The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.60/No.40           November 11, 1996 
 
 
` My Campaign Is A Tribune For Workers'  

BY DAVE FERGUSON

HOUSTON - "The socialist campaign is the only campaign that tells the unvarnished truth," Jerry Freiwirth said at a debate with the candidates for the 25th Congressional District. The debate was held in Baytown, a suburb of Houston dominated by the giant Exxon refinery. About 75 attended, including many students assigned by their professors. Freiwirth is the Socialist Workers candidate. "Voting for me, let alone my Democratic and Republican opponents, will not substantially alter the attacks against working people.

"The only way that working people can defend ourselves - the only way we ever won anything - is by standing up, uniting across the divisions the employer class fosters amongst us, organizing our numbers and fighting for our rights," Freiwirth said. "My campaign seeks to advance that perspective. It offers itself as a tribune of working people who are under attack, like 270 of my coworkers who have been locked out by Crown Oil since last February. Our campaign will fight side by side with those who decide to resist."

Freiwirth is a refinery worker and member of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union. Also on the socialist slate are Lea Sherman, a machinist running for U.S. Senate, and Lieff Gutthuidaschmitt, a University of Houston student running for Congress in the 29th CD.

All congressional districts in the Houston area were redrawn by a three-judge panel in late summer as a result of a reactionary Supreme Court decision that majority Black or Mexican-American districts in Texas and North Carolina were improperly gerrymandered. Primaries held earlier this year in Houston were invalidated and the elections were opened up to all comers. After a petitioning effort the Texas socialist campaign won a spot on the ballot for Freiwirth.

The 25th Congressional District, which includes areas where many oil workers live, drew a large pool of candidates and has attracted particular attention from both local and national media.

"Ten candidates are challenging the incumbent," a Houston Chronicle article stated, "The lineup is as diffuse as the district, including a judge who once served a one-month jail sentence, two physicians who own medical clinics, a socialist refinery worker, and a former Houston City Council member working in the bail bond business."

The article reported Freiwirth saying he is running for Congress as a voice for working people and family farmers "who produce all the wealth but have no say as to how the wealth is used or distributed." Also noted was the socialist's opposition to President Clinton's bombing of Iraq last August.

Time magazine featured the race in its October 21 issue, noting the incumbent Democrat "must win a majority of the votes next month against no fewer than 10 opponents, ranging from a refinery worker backed by the Socialist Workers Party to a district judge favored by the Christian right."

A feature of the socialist campaign has been the interest it has sparked among high school and college students. Congressional candidate Gutthuidaschmitt is a member of the Young Socialists. This organization has made the campaign one of its central focuses, organizing weekly campaign tables and three speaking engagements on the University of Houston campus this fall. As a result, two students at the university have joined the YS as well as one student at nearby Lamar High School.

Freiwirth and Gutthuidaschmitt led a team of supporters to the Rio Grande Valley recently. They campaigned at the Fruit of the Loom plant in Harlingen, Texas, the site of an unsuccessful organizing drive by the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union. At Pan American College in Edinburg, Texas, the campaigners set up a literature table, where they passed out hundreds of pieces of campaign material and sold 10 introductory subscriptions to the Militant and one to Perspectiva Mundial. One young Chicano student decided to join the Young Socialists and two more indicated they would likely do the same.  
 
 
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