The Socialist Party of Michigan is fielding two candidates in the November 2006 elections: Jacob Woods who is running for State Board of Education and Matt Erard who is running for 53rd District State Representative in Ann Arbor. Woods and Erard are running on full socialist programs based on public ownership, worker control, and democratic economic planning; giving Michigan workers an alternative the ever increasing war mongering, outsourcing, union-busting, falling wages and benefits, growing inequality, and attacks on essential social programs that have characterized conditions in the state and nation since the last elections in 2004.
As a result of Michigan’s obscenely undemocratic ballot-access laws designed to keep socialist candidates off the ballot, the Socialist Party of Michigan has been so far unable to achieve ballot access in the state since it was re-chartered by the Socialist Party in 2000. Despite this obstacle, however, the Democrats and Republicans who designed these laws have been as unsuccessful at keeping SPMI candidates off the ballot in 2006 as they have been in the preceding two elections.
SPMI State Representative candidate Matt Erard became qualified for the November ballot on July 19th after an extraordinarily arduous four-month petitioning effort to be placed on the ballot as an independent. Despite his nomination and affiliation with the Socialist Party, Erard’s name will be listed on the ballot as a candidate with “No Party Affiliation” due to the fact that Michigan is among a minority of states that does not allow candidates from parties without ballot access to designate a party name on the ballot once they have qualified as independents.
The 2006 campaign of Matt Erard will mark the first time in decades that a Socialist has qualified for State Representative in the city of Ann Arbor. “Whether or not we win the election in November, the fact that Ann Arbor voters will have a Socialist alternative on the ballot for this office is a victory in and of itself” Erard said.
Although Erard noted that Ann Arbor has historically been an overwhelmingly Democratic city, he argued that rampant capitulation and participation by the Democratic Party in recent years in war mongering and attacks on democratic and economic rights have caused widespread disillusionment with the Democratic Party among progressive voters and increased recognition of its status as a corporate appendage.
SPMI State Board of Education candidate Jacob Woods became qualified for the November ballot on August 6th after getting the nomination of the Green Party of Michigan at its 2006 state nominating convention. Unlike Green-Socialist relations in a number of other states, the Green Party of Michigan has traditionally been very friendly to the Socialist Party of Michigan out of solidarity with many of the party’s demands and recognition of the anti-democratic nature of Michigan’s ballot access laws. For the past three elections, the Green Party of Michigan has allowed Socialist Party candidates to have spots on its ballot line even while campaigning as dual-Socialist Party candidates on socialist programs. In 2002 the Green Party of Michigan nominated SPMI candidate Dan D. Karam for 26th District State Representative. In 2004 the Green Party of Michigan nominated SPMI candidates Ben Burgis for Michigan State University Board of Trustees and Lisa Weltman for 14th District Representative in Congress. The nationally-defunct Natural Law Party of Michigan similarly allowed the Socialist Party ticket of Walt Brown for President and Mary Alice Herbert for Vice President to appear on its state ballot line in 2004.
Woods hopes to use his campaign to tie the crises facing the Michigan educational system to the economic crises and inherently undemocratic nature of the capitalist system. A socialist system would not only guarantee free quality education from cradle to grave, but would radically change the current structure of our schools to emphasize democratic cooperative decision making by teachers, students, faculty, and community residents and free our educational system from the corporate interests who seek to privatize and underfund our schools while keeping them structured as standardized and indoctrinating intellectual assembly lines.
The website of the campaign of Matt Erard for 53rd District State Representative can be found at http://www.erard2006.org. The website of Jacob Woods for State Board of Education can be found at http://woods2006.spmichigan.org