The Center for Working Families is a left-of-center advocacy group active in the state of New York and based in Washington, DC. The Center supports increasing taxes in New York State, as well as limiting election-related speech activity on both the national and state level.

Center for Working families is a “doing business as” name of the Progressive America Fund.

Background

The Progressive America Fund, based in Washington, DC, was founded as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 1996. Currently, the Fund’s sole project and the name under which it does business in the state of New York is the Center for Working Families. Prior to focusing on the Center for Working Families, the organization also ran the National Open Ballot Project. ¹²

Before becoming a project of the Center for Working Families, the National Open Ballot Project was an initiative of Tides, a left-progressive non-profit active in San Francisco and New York City. ³

Before being taken on by CWF, the Project was known as the New Majority Education Fund and was associated with the New Party, a now-defunct political party focused on running leftwing candidates on both their own, as well as the Democratic Party, ballot lines in states such as New York that allow so-called “fusion voting.” ⁴ The Project advocated for fusion voting, an electoral policy that allows more than one party to nominate the same person in an election. ⁵

CWF no longer supports the Project as a distinct entity. However, on the Center’s website, “fusion voting” is listed as one of the Center’s “other government reform priorities.” ⁶

Activities

In 2009, the New York State legislature approved a budget that included a temporary tax increase based on a proposal developed by the Center for Working Families. According to the Center’s website, the tax cost taxpayers $3.64 billion in its first year. ⁷

In April 2010, the Center and the Fiscal Policy Institute, a left-of-center labor union-supported think tank, published a report advocating for New York State to pass a temporary “Bonus Recapture Tax,” which if it were to become law, according to the report, would cost taxpayers between $9.5 and $14 billion. ⁸⁹

According to the Center’s website, the Center is participating in a “broad coalition” to facilitate New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s proposal for the public financing of elections. In that vein, the Center lists, as one of its related “government reform priorities,” ending a New York State election law which allows for a greater amount of election-related speech activity via multiple limited liability companies than is legally available to individual businesses. ¹⁰

Funding

Center for Working Families has taken funding from a number of institutional left-progressive organizations including George Soros’s Foundation to Promote Open Society, the Surdna Foundation, Proteus Fund, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. ¹¹

People

Dave Palmer

Dave Palmer is the executive director of the Center for Working Families. Previously, Palmer worked as an organizer and lobbyist for the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG), a left-of center activist organization, and as a staff attorney for New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, a left-of-center nonprofit civil rights law firm based in New York City. ¹²

Joseph Rappaport

Joseph Rappaport is the Center’s policy director. Prior to working with the Center, Rappaport also worked at NYPIRG and led campaigns for the Natural Resources Defense Council, a left-of-center environmentalist advocacy group, against the presence of casinos in the Catskills and in favor of legislation requiring electronics manufacturers to recycle their products. ¹³

1. “Progressive America Fund.” Center for Working Families. Accessed December 16, 2019. http://www.cwfny.org/mission-history/paf/
2. “Progressive America Fund.” ProPublica. Accessed December 16, 2019. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/133885314
3. “New Majority Education Fund.” New Majority Education Fund. Accessed December 16, 2019. http://web.archive.org/web/20020120212126/http://www.nmef.org/
4. Reynolds, David. Democracy Unbound: Progressive Challenges to the Two Party. South End Press. July 1, 1999. https://books.google.com/books?id=Fx1XBsYc8BwC&pg=PA192&lpg=PA192&dq=%22New+majority+Education+Fund%22+%22New+Party%22%22&source=bl&ots=pzlzLrdUOj&sig=ACfU3U02MCg7r2JxpuVIhzi3mbl_YVPftQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjsm9DA_7vmAhXCLc0KHV5kCUcQ6AEwAnoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22New%20majority%20Education%20Fund%22%20%22New%20Party%22%22&f=false
5. “About Us.” National Open Ballot Project (nmef.org). Accessed December 16, 2019. http://web.archive.org/web/20070622163417/http://www.nmef.org/aboutus.html
6. “Democracy.” Center for Working Families. Accessed December 16, 2019. http://www.cwfny.org/issues/democracy/
7. “Fair Share: Taxing responsibly & investing fairly in New York State.” Center for Working Families. Accessed December 16, 2019. http://www.cwfny.org/issues/fair-share/
8. “Fair Share: Taxing responsibly & investing fairly in New York State.” Center for Working Families. Accessed December 16, 2019. http://www.cwfny.org/issues/fair-share/
9. Ludder, Sunshine; Parrot, James. “New York Has the Ways and Means: How and Why Wall Street Should Give Back to Main Street.” Center for Working Families & Fiscal Policy Institute. April 2010. Accessed December 16, 2019. http://www.fiscalpolicy.org/CWF_FPI_NewYorkHasTheWaysAndMeans.pdf
10. “Democracy.” Center for Working Families. Accessed December 16, 2019. http://www.cwfny.org/issues/democracy/
11. Data compiled by Foundationsearch.com subscription service, a project of Metasoft Systems, Inc., from forms file with the IRS. Queries conducted December 23, 2019.
12. “Staff.” Center for Working Families. Accessed December 16, 2019. http://www.cwfny.org/about-us/staff/
13. “Staff.” Center for Working Families. Accessed December 16, 2019. http://www.cwfny.org/about-us/staff/