Jimmy Van Bramer, Tom Duane, Christine Quinn & Danny Dromm

When the Working Families Party burst on the scene a decade ago, I was excited to see a new political party in New York that was explicitly committed to pursuing a progressive political agenda. The WFP seemed like a refreshing alternative to politics as usual, especially politics in the borough of Queens, which remains dominated by the Queens County Democratic Party organization, a.k.a., ‘the Queens machine.’

New York is unusual in permitting candidates to run on more than one party line — sometimes called ‘fusion voting‘ — which gives small third parties such as the Conservative Party an influence disproportionate to their size, enabling it to anchor the Republican Party on the right and prevent a drift to the center. Unfortunately, until the formation of the WFP ten years ago, there was no countervailing force on the opposite end of the political spectrum. With the debut of the WFP, there appeared to be  a progressive party capable of influencing public policy through its ability to hold the Democratic Party accountable for its choices of candidates. The Working Families Party’s stated public policy agenda is a progressive one: affordable housing, good jobs at living wages, green jobs and green homes, universal health care, clean elections, and ‘the extension of civil rights to gays and lesbians,’ including marriage equality

Over the years, I have voted for many WFP candidates, including those who ran on both the Democratic and WFP lines, in order to support an alternative to the Democratic Party machine. But no more. November 2009 represented the moment at which the scales fell from my eyes.

Two things happened. First, the WFP has endorsed several candidates who were clearly not the progressive choice in their races. While the party made some very good choices in the 2009 election cycle, endorsing Bill Thompson for mayor of New York (who ultimately lost to incumbent Michael R. Bloomberg) and Richard Aborn for Manhattan District Attorney (who unfortunately lost his primary race in September) as well as Bill de Blasio for New York City Public Advocate and John Liu for City Comptroller (both of whom went on to win both their primary races and the general election), the WFP also endorsed Daniel (‘Danny’) Dromm over incumbent Helen Sears in the 25th Council District in Queens and Jimmy Van Bramer over Deirdre Feerick in the 26th Council District in Queens, as well as Council Speaker Christine Quinn over insurgent Yetta Kurland in the 3rd Council District in Manhattan. Other problematic candidates that the WFP endorsed in 2009 include Elizabeth Crowley (the incumbent Democratic Council Member representing the 30th Council District in Queens) and James Oddo (the incumbent Republican Council Member representing the 30th Council District in Queens).

Second, the WFP set up Data and Field Services, a secretive private company used manage field operations for the party’s endorsed candidates. In early December 2009, City Hall News published “All In The Family,” a five-part investigative series posted to www.cityhallnews.com about the Working Families Party. As City Hall explains, the party has created a web of party organs that work in tandem to help elect its candidates. “There are, in fact, four arms: a political party, a for-profit and two different kinds of non-profits, each of which is separate and distinct under the law,” as Edward-Isaac Dovere explained in part one of the investigative series. “While standing for ethics in government and campaign finance reform, Working Families has non-profits groups and a for-profit entity that lack donation caps, disclosure requirements (in terms of frequency and detail) and other regulations that political parties face. Leading politicians, political operatives and other experts complain that Party-supported candidates are as a result given an unfair advantage over their rivals,” Dovere adds, noting that the WFP’s organizational structure is unprecedented not only in New York state politics but anywhere in the United States.

the Working Families Party structure (courtesy of City Hall News)

The complicated structure of the Working Families Party raises serious questions about its commitment to ‘clean elections,’ as stated in its public policy agenda, rife as it is with potential conflicts of interest. There remain lingering questions about the WFP, as City Hall News editorialized on Dec. 15. “There is legal, and there is right. The Working Families should be living up to both,” City Hall News declared. “And enough people have their doubts about whether the leadership needs to do more than simply pay Skadden Arps to do a private review. There need to be some explanations publicly, and directly from the leadership.” Indeed.

There are implications for the LGBT community as well, since the WFP helped elect the first two openly gay elected officials in Queens, Daniel Dromm and Jimmy Van Bramer, who take office in January as Council Members representing the 25th and 26th Council Districts in Queens, including the district I live in (the 25th). While neither Dromm nor Van Bramer have been charged with any crime or indicted (as of yet), they have both been subpoenaed by federal prosecutors investigating the WFP scandal. And barring unforeseen circumstances, the openly lesbian Chris Quinn will almost certainly be re-elected Speaker by her City Council colleagues, continuing her role as the second most powerful person in New York City government, with its budget of $59.4 billion, which is larger than that of all but two states — California and New York State itself.

Given that Quinn herself is at the heart of a slush fund scandal in which Council staff members have already been indicted for illegal activity, the WFP’s support for her in the September 2009 Democratic primary and November 2009 general election must be accounted one of the most cynical choices in the relatively short history of an increasingly cynical party, whose values seem to be much closer to those of the Queens machine than I ever imagined.

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Dan Halloran performing a pagan ritual; but are the other heathens registered Republican…?

William James wrote of “The Varieties of Religious Experience” in 1902, long before the movement now known as ‘neo-paganism’ came into its own. While I am not aware of any survey data on the matter, I suspect that most people, if asked, would probably imagine such modern pagans to be on the left of the political spectrum. So it may come as a surprise to the voters in the 19th New York City Council district — one of the two most conservative in Queens, which includes Bayside, Whitestone, Auburndale, Flushing North and other neighborhoods on the northeastern fringe of the borough — to discover that the Republican nominee for City Council in their district identifies as a pagan.

When the Queens Tribune discovered that the candidate who now has the Republican, Conservative, Independence and Libertarian Party lines going into the November general election also styles himself ‘First Atheling’ of a local group of self-identified ‘heathens’ dedicated to the worship of the old Norse gods, the weekly newspaper dubbed Dan Halloran the ‘pagan king.’

Halloran’s campaign website gives one the impression of a boilerplate tax-cutting Republican. There’s certainly nothing to indicate that the Irish American who was raised Catholic is a pagan, much less the lawyer for the New York City Pagan Pride Project. From his responses to questions from the Queens Tribune, the conservative Republican seems slightly embarrassed to have gotten media attention for his paganism, and there’s no link on his campaign website to his profile page on paganspace.net, where he calls himself ‘Dan-O’ (‘O’Halloran’ apparently being the traditional Irish version of his family name). Halloran is certainly the first Republican candidate for public office I’ve ever come across who lists ‘heathenry’ as one of his hobbies or who claims to be the ‘first atheling‘ (leading prince) of a local band of Norse pagans.

Halloran’s belief system — ‘Theodism‘ — is defined by The Witches’ Voice as “a heathen orthodox approach to Germanic reconstruction.” I suppose if one is going to run as a heathen Republican, it is probably best not to stray too far from heathen orthodoxy; if one does, one risks the wrath of people with names like ‘Swain Wodening’ and ‘Gert Thygen McQueen.’ But Halloran’s more recent concern has been less the anger of the Thaet Angelseaxice Ealdriht than the displeasure of the barons and thanes of the Queens County Republican Party  organization. After rumors that Halloran might get the axe — wielded no doubt by the decidedly post-Norse, conventionally religious party boss Phil Ragusa — Halloran’s spokesperson insisted that the candidate would not be offered a judgeship or pushed aside in favor of Paul Vallone (scion of former Council Speaker Peter Vallone, Sr.), who had just lost the Democratic primary in the 19th to Kevin Kim. So apparently the “GOP is standing by their Theodsman,” as one neo-pagan blogger put it.

“What we [the Queens County Republican Party] have done is stand firmly with Dan Halloran and called on Congressman [Gary] Ackerman and his staffer Kevin Kim to renounce the vile, repugnant attacks on Dan Halloran’s faith and heritage,” Vince Tabone (Queens executive vice-chairman and spokesperson for the Halloran campaign) was quoted as saying. Tabone’s tone of moral indignation might have more credibility if there were any indication on Halloran’s website or in his campaign literature of a commitment to diversity of religious and spiritual expression or any history of the Queens County Republican Party’s commitment to such diversity. Certainly, the national Republican Party has been the instrument of the religious right from 1980 to the present day and its intolerance for any form of religion except Christian fundamentalism of the most bigoted sort has had a profoundly negative impact on this country for more than a generation.

While Dan Halloran would be the first pagan-identified candidate that I am aware of to win elected office in this city or anywhere in the state, the fact is that he was not running as an ‘out and proud’ pagan. Halloran was ‘outed’ by the Tribune and has seemed sheepish in trying to defend himself, saying simply that his religious faith should be kept out of the race — not at all the response one would expect from someone who cites Beowulf as one of his heroes. Perhaps Halloran could more effectively rally the neo-pagan vote in the 19th district if he were more stout in his defense of his Theodic faith. But the 19th is not, as far as I am aware, a hotbed of heathenry; in fact, it is one of the most socially and politically conservative Council districts in New York City and one of the few in which Republican candidates are viable, so Halloran does have a good chance of winning the seat being vacated by Council Member Tony Avella, who on Sept. 15 lost the Democratic primary for mayor to Bill Thompson.

Whichever candidate wins, he will be making history. The high heathen Halloran will face Kevin Kim in the general election in November, as Kim won the hotly contested Democratic primary on  Sept. 15. The deputy director for community affairs for U.S. Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-5), Kim has his boss’s support, and if he prevails in November, he would be the first Korean American elected to public office in the borough or the city.  Kim’s candidacy takes on added significance, given the failure of Korean American John Choe — the former chief of staff to outgoing Council Member John Liu — to win the Democratic primary for the seat being vacated by his boss (now the all-but-certain City Comptroller) in the 20th district, centered on Flushing. Choe was the victim of a particularly vicious red-baiting campaign that attempted –without any evidence — to tie him to the totalitarian regime that rules North Korea, simply by virtue of his membership in Nodutdol, a progressive New York-based organization working for the peaceful reunification of the Korean peninsula. Kevin Kim is now the only candidate for City Council of Korean descent, and on November 3, the voters of the 19th district will determine whether a Korean American takes office for the first time in the history of the city or the state.

I live in the 25th Council district in western Queens, which seems a world away from the 19th in ambience and political culture; but if I were a voter in the 19th district, I would certainly vote for Kevin Kim, whose politics are clearly more progressive than Halloran’s warmed-over right-wing Bush Republicanism. Kim is my atheling of choice.

Beowulf? or Thane of Cawdor…?

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