Dare to Vote, Dare to Win?

By Nell Geiser and Stevphen Shukaitis, WireTap. Posted March 22, 2004.

Mayor Jason West

How can politically active youth organizers and activists engage the electoral process in a way that neither co-opts their efforts nor leads to expending great amounts of effort with no results? For 26-year-old painter, puppeteer and environmental activist Jason West, the answer was simple: you win. West, running as a Green Party candidate, used a blend of environmental concern and political skill to win the position of mayor of the Hudson Valley town of New Paltz, New York. Rise Up Radio correspondents Stevphen Shukaitis and Nell Geiser interviewed Mayor West about his election victory, the relation of progressive youth movements to electoral politics, and strategies and ideas around tactical political thinking. The following is an excerpt from that interview.

Editor's update: San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsome has been leading the charge in favor of gay marriage by controversially marrying gay couples, including Rosie O'Donnell and her girlfriend. Following Newsome's lead, Jason West also started marrying gay couples, which resulted in charges being brought against him by the Ulster County District Attorney on March 2nd. He is being charged with violating New York's state constitution by solemnizing gay marriage.

Stevphen Shukaitis: You ran for state assembly twice, and town council once before [becoming mayor]. What motivated you to enter politics?

Mayor West: I guess I've been politically aware most of my life, but I didn't really get politicized in terms of organizing until 1998, when I helped people here in New Paltz organize a demonstration against Governor Pataki, who was raising tuition and cutting financial aid for state universities. A bunch of us organized a demonstration that turned out 300 people, and we did it in two weeks. Just seeing the fear in the governor's eyes when he came out of the bookstore and saw all those people protesting tuition raises gave us a sense of our own power to make change.

Two of the people who did that were the people who founded the Green Party New Paltz. Running for office basically became an extension of protesting, where you were given a chance, a podium, and platform to bring concerns like universal health care, environmental issues, workers' right issues to a large segment of the public who you may not otherwise be able to talk to. Running for state office as a Green is basically a form of protest at this point -- but you get your views in the newspapers and a chance to articulate a vision of a better world.

Stevphen and Nell interviewing Jason

Shukaitis: It says that you've put forth ideas such as converting municipal vehicles to soy-based vehicles and adding solar power to Town Hall. You seem to be balancing idealistic visions and pragmatic goals. How do you plan to work toward both?

West:

Well, I don't see myself as an idealist at all. I see myself as a very pragmatic person. In terms of the issues you raised: the soybean fuel is something called biodiesel, which is designed to run on any diesel engine without any modification. You don't need to buy new trucks; you just need to change the fuel you buy. Municipalities in New York state are required to buy their fuel through something called the Office of General Services. Last August, the Office of General Services made biodiesel fuel available to municipalities. So it's just a matter of changing the writing on our purchase order, and we can have biodiesel rather than petrodiesel and support this newer technology that is a cleaner burning fuel. The solar panels, again, are a very pragmatic issue.

It's just a matter of how long-term you're willing to look. The costs of having an oil-based economy, through human lives lost in wars (in Iraq or Afghanistan), the environmental cost of burning fossil fuels, or the cost to our democracy, having a government controlled and run by oil corporations -- that's a cost I'm not willing to pay.

Nell Geiser: What do you say to young people who are cynical about the electoral process, party politics and maybe even the Green Party? After all, the 18 to 25-year-old demographic has generally had the lowest voter turnout rate nationally.

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