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UFT mobilizing for Silver, McMahon in fall primaries
Aug 7, 2008 12:45 PM
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, shown speaking at a Keep the Promises rally earlier this year, has a long record of supporting the union’s education initiatives.
The UFT has many allies running for election and re-election in the fall. Two of them — Lower East Side Democratic Assemblyman and Speaker Sheldon Silver, and City Councilman and Staten Island-Brooklyn Democratic congressional hopeful Michael McMahon — need to win their party primaries first in order to continue serving in public office.
“Both Silver and McMahon have been our partners for years, and both deserve our enthusiastic support,” UFT President Randi Weingarten said. The UFT has started its stepped-up member mobilization campaign on behalf of both candidates.
Both were among the slate of candidates that the UFT Delegate Assembly approved for endorsement on June 19. [For the complete list, go to www.uft.org, click on the Legislation/Political Action button, and then click on News.]
Silver, who represents Manhattan’s 64th Assembly District, is speaker of the state Assembly and — with the governor and majority leader of the Senate — one of the most powerful state officials.
Most recently, Speaker Silver helped keep the promises, ensuring New York State’s commitment to the funding of its schools by providing $600 million in additional state school aid, Weingarten said.
He was also instrumental in the union’s winning 55/25, the early-retirement option bill long sought by the union, and has a long record of championing the needs of working families — most particularly, the public schools and the educators who serve our children. His record includes legislation supporting public education, affordable housing, labor, women’s and gay rights, bias crimes and the proliferation of illegal firearms.
City Councilman Michael McMahon is running for the congressional seat to be vacated by Vito Fossella in the 13th Congressional District representing Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn.
McMahon, running in the two-borough 13th Congressional District for the congressional seat to be vacated by Rep. Vito Fossella, is well known in the district, which employs some 12,000 teachers, paraprofessionals, guidance counselors, nurses and other school-related personnel.
“Mike McMahon has demonstrated time and time again as an elected official that he understands children and working people. New York City’s public educators need that kind of understanding for the fights that lay ahead in Congress,” Weingarten said.
McMahon’s primary and general election victories also have national ramifications, where a larger Democratic caucus in the House means more votes for pro-labor legislation. McMahon earned a spot on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s “Red to Blue” program, signaling that McMahon’s campaign is a top national priority for the Democratic Party. He was the only candidate from downstate New York included in the program, which highlights top Democratic campaigns across the country and offers them financial, communications and strategic support. Like Silver, McMahon has the support of the state AFL-CIO.
The primary election will be held on Tuesday, Sept. 9, and Marvin Reiskin, the UFT director of legislation/political action, is urging all members to turn out and vote for union-endorsed candidates.
