A lot of police cars have some kind of motto printed on them. A classic example is “To Serve and Protect.” It’s a reminder that police officers are public servants. We have a lot of public servants. Here in Pennsylvania, you have to take a civil service exam to work at our liquor stores. I’m not kidding. Our liquor store clerks are public servants. So are our teachers. And our welfare case officers. And the people who work at the Division of Motor Vehicles. And the stenographers in our courts. Most of these people belong to public service unions. And if you piss them off, it doesn’t matter how conservative they might be in their cultural beliefs, they’re going to react.
Next month the Broward County Police Benevolent Association is holding a “Party to Leave the Party” — an event coordinated with the Supervisor of Elections where police officers and the general public can switch their voter registrations from Republican to Democratic or Independent.
The reason for the switch? The association, which serves as the bargaining union for the county’s law enforcement officers, is unhappy with the leadership of Governor Rick Scott and the results of the past legislative session, including changes to the Florida Retirement System that will require the workers to pay more of their own wages into retirement savings.
The attack on the Florida Retirement System is the least of their worries. Here’s the letter the PBA sent out:
The Broward PBA wants to send a message to the Republican Party, the governor and the Republican-led legislature– those that are wreaking havoc on the lives of public employees–that we will not sit idly by and take it. Supporting the GOP means supporting those that are working hard against your interests and those who believe that labor unions are bent on destroying America.
On July 16, we want you, our members, your friends and your family, to leave the Republican Party. Law enforcement, firefighters, teachers and other public employees are invited to join us in switching from the Republican party to the party of their choice. Those who are not registered voters are welcome to come register so their voices can also be heard. Reg- istering or switching parties takes two minutes. All you need is a government-issued ID like a Florida Driver’s License or a Florida ID.
There is one more legislative session before the 2012 elections–let’s put them on notice.
A lot of Republican rhetoric is designed to appeal to the average firefighter or police officer, but when confronted with a stark reminder that the Republicans only serve the rich, even firefighters and police officers can react before the pot reaches a boiling temperature.
Ninety-nine percent of political wisdom in this country involves identifying who is trying to screw you and making alliances with anyone who is also getting screwed by the same people. That’s why cultural conservatives ally with Wall Street and why Wall Street allies with megachurches. It’s why police officers and firefighters should ally with women, gays, minorities, scientists, agnostics, and academia.
These alliances may seem unnatural. But they make perfect sense.
I agree wholeheartedly with those last two sentences. I read too much in the liberal blogosphere about whether liberals can ally with libertarians. The correct answer is yes, provided the issue is civil liberties. People don’t seem to realize that American politics is usually about floating coalitions of convenience working for influence within the rigid two-party system. If you’re worried about the purity of your allies in any given election or on any given issue, you’ll never get anything done.
Agree with your post.
The opening about “To Serve and Protect” and other mission statements reminds me about Mayor Daley (the first one) and his famous misstatement after the 1968 riots.
“The police are not here to create disorder. The police are here to preserve disorder.”
The old “What’s the Matter with Kansas” contradiction is finally starting to sort itself out. People have been voting against their own self-interest since Reagan – I guess we’re finally seeing how bad it had to get to pierce their wall of stupidity and denial.
They seem unnatural only if you’re young enough. Prior to the 1960s, most police forces in big cities supported Democrats because the urban machines were Democratic-controlled and used public service jobs as patronage (even when there was a civil service system). There were not teachers unions; most teachers just kept their heads down and took whatever the school boards gave them. And public sector unions were mostly unknown. Even the NEA wasn’t a union but a professional association that promote parent-teacher associations and school improvements.
As the civil rights movement worked for equal rights, blacks became the cornerstone of a growing public sector union movement because (1) they had experience in confrontational politics through the civil rights movement and (2) public sector jobs were the only ones opening up to them before some major court cases put teeth in the Equal Employment Opportunity Act. The effects of the civil rights movement revived the remnants of the American Left and labor organizing in new industries made headway. Teaching was one of the professions that was unionized in the 1960s. (The Ocean Hill-Brownsville controversies was one that divided a black community from a union, the AFT, that was regaining union power.)
But the civil rights movement and the antiwar movement also put demonstrators against the police forces and sheriffs departments of country. And began alienating rank-and-file labor. The Chicago Democratic Convention of 1968 marked the point at which public servants and a lot of labor turned against the Democratic Party.
People have different economic, political, and cultural interests that gain salience in their decision-making a various times. Because economic interests could be taken for granted as being stable – good or bad stable – the battleground for forty years has been cultural issues and contending assertions of political rights. Economic issues are salient once again. The party that through governance (not talk) actually deals with those economic issues will gain the allegiance of those for whom those issues are salient. Looking at unemployment statistics, that would likely be workers who do not have a full four-year college degree. Or those who do who are being deliberately hurt economically by politicians. The FDR alliance might be reassembling itself.