Public Employee Press

Labor mobilization beats right-wingers at polls Nov. 8 as DC 37-backed judge wins in Brooklyn

Amid a nationwide string of victories for labor, immigrants and women, former DC 37 lawyer Rachel Adams won election to state Supreme Court in Brooklyn Nov. 8.

Adams had the backing of DC 37 and its "Green Machine" of activist volunteers. A staff attorney for DC 37's Municipal Employees Legal Services from 1979 to 1988, Adams has been an Acting Supreme Court Justice since 2003 and has also served in the civil, family and criminal courts.

In Ohio, community and union activists mobilized in record numbers and crushed the anti-worker Senate Bill 5 in a statewide referendum. The bill, which would have wiped out the collective bargaining rights of public employees, went down by 66 percent to 34 percent, with 400,000 more Ohioans voting than in 2010.

A message is sent

"Ohio sends a message that working families and the middle class are fighting back," said Lee Saunders, secretary-treasurer of DC 37's parent union, the 1.6 million-member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. "We are making our voice heard like never before."

Unionists gathered over 1 million signatures to get the referendum on the ballot to repeal the bill introduced in 2010 by Republican Gov. John Kasich. The movement to repeal SB 5 won support in 82 out of Ohio's 88 counties.

In Arizona, Republican State Senator Russell Pearce, who introduced harsh anti-immigrant legislation that has been blocked by a federal court, was defeated by a more moderate Republican.

Women's rights were on the line in Mississippi, but voters defeated a ballot initiative that would have made abortion and some forms of contraception illegal by declaring that a fertilized egg is a living person. Voters in Colorado rejected similar ballot initiatives in 2008 and 2010.

Republicans have been trying to influence future elections by making it harder for young and minority voters to participate. In Maine, a "people's veto" by voters canceled a law Republicans passed to end same-day voter registration, which has worked well there for almost 40 years.