Alongside dozens of other chapters across the country, East Bay DSA engages in electoral campaigns as a means of effecting political change, building coalitions with aligned organizations and labor unions, and engaging and recruiting members as we work to grow our membership, capacity, and influence. In total, we endorsed ten candidates running in seven elections (four candidates were part of a slate for the same office) this cycle, with five emerging victorious. The races we endorsed in ranged from state legislature to school board and spanned several cities in the East Bay.

Our campaigns

At our June convention, members chose Jovanka Beckles’s campaign for State Senate as one of the chapter’s priority campaigns. This resulted in the campaign’s work being housed primarily outside of but still working closely with the Electoral Committee. With California’s state senate districts being larger than congressional districts, averaging a million residents per district, this was by far the most difficult electoral challenge the chapter has taken on. Facing a well-funded opponent with widespread political and labor support, Beckles lost, receiving 43% of the vote in the two-way general election, but the chapter’s efforts in the campaign were nevertheless impactful, particularly in helping Beckles progress to the general election, and were successful in activating and bringing in new organizers.

At the local level, we endorsed candidates in Oakland, Berkeley, and Richmond. Most of our members live in Oakland and Berkeley; the two cities are home to the highest concentrations of DSA members in the state and therefore benefit the most from volunteer capacity. All three cities have existing grassroots progressive local political infrastructure, but Berkeley’s “moderate” wing has taken control in recent years, and conservative forces and moneyed interests mounted a powerful attempt to wrest back control of Oakland and Richmond from their respective progressive majorities as well.

In Oakland, we endorsed Sasha Ritzie-Hernandez for Oakland School Board District 5 and Carroll Fife for Oakland City Council District 3. Ritzie-Hernandez is an active chapter member who ran for the same seat in a special election last year, being endorsed by the teachers’ union, the Oakland Education Association, in both campaigns. Unfortunately, while the chapter played a pivotal role in her 2023 campaign, our greater number of endorsements this year led to chapter capacity being spread thinner. She ultimately came up short, receiving 46% of the vote in a two-way race against a charter-backed opponent, though this was an improvement from her performance in 2023, when the district had a slightly more conservative profile.

Fife a winner

Fife, an incumbent councilmember whom the chapter endorsed in her 2020 victory, approached and was endorsed by the chapter late in the cycle, so we were not able to play a meaningful role in her campaign, but we nevertheless supported her because she has been a reliable ally and faced unprecedented attacks from the right, being one of the four elected officials targeted as “priorities” this cycle by the conservative Empower Oakland group. 

Despite being outspent and heavily targeted, Fife emerged victorious, winning with a comfortable 58% of the vote after ranked-choice voting (and nearly winning outright in a six-candidate field before ranked-choice). Her win can be attributed in large part to the deep canvassing carried out both during and outside of election season by the Care 4 Community organization that came out of Fife’s 2020 campaign, a model DSA should certainly take lessons from, as well as her strong backing from labor unions.

RPA majority in Richmond

Richmond is the only city in the United States where a majority of city councilmembers are DSA members and endorsees. This is thanks to the groundbreaking work of the Richmond Progressive Alliance, a local party-like organization founded 20 years ago that develops and runs candidates and supports them while in office, a model DSA should strive to emulate. While local elections are non-partisan, RPA includes Democrats, members of other parties, and independents; its first elected official, Gayle McLaughlin, was elected mayor in 2006 while a member of the Green Party, though she has since become an independent (see interview with McLaughlin by Steve Early in this issue of California Red). RPA has successfully taken on powerful interests, in particular Chevron, which operates a refinery in Richmond, is the city’s largest employer, and has spent millions of dollars in its attempts to defeat RPA candidates, including $3 million in 2014 alone. While East Bay DSA does not have a large membership base in Richmond, we are allied with RPA, support their candidates, and seek to develop a stronger relationship with them and greater involvement in Richmond politics.

We endorsed two RPA candidates this cycle, both of whom were incumbents we endorsed in 2020: Melvin Willis and Claudia Jimenez; a third RPA candidate, Sue Wilson, who was running to succeed the retiring McLaughlin, did not seek our endorsement due to logistical issues. Jimenez won with a whopping 61% of the vote, but Willis lost with 40% to his opponent’s 49%. We still have more to learn about the reasons behind this loss, but we certainly must grow in Richmond in order to play a more impactful role and help secure victories in future elections. Nevertheless, with Wilson’s victory, RPA maintains a majority on the Richmond City Council, including the mayor’s office, held by Eduardo Martinez, whom we endorsed in 2022.

A unique Rent Board in Berkeley

Only one other elected body in the country also has a DSA majority: the Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board, a unique body that has produced unique opportunities for the left, the tenant movement, and DSA. Berkeley’s is one of only two elected rent boards in the US, alongside Santa Monica’s. For decades, a coalition of progressive organizations, tenant groups, and labor unions has come together every two years for the Berkeley Tenant Convention, a primary-like nominating process in which a progressive, pro-tenant slate is democratically determined ahead of the general election. In recent years, DSA has joined and contributed to this process. 

This year’s slate of four candidates entirely comprised DSA members, two of whom are active members, and we supported their campaigns alongside City Council candidate Jenny Guarino. The slate also ran alongside a ballot measure, the Tenant Protection and Right to Organize Act, which would strengthen protections for Berkeley renters and make it easier to form tenant unions, for which DSA members gathered signatures to place on the ballot. Three out of four slate members were victorious; the fourth seat was taken by an incumbent who was not renominated at the Tenant Convention but chose to run anyway in violation of its rules. We hope to work with the elected and existing Rent Board Commissioners to continue to protect tenants’ rights in Berkeley.

Acceptable results

On the whole, the results of East Bay DSA’s endorsed races are acceptable. Our candidates mostly won where they were favored and lost where they were underdogs. Looking beneath the surface, our experiences this cycle raise strategic questions we should ponder over the coming year. There is clearly an abundance of left-wing candidates for office in the East Bay who want our endorsement, outpacing our chapter’s current capacity for electoral campaigns. The chapter’s prioritization of one race above all others was successful in engaging members but also hurt our capacity to support local candidates where we could have been more impactful. 

As we plan for the 2026 cycle, look at reworking our endorsement structure, and recruit more members into DSA and the chapter’s Electoral Committee, we must tackle questions like these and build a stronger organization and electoral program that can achieve even greater successes.

There was an odd sense arriving at the bar in Downtown LA where we hosted the DSA-LA election night party that somehow we had lived this moment before—like watching a rerun of a bad movie with a surprise ending that you know is coming, so it’s not really a surprise at all anymore, just the anticipation of reaching the end of it, as if to prove it’s still the same. NBC was playing, projected onto a large screen serving as the backdrop to the party. Just as we were starting to get early results from LA County races, polls on the East Coast were rolling in, all indicating that Harris was losing the swing states. It was 2016 all over again, but less shocking and more bitter this time. This time no one asked, “How can this be happening?”

Nationally, the end we expected

On one hand, we saw fascism take a decisive victory on the national level. It was the end many of us had come to expect: Why wouldn’t our country elect a fascist after the Democratic party undemocratically pushed forward an uninspiring centrist who offered no vision, just more of the same? While the right wing spent the past year appealing to the worst of this country’s racist, nativist impulses, and attacking with vitriol trans people, women, and any groups that do not conform to a rigid patriarchal system, the Democratic Party did little to combat these narratives. Rather, they found themselves cozying up to the Republican party, and seemingly endorsing a unity coalition with a slightly different flavor of conservative war hawk. 

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party struggles to mobilize their voting base for arguably their largest elections on the ballot. Taking 2020 vs. 2024 for example: Trump’s results in LA County are nearly identical at 1.1 million votes, but Harris lost 700,000 votes compared to Biden in 2020. Are these voters moving to Trump as some suggest, or should we simply ask why didn’t they feel compelled to vote for Democrats? Both of these lines of questioning have some degree of accuracy, but in the realm of our local victories, DSA-LA continues to buck the trends.

Things are better in LA

At the local level, we proved that socialism isn’t just popular in Los Angeles, it’s an unstoppable force. As it became clear that Harris had lost, the polls closed on the West Coast and we saw the first numbers in Los Angeles. Never was the divide so apparent than when we announced the landslide victories of DSA-LA endorsed Karla Griego for LAUSD School Board (BD5) and Ysabel Jurado for LA City Council (CD14), while on the NBC screen behind us Harris supporters abandoned the campaign HQ. 

This puts us in a unique position electorally in Los Angeles, with an exciting path opening up for DSA-LA. We’ve now won more than a quarter of the seats in both LA City Council and LAUSD School Board—4 out of 15 and 2 out of 7 respectively—the strongest hold of any DSA chapter in the country percentage wise. At the same time, our candidates remain a growing yet minority block that cannot pass transformative policy without appealing to the broader progressive and centrist members of their legislative body. But still, our candidates finish first in their primaries and then go on to double digit victories in the general, if they don’t win outright in the first round like Eunisses Hernandez or Nithya Raman. Or they get the most votes in their city’s history like Konstantine Anthony in Burbank. 

This also means that the political establishment has begun to recognize DSA-LA’s political strength and now runs right wing and centrist opposition candidates on platforms that explicitly attack us. This year was especially hostile with persistent redbaiting throughout the general election in CD14 and in Nithya Raman’s primary re-election. Both Kevin de Leon and Ethan Weaver, and his Caruso-backed cronies at Thrive LA, whose stated goal is to “reverse the tide of DSA extremists”, made clear numerous times that their elections were a mandate against our organization. Their tired strategy always revolved around blasting the district with mailers with lines about defunding the police and letting homeless encampments grow out of control, from which we infer that somehow DSA candidates are a threat to public safety. 

The legacy of 2016 and Bernie

In a big way, we can trace our current victories to 2016, when it seemed there was a real chance for a DSA-endorsed President through the Bernie Sanders campaign. If his campaign was anything, it was proof that the language of class struggle, the have-nots vs. the have-yachts, was a powerful message that resonated enthusiastically with the people and engaged them in a movement beyond a campaign. It was a signal that despite our many demographic differences, Americans resonated with a call to ‘fight for someone you don’t know’.  Sanders was unbought by corporate elites or Democratic establishment politics, and he showed that grassroots campaigns can compete with the rest of them on any level. 

Locally, where we lack campaign consultants, glossy mailers, and fundraising (though our candidates consistently get more individual small dollar donors), we make up by running candidates with strong messaging that appeals to a plurality of workers, and utilize a cohesive field plan with strategic member mobilization. When DSA-LA endorses a candidate, it’s because our members see an alignment of shared values and have a belief that a victory will materially move our city closer to socialism, and we commit to working closely with the candidates to shape their campaigns. 

This past year, our comrades who chaired the working group for Griego’s school board campaign took a leading role in organizing the field and volunteer programs, which consisted almost entirely of teachers. Likewise on Jurado’s campaign, DSA-LA stepped up our capacity and knocked on a record fifteen thousand doors as well as ensuring they reached their initial signature gathering goals early in January. But most importantly, our campaigns aren’t about saying the right thing at the door, but asking the right questions that connect people’s material concerns back to our message. In short, we organize.

Our candidates run on platforms that center real solutions and are shaped by the community’s involvement in the campaign. If we can do it in Los Angeles, where a centrist establishment has grasped onto power for decades, socialists can win and lead anywhere.

The electoral working group of the San Diego DSA chapter was hard at work this election season. By Sunday November 3rd, after seven weekends in a row, we had knocked on over one thousand doors on behalf of the Affordable Rent-Controlled Housing (ARCH) Campaign to pass Propositions 33 and 5. 

The chapter also spent time canvassing for local Measure G, a combined effort of the SD DSA electoral and ecosocialist working groups. Measure G proposed a half-cent sales tax to fund improved public transportation, road and rail upgrades, congestion reduction, and safety and environmental protections. 

On both campaigns SD-DSA produced videos and graphics for social media. Members also produced a comprehensive voter guide for local and state elections. Finally, at our Quarterly Assembly Q&A, we held a discussion to talk about the 2024 DSA platform and how our chapter should work toward it regardless of the election results.

Unfortunately, along with Propositions 33 and 5, Measure G failed. However, it was a narrow vote (49% Yes, 51% No) and there was a very effective and well-funded No campaign that effectively used inappropriate expenditures by SANDAG (The San Diego Association of Governments) to cast doubt on the measure.

All told, the San Diego chapter and the electoral working group were very proud of the work they did and it brought the members closer together despite the disappointment in the outcome.

More than ever, it’s an understatement to say we have an ambivalent relationship with the Democratic Party. How about working to take it over? 

Surely we all agree that its current iteration, especially after putting the Cheneys before the working class and ushering a wannabe fascist into power, really sucks. But look what the MAGAs did to the Republicans. Can a dedicated group do it to the Democrats? Successful or not, just trying hard could shake things up for a subsequent stage of struggle.

I for one, like it that around the country, some of us find their strength lies in building non-electoral power, for instance through labor or tenant organizing. Others put energy into creating electoral choices outside the two branches of capitalist politics. And some see fit to fight our battles in the Democratic Party, not out of any loyalty to it but from seeing it as a vehicle for struggle over the hearts and minds of our neighbors and co-workers. Can we condemn and challenge its corrupt, corporate obeisance as we help grow the small but dedicated corps of Democratic socialists and allies in Congress and in state and local offices?

A Robust Progressive Caucus

Here in California, the state Democratic Party (CDP) runs quasi-democratic elections for two-thirds of its Central Committee (CC), the 3,300+ member body that holds annual conventions, endorses candidates for office (or not), elects party leaders, debates and passes platform amendments, resolutions and positions on legislation and ballot measures. 

Make no mistake: there is autocracy aplenty within these processes – for instance, the party chair appoints all committee members, chairs and co-chairs. But there’s a robust Progressive Caucus that includes many DSA members – and a number of other caucuses and statewide groupings that also push left. Similar dynamics exist at the county level, where most (county) Central Committee members are elected on the presidential-year primary ballot – any registered Democrat can vote – and sending locals to fill a third of the state CC. 

Another third comprises party pooh-bas, elected officials and their appointees. And the last third will be determined in February 2025, in biannual ADEMs (Assembly District Election Meetings). Fourteen people (seven “self-identified female” and seven “other than self-identified female”) are chosen from each AD (there are 80). The highest vote-getter wins a seat on the Executive Board. 

Over the years, quite a few DSA members have run successfully, then sometimes caucused on their own at conventions as well as with the party’s Progressive Caucus. I myself was elected three times through ADEMs and will now start my second four-year term as an elected member of the Sacramento County CC, and therefore, of the state CC too.

Historically, ADEMs were held in person on January weekends; you had to show up to vote. Since COVID, they evolved first into mail ballots in 2021 and this time, mostly online voting. To vote you must register specifically for ADEMs, and also be registered D on the regular voter rolls. There will be an in-person option – at least one time/place in every district Feb. 22 or 23, where those requirements can still be met on the spot.

Candidates, however, need to declare by early January – and they must have been (and remain) a registered Democrat as of Nov. 5. For nerds who want to read all the rules (and ponder some ambiguities), see https://cadem.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/2025-ADEM-Procedures__Memo.pdf

Key to success:  creating slates

Though candidates register and appear on the ballot only as individuals, the key to success is by creating slates of 14 (or as close to that as possible), then cajoling everyone you know in the district to vote for the whole bloc. It’s a low-turnout election because of the extra steps required, so every one of those votes can really count. 

A group of veterans of past ADEMs has taken on the task of getting the word out now to potential candidates – and others who may not want or be able to run but are willing to help create diverse, politically reliable slates in their district – and maybe nearby ones. Such local involvement will be crucial. 

We ask anyone interested to read our information sheet and the policy platform we have drafted. We are appropriating the name Progressive Delegates Network from a similar group that endorsed individuals in 2021 and 2023 but did not get involved in creating slates. Then, please submit the form we have created and are using to vet aspiring candidates, put them in touch with each other and work together to form optimal slates. 

Please submit the form ASAP so we can proceed; you can decide to back off later if you decide not to run – and in any event, you can still help with slate-building and campaigning.

I’m available to discuss with any interested comrades or answer questions: dlmandel@gmail.com; 916 769-1641

[Editor’s note: As of publication, the Sacramento Mayor’s race remains undecided, with final ballots still being counted.]

It was April of 2023, and the mood was electric outside of Sacramento City Hall. I had received the text several days before. Flo was running and I and a few others were tasked with not letting the secret out. As far as most people knew, it was just an announcement by an important organizer and community member in the Sacramento Area.

Dr. Flojaune "Flo" Cofer announced her candidacy for mayor eighteen months ago, to a crowd of over one hundred supporters. She has been pushing hard ever since with a growing community of volunteers and supporters—people excited at the idea of a candidate that represents them, who actually addresses the problems, rather than just restating the problem with a noncommittal “and I’ll do something about that.” A mayor who knows the importance of listening and collaborating.

Many had implored her to run over the years.  Due to her executive leadership abilities she was eminently qualified. And she had the perfect disposition to engage meaningfully, including with communities that don’t look like her but are similarly frustrated with City leadership.

Dr. Flo has been in community for over two decades. In various spaces, she has consistently engaged robustly in advocacy and equity work, beginning while working as an epidemiologist, helping craft healthcare policy for the state of California, and nationally with Obamacare. As she has stated, "I began my career at the California Department of Public Health, where I built a statewide coalition that decreased infant mortality by 14% across the state. I worked successfully to expand women's health coverage under Obamacare with no copays."

Fact-based approach

Having that fact-based approach is exactly what she will bring to the mayorship of Sacramento. She doesn’t accept that the status quo is the best way to do things. Just because it’s been done forever, doesn’t mean it’s the most effective way to do things. Thus she is open to new ideas, new modes of operating that shake up the status quo and that are based in evidence. At multiple forums she articulated a similar sentiment toward all policy areas as she did in a campaign video discussing homelessness:   The numbers show that we're moving in the wrong direction on this issue, and I plan to take a different approach, that is preventative, people-oriented, and based on data and recommendations from experts in the field."

Inherent to how she works and how she will govern is her experience as an epidemiologist following the data:  if the data doesn’t support the policy, then the policy needs to be changed. And she has the requisite willingness to engage with the data and the humility that is necessary to go where it leads, rather than trying to justify an endpoint that has already been decided on.

This position requires a necessity to listen and know what you don’t know, but also a willingness to ask people who do know and engage meaningfully with the public, respecting their time and input. Previous mayors have given lip service to public participation and always made it more difficult rather than more engaging to make comments. They would allude to “checks and balances” without any enforcement mechanisms to ensure the council would take advantage of the community input and advice offered by community members. Flo wants to see those mechanisms in place to ensure community input is respected and always at the forefront of engagement in new policy, rather than an afterthought or a box to check.

From the other side of the dais

Flo truly knows what the community has been requesting as far as genuine engagement, because she has been on the other side of the dais. She has served on committees for years and seen recommendations disregarded by the council after community members had invested days and weeks of their lives into the research and outreach done. This is exemplified nowhere better than in her dressing down of the sitting mayor while she was Chair of the Measure U committee. 

Included in this election process were dozens of forums and debates. Every time, community members appreciated her holistic sense of what is happening and how she would like to see it addressed. Her analyses of the varied issues affecting Sacramento shone through, especially because the alternative being offered was the status quo sentiment merely reframing the problem rather than offering solutions.

DSA Sacramento members joined a wide swath of communities from all types of backgrounds, from all over the city, and even from elsewhere in the country in supporting Flo. They canvassed, phone banked, text banked, threw house parties, threw fundraising events, held forums, and donated. The campaign saw nearly seventy thousand doors knocked, including over eight thousand two hundred the weekend before election day; one hundred fifty thousand calls, including twenty thousand the weekend before election day; three hundred thousand texts, and nearly one hundred house parties. There were hundreds of community events with neighbors to talk about her, her platform, and what they needed to see in a mayor. The campaign saw nearly four hundred volunteers over the course of the eighteen months. And donations rolled in to the tune of over $800,000.

Waiting for the final count

Currently (11/21), she is down 49.14% to 50.86%. However, the late votes aren’t all in and they have been breaking for her. Each tranche, counted twice a week, has seen her receiving more votes than her rival, Assemblymember Kevin McCarty. The process at this point is similar to the primary, where she was down 47% to 53%. When all primary votes were in and counted, their percentage share of votes had swapped to 58% for her and 42% for him. Now we wait for the final count.

After several bargaining capitulations by the California Faculty Association (CFA) over the past three contracts, rank-and-file members across the 23-campuses of the California State University (CSU) system have had enough. The CFA represents faculty, coaches, counselors, and librarians in collective bargaining and purports to fight for them, but union leadership has become increasingly insular and bureaucratic. Many of us in the rank-and-file (including the author, who is a member of San Diego DSA) have complained for years that the CFA leadership only organizes faculty a few months prior to contract talks after already deciding their strategy with no input from members. This strategy failed in the last three contract talks, resulting in pitiful raises far below the rate of inflation. The previous contract bargaining occurred during a flush state budget period and the so-called bargaining team only asked for a 3-4% raise. What kind of negotiators start their ask on the low side, where the bosses want them? Not only did they start low, but they had 1% ($100 million) shaved off by the governor in a backroom deal because they didn’t get it in writing.

This was bad, but the straw that broke the camel’s back for many of the faculty came in the Fall 2023 bargaining session. This time, after considerable pressure, the CFA leadership allowed rank-and-file to join the now open bargaining team and it made an impact. The negotiators started high asking for 12% for the first year, to make up for wages lost to inflation during COVID, then 5% for the next two years. During the pandemic, the faculty worked overtime transitioning all courses online and keeping the university running while the administrators met safely over zoom, thanking faculty for their “service”. Naturally, the CSU administration, sitting comfortably in their $200 million/year Long Beach HQ, hired union busters and dismissively offered 5%.

Faculty were pissed

The administration refused to budge from this insulting offer, and with the backing and support of the fed-up faculty, we voted to strike (although the union leadership did not inform us of the percentage voting to strike). We were told we would fight for what was right and fair! The rank-and-file knew that there was plenty of money for raises. The CFA leadership told us how the administration consistently awarded themselves double-digit raises, including 30% to consecutive Chancellors, and had squirreled away $8 billion in “reserves”. We knew we had been screwed and faculty were pissed.

So, what happened? First, there was a one-day ULP strike in late Nov 23 on two campuses and later a one-day ULP Teamster strike. Then the faculty went out on the picket line and students went with us throughout all 23-campuses. However, before the end of the first day and without warning or polling the rank-and-file, the CFA ended the strike. In the middle of the night the CFA said they struck a deal! And what was the amazing deal they negotiated? Did they get us the 12% raise? Or maybe 10%? 8%? Nope. 5%. The same lousy deal the CSU already wanted to give us.

Formation of CREW

That’s when many of us, including the author and other DSA members in the CSU faculty, joined CREW, aka. the Caucus of Rank-and-File Education Workers. CREW began as a San Francisco State University (SFSU) listserv created by faculty frustrated by multiple lame contracts. This movement really got going after these SFSU faculty recruited across the CSU following the shock and disappointment of the third bad contract and the ludicrous one-day strikes. Faculty across the CSU organized online and in person to push the union to work for us instead of the other way around.

 CREW’s primary goal is to democratize the CFA and transform it into a fighting union in which the rank-and-file participate in all aspects of the union. Over the past year, our incredible and motivated caucus organized a “No Vote” campaign that increased the number of No votes by 500%, created a steering committee, drafted “Principles of Unity”, recruited participants on more than half the campuses of the CSU, wrote by-laws, created a membership system, and built a website. And the work is paying off. CREW is a force at the CFA assemblies, showing up uninvited and passing one democratizing resolution after another. 

In the CFA Spring 2024 Assembly, 7 of CREW's 10 resolutions passed. The fact that so many passed showed not only CREW’s dedication and organization, but also the clear desire for more democracy and transparency in the union overall. The resolutions that passed:

• Resolution to Encourage Participation in Statewide General Meetings

• Resolution to Conduct Power Structure Analysis 

• Resolution for a Big, Representative Bargaining Committee 

• Resolution for Mass Participation in Bargaining Sessions 

• Resolution to Create Article Committees 

• Resolution to Fight Severe Cutbacks in Instruction on CSU Campuses

• Resolution to Support Palestinians and Their Allies in the CSU

This Fall, we had another bumper crop of wins with 4 of CREW's 5 resolutions passing, including the resolution to establish a strike fund. Without such a fund, strikes are nearly impossible to pull off. And without the threat of a prolonged strike, unions lose the only leverage they truly have, namely the ability to withhold labor. The resolutions that passed:

• Resolution to Establish a Strike Fund

• Resolution to Add an Article Protecting Academic Freedom to the Collective Bargaining Agreement

• Resolution to Abolish the Two-Tier Faculty Labor System: Tenure for All

• Resolution for a New CBA Article Governing Use of AI

CREW is still working on the resolution to require a vote of the members to end a strike, so as not to repeat the one-day strike fiasco, but the first two votes were close and hope remains high.

There are still plenty of obstacles. Passing resolutions and enforcing them are two separate things. For example, despite passing a resolution to encourage participation in statewide CFA meetings, the CFA officers failed to email all members about the Fall Assembly. The CFA leadership also continues to ignore the plight of two faculty union members suspended for protecting student free speech rights in the Palestine solidarity encampments. CREW found out, showed up anyway, and dominated the agenda. 

Crucial to pressure CFA leadership

It will be crucial to pressure the CFA leadership to stick to their resolutions. There have also been off-the-record comments made that CREW is trying to “destroy the CFA,” which could not be further from the truth, and members have even been red-baited. Rank-and-file organized fighting unions win better contracts, and better contracts grow the union. And we need to grow the CREW membership and increase its diversity.

All in all, it’s an exciting time to be a member of the rank-and-file in the CREW. Higher education is in crisis. Neoliberal capitalists are gunning for higher ed, aiming to privatize every nook and cranny with the help of soulless MBAs and PMC careerists intent on enriching themselves, further indebting the system, and crushing labor and dissent. Union solidarity, especially rank-and-file participation and organizing will be critical in the fight to save higher education in California and beyond. CREW is a terrific step in this direction.

Amid all the post-election “What now?” haranguing and handwringing, no one offers a wiser voice for ecosocialists to heed than Omar Barghouti. Co-founder of the largest coalition in Palestinian civil society, the Boycott, Divest & Sanction National Committee, Barghouti urges commitment to the Boycott Chevron campaign:

“We are building a global and intersectional movement, in partnership with Climate Justice and Indigenous People around the world who are exposing and resisting the colonial violence of Chevron’s extractionism, environmental destruction, and grave human rights violations.”

The reasons for a focused priority campaign to Boycott Chevron are abundantly clear. Chevron is profiting from the U.S. and Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. 70% of Israel’s electricity is supplied by methane gas, nearly all of it sourced by Chevron, the largest natural gas supplier to Israel in the Eastern Mediterranean. That supply is crucial to Israel’s military bases, prisons, police stations, illegal settlements, and to Israel’s illegal siege of Gaza.  Israeli apartheid depends on Chevron.

In addition to being a strategic target for ending the genocide in Palestine, Chevron is the object of protest from the Philippines, to Nigeria, to Ecuador, with indigenous, environmental justice, and ecosocialist movements fighting the oil company’s ecocide, genocide and corruption, despite the brutal repression of those movements. DSA belongs in that global collaboration.

Our national DSA International Committee heard the call from Palestine and stepped up to endorse Boycott Chevron, earning Barghouti’s gratitude: “We are proud to have DSA as a partner in this important campaign!”  

Inspired by our national DSA campaign to Stop Fueling Genocide, DSA members across California are helping to organize Boycott Chevron actions. We’ve participated in gas station boycotts and other Boycott Chevron events in LA, the East Bay, Santa Cruz and San Diego. For the most part, our members have contributed as individuals in ad hoc coalitions. Let’s take a note from our petrostate comrades in Houston, and coordinate our DSA organizing! Let’s share the extensive and skillful work of our International Committee, get our chapters behind this boycott, work with and learn from the coalitions forming around this issue, and organize boycott events wherever we are.

DO THIS NOW!

• Sign the Boycott Chevron Pledge https://dsaic.org/boycottchevron and share this link with your chapter members.
  This helps the coalition reach the goal of over 100K individual signatures to demonstrate the serious organizing behind the Chevron Boycott. Your signature will help DSA learn where the boycott campaign has support, and will help us gain credibility as a leading coalition member.

• Join the CA DSA STOP FUELING GENOCIDE Signal Group .
  Meet CA comrades involved in chapter campaigns and find other CA DSA members looking to organize in their chapters and create gas station boycott events.

• Learn more and share with your chapter

• This resource link list is full of articles about the Chevron=Genocide connection, organizing and actions around the country, and campaign tool kits.

• Plan a watch party for your chapter to view and discuss DSA’s Stop Fueling Genocide launch video.

• Contact Bonnie@laborrise.org to request a 15-minute slide show about the campaign in Northern California, and to connect to the CA DSA Ecosocialist Working Group.

In this episode, Aaron Stauffer (Associate Director, The Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice) joins to discuss faith, the strategies of broad-based community organizing, and the role of sacred values in organizing work. For more on the topic, check out his book: Listening to the Spirit: The Radical Social Gospel, Sacred Value, and Broad-based Community Organizing.

Ohio currently holds a substantial 262.5 million dollars in Israeli Bonds. This is a significant financial tie to a country that is under international scrutiny for its actions in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On February 14th, Toledo passed a Ceasefire resolution. Lucas county has chosen to not purchase new Israeli bonds for the time being, but Cuyahoga county is struggling to convince their city council otherwise. Attorney general Dave Yost intervened and shut down a resolution proposed in June of this year calling for any additional investments in Israel, citing Ohio law which makes it illegal for businesses which receive state funding to boycott, divest or sanction Israel. This was passed in 2016 and then again amended in 2022 to include universities that are not public.

Pursuant to Ohio state law, state entities cannot divest interests in Israel. Ohio Revised Code Section 9.76 prohibits the university from divesting any interests in Israel and prohibits adopting or adhering to a policy that requires divestment from Israel or with persons or entities associated with it.

I hope coalitions in the area begin to understand we cannot simply gather for rallies or protests without making our demands clear. This has typically come in the form of requesting for an arms embargo and an immediate ceasefire but this past year has explained to us that our officials are genuinely not interested in empathizing with a country under occupation and struggling to survive in a genocide.

Going forward, I would highly recommend that we begin to act as a single entity on this issue and create an actual pressure campaign focused on very specific targets. Ohio unfortunately is one of the largest offenders of using tax dollars to fund Israel but we can also consider this a very strategic location in our approach to our organic boycott target. Instead of focusing our efforts towards Starbucks and Coca Cola we need to be more deliberate in our approach to better chokehold these targets.

The above listed is the current BDS list for the listed targets for their ties to Israel. Until these companies come forward and condemn their funding and connections to Israel, these should be our targets. In a capitalist world under conglomerates and monopolies, all consumption is unethical. While we can debate the companies off this list we need to use our efforts to create a focus.

Cincinnati is home to P&G HQ, an incredible offender in terms of funding the genocidal machine that is Israel. So, while it is not listed above, this should be our organic local target. To be frank, I spent a couple of days trying to create a loose pamphlet cross referencing all the products owned by P&G and recommended alternatives, but their products amassed in the 100s. While I believe this could be a reasonable solution, to reinforce the simplicity and success of execution, I would highly recommend we simply shop store brands. If at Kroger, buy Kroger's products, at Aldi's the likewise, etc.

I would like to reach out to local coalitions and request they specifically host their rally in front of P&G HQ just to build public awareness on that front, where we all hold signs of specific brands we will be boycotting. I would love to bring to the attention of the body the idea of recalling city council members who aren't willing to stand in solidarity as a power move on our behalf and to hopefully establish that trend across the US. Maybe we are best off targeting whoever requires the lowest number of votes.