Liberal Party of New York
Encyclopedia
The Liberal Party of New York is a minor American political party
Political party
A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...

 that has been active only in the state of New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

. Its platform supports a standard set of social liberal policies: it supports right to abortion
Libertarian perspectives on abortion
Libertarians promote individual liberty and seek to minimize the role of the state. The majority of libertarians consider a right to abortion as part of their general support for individual rights, especially in regard to what they consider to be a woman's right to control her body...

, increased spending on education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...

, and universal health care
Universal health care
Universal health care is a term referring to organized health care systems built around the principle of universal coverage for all members of society, combining mechanisms for health financing and service provision.-History:...

.

As of 2007, the Liberal Party's most recent chairman was former New York City Parks Commissioner Henry Stern
Henry Stern
Henry J. Stern ; was a member of the New York City Council from 1974 to 1983 and appointed as the Commissioner of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation from 1983 to 1990 and again from 1994 to 2000.-Early life:...

. Its most recent vice-chairman was Jack Olchin. Its executive director is Martin Oesterreich. Prior to Stern taking over as chairman in 2004, the Liberal Party's longtime leader was Raymond Harding.

The Liberal Party was founded in 1944 by George Counts
George Counts
George Sylvester Counts was an American educator and influential education theorist.An early proponent of the progressive education movement of John Dewey, Counts became its leading critic affiliated with the school of Social Reconstructionism in education. Counts is credited for influencing...

 as an alternative to the American Labor Party, which had been formed earlier as a vehicle for leftists uncomfortable with the Democratic Party to support Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...

. Despite enjoying some successes, the American Labor Party was tarred by the perceived influence of communists
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....

 in its organization, which led David Dubinsky
David Dubinsky
David Dubinsky was an American labor leader...

 of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union was once one of the largest labor unions in the United States, one of the first U.S. unions to have a primarily female membership, and a key player in the labor history of the 1920s and 1930s...

, Alex Rose
Alex Rose
Alex Rose was a labor leader in the American Hatters' Union, a co-founder of the American Labor Party, and vice-chairman of the Liberal Party of New York.Rose, the son of a wealthy leather tanner, was born in Warsaw, Poland...

 of the Hat, Cap and Millinery Workers, and theologian Reinhold Niebuhr
Reinhold Niebuhr
Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr was an American theologian and commentator on public affairs. Starting as a leftist minister in the 1920s indebted to theological liberalism, he shifted to the new Neo-Orthodox theology in the 1930s, explaining how the sin of pride created evil in the world...

 to leave in order to found the Liberal Party as an explicitly anti-communist alternative. In the 1944 elections, both the American Labor and Liberal parties supported Roosevelt for President
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

, but by 1948 the two parties diverged, with the Liberals nominating Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...

 and the American Labor Party nominating Progressive Party
Progressive Party (United States, 1948)
The United States Progressive Party of 1948 was a left-wing political party that ran former Vice President Henry A. Wallace of Iowa for president and U.S. Senator Glen H. Taylor of Idaho for vice president in 1948.-Foundation:...

 candidate Henry Wallace
Henry A. Wallace
Henry Agard Wallace was the 33rd Vice President of the United States , the Secretary of Agriculture , and the Secretary of Commerce . In the 1948 presidential election, Wallace was the nominee of the Progressive Party.-Early life:Henry A...

. ALP leaders like Dean Alfange
Dean Alfange
Dean Alfange was an American politician who held nominations and appointments from a number of parties, including the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, the American Labor Party, and the Liberal Party of New York, which he was a founding member of...

 helped led a walkout to the Liberal Party.

At their founding, the Liberal Party had conceived a plan to become a national party, with former Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

 presidential candidate Wendell Willkie
Wendell Willkie
Wendell Lewis Willkie was a corporate lawyer in the United States and a dark horse who became the Republican Party nominee for the president in 1940. A member of the liberal wing of the GOP, he crusaded against those domestic policies of the New Deal that he thought were inefficient and...

 as its national leader and candidate for Mayor of New York City
Mayor of New York City
The Mayor of the City of New York is head of the executive branch of New York City's government. The mayor's office administers all city services, public property, police and fire protection, most public agencies, and enforces all city and state laws within New York City.The budget overseen by the...

 in 1945. However, Willkie's unexpected death later in 1944 left the Liberals without any truly national figures to lead the party.

The Liberal Party was one of several minor parties that fulfill a role almost unique to New York State politics. New York law allows electoral fusion
Electoral fusion
Electoral fusion is an arrangement where two or more political parties on a ballot list the same candidate, pooling the votes for that candidate...

 – a candidate can be the nominee of multiple parties and aggregate the votes received on all the different ballot lines. Several other states allow fusion, but only in New York is it commonly practiced. In fact, since each party is listed with its own line on New York ballots, multiple nominations mean that a candidate's name can be listed several times on the ballot.

The Liberal Party's primary electoral strategy was generally to cross-endorse the nominees of other parties who agree with the Liberal Party's philosophy; only rarely did the Liberal Party run its own candidates. By supporting agreeable candidates and threatening not to support disagreeable ones, the Liberal Party hoped to influence candidate selection by the major parties. Other currently active parties pursuing a similar strategy in New York include the Conservative Party and the Working Families Party
Working Families Party
The Working Families Party is a minor political party in the United States founded in New York in 1998. There are "sister" parties to the New York WFP in Connecticut, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Oregon, but there is as yet no national WFP...

.

While the Liberal Party generally endorsed Democratic candidates, this was not always the case. The Liberal Party supported Republicans such as John Lindsay
John Lindsay
John Vliet Lindsay was an American politician, lawyer and broadcaster who was a U.S. Congressman, Mayor of New York City, candidate for U.S...

 and Rudy Giuliani
Rudy Giuliani
Rudolph William Louis "Rudy" Giuliani KBE is an American lawyer, businessman, and politician from New York. He served as Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001....

 for mayor of New York and Jacob Javits and Charles Goodell
Charles Goodell
Charles Ellsworth Goodell was a U.S. Representative and a Senator from New York, notable for coming into both offices under special circumstances following the deaths of his predecessors.-Early life and education:...

 for U.S. Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

, and independents such as John B. Anderson for president. In 1969, Lindsay, the incumbent Republican Mayor of New York City
Mayor of New York City
The Mayor of the City of New York is head of the executive branch of New York City's government. The mayor's office administers all city services, public property, police and fire protection, most public agencies, and enforces all city and state laws within New York City.The budget overseen by the...

, lost his own party's primary
Primary election
A primary election is an election in which party members or voters select candidates for a subsequent election. Primary elections are one means by which a political party nominates candidates for the next general election....

 but was reelected on the Liberal Party line alone. In 1977, after Mario Cuomo
Mario Cuomo
Mario Matthew Cuomo served as the 52nd Governor of New York from 1983 to 1994, and is the father of Andrew Cuomo, the current governor of New York.-Early life:...

 lost the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York to Ed Koch
Ed Koch
Edward Irving "Ed" Koch is an American lawyer, politician, and political commentator. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1969 to 1977 and three terms as mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989...

, the Liberal Party endorsed Cuomo, who proceeded to again lose narrowly in the general election
General election
In a parliamentary political system, a general election is an election in which all or most members of a given political body are chosen. The term is usually used to refer to elections held for a nation's primary legislative body, as distinguished from by-elections and local elections.The term...

. Liberal Party candidates played the role of spoiler
Spoiler effect
The spoiler effect describes the effect a minor party candidate with little chance of winning has in a close election, when that candidate's presence in the election draws votes from a major candidate similar to them, thereby causing a candidate dissimilar to them to win the election...

 by being the possible cause of the defeat of Democrat Frank D. O'Connor
Frank D. O'Connor
Frank D. O'Connor was an American lawyer and politician from New York. He was District Attorney of Queens County, New York from 1956 to 1965.-Life:...

 in the race for governor in 1966 by naming Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr. was an American politician. He was the fifth child of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Sr. and his wife Eleanor.-Personal life:...

 as its candidate in the race against incumbent Nelson Rockefeller
Nelson Rockefeller
Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller was the 41st Vice President of the United States , serving under President Gerald Ford, and the 49th Governor of New York , as well as serving the Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower administrations in a variety of positions...

; and again in 1980 when it endorsed Javits (who had lost in the Republican primary for United States senator to Al D'Amato
Al D'Amato
Alfonse Marcello "Al" D'Amato is an American lawyer and former New York politician. A Republican, he served as United States Senator from New York from 1981 to 1999.-Early life and family:...

). In the general election for Senator in 1980, it was assumed that Javits took Jewish votes away from Elizabeth Holtzman
Elizabeth Holtzman
Elizabeth Holtzman is an American lawyer and former Democratic politician, pioneer woman officeholder, four term U.S. Representative , two term District Attorney of Kings County , and New York City Comptroller .Her role on the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate scandal drew national...

, the Democratic candidate, as they both lost to D'Amato.

The Liberal Party declined in influence following the 1980 election. Its 1998 candidate for governor, Lieutenant Governor Betsy McCaughey Ross
Betsy McCaughey Ross
Betsy McCaughey , formerly known as Betsy McCaughey Ross, was the Republican Lieutenant Governor of New York from 1995 to 1998, during the first term of Governor George Pataki. She unsuccessfully sought the Democratic Party nomination for Governor after Pataki dropped her from his 1998 ticket.An...

, received less than two percent of the vote. The party endorsed Hillary Rodham Clinton
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is the 67th United States Secretary of State, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama. She was a United States Senator for New York from 2001 to 2009. As the wife of the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton, she was the First Lady of the...

's successful campaign for the United States Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

 in 2000, but this did not revive its fortunes. After a very poor showing in the 2002 gubernatorial election when former Clinton administration Cabinet
United States Cabinet
The Cabinet of the United States is composed of the most senior appointed officers of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States, which are generally the heads of the federal executive departments...

 member Andrew Cuomo
Andrew Cuomo
Andrew Mark Cuomo is the 56th and current Governor of New York, having assumed office on January 1, 2011. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the 64th New York State Attorney General, and was the 11th United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development...

 abandoned his campaign before the election, the party lost its automatic place on the ballot and ceased operations at its state offices.

Another hurdle to the efforts to reestablish the Liberal Party is the formation in mid-1998 of the Working Families Party
Working Families Party
The Working Families Party is a minor political party in the United States founded in New York in 1998. There are "sister" parties to the New York WFP in Connecticut, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Oregon, but there is as yet no national WFP...

, a party that enjoys, as the American Labor and Liberal parties did in their prime, strong labor union support.

The Liberal Party also suffered allegations of corruption and of abandoning its liberal roots in favor of a system of patronage
Patronage
Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows to another. In the history of art, arts patronage refers to the support that kings or popes have provided to musicians, painters, and sculptors...

 and nepotism
Nepotism
Nepotism is favoritism granted to relatives regardless of merit. The word nepotism is from the Latin word nepos, nepotis , from which modern Romanian nepot and Italian nipote, "nephew" or "grandchild" are also descended....

 - Harding relatives were given appointments in the Giuliani administration, and it was argued that it was a quid pro quo
Quid pro quo
Quid pro quo most often means a more-or-less equal exchange or substitution of goods or services. English speakers often use the term to mean "a favour for a favour" and the phrases with almost identical meaning include: "give and take", "tit for tat", "this for that", and "you scratch my back,...

deal, since Giuliani is not generally considered a "liberal" by New York City standards. In 1999, The New York Observer called it an "ideologically bereft institution more interested in patronage than in policy." In 2009, Harding pleaded guilty to having accepted more than $800,000 in exchange for doing political favors for Alan G. Hevesi, a New York politician who was a frequent Liberal Party endorsee.

The Working Families Party became a new place for liberal or centre left voters to place their votes, and it did not help that the Green Party, another left-wing organization, also expanded greatly at the same time. After the surge in Working Families Party voting, the Liberal Party failed to qualify for automatic ballot status, which robbed it of its inherent political power. The centrist campaigns of Tom Golisano
Tom Golisano
Blase Thomas Golisano is an American businessman and philanthropist. He is the founder of Paychex, the second-largest payroll processor in the United States and former co-owner of the Buffalo Sabres hockey team and of the Buffalo Bandits lacrosse team...

 boosted the Independence Party of New York
Independence Party of New York
The Independence Party is an affiliate in the U.S. state of New York of the Independence Party of America. The party was founded in 1991 by Dr. Gordon Black, Tom Golisano, and Laureen Oliver from Rochester, New York, and acquired ballot status in 1994...

 into an automatic ballot line, due in large part to heavy campaigning against Republican George Pataki
George Pataki
George Elmer Pataki is an American politician who was the 53rd Governor of New York. A member of the Republican Party, Pataki served three consecutive four-year terms from January 1, 1995 until December 31, 2006.- Early life :...

, which helped siphon away potential Liberal Party votes. As of 2010, the Working Families and Independence parties have automatic ballot access; the Liberal Party does not. It has not fielded a candidate for governor in 2006 or 2010, making it impossible for the party to gain automatic ballot access until at least the 2014 election. (Automatic ballot access is achieved by gaining at least 50,000 votes for a gubernatorial candidate on the party line.)

In 2005, the New York Daily News
New York Daily News
The Daily News of New York City is the fourth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States with a daily circulation of 605,677, as of November 1, 2011....

reported that incumbent New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg
Michael Bloomberg
Michael Rubens Bloomberg is the current Mayor of New York City. With a net worth of $19.5 billion in 2011, he is also the 12th-richest person in the United States...

, a liberal Republican who favors abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...

 rights and same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage is marriage between two persons of the same biological sex or social gender. Supporters of legal recognition for same-sex marriage typically refer to such recognition as marriage equality....

, was seeking to revive the Liberal Party – and thereby run on a "Republican/Liberal" ticket – in an effort to win over Democratic voters in the overwhelmingly Democratic city. Bloomberg was re-elected in 2005. However, nothing came of these rumors. In 2006 for the first time since the early 1940s, there was no Liberal candidate for Governor. Edward Culvert was the party's candidate for governor in 2010, but the party lacked the resources to get him onto the ballot.

The Liberal Party cross-endorsed Republican candidate Bob Turner in the New York's 9th congressional district special election, 2011
New York's 9th congressional district special election, 2011
A 2011 special election in New York's 9th congressional district was held on September 13, 2011 to fill a seat in the U.S. Congress for New York's 9th congressional district, after Representative Anthony Weiner resigned from this seat on June 21, 2011 due to his sexting scandal...

, marking one of the rare times the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party have agreed on a candidate other than an unopposed one.

The symbol of the New York Liberal Party was the Liberty Bell
Liberty Bell
The Liberty Bell is an iconic symbol of American Independence, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Formerly placed in the steeple of the Pennsylvania State House , the bell was commissioned from the London firm of Lester and Pack in 1752, and was cast with the lettering "Proclaim LIBERTY...

.

See also

  • Liberalism
    Liberalism
    Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...

  • Contributions to liberal theory
    Contributions to liberal theory
    Individual contributors to classical liberalism and political liberalism are associated with philosophers of the Enlightenment. Liberalism as a specifically named ideology begins in the late 18th century as a movement towards self-government and away from aristocracy...

  • Liberalism worldwide
    Liberalism worldwide
    This article gives information on liberalism in diverse countries around the world. It is an overview of parties that adhere more or less to the ideas of political liberalism and is therefore a list of liberal parties around the world....

  • List of liberal parties
  • Liberal democracy
    Liberal democracy
    Liberal democracy, also known as constitutional democracy, is a common form of representative democracy. According to the principles of liberal democracy, elections should be free and fair, and the political process should be competitive...


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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