Ben Rubin (legislator)


Ben Rubin was a cigar maker, zookeeper, union activist and member of the Wisconsin State Assembly from Milwaukee who served four terms. He was elected in 1930 and served one term as a Socialist. He was later elected as a Progressive on a fusion ticket, serving for six years.
Rubin's district had the largest concentration of African-Americans in Wisconsin, and he was the author of a number of civil rights bills on topics such as insurance, employment by regulated utilities, and public accommodations.

Background

Rubin was born December 20, 1886, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He attended public school to the age of ten, when he became an apprentice in a cigar factory. He worked as cigar maker up to 1919, and during these years was a member of and served offices in the Cigar Makers' Union. In 1919, he went to work as a zookeeper in the Washington Park Zoological Garden. When first elected to the Assembly in 1930 he had been president of the Building Service Employees Union and secretary of the Central Board of Milwaukee municipal employees' unions, and had been a member of the Socialist Party for about twenty years.

Assembly service

In 1930 he was elected to the Assembly's Sixth Milwaukee County district, with 1389 votes, unseating Republican incumbent Frederick W. Cords who drew 927 votes, with 350 for Democrat John N. Kaiser, and 55 for Lee Talton. He was assigned to the standing committee on labor.
In 1932 Rubin was a candidate for re-election, again facing Cords and Kaiser and two independents. This time Kaiser was the victor, with 2240 votes to Rubin's 2130, Cord's 1412, and another 129 for the two independents.
In 1934, Rubin came within somewhere between nine and twenty-seven votes of unseating Kaiser. 104 paper ballots were lost before a recount was held, with a janitor later admitting he'd burned them as wastepaper. The final official count was 1289 for Kaiser, 1262 for Rubin, 1002 for Fred G. Miller, 638 for Frederick G. Peterson, and 49 for an independent and "scattering".
In 1936. Rubin unseated Kaiser with 3576 votes, to Kaiser's 2607 and Republican Paul Coleman's 1008. He returned to the committee on labor, and was also assigned to the committee on municipalities.
During this period he also served on the annuity and pension board of the Milwaukee County employees' retirement system.
He was re-elected as a Progressive/Socialist in 1938 and 1940 ; and died in office February 24, 1942. He was succeeded by Progressive Phillip Markey.