Take It to the Statehouse: A Program for Building DSA’s Statewide Power

For more information, watch the Take It to the Statehouse panel, from November 19, 2020.

In the past decade, state legislatures have enacted right to work laws in five new states, creating a majority of states that limit the power of workers to organize. State governments have delivered sweeping austerity to working-class people, cutting Medicaid and public education budgets while lowering capital gains tax rates and offering billion-dollar incentives to multinational corporations.

Even as the Bernie Sanders campaign reached millions with a working class agenda, many on the left have ignored the importance of state elections that impact everyday life for working-class people. Focus on the federal level is warranted: executive orders have set immigration policy in the absence of comprehensive immigration reform, only the federal government can borrow at scale to alleviate pain in a recession or enact a Green New Deal, and the vast majority of military forces are centralized at the federal level. But given intense gridlock in Washington, overemphasis on federal action leaves the left on the sidelines of the fight between two parties bought by the top one percent. 

The two DSA members in Congress, Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, have shifted the conversation about what’s possible in the past two years. DSA members and Representatives-Elect Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush will undoubtedly as well. Even progressive candidates offer the opportunity to shift the narrative, as Marquita Bradshaw did in Tennessee, spurring five DSA chapters in the state to coordinate and build power together. However, we must admit that shifting the narrative is far from winning a voting majority in Congress.

Today’s resurgent left has reasonably started its ascent to gaining governing power at the local level. Together, DSA has elected over 60 city councilors in 47 municipalities and 22 states to office since 2014. In some cities, DSA members elected to local office have formed powerful alliances that have forced developers to the negotiating table, challenged mayors bought by corporate interests and police unions, and advocated for the needs of essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite these meaningful gains at the local level, a municipalist approach to politics has sharp limitations. State legislatures block city-level action on wages, paid leave, rent control, and many more issues. In Texas, DSA chapters won paid sick leave in Austin, San Antonio, and Dallas, only to face a push by the extreme right-wing to pre-empt municipal laws. The Texas state legislature’s preemption bill attacked paid sick time and LGBTQ+ rights, and forced the left and liberals into a defensive coalition to protect these victories.

As more DSA members join the almost 40 socialist state legislators around the country, we  will find that the terrain varies significantly. Although DSA organizers were in  an alliance with a broad coalition of liberals in Texas for the paid sick leave campaign, in NYC and Rhode Island, DSA chapters use primary challenges to drive a wedge between the right-wing of the Democratic Party and progressive social-movement organizations. The election of New York State Senator Julia Salazar, a DSA member, in 2018 set the stage for DSA’s organizing to expand rent control and tenant protections in 2019. With this newly powerful position, DSA members and leaders in New York State played key roles in Housing Justice for All, a coalition of over 80 housing organizations, to win the most expansive protections for renters in a generation. Organizers in NYC-DSA even used the one protection that they did not win in 2019, Good Cause Eviction, as the defining issue for the 2020 primary elections that swept four additional members into state legislative office to join Senator Salazar.

Because the depth of state-level coalition relationships ranges widely, there is no singular approach for DSA chapters to build alliances with mass organizations to win transformative reforms at the state level. Our ability to win elections for governing power and organize our own base to take action will determine our ability to navigate coalition relationships and steer their political direction.

Of course, electing DSA members is not an end in itself. Small minorities of DSA members in elected office will not be able to win transformative reforms for working-class people on their own. Unfortunately, the Bernie Sanders campaigns did not maintain a state- or local-level organizing infrastructure capable of transforming politics at the state level, so it is incumbent on DSA and mass organizations to build it. Building state-level organization means deepening relationships and moving members to collective action in chapters across every state. Deep organizing at a state-level means that DSA chapters must run campaigns, or likely become an impactful coalition partner in a statewide coalition, that recruit a more representative and working-class base. 

Learning from these lessons, many efforts that DSA organizing and chapters are leading show potential for contesting power at the state level, including:

• Reclaim Rhode Island’s coalition strategy to elect strong supporters of a Green New Deal, including two DSA members, to the statehouse in 2020 and fight for climate justice in a multiracial statewide alliance;

• NYC DSA’s 2020 primary election victory to elect a slate of five members to the statehouse, who will fight alongside DSA chapters in New York state to tax the rich to the tune of $50 billion;

• Texas DSA chapters’ plans to launch and support primary challenges in districts where Bernie Sanders overperformed establishment Democrats.

State-level structure in DSA is essential for supporting statewide organizing. DSA’s constitution already allows the formation of a state-level organizing committee in states with two or more chapters, and we believe these formations should be a priority. Our success in building statewide alliances, electing members to state-level office, and winning material gains for working-class people has been momentous in the past five years. It’s time to build the state-level organization to contest power needed to overturn right to work laws, tax the rich, and win sweeping tenant protections.