Liberal Party of New York

The Liberal Party of New York is a political party in New York. Its platform supports a standard set of socially liberal policies, including abortion rights, increased spending on education, and universal health care.

Members of the Communist Party USA started joining the American Labor Party and Israel Amter, chair of the Communist Party, called for the "building of the American Labor Party". Although its constitution specifically barred Communists from the organization, there was no enforcement for this provision and large numbers flocked to registration as ALP members from the Communist-led United Electrical Workers, Transport Workers, and State, County, and Municipal Workers. Communists in the ALP opposed reelecting Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential election and the party's leadership started an attempt to remove them from the party. The party condemned the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Fights broke out at the party's convention, where Roosevelt was given the nomination despite an attempted resolution condemning Roosevelt.

Sidney Hillman, a member of the left-wing, threatened to have the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America become involved in the 1944 state committee elections if the party's leadership voted against a proposal to increase union control over the party. The right-wing rejected it. Adolf A. Berle and Eleanor Roosevelt supported the party's right-wing while Franklin Roosevelt wanted to avoid conflict between the factions. Fiorello La Guardia proposed a compromise in which the state executive committee would be divided between the factions and no communist would be on the election slate. Hillman accepted the proposal, but David Dubinsky rejected it. The left-wing won 620 of the 750 committee seats.

1,124 delegates attended the convention from May 19 to 20, 1944, where Franklin D. Roosevelt was given the presidential nomination. Many of the leaders of the Liberal Party were former members of the Socialist Party of America and American Labor Party. Paul Blanshard, August Claessens, and Harry W. Laidler were among the founders. John L. Childs was selected to serve as the party's chair. The party was given $50,000 by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and spent $200,000 during the 1944 election, three times what the ALP spent. The party had 150 union affiliates by 1948. Alex Rose was one of the strongest leaders in the party until his death in 1976. Raymond Harding succeeded Rose as chair and served until 2002.

The Liberals attempted to give their mayoral nomination to Wendell Willkie, but he died and they instead nominated Jonah J. Goldstein. Dubinsky stated that the "national third party project died" with Willkie. Berle replaced Childs as the party's chair in 1947. He did not support the creation of a national party and was more supportive of the Democrats. The party was a member of A. Philip Randolph's National Educational Committee for a New Party from 1945 to 1947. Louis P. Goldberg and Ira J. Palestin were elected to the New York City Council in the 1945 election, becoming the first elected Liberals. The party supported James M. Mead and Herbert H. Lehman in the 1946 gubernatorial and senatorial elections, but both lost and less than 180,000 people voted on the Liberal line compared to over 400,000 votes on the ALP line. The party received enough votes in the gubernatorial election to become a recognized party.

In 1947, the Liberal, Communist, ALP, Socialist, and other third parties successfully opposed legislation to increase the threshold to become a recognized party, but the Liberals supported the Wilson Pakula act, which was opposed by the Communists and ALP. The Liberals unsuccessfully opposed the referendum to end the usage of proportional representation for city council elections in New York City. The Liberals lost their seats on the New York City council after the end of proportional representation.

The Liberals supported Henry A. Wallace's cabinet appointment causing The Wall Street Journal to accuse the ALP and Liberals of grooming him for a presidential run in the 1948 election. However, Liberal opinion soured on Wallace with Dubinsky calling him a "darling of the fellow travelers" and Berle calling him the front man for Communists. In March 1947, the Liberal Party Policy Committee called for a presidential campaign by Dwight D. Eisenhower. The passage of Hubert Humphrey's pro-civil rights plank at the 1948 Democratic National Convention was one of the main reasons the Liberals endorsed Harry S. Truman on September 1, 1948. Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives mainly with the Liberal nomination, and the Four Freedoms Party ballot line obtained with the aid of the Liberals, in 1949.

The 1949 New York City mayoral election was the first time that the Liberals received more votes than the ALP in a city-wide election. Berle, Dubinsky, and Rose pushed for Herbert H. Lehman to seek the Democratic nomination in the 1949 U.S. Senate election and the number of votes he received on the Liberal ballot line was greater than his margin of victory. Lehman received more votes on the Liberal ballot line than the ALP candidate in the 1950 U.S. Senate election and the Liberals aided in ALP member Vito Marcantonio lose reelection. The Liberals replaced the ALP, the "shoddy tool of Moscow" according to Ben Davidson, as Row C on the ballot. The ALP lost its ballot access after the 1954 gubernatorial election and dissolved in 1956. A special election for New York City council president was held in 1951 to fill the vacancy created by Vincent R. Impellitteri ascending to the mayoralty. The party saw this as a chance to elect their first citywide official, but considered running a fusion campaign with Newbold Morris or Jacob Javits. The Liberals nominated Rudolph Halley on the condition that he would not accept the Democratic nomination. Halley won the election.