The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.60/No.32           September 16, 1996 
 
 
Socialists Make Progress In Gaining Ballot Status  

BY ANDY BUCHANAN

BOSTON - Supporters of the Socialist Workers Campaign from Chicago, New York, and Salt Lake City have joined supporters from New England to launch a campaign to get the presidential ticket of James Harris and Laura Garza on the ballot in Vermont. Campaign supporters are fanning out in that state, as well as in Boston and Rhode Island, to distribute a campaign statement condemning the U.S. war against Iraq and to sell books explaining the issues. These efforts go hand-in-hand with campaigning to collect the signatures necessary to place the Socialist Workers candidates on the ballot.

The efforts of a team of full-time campaigners will build on the work of New England supporters who collected over 200 signatures in Montpelier, Vermont, on Labor Day. In addition to collecting signatures, the campaign team sold four Pathfinder pamphlets - Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Genocide Against the Indians, Socialism and Individual Freedom, and Puerto Rico: U.S. Colony in the Caribbean, and signed up 12 young people who were interested in the campaign.

Campaign supporter Mary Nell Bockman reports talking to "one young farmer whose Russian family had emigrated to this country by way of Cuba, who was very interested in talking about the crisis facing family farmers and on our perspective of building a fighting alliance of workers and farmers." One thousand signatures are required, and the socialists aim to file 2,000 by the deadline of September 19.

Campaigners are also wrapping up a ballot drive in Rhode Island. During the petitioning there were more than 40 people who signed up for more information about the socialist campaign and the Young Socialists. Two young people met with socialist candidates from Massachusetts and New York in a local coffee shop. Abraham, whose parents came here from the Dominican Republic, was interested in working to build the October 12 demonstration in defense of immigrant rights. He invited the socialists to participate in a Dominican festival the following day, where they collected more signatures and sold four Pathfinder titles in Spanish.

BY JEFF POWERS

SEATTLE - The Washington State Public Disclosure Commission (PDC) voted at the end of August to grant the Socialist Workers 1996 Campaign an exemption from disclosing the names of their financial contributors and vendors. The ruling was nearly identical to decisions made by the Commission in 1991, 1992, and 1993.

Last October, Phil Studzman, compliance and enforcement coordinator for the PDC, wrote the Socialist Workers Campaign stating, "The staff would be in favor of adding a statement to the 1993 Order making it clear that the Public Disclosure Commission maintains the right to examine books and records of the applicant....

"Without such a right, the Commission has no way of knowing whether the information that is being submitted is accurate," Studzman wrote. "The staff would be supportive of keeping any information reviewed confidential, unless such information became evidence in an enforcement hearing where the applicant was named a respondent."

The Socialist Workers Campaign objected to the state commission proposal, citing decades-long harassment of their activities by government agencies. The socialists explained that the campaign has won an exemption from disclosing financial records precisely because past government interference violated the democratic rights of contributors.

The Socialist Workers Campaign contacted the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), who agreed with the party's objection and assigned attorney Mark Eide to the case.

The Socialist Workers Campaign presented 10 affidavits to the PDC detailing harassment of campaign supporters by local police and other individuals over the last year.

"The party takes, what are considered by many, controversial stands on issues," Eide wrote in a letter to the PDC. "Supporters and business owners who deal with the party in providing campaign material have either been threatened or fear reprisals against their companies because of their connection with the party. Disclosure of the names and addresses of vendors, suppliers of goods and services, and financial contributors run a very real and historically substantial risk of chilling free speech and the democratic process."

The vote at the Public Disclosure Commission meeting was unanimous in favor of the Socialist Workers Campaign exemption.

The Socialist Workers Campaign won an exemption from disclosing names of contributors to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in 1979. That exemption has been renewed twice since, and the campaign will submit a new extension request to the FEC this fall.

BY AMY HUSK

BRONX, New York - Defenders of democratic rights won a victory here September 4, when charges were dismissed against three supporters of the Socialist Workers campaign in a Bronx courthouse. The three campaigners - Wendy Lyons, Paco Sanchez, and Priscilla Schenk - were detained by police August 4 at Orchard Beach Park in the Bronx while petitioning to get James Harris and Laura Garza on the ballot in New York state. Their petitions and other literature were confiscated and they were charged with "unlawful solicitation" and "assemblies, meetings, and other exhibitions."

The three socialist campaigners were represented by Beth Haroules of the New York Civil Liberties Union. Haroules said in an interview she was pleased to see a case where the "judge recognized the bogus nature of the charges. The three activists were engaged in protected political activity and the case was dismissed as it should have been."

Raynald Laforest of the Haitian Mobilization to Defend Immigrant Rights and the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees came to the courthouse to show support for the campaigners. Laforest said he felt stakes in this fight were high. "In the climate of attacks on workers and immigrants, I'm especially concerned about cases like this. It behooves us to get involved in a struggle like this and to educate around it," he stated.

One of the issues the socialists were campaigning around was support for the October 12 demonstration for immigrant rights.  
 
 
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