Triumph in New Haven: The Labor-Community Alliance that Defeated the Yale-Democratic Party Establishment

Four nights before the first tent went up in Zuccotti Park, an election official in New Haven, Connecticut began to address a crowd packed into the entrance hall of the red-brick Wexler-Grant School on Dixwell Avenue. “In the Democratic primary for Ward 22 alderman,” he intoned, “the results are: Lisa Hopkins, 125 votes; Greg Morehead, 165 votes; Jeanette Morrison, 355 vo—”¹

A triumphant roar erupted from Morrison’s supporters (full disclosure: I was among them), shaking tables and silencing the election official’s conclusion. The first-time candidate had defeated the party-endorsed incumbent, Morehead, by better than two to one. Across New Haven that night, thirteen other multi-racial, cross-class, volunteer campaign staffs—embodiments of the soon-to-be-famous “99%”—drowned out election officials with victory celebrations. They had guaranteed a pro-labor Board of Aldermen for two years, soundly defeating not only the city’s Democratic machine, but also—and perhaps more importantly—Yale, the company in a company town.

The path to this victory offers a new model to American labor for engagement with electoral politics, a model we might call “taproot politics.” It combines grassroots, rank-and-file leadership development with union-funded “independent expenditures”—electioneering vehicles operated without a campaign’s coordination—and Political Action Committees (PACs).² This marriage of mobilization and money has given labor in New Haven what labor in America has long sought (but rarely enjoyed) from the Democratic Party: a real seat at the table in government.

Yale and New Haven in the Age of the 1 Percent

Taproot politics emerged during the Elm City’s 2011 campaigns in response to both the dire political-economic context of New Haven, and Yale’s peculiarly elitist approach to labor relations. These circumstances, however, may be more reflective of urban America than they once were, offering reasonable hope that taproot politics could be replicated elsewhere.

Yale cuts a figure of burgeoning wealth and power against a backdrop of chronic poverty. As political science professor Douglas Rae once observed, Yale “looks like the fat rich kid with twice the lunch money of anyone else in New Haven.”³ The university’s economic position has given it a remarkable degree of control over city politics, a fact plainly visible to city residents. It has enjoyed expedited approval of permits for most of its many construction projects.⁴ Its extensive purchase and redevelopment of commercial properties has gentrified the city’s downtown. If New Haveners aren’t watching Yale’s economic power in action on the street, many feel it at work (or, more likely, when looking for work): Yale and Yale-New Haven Hospital (Y-NHH) increasingly dominate local employment, accounting for nearly one in three full-time jobs in the city.⁵ Its City Hall partners—including Democratic mayor, John DeStefano, Jr.—have acted as loyal boosters (often receiving support for re-election in return), crediting Yale with New Haven’s muchballyhooed renaissance.

To anyone with eyes, however, that renaissance has been distinctly one-sided.⁶ In addition to Yale’s vastly expanded (and mostly tax-exempt) property holdings, its role as the city’s dominant employer, and the over half a billion dollars it receives annually in federal money, its endowment has grown from $2.6 to $19.4 billion over the past twenty years.⁷ The profit on the endowment last year, after expenses, matched 1991’s entire endowment.

Meanwhile, nearly a third of New Haven children live in poverty.⁸ The graduation rate in city high schools remains a dismal 63 percent.⁹ More than four thousand households (nearly a tenth of the city) are waiting for public housing and vouchers.¹⁰ At $38,000, the average salary stands $15,000 below what Connecticut researchers deem necessary to support a family of four.¹¹ Unemployment has hovered around 14 percent for three years, despite the perennial promise of new, development-related jobs.¹²

This is an awful, but all too common reality in post-industrial, post-Great Recession America. Ironically...