is the chance to bring change to our country by electing Barack Obama as our next president. The TAA membership voted to endorse Senator Obama way back in January and we'll be continuing, along with our brothers and sisters in the labor movement, to work to ensure that Barack Obama wins the crucial labor vote by the margin he needs to win Wisconsin's electoral votes.

The other major political opportunity in front of us in 2008 is to build a pro-labor, pro-education, pro-UW majority in the state legislature. The state legislature has a huge impact on us as graduate students, grad student workers, and members of the UW community. Right now, there is a narrow margin between us and our progressive majority. Six of the top-tier races are right here in our own backyard, so we can have a huge impact by mobilizing the labor vote for key candidates that we support.

This Saturday's action was a combination of our work on both of these fronts.

The event centered around higher ed unionists working to elect one of our own. Kim Hixson is a progressive State Assembly Representative in a dog-fight of a re-election campaign (one of our six priority races). He is also a UW-system professor on leave from UW-Whitewater AND a member of our union. His local, TAUWP is made up of UW-system faculty and academic staff that right now do not have collective bargaining rights. So one fight on which Kim has been a leader has been in working towards guaranteeing faculty & academic staff the same rights we have, the basic human right of organizing into a union. Kim has also been an incredibly strong and credible voice for better support of the UW-system as the crown jewel of our state. He has stood in solidarity with us in working to ensure better funding of Wisconsin's state universities.

So on Saturday, we went and spoke with fellow union members in Whitewater, Edgerton, and Milton about re-electing Kim Hixson against radical anti-education privatizer Debi Towns, the person Kim beat in 2006 by 38 votes in a highly-contested recount. The support for Kim was strong - union members realize that we need a strong university system as an economic driver in our state; and the principle of solidarity stood strong - union members want another one of their own from the House of Labor in the state legislature.

The other aim of our work on Saturday was in building support amongst union households for Barack Obama. Many have thought that this election is in the bag for Barack Obama, especially right here in Wisconsin. However, the facts on the ground are different. This is a hotly-contested race where we will need to work hard, along with the hard work of the Obama campaign proper, to win Wisconsin's critical electoral votes for Barack Obama.

The men and women of organized labor, traditionally a Democratic stronghold, are a swing voting bloc this year for a number of reasons. But make no mistake about it - when we in the TAA endorsed Senator Obama, it was because we knew he is the pro-worker, pro-labor candidate in this election. John McCain is just wrong for union members, wrong for Wisconsin, and wrong for this country. From getting our economy back on track to re-establishing America's moral leadership around the world, Barack Obama is the right choice.

So we knocked on the doors of fellow union members to encourage their support of Barack Obama. Not surprisingly, in this area that has been badly damaged by the failed economic policies of the Bush Administration, there was strong support for Barack Obama.

But we need to keep it up. These elections won't win themselves, and there's too much at stake to sit at home and watch. WE will win these elections, be it the presidential race or the fight for the state legislature. WE must be active and involved. That's what our political program is all about - organizing our members as activists to deliver the electoral victories we need to bring about change and to build the political power to enact a progressive agenda here in Wisconsin and throughout this country.

So this Saturday was an opening salvo of sorts (even though we've been engaged in multiple major actions prior to this one)...our announcement that the TAA will fight like hell to win in 2008. But soon, we'll have more actions, from working to win a primary for a progressive Democrat to building more support among fellow AFT members for Barack Obama, to organizing in our top-tier Assembly races. And much, much more.

Stay tuned here and elsewhere for updates...and keep your calendars open for September 16th at 5:30 PM. Along with our brothers and sisters of UFAS, we'll host a political kickoff event with a host of great speakers and opportunities for you to get involved.

In the meantime, we'd love to have you involved. So if you'd like to step up and help us win in 2008, just get in touch with us today!

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posted by TAA Political Action

 

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