DSA needs a Candidate Litmus Test
Benjamin Fong (Phoenix) and Collin Pucher (Seattle)
The stunning success of democratic socialists at the ballot box has propelled DSA to the national limelight and driven the explosive growth in our membership. Though DSA is not and should not be a solely electoral organization, it’s clear that electoral work should be a key component of DSA’s political strategy. As Bernie Sanders’s class-struggle campaign is demonstrating, electoral politics can strengthen the labor movement and bring wide visibility to democratic socialist politics. They also — if achieved through independent field operations — develop the skills and political acumen of our members.
But electoral work also bears some serious dangers: how do we avoid the classic traps of “lesser evilism,” including becoming an auxiliary support of the Democratic Party? How do we make sure the candidates we endorse see democratic socialism as more than just a popular phrase and fight for a clear program of demands that shifts power away from the capitalist class and toward the working class? And how do we ensure the commitments that candidates make are credible ones?
The Candidate Litmus Test Resolution (#48) and its companion resolution (#49, PAC Spending for Nationally Endorsed Candidates) offer answers to these questions. The Candidate Litmus Test Resolution specifies the minimum program that a candidate would need to affirm to be eligible for a national endorsement. A DSA endorsement should tell the world that the candidate backs a robust program of working-class demands. Specifying these “litmus test” issues helps make both DSA and the candidates we endorse more recognizable, unified, and clear in our political messaging. Without this clarity, democratic socialism could come to represent more of a brand than a political position.
Resolution #48 does not limit chapters from endorsing any candidates that they see fit to endorse, and it does not limit the National Electoral Committee from helping chapters develop their local electoral infrastructure. It only prevents candidates who do not pass the litmus test from receiving a national endorsement, and — if Resolution #49 passes — the material benefits that go along with a national endorsement. An amendment that we co-sponsored with Fainan L. and Oren S. from NYC DSA — and now incorporated into the text of the Compendium of Resolutions — makes it clearer that Resolution #48 protects local autonomy regarding candidate endorsements.
The feedback that we have gotten about the resolution has mostly been quite positive, but a few comrades around the country have reached out with concerns. These concerns generally fall into one of three camps: 1) the litmus test questions are too restrictive, 2) the questions don’t all apply to local circumstances (school board races, for instance), and 3) this extra hurdle will make DSA chapters less likely to apply for a national endorsement.
To the first concern, the questions in the Candidate Litmus Test Resolution are designed to comprise a minimal program for democratic socialist candidates. For those of you who worry that the candidate litmus test is too restrictive, take a look at those fourteen questions again and imagine a candidate seeking endorsement offering a full-throated “No” in reply. Is that a candidate we would want associated with DSA? All of the candidate litmus test questions have been worded in such a way that a “No” answer should throw up a huge red flag (and not the good kind of red).
This leads into a second concern: what about local candidates to whom these questions don’t really apply? Why make it a condition of endorsing a school board candidate that they support a Green New Deal? It’s true of course that many of the questions don’t apply to candidates seeking local office, and that locals should have their own office- or candidate-specific questions. But we believe that the national litmus test questions should still be asked even of school board candidates because a) those candidates might go on to seek higher office, b) the program is minimal enough that even a “progressive” would likely say yes to all the questions, and c) it’s a good bit of political education for candidates to know more about the basics of a democratic socialist platform, so that they can fill in the content of “I’m a democratic socialist” with “I’m for Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, etc.”
We also must keep in mind the consequences of a locally endorsed candidate making decisions that don’t align with a democratic socialist platform. For many towns and cities, a DSA-endorsed school board or city council member will be the first real contact they have with democratic socialism. Though Resolution 48 does not address all of the different ways in which a local candidate might contradict the political positions of the organization, it does help ensure that nationally-endorsed candidates represent democratic socialism in a more consistent way.
Again, chapters are free to endorse whomever they think is strategic to endorse: in no way does Resolution #48 prevent chapters from continuing the electoral work they have been doing. But if the candidate can’t say yes to a minimum program of democratic socialist demands, we don’t see why they should have a national endorsement or the national resources that come with one.
Finally, to the concern about putting up hurdles to chapters applying for national endorsements for their candidates: if Resolution #49 passes, this will certainly be no problem. While Resolution #48 makes national endorsements substantively meaningful, Resolution #49 makes them materially meaningful, in such a way that chapters will surely take the time to seek national endorsements for their candidates. But even if #49 doesn’t pass, the litmus test poses no significant hurdle, especially in comparison to the myriad difficult questions already on the NEC’s national endorsement application. There is a good deal in the litmus test, but it is all worded minimally, and in such a way that it is easy to report.
The Candidate Litmus Test Resolution is designed around a minimum program that any nationally endorsed DSA candidate should support. We are in agreement with the NPC that DSA should take its time in developing a full political platform (see Resolution #88), but the 2020 electoral cycle is not going to wait for us to do this. If we do not create a minimum program that acts as a clear litmus test for our candidates, national endorsements will once again be substantively meaningless.
On Monday, July 29th at 5pm pacific/8pm eastern, the authors of resolutions #48 (Candidate Litmus Test) and #49 (PAC Spending for Nationally Endorsed Candidates) will be hosting a zoom call to explain these two companion resolutions and how they fit in a larger effort to reform DSA, and to answer any questions members might have. RSVP here, and we’ll send you the zoom info.
Read Alex N. and Dustin G.’s explanation and defense of Resolution #49: PAC Spending for Nationally Endorsed Candidates here.
