8/11/2019 A Maverick in Congress? | Vanguard Press | Feb. 18, 1988

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A MAVERICK IN

CONGRESS?

BURLINGTON

W ith the formal entry of

Burlington Mayor Ber-nie Sanders into Ver-

mont's congressional sweep-

stakes almost certain, politi-cal observers are wondering

just how an Independentwould survive in a Congressdominated by the two-party

system.There's also the question of

how ef fect i ve a congressman

Bernie might he. Would an

outspoken socialist be con-stantly red-baited by the Cap-

itol Hill establishment, liberal

Democrats included? If Ver-mont's only House member isa radical outsider. will the state

go unr epr esented on key com-

mittees and be denied its fairshare of federal funds? Does

an independent lawmakerhave any hope of getting evena single bill enacted?

These considerations are

cer tai n to be raised by bothhis Republican and Democrat-

ic foes should Sanders makethe race. At th i s t i me, some of

the exper ts bel i eve Sanders

might just squeak through to

victory in such a three-cornered contest, but hischances could well hinge onhow convincingly he countersdoubts about his c lout inWashington.

Contrary to Sanders' asser-tion that a successful inde-pendent campaign for Con-gress "has never been done inAmerican history," severalprecedents do in fact exist.Congressional historians in-terviewed by the Vanguardsuggest that a third-party hope-

ful would be wise to examinehow independents have pre-viously managed to win andhow they fared afterwards.

The most recent House vic-tories by candidates not run-ning on "either the Republicanor Democratic lines occurredi n 1 9 80 . J o e Skeen won as awrite-in candidate that yearin New Mexico's second con-gressional district, whileThomas Foglietta captured aPhiladelphia seat as anunaffiliated reformer.

Both these cases reflectedhighly unusual local circum-stances, however, and each ofthese nominal independentshas since been re-elected on amajor-party ticket.

Foglietta abandoned his

Republican allegiance in 1980

to challenge both the official

GOP designee and the Demo-

cratic incumbent. He owed hisvictory to Democrats dissatis-fied with their party's standard-

bearer, who was conveniently

convicted on bribery chargesmidway in the campaign.Foglietta then caucused withHouse Democrats, gained aseat on the Armed ServicesCommittee (a rich producerof pork for the south Philly

Navy yard), and easily beat

Republican contenders in thenext three elections.

Skeen was actually a regis-tered Republican at the timeof his write-in triumph eightyears ago. In a contest com-plicated by court battles over

ballot status, he defeated the

Democratic nominee, a last-minute substitute for a de-ceased incumbent, as well asth e Iormer member's widow,wh o also ran a write-in cam-paign. The conservative law-

maker immediately joined the

Republican contingent in theHouse and was rewarded withcommittee posts of practicalimportance to his largely rural

district.

A precedent somewhatmore relevant to Sanders' ownpolitical situation may befound in the 1972 independ-

ent candidacy of Boston's Joe

Moakley.

Though a lifelong Demo-

crat, Moakley decided to

oppose his party's nominee,

the arch-racist Louise DayHicks, who two years earlierhad won the seat long beld by

former House Speaker John

McCormack. Hicks argued

that an independent would be

unable to work effectively inCongress, but a majority of

voters in th e Massachusettsdistrict disagreed. Moakley

was then sworn inas a Demo-crat and has since become oneof the party's fiercest loyalists

on Capitol Hill.

To locate a model of a full-

fledged Socialist in Congress,

it is necessary to tum backsome 70 years to the strangecase o f Congressman Victor

eo .g r. _ _ V It o M a r c a l l t o f t l oUniversity of Vermont politi-cal scientist Garrison Nelson.

While members of the two

established parties may not

rush to embrace a victoriousSanders, he speculates, they

would probably not ostracize

him, either. "The circum-stances and attitudes were just

so different then that Berger

shouldn't be seen as a realante-

cedent to Bernie," Nelsonsuggests.

Nelson, a specialist in con-

gressional history, thinks theclosest parallel to Bernie Sand-

ers, politically and personal-

time and place when affilia-

tion with the GOP often meant

being opposed to the Tam-

many Hall machine that dom-,

inated the Democratic Party.

Despite tireless service tohis constituents, Marc was acasualty of Franklin

Roosevelt's re-election land-

slide in 1936. Two years later,

however, he reclaimed theHouse seat from the Demo-

crats by running, with Repub-lican endorsement, as the can-

didate of a new progressiveformation called the Ameri-

can Labor Party (ALP).

Back in Congress, Mar-cantonio emerged as an un-compromising maverick. Heparted company with the con-

servative Republican bloc in

the House and sharply criti-

cized New Deal Democrats for

not going far enough in theirprescriptions for the country'seconomic ills.

Marc was re-elected in 1940

DD the ALP ticket by a hugemargin. By then he had be-

come an exceptionally astuteparliamentarian, applying the

rules of the House-usually

manipulated by reactionaryDixiecrats-e-to the advantage

of leftist causes. Though he

could generally count on hav-

ing only about 50 voting allies

in the 43Somember body, Marc

was able, through his mastery

of procedural details, to delay

passage of several pieces of

repressive legislation.He also managed to steer a

major reform measure through

a largely hostile House. Prob-

ably the most ardent civil

rights advocate in Congress,Marcantonio led the fight that

eventually resulted in aboli-

tion of the poll tax. This de-

vice had been used s inceReconstruction to disenfran-

chise black voters in the South.

The congressman also head-ed campaigns to stop an epi-

demic of Ku Klux Klan

lynchings.

The powerful Dixiecrat fac-

tion retaliated for acts like

these b y preventing Marc fromgaining a seat on the HouseJudiciary Committee. He was

also regularly red-baited,

inside and outside Congress,

for foUowing Moscow's lineon many international issues.Marcantonio denied he was acommunist, explaining by way

of analogy that he would not

become a nudist just becausecommunists were in favor ofwearing clothes. Years later,

Marc served as an attorneyfor the US Communist Party

as it came under attack fromMcCarthyites.

Charges of being a subver-

sive did not diminish Mar-cantonio's popularity among

h is constituents. For a t ime,the Republicans and Demo-

crats acknowledged his elec-

toral invincibility by enders-

ing him for re-election after

M a y or .. . . . . landon

Berger.

First elected to the House

in 1910, this Socialist Party

member f r o m Milwaukee nev-er got along very well with his

Republican or Democraticcolleagues. Indeed, they re-

fused to let Berger even take

his seat following the 1918

election. The former editor of

a radical journal had been sen-tenced a month earlier to a2(}year prison term on sedi-

tion charges for strenuouslyopposing US entry into World

War I.

Berger's conviction wasoverturned by the US Supreme

Court in 1921, but the House

had again barred him from its

estimable ranks. The voters,however, would not disowntheir crusading representative.

After being elected once more

in 1922, Berger was finally per-

mitted to participate in Con-

gress, where fo rs ix more yearshe continued to irritate thepower brokers.

Could Burlington's own

socialist leader expect similar

treatment ifelected in 1988?

Not liItely, in the opinion nf

Iy, would be Vito Marcan-

tonio.Born of Italian immigrant

parents in 19()2, Marcantonio

was one of tIie greatest fig-

ures in USradical politics. Hissuccessful and highly contro-

versial career began at thegrassroots in New York's East

Harlem in the 1920s, and re-

mained firmly implanted thereuntil his death in 1954. In

between, Marcantonio servedseven terms in the US House

of Representatives, made astrong race for mayor of New

York City, and proved con-

elusively that a progressivepolitician could stay outside

the two-party system and still

gain national stature."Marc," as he was univer-

sally known in his polyilJot dis-

trict, first won election to theHouse in 1934. A protege of

then-Mayor Fiorello La-

Guardia, the young congress-man was th e nominee of theCity Fusion Patty, which he

had helped form with the "lit-

tle Rower ....as laGuardia wa sealled. Marcantonio also ran

. on the Republican line in a

he won both parties' prima-

ries. But in 1950, as the "Red

Scare" reached its peak, the

two parties united behind asingle nominee. Aided by

three successive editorials inThe New York Times urging

his defeat, the Republicrats

finally got rid of Marcantonio.

He died four years later ,just

as he was about to run for hisformer seat as a non-partyindependent. Tributes poured

in from every slate as well as

from Puerto Rico, whose inde-pendence Marcantonio hadchampioned. Some 10,000

mourners filed past his coffin

in 24 hours, even as the Cath-

olic Church was forbidding

priests from officiating at his

burial. InCongress, several

members rose to say that,while they did not much care

for Marc's politics, theyrespected hisintegrity and val-ued his friendship.

Dismissed by mainstream

chroniclers as a gadfly or an

aberration, Vito Marcantonio

is not much remembered bytoday's progressives. Bernie

Sanders is, however, wellacquainted witb M arc's career.In an interview this week,Sanders called Marcantonio

"a very great congressman ....

Sanders agreed that, should

he run for Congress, he will

be attacked as a potentially

ineffective gadfly. "What the

people of Vermont would have

to decide,"Sanders said, "iswhether their interests arebeing properly served by the

435 Republicans and Demo-

crats who now make up theHouse. They'll have to deter-

mine if it wouldn't be better

to have at least one independ-ent voice speaking out on theirbehalf."

UVM's Nelson thinks that

l