her principles. CSQ: Left electoral efforts are apparently only successful when they are run within the Democratic Party. What is your response to this fact, and what is your view of third party efforts on the left? Shearer: I am an advocate of working within the left wing of the Democratic Party when there are partisan elections. It’s my view that the parties are not very strong. They are weak parties. There is virtually no party organization. There is no ideological test. When Tom Hayden wanted to run for the senate in California, he said, "I’m going to run as a Democrat." No one could say, "You’re not a Democrat. We don’t want you to run.” And if he’d won, he would have been, "the Democrat.” A Democrat is defined by whoever runs and wins on the Democratic ticket. Santa Monica Mayor Ruth Yannatta Goldway The problem is that while the parties are loosely organized and weak, it is a strong two party system. It is not a parliamentary system. Historically, Americans are not accustomed to voting for third parties. This system makes it very hard for third party efforts, as the results tend to be winner take all. Therefore, a vote for the Citizens Party or the Peace and Freedom Party is seen as a vote for the right. What they're doing is pulling votes away from the Democrats to elect a right-wing Republican. In the sixties and early seventies in California, for example, the Peace and Freedom Party actually defeated a few very liberal Democratic Party candidates. And the Republicans even secretly gave money to the Peace and Freedom Party precisely to encourage that outcome. So it’s always been my opinion, and it’s basically a pragmatic decision, that the Democratic Party is the closest thing to a labor party that there is in the United States. It’s the functional equivalent of the British Labour Party or the French Socialist Party or the German Social Democratic Party. The problem is that it doesn’t have a left. And the only way it’s going to get a left is if people get in there and win like we’ve done in Santa Monica. We are seen as Democrats, but we’re the Democrats for rent control. By creating a rent control movement in the state we have pulled liberal and moderate Democrats in city council and mayoral offices around the state over to our position, so that now, the mayor of Los Angeles has to support rent control, even though, left to his own devices, he wouldn’t support it at all. I think the system is pretty open. The hard task is for people to do the organizing work, find good candidates or initiatives or organizing strategies, and to run, contend and win. CSQ: How were you able, in Santa Monica, to overcome the historical bane of left electoral efforts, low voter turnout? Shearer: What we found in Santa Monica was that by putting issues forward that really affected people's lives—like rent control—we changed the turnout. In Santa Monica, voter turnout traditionally had been around 20%. When we put rent control on the ballot and went door-to-door with candidates pledged to rent control, and said, "We’re going to stop evictions; we’re going to control your rents, we’re going to give you new rights as tenants," turnout rose to 50%. And it turns out that it wasn’t a one-shot effort. After we won rent control in 1979, there were a series of elections that followed, and turnout stayed over 50%. That is why we win elections: because of increased turnout. I believe that the only way to increase turnout is to run people and initiatives that are left; left in the sense that if they win, they will make some significant difference, so that people recognize that there is a reason to vote, that there is something important at stake. And that's the only way. You don’t increase turnout by vague voter registration drives, voter education, "gosh, we wish people would be better citizens.” I think a lot of people are correct when they perceive that it doesn’t matter that much who they vote for. When they feel it matters, then they turn out to vote. That was the same thing that happened in the thirties. The turnout increased among people who hadn’t been voting, particularly the women who were married to working class men, younger and first-time voters, and second generation immigrants. People who might not have voted, or hadn't been voting much in the twenties, felt that there was so much at stake that they started to vote. And when they did, it pushed the country to the left; they supported the New Deal. It’s sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you don’t contend, if you sit back on the left and you just have study groups and seminars and you talk about low participation and the fact that nobody is putting forward good ideas, then it won’t ever happen. Here in Portland, a lot of people told this woman, Margaret Strachan, who’s been a neighborhood activist and worked on a lot of neighborhood issues, "You don’t have the name identification; you shouldn’t run; it's hopeless.” But she went ahead and ran and it turned out that because she was perceived as the strongest issue candidate, she won. If she’d followed the conventional wisdom, she’d never have run. Even if she’d run and lost, the next time people would remember and say, "Hey, she ran a pretty good campaign. She’s pretty smart. I’d like to support her. ” CSQ: So you agree, then, that a candidate must run more than once. Again if they win, again if they lose? Shearer: Absolutely! Yes. That’s the lesson from around the world. Allende ran three times. The third NOW OPEN PRATT'S P P oic s t t u e r r e s F & r a P mri e n s ts 2710 N.E. Broadway 287-7807 "The art of framing Art” PRESENTS THE WHITE & BLACK PHOTOGRAPHY OF DAVID GREER VISA MASTERCHARGE INSURED M-F 9-8 SAT. 9-5 OWNER ROGER PRATT (Formerly of Western Picture Frame) Clinton St. Quarterly 15
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