Marching on

Pencil Point

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Talking Point

RIP WFP?

Plenty of death knells have been rung for the Working Families Party since some major union backers departed on Friday over its support of Cynthia Nixon for governor.

But what’s the state of the 20-year-old minor party?

Big unions and big funders like Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union and the Communications Workers of America District 1 are out.

But talk of a new union-backed minor party has not become reality, yet. Those rumors entered the public realm before the Nixon endorsement, as Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s supporters were pressuring WFP leaders to make a different choice.

Some unions remained with the WFP after the weekend turmoil, such as the United Automobile Workers and the New York State United Teachers, but the tens of thousands in donations from 32BJ alone will be hard to replace.

A party spokesman pointed to close to 1,000 small donations made since Friday, with about half coming from first-time donors. And the New York Progressive Action Network, a collection of groups mostly rooted in Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign, is now affiliated with the WFP. Those are the kinds of new organizations and voters that might be drawn into the party by the Nixon endorsement, says Daniel Altschuler, managing director of Make the Road Action, a WFP affiliate potentially threatened by the possible loss of union monetary support.

The infusion of new supporters could make the WFP an exciting place to be this primary season. But there are complications ahead as well, given that state director Bill Lipton said this week the party wouldn’t play spoiler should Cuomo win the primary.

Among the issues the WFP will juggle: Getting the 50,000 votes needed to automatically guarantee a ballot line for succeeding elections. Trying to get Nixon off the ballot if she risks throwing the election to a Republican. And figuring out how to weather a complicated election season, emerging with either a governor or progressive wins, and their party intact.

Mark Chiusano

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Pointing Out

What’s next for March for Our Lives

After February’s shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that left 17 people dead, three days of action were planned nationally. There was a school walkout on March 14, then the March for Our Lives in communities across the nation on March 24. The third day of action is set for Friday, the 19th anniversary of the killings at Columbine High School, which seem to mark the beginning of the school-shooting era.

But it’s unclear whether the movement sparked by the massacre in Parkland, Florida, has maintained the urgency many hoped it would. Friday’s National Day of Action Against Gun Violence in Schools has an impressive list of national and state organizations behind it, including the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers and moveon.org, but seemingly less buzz than the last two events.

On Long Island, 10 schools have created events/sign-ups on a national walkout website hosted by Indivisible.org. And protectourschools.com, an organizing hub for Friday’s events, lists three events: a day of action at North Babylon High School; a letter-writing and voter-registration drive at the Sid Jacobson Jewish Community Center in East Hills; and in Bellmore, a “color day” promoted by an education advocacy group called the Bad Ass Teachers Organization. Kids everywhere are being encouraged to wear orange to mimic the way hunters wear it to signal “don’t shoot.”

Friday’s events nationally are supposed to center around a walkout in schools at 10 a.m. Big participation would be notable and, now that the memory of Parkland has faded just a bit, so would the lack of it.

Lane Filler

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Daily Point

Rice is in Crowley’s corner

“Queens party boss angles to succeed Pelosi as speaker” was the headline on a Politico article Tuesday about Joe Crowley, who is making his move to take over the House Democratic caucus.

Crowley’s ambitions to succeed longtime leader Nancy Pelosi and leapfrog her second-in-command, Steny Hoyer, are well known, but this week is ushering in a new offensive. Crowley’s backers are trying out new messaging, using the departure of Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan to remind Pelosi her time is up.

“I think Pelosi and Hoyer ought to take the message from Ryan’s retirement and realize it’s time for this caucus to move on. And I think Crowley fits the bill to be our next leader,” Rep. Filemon Vela (D-Texas) told Politico.

Nassau County’s Kathleen Rice tried to push that angle in The Washington Post as well:

“Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.) pointed out that Ryan (R-Wis.) arrived in Congress the same year, 1999, as Rep. Joseph Crowley (N.Y.), the Democratic conference chairman. She threw up her arms and pretended to be climbing a ladder, to demonstrate how long Crowley has been trying to rise in the party’s leadership.

“ ‘Republicans know how to do turnover. We don’t,’ said Rice. ‘Paul Ryan took the job on his own terms, and he’s leaving on his own terms.’ ”

However, Rice’s quote noting that Ryan and Crowley arrived in D.C. at the same time left the impression among some political observers that she was lumping in Crowley with Pelosi as being there after Ryan had come and gone.

Not so, Rice spokesman Coleman Lamb told The Point.

“Representative Rice was making the point, as she has in the past, that we have a lot of talented leaders like Congressman Crowley in the Democratic caucus, and we have to do a better job elevating them to leadership positions,” Lamb said.

If anything, political insiders say Rice, the former Nassau County district attorney, is quite close with Crowley and plays an important role for him as the most outspoken woman in the Democratic caucus to take on the first female House speaker in U.S. history.

Rita Ciolli