Completed report examines what drives membership growth and engagement

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In 2025, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors faced a defining set of choices about who this city is for. Again and again, a moderate supermajority supported increasing mayoral power, corporate interests, and punitive responses to social crises over the needs of working-class residents. From criminalizing vehicular homelessness and gutting voter-mandated affordable housing funds, to expanding police surveillance and overtime giveaways, the Board repeatedly voted to consolidate power upward while narrowing democratic oversight and social investment. 

This analysis breaks down key Board of Supervisors votes from 2025, outlines DSA San Francisco’s perspective, and examines how these decisions either served or betrayed the working class. Where socialist leadership prevailed, such as with the Green Bank, sanctuary protections, tenant safeguards, and limits on Big Tech encroachment, it showed what is possible when the city prioritizes people over profit. Taken as a whole, these votes tell a clear story about the political direction of City Hall in 2025 – and the stakes for organizing to change it. 

See how each supervisor voted on the following votes here.

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Housing & Homelessness

RV Ban

DSA SF Position: No
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (9-2)

• Yes: Connie Chan, Stephen Sherrill, Danny Sauter, Joel Engardio, Bilal Mahmood, Matt Dorsey, Myrna Melgar, Rafael Mandelman, Chyanne Chen
• No: Jackie Fielder, Shamann Walton

In July 2025, the Board of Supervisors voted to institute Mayor Lurie’s RV vehicle ban by a 9-2 vote, with Supervisors Fielder and Walton in opposition. The new policy instituted a 2-hour parking limit on oversized vehicles citywide, making existence nigh-impossible for the over 1,400 poor and working class San Franciscans who live in RVs. This ban, which officially took effect on November 1st, 2025 after a rushed, month-long implementation, has been a brutal failure on a number of fronts. While temporary refuge permits were offered to residents who were included in a May 2025 city count of oversized vehicles, many longtime residents were excluded from this count and struggled to qualify, despite multiple appeals. The funding for rehousing and vehicle buybacks was extraordinarily limited, and simultaneously pitted unhoused communities against one another by promising RV residents that they’d be prioritized over people sleeping on the street. 

Since the ban has taken effect, Lurie’s administration has already ramped up tows, while RV residents with permits have reported few housing offers. This all has taken place against a period of skyrocketing rents in San Francisco, where more people are being pushed into both vehicular and street homelessness daily.

Gutting Affordable Housing Funding

DSA SF Position: No
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (8-3)

• Yes: Connie Chan, Stephen Sherrill, Danny Sauter, Joel Engardio, Bilal Mahmood, Matt Dorsey, Myrna Melgar, Rafael Mandelman
• No: Jackie Fielder, Shamann Walton, Chyanne Chen

In 2018, voters approved Prop C, the Our City, Our Home program, which placed a gross receipts tax on the largest businesses to invest in proven, housing-first solutions to address homelessness. In July of last year, Mayor Lurie and the “moderate” supermajority on the Board of Supervisors moved to reallocate tens of millions of dollars away from these permanent housing solutions and towards temporary shelters, hotel vouchers, rental subsidies, and other short-sighted solutions. Framed as a response to urgent needs and unspent balances, this move undermines the clear intent of Prop C: to move people out of homelessness permanently, not cycle them through temporary fixes. By repeatedly suspending voter-mandated allocations, San Francisco is backfilling gaps created by broader budget and housing policy failures instead of investing in deeply affordable, permanent housing and prevention—the very strategies proven to reduce homelessness long-term. This approach risks normalizing emergency shelter as a substitute for housing, erodes trust in voter-approved mandates, and diverts resources away from systemic solutions that working-class San Franciscans were promised when they voted for Prop C.

Read our full statement here: https://dsasf.org/ocoh

Eliminate Affordable Housing Fees in Hayes

DSA SF Position: No
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (9-2)

• Yes: Connie Chan, Stephen Sherrill, Danny Sauter, Joel Engardio, Bilal Mahmood, Matt Dorsey, Myrna Melgar, Rafael Mandelman, Chyanne Chen
• No: Jackie Fielder, Shamann Walton

Supervisors voted to forego $81 million in developer impact fees that would have funded affordable housing and infrastructure in Hayes Valley and surrounding areas known as “Market Octavia.”

From 2008 to 2024, such fees provided $40 million for affordable housing and $53 million for transportation and public realm improvements in that area, including Polk Street and Page Street bike lanes, the new Brady Park, Dolores & Market intersection improvements, and partial funding for Van Ness Bus Rapid Transit. No alternative funding sources were identified for planned future projects like these.

Although the rationale was to jump-start stalled market rate developments, the sponsors refused to put a time limit on the waiver, and the Board of Supervisors’ own analyst concluded no projects will start in the next three years anyway. These fees amount to only 7% of typical development costs per unit, and were already priced into land costs because they were paired with a 2008 upzoning.

The real reason market-rate housing is stalled is structural: Interest rates are high, and investors can find greater returns elsewhere (like the AI boom). Or as the director of a real estate industry-funded group said in a candid moment, “One of the challenges we face in San Francisco is we need the rent to go back up to get housing to work”—an obvious non-solution for workers who struggle to afford rent already.

If supervisors are serious about jump-starting housing, they should stop trading away our parks, street safety improvements, and affordable housing funds in a futile attempt to entice developers, and instead invest in building social housing directly. They can start on Hayes Valley’s city-owned Parcel K.

Suspend Empty Homes Tax During Litigation

DSA SF Position: No
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (9-2)

• Yes: Connie Chan, Stephen Sherrill, Danny Sauter, Joel Engardio, Bilal Mahmood, Matt Dorsey, Myrna Melgar, Rafael Mandelman, Chyanne Chen
• No: Jackie Fielder, Shamann Walton

San Francisco faces a daunting affordability crisis, driven by speculative developers and exploitative landlords. In 2022, voters passed Prop M to penalize owners who kept their properties vacant – nearly 40,000 units in pre-COVID San Francisco. Despite clear voter support, Prop M was immediately challenged in court by landlord groups. When the board voted 9-2 to suspend the empty homes tax during these court proceedings, they stood in the way of a potential $61 million per year in net revenue for working-class rental support programs and affordable housing projects.

Eliminate Affordable Housing Fees for Office Conversions

DSA SF Position: No
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (9-2)

• Yes: Connie Chan, Stephen Sherrill, Danny Sauter, Joel Engardio, Bilal Mahmood, Matt Dorsey, Myrna Melgar, Rafael Mandelman, Chyanne Chen
• No: Jackie Fielder, Shamann Walton

This ordinance exempts downtown office-to-housing conversion projects from development impact fees, including the Inclusionary Housing fee, and removing deadlines to apply for the program. While supporters frame this as a way to spur housing production and revive downtown amid high office vacancy rates, this legislation trades away critical, permanent funding for affordable housing, transit, and neighborhood infrastructure with no guarantee that these conversions will actually move forward or deliver homes that ordinary people can afford. 

Like past fee waivers, this policy is based on the flawed assumption that developers are only a small incentive away from building, when the real barriers are high interest rates, construction costs, and profit expectations: factors this ordinance does nothing to change. By allowing large, centrally located projects to bypass inclusionary requirements, the city undermines its own affordable housing goals, deepens reliance on luxury market-rate housing, and sets a precedent that public goods are negotiable whenever developers claim hardship. Instead of giving blank check subsidies to real estate interests, San Francisco should be directly investing in social housing, while ensuring that any downtown development meaningfully contributes to affordability, public services, and working-class communities. 

Family Zoning Plan (FZP)

DSA SF Position: No
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (7-4)

• Yes: Stephen Sherrill, Danny Sauter, Bilal Mahmood, Matt Dorsey, Myrna Melgar, Rafael Mandelman, Alan Wong
• No: Connie Chan, Jackie Fielder, Shamann Walton, Chyanne Chen

In December 2025, the Board of Supervisors voted 7-4 to approve the Family Zoning Plan (FZP) which rezoned San Francisco’s western and northern neighborhoods as part of the City’s Housing Element compliance program. The rezoning targeted commercial corridors for significant height increases, eliminated density controls throughout the plan area, established a local density bonus program to encourage market-based production of affordable housing, provided 100% affordable developments with some additional height incentives, and allowed developers the option of replacing their “inclusionary zoning” requirement to set aside 12% of their units for affordable housing by opting into San Francisco’s Rent Stabilization Ordinance. 

The FZP’s shortcomings include incentives for the redevelopment of approximately 20K rent controlled units in 2-unit buildings via significant height increases, targeting renter-heavy commercial corridors for redevelopment while freezing heights in wealthy owner-occupied neighborhoods, and lacking an explicit affordable housing program. The BOS separately passed a tenant protection ordinance.

Amending FZP to Protect All Rent Controlled Units

DSA SF Position: Yes
Board of Supervisors Voted: No (4-7)

• Yes: Connie Chan, Jackie Fielder, Shamann Walton, Chyanne Chen
• No: Stephen Sherrill, Danny Sauter, Bilal Mahmood, Matt Dorsey, Myrna Melgar, Rafael Mandelman, Alan Wong

While the FZP was successfully amended to remove rent-controlled buildings with more than 2 units, it left approximately 20K rent-controlled units vulnerable to demolition. This amendment would have removed these duplexes from the crosshairs of redevelopment, but failed 4-7.

Tenant Protections from Demolitions

DSA SF Position: Yes
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (11-0)

This Tenant Protection Ordinance passed unanimously following the passage of the flawed FZP. This ordinance strengthens tenant protections in the context of residential demolitions and major renovations, responding to widespread displacement driven by speculative development, harassment, and abuse of buyouts. The legislation recognizes that “temporary” displacements tied to renovations or redevelopment often become permanent, forcing working-class tenants out of San Francisco entirely, and it shifts responsibility for those harms onto property owners rather than tenants.

Specifically, six of the following eight criteria must be met in order to demolish existing housing that has been occupied by tenants in the past 10 years:

1. The new project is a rental project (i.e. not condos for sale).
2. The new project has more units than before.
3. The new project has more rent-controlled units than before.
4. The new project has more two-bedroom units than before.
5. The new project does not significantly change a historic landmark.
6. In the case of an owner-move-in eviction, the owner has lived there for at least 3 years.
7. No affordable housing is demolished.
8. There are no violations with the Planning Department or Building Inspection Department.

This legislation confronts the structural drivers of displacement, prioritizes the right of tenants to remain in their communities, and affirms housing as a social good instead of a speculative commodity.

Protect Rent-Controlled Units Resolution (Fix SB 330)

DSA SF Position: Yes
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (11-0)

This resolution urges the California legislature to amend the Housing Crisis Act of 2019 (SB 330) so as to bring it in line with the City’s more thorough and generous protections, specifically with regard to demolition regulations, tenant relocation benefits, and right of return regardless of tenants’ incomes. The resolution zeroes in on several loopholes in the existing Act through which tenants can easily fall and which incentivize keeping protected units empty and displacing tenants. The resolution passed the Board unanimously and became law without the signature of Mayor Lurie. 

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Immigration

Sanctuary City Recommitment

DSA SF Position: Yes
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (11-0)

In Socialist Supervisor Jackie Fielder’s first piece of legislation, the city reaffirmed its long standing status as a sanctuary city, which prevents local resources from being used to assist federal immigration enforcement, and situates that commitment in the current political moment. This was especially significant as fears spiked within the broader immigrant community, who make up roughly one-third of the city, of what a second Trump term could mean for our friends, neighbors, and family members. Sanctuary policies are proven to strengthen collective safety and solidarity by refusing to pit working-class communities against one another or turn city workers into agents of deportation.

This resolution passed unanimously, emphasizing San Francisco’s unwavering support for our immigrant neighbors.

$3.5M in Immigration Legal Services

DSA SF Position: Yes
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (11-0)

A unanimously approved allocation of $3.5M from the General Fund to the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development to expand existing immigration legal defense and community response services. This funding strengthens access to deportation defense, legal screenings, and community support at a moment of heightened fear and uncertainty for immigrant communities, particularly amid threats of renewed federal enforcement. By investing in legal representation and protection rather than enforcement, the Board affirmed San Francisco’s commitment to collective safety, due process, and standing with immigrant workers and families.

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Policing, Surveillance, & Carceral Spending

Mayoral Power Grab (Fentanyl State of Emergency)

DSA SF Position: No
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (10-1)

• Yes: Connie Chan, Stephen Sherrill, Danny Sauter, Joel Engardio, Bilal Mahmood, Matt Dorsey, Myrna Melgar, Rafael Mandelman, Jackie Fielder, Chyanne Chen
• No: Shamann Walton

One of Daniel Lurie’s signature campaign promises became his first big win at the Board of Supervisors, as the so-called Fentanyl State of Emergency Ordinance passed by a 10-1 margin. The bill is indicative of Lurie’s approach in that it transfers power from the Board of Supervisors to the Mayor’s Office, in this case the approval of contracts and grants related to homelessness, substance use and mental health needs, and public safety hiring. It also authorizes the Mayor to solicit private donations of up to $10 million to advance those causes, an early instance of Lurie’s tendency to allow his ultra-wealthy friends to directly fund the initiatives they hold dearest (mostly cops). The passage of this bill was a feather in the Mayor’s cap and afforded him a reputation for tackling San Francisco’s most deeply entrenched problems, yet augmenting the power of the Mayor’s Office hasn’t yet led to a notable decrease in overdose deaths and Lurie fell significantly short of his promise to bring 1,500 shelter beds online in his first 6 months. 

Crypto-funded “Real Time Investigation Center”

DSA SF Position: No
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (9-2)

• Yes: Connie Chan, Stephen Sherrill, Danny Sauter, Joel Engardio, Bilal Mahmood, Matt Dorsey, Myrna Melgar, Rafael Mandelman, Chyanne Chen
• No: Jackie Fielder, Shamann Walton

In 2024, voters approved Proposition E, letting the SFPD “use technology to the maximum extent possible” in the name of public safety—the key issue Mayor Lurie campaigned on, despite crime rates being down across the city. Prop E helped the SFPD spy on the public using drones, license-plate readers, and surveillance cameras via a facility named the “Real Time Investigation Center”. As the original location for the RTIC was unequipped to handle the technology needs, the SPFD looked to move the headquarters to a new location. Chris Larsen—a crypto billionaire who funded Prop E and the recall of progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin—gave more than $9 million of technology, facilities, and services to a nonprofit dedicated to supporting the SPFD. By law, the city has to solicit bids from multiple companies before accepting any such offers, but last summer, the SFPD asked the BoS to waive this requirement, which they agreed to do by a 9-2 vote. As a result, an unaccountable and untransparent nonprofit, funded by tech billionaires, was able to implement unpopular surveillance measures without civilian oversight or review. The RTIC is now housed in Ripple’s corporate office space, in a building complex partially owned by Donald Trump, and Larsen, et al, can provide it unlimited donations without further Board approval as long as it remains there. 

Police and Sheriff Overtime Giveaway

DSA SF Position: No
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (9-2)

• Yes: Connie Chan, Stephen Sherrill, Danny Sauter, Joel Engardio, Bilal Mahmood, Matt Dorsey, Myrna Melgar, Rafael Mandelman, Chyanne Chen
• No: Jackie Fielder, Shamann Walton

For the last seven years, the SF Police and Sheriff’s Departments have submitted budgets for Board approval, only to then ask for tens of millions of dollars in additional overtime. The cops claim they’re too understaffed to work within their budget, but a 2024 City audit found overtime cards with fraudulent signatures and revealed that most officers take 5 weeks of paid sick leave, with many working paid private security jobs on days they called in sick. Some officers even claimed 80-hour workweeks, every single week, for years. Despite this abuse of overtime, last spring cops asked for an additional $90 million from the city—which is currently in a budget deficit of $876 million. To close this deficit, the Mayor and Board are cutting funds to public education, Muni, housing services, legal aid, and many other departments. By stealing essential services from the public just so corrupt cops can take home more money, the Supervisors voted (9-2) to balance the budget on the backs of working San Franciscans.

Allow Sheriff to Purchase Military-Grade Riot Guns

DSA SF Position: No
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (8-3)

• Yes: Stephen Sherrill, Danny Sauter, Joel Engardio, Bilal Mahmood, Matt Dorsey, Myrna Melgar, Rafael Mandelman, Chyanne Chen
• No: Connie Chan, Jackie Fielder, Shamann Walton

It’s hard to talk seriously about public safety when cops are given deadly weapons in the name of “crowd control”. Last year—in addition to its many assault rifles, sniper rifles, submachine guns, and automatic pistols—the SF Sheriff’s Office asked the BoS to approve the purchase of ten AR-15–style rifles that fire pepper balls with greater velocity than the chemical-agent weapons currently in their inventory. The product manual for the proposed rifles indicates an increased risk of death or injury, but no mention of the weapon’s lethality was made in the Sheriff’s report. In 2025, the number of reported crimes in San Francisco fell for the third year in a row, and yet the Board voted 8-3 to approve these excessive and unnecessary weapons, bolstering the cops’ arsenal to the detriment of essential city services.

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Economic Justice & Public Investment

Green Bank Resolution

DSA SF Position: Yes
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (10-0)

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a resolution directing the City to move forward with creating the San Francisco Green Bank, a publicly owned finance institution designed to fund affordable housing, small businesses, and climate projects.

The Green Bank will be a non-depository public benefit corporation, meaning it will not act like a normal retail bank. Instead, it will function as a public financing engine that uses city, state, federal, and philanthropic capital to invest in projects that serve the public good rather than Wall Street profit.

Under the resolution, the Green Bank’s mission is explicitly to promote equity, social justice, and ecological sustainability, with lending focused on:

• Affordable rental housing and homeownership
• Local small businesses
• Green investments tied to environmental justice

The Treasurer is now directed to pursue regulatory approvals, hire a Green Bank Coordinator, and work with a public advisory group to design the institution. The Treasurer must also report back to the Board every four months, creating ongoing political accountability. While this vote urges the Treasurer to design and pursue approvals for a Green Bank, the legislation itself says the bank cannot be established without an appropriation for staff/legal work and without securing capitalization.

Supervisor Jackie Fielder sponsored the resolution and secured unanimous support across the Board. Although the Mayor returned it unsigned, it became law automatically under the City Charter.

For socialists, a Green Bank is about democratizing capital. Instead of relying on profit-driven banks that underfund working-class communities and overfund fossil fuels and luxury real estate, San Francisco can begin directing money toward housing, climate resilience, and local businesses on public terms.

Learn more and get involved: https://sfpublicbank.org

Billionaire’s Budget

DSA SF Position: No
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (10-1)

• Yes: Connie Chan, Stephen Sherrill, Danny Sauter, Joel Engardio, Bilal Mahmood, Matt Dorsey, Myrna Melgar, Rafael Mandelman, Shamann Walton, Chyanne Chen
• No: Jackie Fielder

The budget approved this past summer was shaped by claims of a looming fiscal crisis and prioritized “downtown recovery” and spending on the punishment bureaucracy over meeting the actual needs of the working class, continuing a pattern of neoliberal austerity politics in one of the richest cities in the world. While moderate city leaders framed the budget as fiscally responsible, it protected or expanded funding for policing, jails, and business incentives while cutting or severely underfunding essential services like public health, stable housing, homelessness prevention, transit, and nonprofit workers who deliver critical care across our city. These deliberate choices came amid rising rents, stagnant wages, and deepening inequality, effectively asking working-class San Franciscans to bear the costs of the economic volatility of capitalism, while corporations and wealthy interests were shielded. 

This budget reflects political priorities, not fiscal necessity: it doubles down on a punitive, carceral approach to social problems, undermines long-term investments in housing and care, and fails to use the city’s full fiscal and political power to tax the wealthy, defend public services, and build a city that works for tenants, workers, and marginalized communities, not just downtown and big business. 

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Democratic Accountability & Oversight

Removal of Max Carter-Oberstone

DSA SF Position: No
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (9-2)

• Yes: Connie Chan, Stephen Sherrill, Danny Sauter, Joel Engardio, Bilal Mahmood, Matt Dorsey, Rafael Mandelman, Shamann Walton, Chyanne Chen
• No: Myrna Melgar, Jackie Fielder

Shortly after taking office, Mayor Lurie decided to remove Max Carter-Oberstone from the Police Commission—a group appointed to oversee the SFPD and conduct hearings on police misconduct. Lurie gave no rationale for his decision, which was subject to an approval vote by the Board of Supervisors. In his four years on the commission, Carter-Oberstone helped to pass reform-minded policies—such as curtailing pretext traffic stops, which disproportionately affect Black and brown drivers—and also exposed former Mayor Breed’s unethical practice of requiring her appointees to sign undated resignation letters. Civilian commissioners provide a crucial means to check the overreach and abuses of city leaders, most of whom are backed by tech billionaires. By removing Carter-Oberstone from office, the mayor and BoS (who voted 9-2 to remove) weakened police accountability and signaled to other commissioners they’d better fall in line behind Lurie in his consolidation of power.

Removal of Our City, Our Home Committee Expert

DSA SF Position: No
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (7-3)

• Yes: Stephen Sherrill, Danny Sauter, Bilal Mahmood, Matt Dorsey, Myrna Melgar, Rafael Mandelman, Shamann Walton
• No: Connie Chan, Jackie Fielder, Chyanne Chen

This legislation replaces Jennifer Friedenbach on the Our City, Our Home (OCOH) Oversight Committee. This body was created by Proposition C, which Friedenbach herself architected and led to passage with overwhelming voter support in 2018. Prop. C created a tax on San Francisco’s largest corporations to fund permanent housing and homelessness services, generating over $1 billion to date, with community oversight as a core safeguard against political interference. Friedenbach’s removal comes in clear political context: she was one of the most vocal opponents of Mayor Lurie’s recent effort to redirect tens of millions of Prop. C dollars away from permanent housing and into temporary shelter, a shift which DSA SF has criticized for failing to address root causes of homelessness. Replacing her with a mayoral and supervisor ally undermines the independence of the oversight committee and sends a chilling message that dissent, especially from those who defend the original, voter-mandated intent of Prop. C, will be punished. 

This move undermines democratic accountability and punishes principled dissent: replacing the chief author and guardian of Prop. C with a politically connected appointee weakens independent oversight, opens the door to further dilution of voter intent, and signals that standing up for proven, housing-first policies can cost advocates their seat at the table.

DoorDash Drone Experiment Protections

DSA SF Position: Yes
Board of Supervisors Voted: Yes (11-0)

This resolution responds to long-standing concerns about the erosion of Production, Distribution, and Repair (PDR) space in the Mission by placing temporary, targeted guardrails on a specific emerging land use: outdoor engineering and development laboratories operating in PDR-1-G districts, mostly in northeast Mission and Dogpatch. While laboratory uses have long been permitted in these zones, the growth of “knowledge sector” firms (especially those conducting noisy or polluting hardware testing outdoors, most visibly exemplified by DoorDash’s outdoor delivery drone testing at 1960 Folsom) has created conflicts with nearby homes, schools, and parks, and accelerated displacement of traditional PDR businesses and working-class jobs. This establishes narrow, 18-month zoning controls requiring Conditional Use approval for these outdoor lab activities, pausing further expansion while SF studies permanent protections for PDR land. 

This puts democratic oversight and community health ahead of corporate convenience, defends blue-collar and non-degree-required jobs, and prevents Big Tech from bypassing land-use rules written specifically to protect working-class neighborhoods. While our Socialist Supervisor Jackie Fielder received intense online backlash for this legislation from prominent tech executives and investors, the resolution ultimately passed unanimously, underscoring the broad agreement the SF must set limits when new, untested technology threatens workers, residents, and the public good. 

Special thanks to the comrades who helped make this scorecard and analysis possible: Alex L., Annie B., Connor N., Dan R., Dave M., Hans E. W., Jill M., Matt P., Rishav R., and Scott F. 

Imagine the last five DSA meetings you have been to. Do you feel like you could, without providing excuses, invite a friend or coworker to each of those meetings and feel confident they would walk away with a positive impression of our ability to make change? Would they come away with a sense that our project is worth committing valuable time to?

The national DSA Growth and Development Committee recently reported that more than one in three DSA members have joined within the last year as the horrors of Trumpism spur people into action. Our organizing efforts and electoral wins, especially Zohran Mamdani’s in New York, show a path toward a better future. In this membership bump, like others in the recent past, we are faced with the question of how we successfully “onboard” new members and broaden our reach even further. While our growing wealth of collective experience has improved our abilities in these areas greatly (revamped DSA 101s and 102s and the work of the Membership Engagement Committee have been big successes), there is still plenty of room for improvement. For the majority of our meetings, we need to ensure that the answers to the above questions are resoundingly “Yes and yes!”

We can accomplish this by bringing a basic level of professionalism and competency to our own political practice and in turn, to DSA. As socialists, it can be uncomfortable to use words like “competency” and “professionalism,” because we understand how these terms are used in the context of the late-capitalist workplace to create the impression (and only the impression) of a meritocracy. We can reject that framework while still recognizing that if we look and act like a mess, we are less likely to attract new members, retain existing members, and succeed in our political efforts. Luckily, we are not starting from scratch – working people have cultivated decades and even centuries of know-how we can draw from and rely on.

Accordingly, if we consistently focus on perfecting these known basics of organizing skills and political development, we will have done most of the work of building competency. If we look to sports for a parallel: when a professional athlete reaches the top of their game, they do not transcend the fundamental rules and concepts of the sport. Rather they realize them expertly and bring their special talents to bear within that framework. If you’ve ever watched videos of professional athletes training, you will note that even once-in-a-generation talents consistently do basic drills. They do this not in spite of their expertise, but because it is what makes them expert. The basics are not just the foundation that everything else is built upon, they are most of the game.

So what are the fundamental organizing skills and what is fundamental to socialist political development?Fundamental organizing skills are the means and methods by which we build relationships of trust among ourselves and structure our decision making and collective action. These are a combination of soft skills, which can be applied broadly across a variety of pursuits, and hard skills specific to the task of socialist organizing. None of it is rocket science, and some of these skills might come naturally to certain people. No matter what, being intentional about it makes all the difference. Without going into too much depth on specifics, the core tenants of organizing skills involve:

• Being able to read and relate to people to understand where they are coming from. The term “buy-in” can be a useful shorthand, but the core is taking the time to understand what is motivating people and what they would like to contribute to the organization. Painting a picture of how someone’s contributions are meaningful to the project of building a better world is how we build engagement and capacity.
• Making sure that strategy, ideas, and debates are legible and meaningful to a broad spectrum of membership. We need to have clarity of purpose and action to be effective. Achieving legibility means honing the ability to run meetings effectively and making sure that people know what is going on through effective communication. This can include everything from social media posts, to scheduling meetings and communicating agendas well in advance, to one-on-one meetings with comrades who want to get more involved.
• Building relationships by following up. While our members don’t all need to be friends, we do need to be comrades. This means building a basic sense of trust and the willingness to understand each other. This is the cornerstone of a healthy democratic culture. Building these relationships requires intentional effort. Being welcoming and friendly is a must, but we also must make sure that we are doing the basic leg work that can help us keep in touch. This can include making sure meetings have sign-ins to help with list building and that collective and individual follow-up happens after each event, especially with new members.
• Developing comradely values, most especially patience and empathy. I’ve noted that the folks who tend to stay involved in the moment for the long haul are those who exercise patience with the organization and their comrades. Patience doesn’t mean abandoning a sense of urgency; rather, it means recognizing that imperfection is a fact and that there are no shortcuts in the work of building mass organizations. Likewise, empathy doesn’t mean being excessively kind or withholding criticism, but it does mean recognizing that, in general, folks are doing the best they can at any given moment, and this is the starting point for getting better.

To develop as socialists, we must possess a baseline analysis of capitalism and theory of change rooted in the collective experiences of past and present socialists. Capitalism is a moral outrage, but working toward change requires sober analysis of where we are at as an organization and the conditions we are working in. This will allow us to draw on history, theory, and our own creativity to chart a path forward.  Without going into too much depth, some of the core tenants of socialist political development as we understand it within DSA involve:

• Understanding that capitalism is working as intended, necessitating both reform and revolution. Developing this understanding requires a study of economics and the historical development of capitalism. Such a study demonstrates that the system is not broken, but working as intended. It therefore must  be swept into the dustbin of history. We need reforms in the here-and-now to improve lives and help develop our capacity to make change. At the same time, our ultimate goal must be upending the current order via democratic means to establish a socialist society where the economy is democratically controlled and unjust coercion is abolished in all its forms.
• A recognition of the centrality of the working class as agents of change. The idea of the multi-racial working class as the protagonist of history is easy to say, but harder to make real. We live in a world where nearly all people have internalized capitalist ideology in deep and fundamental ways. Our task is to overcome this by developing class consciousness through action, and to bind that consciousness together organizationally so it can translate into the mass action necessary to make sweeping changes. Socialists believe that workers are in the best position to effect change because our role as the sole producers of value under capitalism is, potentially, an immense source of political power. Recognizing this idea is one thing, but to truly work towards its realization requires an important deconstruction of liberal theories of change through political education work.
• Honing your ability to engage in comradely discussion and debate. Because democracy is a central value for socialists and vital to building a meaningfully mass organization, it is imperative that we take time to deliberately hone our ability to participate in the process of democracy. This means taking responsibility for developing ideas and perspectives by engaging with socialist writings (past and present) and having good faith constructive debates with comrades. Approaching this work with intention and humility as individuals is how we prepare ourselves as a collective for the hard work of deciding what it is we ought to be doing.

So how do we double down on the fundamentals? There is of course no silver bullet, but I do want to highlight that this will be a major focus of our Political Education Committee over the next several months. In that time frame, we will be spinning up a monthly series of skills trainings with rotating subject matter, as well as another semester of Socialist Night School. I encourage members, and especially newer members, to attend these events and approach them with an open mind. Even if you are coming into DSA with some organizing skills or a political background, talking about these things with fellow members and attending a training is bound to bring new perspectives, whether the material is something you already know or something you are just learning for the first time.

Similarly, my ask for experienced leaders and chapter members is that you attend these skills trainings and our Socialist Night School the way that a professional athlete approaches practice drills. There is value in revisiting skills that you’ve used before and have already developed with a sense of humility, asking yourself what you don’t know or how you can do something you are good at even better. I’ve been an organized socialist for half my life, and whenever I run or attend a political education event of any kind, even a repeat event, new neural pathways are formed. I learn something new or a new way of approaching or thinking about something. Sharing my experience with a new group of people and allowing their perspectives to shape me has value.

Further, I would also ask those that are either formally or informally in chapter leadership to lead by example and tend to the fundamentals and integrate them into our work. Make sure that meetings are well publicized in advance, that you are doing turnout, that agendas are clear, that meetings start and end on time, that new members always feel welcome, that you are having one-on-ones consistently, and that you are giving others the opportunity to develop their leadership and organizing skills. Consider taking meaningful time in your work with the chapter to have frank, big picture conversations and reflections about how well you are doing on the basics and what steps you can take to make improvements.

No one graduates from socialist political education, and everyone benefits from a focus on the fundamentals. If we want to build a mass movement, we need to sharpen our focus on these basics. We will need to get them right, not once, not a hundred times, but every single day that we are doing the work of building a better world.

The post On Getting The Basics Right (Again and Again) appeared first on Midwest Socialist.

This story was originally published by The Beacon, a nonprofit and nonpartisan news organization, on January 21, 2026. To get regular coverage from the Beacon, sign up for the free Beacon newsletter here.

***

Last week, my editor and I talked about what to write for this week’s column – and decided on a piece about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, whose birthday was observed on Monday. 

I wrote this piece, and as we worked on it, reports began to come in that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (i.e., ICE, or Pres. Donald Trump’s shock troops) were showing up in Maine to violently harass people in our community, disrupt Mainers’ lives to make us feel unsafe, and clamp down dissent. (Here’s what you can do to help our community members!) 

Right now, the world seems very scary in a lot of ways. And while it’s sometimes hard to keep perspective in these moments, I wanted to remember how King kept his eyes on the prize even in moments that would have made most of us freeze in terror.  In 1964, the Nobel committee awarded its Peace prize to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. At 35, he was its youngest recipient. In making their choice, the committee made clear which side of history they were on–those fighting to sustain white supremacy vs those fighting for racial equity. 

Which side, as Alfred Nobel charged the committee, was conferring “the greatest benefit to humanity.” And which side was not.

Unsurprisingly, there’s much to be inspired by in King’s speech, which I read for the first time this weekend, including a moving description of nonviolence and a throughline of hope in the face of overwhelming odds. 

But it also made me sad to think about how much has been lost in the past decade in regard to racial equity. How hopeful a time that was, with a decade of Supreme Court rulings that had  America’s embrace of equality and with the 1963 March on Washington having inspired a nation. With the 1964 Civil Rights Act having just been signed into law and the 1965 Voting Rights Act on the verge. 

And, perhaps most revealing, with Lyndon Johnson’s victory over Barry Goldwater, a person Dr King described as having become, “identified with extremism, racism, and retrogression.” How times have changed. In our courts. In our Congress. And especially with our nation’s voters’ choice, this time, not to reject the racist running for President.

King is less well known for his work on income inequality, often the focus of these columns. I had always thought of his criticism of capitalism’s shortcomings as coming closer to his assassination, but even in 1964 he understood how our economic system fed the widening income gap.

“… the poor in America know that they live in the richest nation in the world, and that even though they are perishing on a lonely island of poverty they are surrounded by a vast ocean of material prosperity.”

There was great hope, and action, here too. Johnson’s war on poverty had just begun. A slate of ambitious and proven methods helped the poor and middle class build economic stability. Programs like Medicare, Headstart, Food Stamps, and Job Corps, all still here today, cut American poverty in half, from 22% in the early 1960’s to 11% by the early 70’s.

But the poverty rate has basically remained flat, or fluctuated up to 15% when recessions kick in and the government fails to respond. A permanent expansion of Build Back Better, which brought poverty to its lowest level in American history, would have helped greatly.

But economic inequality, sadly, has just gotten worse because taxation has become so regressive. Today, the top 1% earn 21% of the income in America, the same as the worst period of income inequality in American history, the late 1920’s, just prior to the great depression. At the time of Dr. King’s speech, this was actually trending in the right direction. But once Reagan became President, he implemented his massive tax cuts for the wealthy (enhanced by Pres. Bush, and then twice again by Pres. Trump), that wealth simply started flowing back up.

King ended the part of his speech on economic inequality by reminding us that failing the poor is a choice.

“There is nothing new about poverty. What is new, however, is that we have the resources to get rid of it.”

Today, as I’ve been hearing about ICE harassing people on the streets of my city, I feel furious and unclear about what exactly to do. But at the same time I’m moved by King’s belief in all of us, both individually and collectively to do right by our neighbors; to rise up in unity and tear down the systems that oppress and cage us.

“I have the personal faith that mankind will somehow rise up to the occasion and give new directions to an age drifting rapidly to its doom … Old systems of exploitation and oppression are passing away, and out of the womb of a frail world new systems of justice and equality are being born.”

The post At a dark moment, remembering Martin Luther King’s fight for equity appeared first on Pine & Roses.

The Milwaukee Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are working to support a statewide race for governor after both that chapter and Madison DSA voted to endorse DSA member Francesca Hong in her bid for that office.

“Working people have seen that the system doesn’t work for them,” Milwaukee DSA Co-Chair Autumn Pickett said. “Time and again, the establishment has failed us so as not to upset their billionaire donors. As ICE threatens to terrorize our communities and kidnap our neighbors, Francesca Hong stands committed to fight back as the only candidate calling for their abolition.”

Hong’s campaign comes at the heels of successful DSA campaigns across the country, from New York City’s Mayor Zohran Mamdani to Milwaukee District 3’s Alder Alex Brower, and U.S. polling has shown an increased interest in socialism, a clear reflection of the crumbling material conditions of the American working class amid ongoing crises at the hands of capitalism and its benefactors. 

“Francesca Hong has fought for Wisconsinites’ right to healthcare, paid family leave for all, a vibrant union movement, and public power owned by the people and not for the profit of billionaires—the same billionaires who are now forcing us to pay for their destructive data centers,” Pickett said. “She, thankfully, is not alone in this fight. As a movement of everyday people, DSA members are tired, fed up, and ready to win the better world we know is possible. Mayor Zohran Mamdani proved there is a better alternative to fascism than the same old tired establishment policies that brought Donald Trump into power to begin with. Socialism beats fascism, and now it’s our turn to prove it. Elect Francesca Hong for Governor.”

Those interested in joining DSA’s efforts to elect Hong can fill out a DSA campaign interest form to get plugged into the chapter’s work. More information on Hong’s candidacy is available on her campaign website.Milwaukee DSA is Milwaukee’s largest socialist organization fighting against imperialism for a democratic economy, a just society, and a sustainable environment. Join today at dsausa.org/join.

Littler Mendelson's latest labor survey report is full of insights straight from bosses about how unprepared they are against union efforts at work.

The post Secrets of a successful union-buster appeared first on EWOC.

Many hands make light work.

Please reference our Slack’s events channel, or general, for the Agenda.

Zoom Meeting link will appear upon RSVP.

Join DSA Ventura County’s Labor Working Group on zoom to discuss recent labor struggles in our communities, from Starbucks Workers United’s indefinite strike, to the new contract our County employees won by threatening to strike, to the movement for an arms embargo by Labor for Palestine, and the calls for a general strike by May Day 2028. Please, bring other ideas, campaigns, and your own workplace experiences. An agenda will be posted on slack soon. You will receive the zoom link shortly after completing RSVP.

Monday, February 9 at 6:30pm PST (Online)

Join DSA Ventura County’s Mutual Aid Working Group for a planning meeting focused on addressing unmet needs in Ventura County. Bring your big ideas, suggestions for coalition partners, and a desire to stand in solidarity with others. We are cookin’ up some ideas, and will post an agenda on our slack.

Sponsored by

HOSTED BY DSA NATIONAL POLITICAL EDUCATION COMMITTEE

In light of the political urgency we find ourselves in, we are holding a special edition of our Talking to Non-Socialists training, focusing on ICE and immigration. This training welcomes all DSA members, and anyone who wants to learn some basic techniques to challenge misinformation, move people closer to our side and further from the right, and expand the struggle for democracy and socialism — one neighbor, family member or workmate at a time.

Join us Monday, February 09, 5 PT/8 ET — RSVP for more details and zoom! See you soon.