Farmer-Labor

## The Farmer-Labor Party of Minnesota

   A lot of things move in circles and politics is definitely one of those things. In 1918, when the first incarnation of the FLP was formed, the country was in the grip of powerful capitalists and the world was recovering from a new kind of terrifying warfare and the traditional world was changing faster than it ever had before. And so it was in the years after the Awakening and again the Farmer-Labor party once again arose in similar circumstances. Because somebody has got to get the people together to defend their common interests when all those interests, however different they are, are in threat.

* **Headquarters:**The Eagles Building at 1270 Neilson Ave SE, Bemidji, MN UCAS56601.
* **Leadership:**Edger Humphrey, State Senator from Waverly, and current Chairman of the Farmer-Labor Party's Central Committee.
* **Platform:**The FLP has always been balanced between two different interests with the same enemies. Its right there in the name. There has always been a tension between the free-market small-business capitalism of the land-owning farmers and the more collective, unionized, city-dwelling labor. It was true in 1918 when the first incarnation of the party was formed and remains true today. As then, the only thing that binds these two interests together is their common opposition to the unchecked power of the big corps, who employ the laborers and compete with the farmers. Banking regulation is high on their list of priorities as well as the return of power to public institutions that the public has access to some real decision making bodies. The FLP also works very closely with various forms of collective bargaining, Farmer's Associations and Labor Unions (known as a hotbed of 2-4-2 activity during the '40's).
* **Structure:** The FLP is composed of local chapters, which are the main organizers and ground-level activist groups, selecting candidates, raising awareness, raising funds, holding hearings and organizing protests. As often as not these local chapters will either work closely with or, often, actually be Union Locals or regional Farmer's associations themselves who applied for status as an office of the FLP. Policy is decided by the FLP Central Committee, composed of representatives from the various chapters. The head of the party is the Committee Chair which, like the other primary officers, is elected by general vote of all the Party membership. The Committee also selects the representatives the FLP sends to the Organizing Committee of the Non-Partisan League, of which the FLP is a member.
* **Activities:** Despite the primary focus of being a political party, electoral politics are actually only a small part of what the Farmer-Labor party does. What with there being Five major political parties to divide up the market share of votes in the UCAS and the relative impotence of the elected government, decades of hard experience have taught the members of the FLP that is not the most effective route to get what they want. Not that the FLP doesn't also pursue electoral politics (although it largely eschews the national level in favor of local races where a lone FLP candidate can often be far more effective), but they don't put all of their eggs in one basket. The largest job of the FLP is organizing collective negotiating blocs or, where such blocs already exist, legitimizing them against the megacorps who are laws unto themselves, almost more of a place for Farmer's Associations and Labor Unions to interact and support each other than a political party. They also go out of their way to become involved in whatever issues are effecting their communities, building up a reserve of local goodwill and legitimacy that helps insulate them from the almost-irresistible forces they've lined themselves up against. One of the major differences between the FLP and some other members of the NPL is that the FLP is always very careful to draw the line at 'direct action', sabotage or street-fighting, which they feel endangers the whole movement, a viewpoint that often puts them at odds with their more-militant brethren in the Zone.
* **History:** Formed during the same Progressive Era activism as the original Non-Partisan League, when the Non-Partisan League merged with the Union Party, based out of Duluth, to address their common concerns. Economic dislocation caused by American entry into World War I put agricultural prices and workers' wages into imbalance with rapidly escalating retail prices during the war years, and farmers and workers sought to make common cause in the political sphere to redress their grievances. The left-wing populist party was a major force in Minnesota politics for decades, providing no fewer than three state Governors in that time, until Herbert Humphrey Jr. (Great-great-grandfather of the current party chair, Edger Humphrey) negotiated a merger with the Democratic party in 1944, forming the DFL, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party of Minnesota. The DFL remained the local branch of the Democratic Party for just under a century. The 2030's, when the power of the megacorps started to take on modern proportions in the slow rebuilding of the Awakening-ravaged region, threatening to reduce the urban working classes to permanent wage-serfdom and drive out the institution of the small farmer altogether, would also reawaken, in response, the leftist traditions and natural stubbornness in Minnesota politics, largely drawn from the ranks of the 'Democratic Socialists' and other political movements of the 20's. In 2036, when the legendarily-pro-corporate Martin Vincenzo (founder of the modern Technocratic Party) was elected the 2nd President of the UCAS, these leftist and localist elements broke away from the national Democratic Party, refounding the Minnesota tradition of the Farmer-Labor Party, led by famed political activist, and three-time candidate for governor, Roberta Shipstead. The remaining, party-loyal, Democrats formed the New Democratic Party of Minnesota, a far more center-right organization after the departure of the more radical elements to the FLP. Since then, while never challenging the Big 5, the FLP have managed to make themselves a regular thorn in the establishment's side and are an element that must at least be taken into account in state and local politics.

#### Prominent Farmer-Labor Members

* Edgar Humphrey, State Senator for Wright County, Chairman of the Committee.
* Marcus Finch, Chairman of the Metroplex Council in the Minneapolis-St Paul Metroplex.
* Hannah Vidness, County Commissioner in St Louis County (Duluth) Minnesota

Return to: Minnesota Politics