Results of the National Political Committee Elections and List of DSA Honorary Chairs and Vice-Chairs

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National Political Committee for 2003-2005

Theresa Alt has been in DSA for over two decades and has served on the NPC since 1992. She remains very active in the Ithaca local where she has served as treasurer, chair, secretary and newsletter editor. More recently, she has produced the local's weekly community access cable program. Her vision of DSA is of an organization comprised of "many lively locals where leading activists understand how seemingly separate issues are connected in an analysis of global capitalism, articulate a vision of how socialism could make life better everywhere, but day to day engage in whatever campaign is at hand." She wants to work on reinvigorating locals, but believes "that we must first explore what constitutes effective activism in the 21st century.”

Ron Baiman has been a member of DSA and one of its predecessor organizations for over 20 years. He was active in the Youth Section, was one of the founders of Central NJ DSA and Greater Oak Park DSA, and has been very active for a long time in Chicago DSA, writing often for its newsletter. He is "a professional radical economist"' and works at the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois in Chicago. He has also worked as a researcher and activist in the Chicago living wage and Illinois minimum wage campaigns. He would like to work on an outreach and educational campaign to confront "statist" conceptions of socialism in the US.

David Green was elected to fill a vacant seat on the NPC in 2001 and was elected to his first full term at that year's National Convention. He is the chair of Detroit DSA and was one of the main organizers of the 2003 Convention. Under his leadership, Detroit DSA has led or participated in four successful living wage campaigns; has been the backbone of Michigan's single-payer health insurance coalition; has been active in anti-war organizing; and co-sponsored the Immigrant Worker Freedom Ride activities in Detroit. The local has also helped elect several progressive state representatives. He says that he will "continue to press the organization toward activism around the low wage economy and universal health care."

Michael Hirsch is on the Executive Committee of the New York City DSA local and works as the communications officer for a leading metropolitan union in New York. He is also a former steelworker, longtime union activist, political, urban-affairs and education writer and an editor of the socialist journal New Politics. Currently, he is running for a delegate slot at the Democratic Convention pledged to Dennis Kucinich. He says that he plans "to use my skills as an experienced movement veteran and writer to work on helping the N PC become more of an effective guiding body of the national organization. I will also work to make our valuable publication, Democratic Left a more used and useful periodical."

Jeremy Miller joined DSA in 2000 after attending the Socialist Scholars Conference and was instrumental in forming DSA Oregon. He went on to attend the 2001 Convention in Philadelphia. A cab driver and former shipyard worker, he has been active on a variety of issues, including working on the successful drive for an amendment to the state constitution banning discrimination based on race, religion, ethnicity, gender, age or national origin. He was also formerly an organizer for SEIU and is a Democratic precinct committee person in his county. He promises to "seek to inform as many members as possible-particularly those in DSA Oregon-0fthe happenings of DSA at the national level as well as seek their opinions, advice, and involvement in the considerations that arise,"

Simone Morgen has been a member of Central Ohio DSA. for about 10 years and co-chair for half that time. During that time, the local has expanded its coalition work with many groups, including Jobs with Justice, peace groups, Palestinian rights groups and unions. It has worked particularly on the Wal-Mart campaign and on fair trade issues. She wants to bring more viewpoints from the Midwest to the NPC, as well as more female voices. She particularly wants to work on increasing DSA's presence in discussions and activities opposing corporate globalization.

Joseph Schwartz has served several terms on the NPC, working particularly on publications-both Democratic Left (to which he regularly contributes and encourages friends to contribute) and outreach literature. During the last NPC he served as chair of the Steering Committee. By profession, he is a writer and teacher of radical political thought and the history of the American left. He currently chairs the political science department at Temple University in Philadelphia. He has often served as a speaker at DSA and YDS (Young Democratic Socialist) events. He plans to work to revive the Labor Commission, and-as a former youth organizer for DSOC-to give assistance to the current YDS organizer, as well as continuing to work on the Democratic Left editorial committee and to write and speak for the organization.

Timothy Sears has just completed a term on the NPC and served on the former National Executive Committee from 1985-1989. He works as a labor lawyer in San Francisco, where he primarily represents the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees and the United Food and Commercial Workers. He believes "that DSA's central strategic objective for the foreseeable future must be to create an open, serious, respected democratic socialist tendency within the mainstream of American political life," He is committed to organizing a broad progressive alliance to promote that goal and to educating about and advocating for democratic and socialist values.

Herb Shore, the chair of San Diego DSA, has already served two terms on the NPC. He has been a member of DSA from the beginning, having joined NAM three years before it merged with DSOC to become DSA, and he has been a leader of San Diego DSA all that time. On the NPC he has been particularly active in developing the Low Wage Justice Campaign, having acted as chair of the campaign working group. He recently retired-as a physics professor at San Diego State University and remains on the executive board of the faculty labor union. In his next term, he plans to try to make DSA a major player in the growing Wal-Mart campaign; continue his work on the DSA website; and develop a key list for sharing information with the most active members of DSA around the country.

John Strauss has served on the NPC for the past four years, working particularly on Democratic Left and as an editor on other publications projects. He has also recently served as co-chair of the Greater Philadelphia DSA local where he edits the local's newspaper, Greater Philadelphia Democratic Left. An English professor at Bucks County community College, he has been an activist and leader in his faculty union. He says that "what I want to work on emphasizes growing the organization" both by internal development of capacity and by working on getting our message out and working productively with other organizations.

Virginia Franco has served on the NPC for a number of years. She has been a leader of San Diego DSA since NAM merged with DSOC. Currently, she is the DSA representative to the San Diego Coalition for a Living Wage, represents San Diego DSA in the San Diego Maquiladora Workers Support Network, and is involved through DSA in many other progressive activities in San Diego, most recently, the grocery workers strike. She retired this year from teaching as an elementary school teacher in the San Diego City School District, but remains active in the San Diego Educators Association (SDEA), as a past chair of the Human Rights Committee and present member of the Political Involvement Committee (PIC). Her goal on the NPC is “to help make DSA more visible by continuing to be a publicly visible representative of DSA in San Diego, helping DSA with the work of national projects, and to continue working with the Local Development Committee and keeping in contact with local chapters.”

Two New Honorary Chairs

Frances Fox Piven, who has long served as a Vice Chair of DSA, was elevated to Honorary Chair by the 2003 National Convention. Pivcn is Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology at City University of New York Graduate Center and a long-time social movement agitator. She is co-author with Richard Cloward of Regulating the Poor, The New Class War, The Mean Season, The Breaking of the American Social Compact, Why Americans Don't Vote and Why Americans Still Don't Vote. She was involved with developing the strategy that led to welfare liberalization in the 1960s, and was a vehement opponent of welfare "reform.” She was a founder of Human SERVE, an organization that promoted the electoral reform strategy that was incorporated in the so- called "Motor Voter Act” of 1993.

Ed Clark of Boston joined the ranks of DSA Vice Chairs at this Convention. Clark recently retired from his position as Executive Vice President of UNITE!, and has spent most of his life working in the US and European labor movements. He started out in the early 6Os as a student civil rights and peace activist. He worked in the South in the struggle for integration of public facilities and he became National Secretary and National Chairman of the Student Peace Union, one of the earliest student groups working to end the Vietnam War. In the 196Os and 7Os, he was an organizer and business agent for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and a full-time industrial officer with the Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs headquartered in London. Under Governor Dukakis, he also served as the Assistant Commissioner for the Massachusetts Department of Labor and Industries. Clark has written. extensively on trade, economic, political and labor issues for a number of US and European publications; and he remains active in a number of labor, political and cultural organizations.

Honorary Chairs of DSA

Bogdan Denitch
Barbara Ehrenreich
Frances Fox Piven
Dolores Huerta
Mildred Jeffrey
Gus Newport
Gloria Steinem
Cornel West

Vice Chairs of DSA

Ed Clark
Dorothy Healey
Jose LaLuz
Hilda Mason
Steve Max
Harold Meyerson
Maxine Phillips
Christine Riddiough
Rosemary Ruether
Motl Zelmanowicz