The 25 Best Progressive Victories of 2013
Minnesota makes the list! Click here to see the full edition.
- Ballot Box Triumphs: New Yorkers elected progressives Bill de Blasio as mayor by a landslide, chose Letitia James as public advocate, and put a majority of progressives and liberals on the City Council, with pledges to address the city’s widening inequality, gentrification, and police abuses. This progressive surge didn’t just happen. It reflects a decade of patient and effective work led by the Working Families Party of New York. Minneapolis voters elected City Council member Betsy Hodges–a longtime activist with the progressive grassroots group Take Action Minnesota who called on people to “free ourselves from the fear that keeps us locked into patterns of inequality”–as their new mayor. Another longtime Take Action Minnesota member, Dai Thao, became the first Hmong city council member in the St. Paul’s history. In Boston, State Rep. Marty Walsh, a long-time labor leader, became the city’s next mayor. Seattle voters elected socialist Kshama Sawant to the City Council. And in Bridgeport, the Connecticut Working Families Party and its allies took control of the School Board, ending the reign of privatizer-in-chief Paul Vallas.
- Minnesota Shows the Way: Under Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton and Democratic majorities in both the state House and Senate (the first time this has occurred since 1978), Minnesota showed a path to high road economic recovery. The state turned a deficit into a surplus with tax increase on the wealthy, passed a Homeowner Bill of Rights, in-state tuition for undocumented students, “banned the box” to prevent unfair barriers to ex-offender unemployment, repaid money taken from the schools, and granted bargaining rights to home care and childcare workers. In May, Dayton signed an economic development bill that mandates that 1.5 percent of Minnesota’s electricity must come from solar by 2020. The state will also invest in community-owned solar gardens and pay consumers for the extra electricity their panels produce. The same month, Dayton signed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage. Each victory was made possible by a vigorous organizing effort by grassroots progressive groups and their allies in government. Key to these victories is Take Action Minnesota, a broad coalition of consumer, environmental, labor, community, civil rights, and other organizations. May also saw another Minnesota milestone. Rep. Michelle Bachmann, the founder of the Tea Party Caucus in Congress, announced that she won’t run for re-election from her suburban district outside Minneapolis. The previous November, she barely won her last campaign despite outspending her Democratic opponent, Jim Graves, by a huge margin. Graves threatened to run again in 2014 and Bachmann, running scared, choose to give up her seat rather than risk defeat. Minnesota serves as a mirror image to its neighbor, Wisconsin, which under the sway of a right-wing Republican governor and legislator has pursued a different course that focuses on slashing government services and destroying unions.
