The 14 year-old migrant workers in Skagit Valley went back to work in late July.  These children finger the jagged edges of American racial and economic inequality on a daily basis, so they probably didn’t notice the fact that part of their future was sacrificed to the politics of the Washington State Legislature.
 
fupjFamilias Unidas por la Justicia, a group of over 200 indigenous Mexican migrant farm workers, have entered the second month of their job actions and negotiations with Sakuma Brothers Farms in Skagit Valley.  They are demanding an increase in piece work rates that would push wages a little bit further toward minimum wage, an end to racist harassment and intimidation, and basic sanitary and humane living conditions.  This is a particularly courageous stand, given that many of the workers in Familias Unidas are undocumented and live with all the vulnerability that comes with that status.
 
As part of the negotiations, the bosses at Sakuma Brothers have held off on their threat to hire “guestworkers” on H-2A visas and allowed migrant workers 14 years and older to resume picking berries for thirty cents a pound.
 
When Rodney Tom joined Tim Sheldon and the Washington State Senate Republicans in order to become Senate Majority Leader, he put control of the senate committees and agenda in the hands of the senate Republicans.  One of the consequences of this move was that HB1817, the “Dream Act” that would have given undocumented children access to the State Need Grant for higher education, died in committee.  It passed the House with a strong bi-partisan vote and it had more than enough votes (including Senator Tom’s) to pass the Senate.
 
The sad irony of this is that Senator Tom could have reached the fiscal goals that most concerned him without sacrificing the Dream Act.  When Senator Tom created the Majority Caucus Coalition, he made a point of saying in every press conference that joining the Senate Republicans was about the budget and taxes, and that as Majority Leader of a mostly Republican caucus he would remain committed to the progressive social values that got him elected as a Democrat.  
 
The budget deal that finally passed the legislature in June is probably about the same budget that would have passed if the Majority Coalition Caucus had never been invented.  Even without the exalted titles of Majority Leader and President Pro Tempore, Senators Tom and Sheldon would still have been the swing votes that allowed Senate Republicans to make their anxieties about revenue and public infrastructure central to the budget negotiations.  But if Senator Tom had foregone the plush corner office and remained a member of the Democratic Caucus, the senate committee arrangements would have been such that the Dream Act he supported would have passed along with the budget that he helped negotiate.  It is more than plausible that Rodney Tom would have seen more of his stated agenda passed if he had not crossed the aisle to be Majority Leader.
 
But we should not see the death of the Dream Act as just another occasion to take a shot at the easy target of Rodney Tom.  It should be a cautionary tale for all of us who live north of the ever more impregnable line that separates our society’s haves from it’s have nots, a commentary on the badly arranged world that leaves the more fortunate among us living lavishly right down the street from suffering that we feel no visceral responsibility for.  In all the places where political and economic power are deployed and exchanged—our offices and board rooms and caucus rooms and back rooms and golf courses and favorite restaurants—we know at a distance that many of our fellow citizens suffer from the structures we erect and sustain.  And in our reflective moments we genuinely care about that, but too often the lion’s share of our working hours are spent consumed with the details of inside baseball–who has which office, who traded their vote for what, who calls back, and who had lunch with whom.  Too often we lose sight of the larger picture because we’re consumed with the stuff that seemed real important at the time.  
 
At the peak of the harvest season, there are about 90,000 migrant farm workers in Washington state who make an average of $8600 per year.  They live in camps whose conditions range from liveable to vile and they have no access to the legal, social and political capital that those in the middle class and above take for granted.  They are often subjected to brutal working conditions and abusive treatment.  The Dream Act would have just cracked the door open for the lucky few who managed to complete high school and wade through the State Need Grant bureaucracy.  It would have been a mild reform that would have provided some social mobility to someone who may have gone on to lead the radical change we really need.  
 
Passing the Dream Act wouldn’t have changed the world, but at the end of the day it would have been worth letting go of the bigger office.