In 2001, Bill Lindsay, president of IBEW Local 25, ran for County Legislature in a Suffolk County special election, as a Democratic and a Working Families Party candidate.
Lindsay won in a squeaker - 50.6% to 49.4% - with 3% of Lindsay’s vote coming on the Working Families line. The WFP was the margin of victory, and it had a big effect.
While Lindsay was running for the County legislature, the WFP was fighting for “living wage” legislation in Suffolk County, which requires companies receiving County money to pay their workers a minimum $10 an hour. After Lindsay’s upset, Republicans who had blocked the living wage bill noticed the WFP’s role in the Lindsay victory. Facing their own reelection fights, they changed course and passed the living wage bill.
The WFP bill in Suffolk was the first county-wide living wage law enacted in New York State. And it was the first in the country to pass in a Republican-controlled legislature. Because of fusion voting, we could provide the margin of victory, and that meant we were able to force elected officials to address an issue that affected thousands of Long Island workers.
Not every victory for the WFP comes that quick, but fusion is the secret weapon that lets the Working Families Party turn good ideas into law.
