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There are currently over 30 million Americans unemployed. Almost all of them are working class like most people living in Lewis County. It is interesting to look at the demographics of Congress. About 2 percent of the members are currently from the working class. The dominant white collar professions of members of Congress are public service/politics, business and law. No one from the working class has ever gone on to become a governor, or a Supreme Court justice, or president.
This ongoing exclusion of working-class Americans from our political institutions has enormous consequences for public policy. Just as ordinary citizens from different classes tend to have different views about the major economic issues of the day (with workers understandably being more pro-worker and professionals being less so), politicians from different social classes tend to have different views too.
Members from the working class almost never get a seat at the table in our political institutions while being more likely to hold progressive views on the economic issues of the day and are more likely to vote that way on actual bills. Among Democratic and Republican members of Congress alike, those from working-class jobs are more likely than their fellow partisans to take progressive or pro-worker positions on major economic issues.
In democratic elections, people can only be considered for office if they can take time off work and out of their personal lives to campaign. The thought of losing income or taking time off work screens out most working-class folks from running for office.
Carolyn Long is a member of the working class. She remembers her father being hospitalized for two weeks while opening up their family’s small business. Carolyn, in seventh grade at the time, had to miss school to help her mother open the store. After her father returned, Carolyn resumed school and continued to work in the store part-time. Working at the store taught Carolyn the value of hard work, the importance of community, and the joys and difficulties of operating a small business.
After graduating, Carolyn decided to pursue higher education. To help pay for college, Carolyn started working at Safeway, first as a courtesy clerk and then running the produce department. As a proud union journeyman with UFCW Local 555, she earned enough to pay for her education.
Jaime Herrera Beutler entered politics as a legislative aide fresh out of college. She has never held a working class job in her life. During her six years in Congress she has been afraid to have open meetings with the working people who live in her district. During 2018 while running for Congress, Carolyn Long went to communities large and small, holding more than 40 in-person town halls. It is time to send a person to Congress who understands what it means to be poor. It is time to send a person to Congress who understands what it means to actually work.
It is time to elect Carolyn Long for Congress in the Third District of Washington state.
Larry Kerschner
Centralia
