CAN SEIU SCALE POLITICS UP TO THE NATIONAL LEVEL?
But can this model scale up from the state level to the national arena? This is a reasonable question, since it’s not like SEIU’s organizing success has been uniform across the country. They readily admit their growth (politically generated or not) has been concentrated in a handful of states. Indeed, their 2007 membership report shows heavy bunching in their membership: • California – 689,036 • New York – 390,545 • Illinois – 147,790 • Washington – 85,602 • Michigan – 72,506 • Massachusetts – 71,820 • Total U.S. – 1,804,753 So that means close to 70 percent of all SEIU members are in California, New York, and Illinois (not exactly swing states last time I checked). Adding Washington, Massachusetts, and Michigan and you get to 81 percent of all SEIU members (again, not really the federal politicians that need the biggest push on health care, the war, or the Employee Free Choice Act). What kind of suction does that give SEIU in Congress, given how concentrated their membership is? SEIU
