Endorsements
The IAFF believes, respects, and celebrates the absolute right of every member to vote for the candidate they feel best represents and embraces their views and political philosophy. No one, including your union, has a right to tell you how to vote. The IAFF endorsement is about the candidate’s stance on fire service and labor issues.
Federal Candidate Questionnaire
The IAFF knows it’s necessary to have strong allies in Congress to advocate on behalf of our members. Our friends in Congress continue to earn our endorsement through careful consideration of their voting record on fire service issues, employment, safety and health, and labor issues that directly affect our members’ lives and livelihood.
If you are new to Congress and seeking our endorsement, we ask that you fill out our federal candidate questionnaire. We are committed to supporting candidates who align with our mission and who support our union’s values. Let’s get to work to improve the lives of fire fighters and emergency medical workers.
Local Endorsement Resources
Questionnaires are a good way for your local to become familiar with the candidate and their views. Questionnaires take time to create and distribute but can provide you an opportunity to establish a relationship with the candidate and their team. We’ve prepared a Sample Questionnaire for you to use as a guide.
Here are some tips to customize your guide:
- Tailor the questionnaire to the election and candidate you are sending it to.
- Prepare questionnaires that address your local’s issues. Be specific and ask them if they would or would not support you. But also keep questions open ended to allow for explanations.
- Questions should be neutral and not tell them what to write.
- Distribute questionnaires to all candidates running and allow for enough time to follow up by email or phone.
- If you want to publish the candidate’s response, tell the campaign beforehand. Being upfront and honest in your dealings with the campaign can help maintain relationships.
- Questionnaires are also an opportunity to use candidate answers/views on a vote guide.
The IAFF Endorsement Philosophy
The IAFF believes, respects, and celebrates the absolute right of every IAFF member to vote for the candidate they feel best represents and embraces their views and political philosophy. No one, including your union, has the right to tell you how to vote.
Similarly, the IAFF will never criticize any member for their choice of candidate. We recognize that many issues beyond fire service and labor issues are important to all IAFF members, and the IAFF respects members’ right to vote for candidates who have not won the endorsement of the IAFF or your local affiliate.
However, just like IAFF members review each candidate’s history, positions, and platform and make a decision based on that information, so does the IAFF.
This union views candidates with a very narrow focus. Decisions are predicated on how candidates stand on fire fighter and labor issues, such as collective bargaining rights, protection of fair labor standards (FLSA) and overtime rights, pay fairness and equity for federal fire fighters, presumption of disability for federal fire fighters, funding for first responder initiatives, full funding of the FIRE Act and SAFER programs, protection of pension and Social Security benefits, and protection and extension of health care benefits for active and retired members, to name a few.
These are the types of issues that IAFF FIREPAC focuses on when making decisions on whether or not to support a candidate. IAFF FIREPAC does not and will not base its decisions on issues such as Second Amendment rights, reproductive rights, the environment or other social issues that many of our members hold firm beliefs about.
The IAFF has one mission: to improve the lives and livelihoods of professional fire fighters. We know that one of the most important ways we represent our members is in the legislatures at all levels of government – because that’s where most of the decisions are made that have an impact on our members and their jobs. That’s why we play hard in politics – so that we help get people elected who will push our legislative agenda forward.
In that role, this union is an advocacy group similar to the NRA, Christian Coalition, Sierra Club, Chamber of Commerce, National League of Cities, etc. Our range of issues is very specific. No one should expect or accept it if the NRA based endorsements on fire fighter bargaining rights. Likewise, no one expects the Christian Coalition to base its support of candidates on funding the FIRE Act or SAFER grants. Consequently, no one should expect the IAFF to base its endorsement on anything other than its specific set of issues.
While you may personally disagree with an IAFF endorsement and believe that another candidate better represents your own viewpoint on issues important to you, please be mindful that the IAFF endorsement is about the candidate’s stance on fire service and labor issues. And, just like the IAFF respects your right to vote for the candidate of your choosing, we ask for the same respect concerning the IAFF’s duty to make its endorsement based on fire service, employment, safety and health, and labor issues that directly affect our members’ lives and livelihood.
In any union, association, or even political party, when an organization endorses a particular candidate or a specific position on any issue, not everyone who is a member is in agreement. In fact, almost every time an endorsement is made, there is disagreement – but it’s usually based on personal political leanings or how one values certain issues. People are entitled to and respect their right to disagree and express their own opinions.
Politics within the IAFF is an issue of mutual respect. The IAFF respects its members’ right to vote for whomever they choose, and we hope you respect the IAFF’s right to endorse candidates, regardless of party, who have demonstrated their support for the IAFF and professional fire fighters. The IAFF also respects the right of state and individual affiliates to endorse the candidate they believe will best represent their membership at the state and local level.