COLUMBUS — The Columbus chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) issues the following recommendations to residents of Ohio.

1. In For Issue 1, YES.
2. In For Issue 46, YES.
3. In For Issue 47, YES.
4. In For U.S. President, NO RECOMMENDATION.
5. In For U.S. Senator, NO RECOMMENDATION.
6. In For Justice of the Supreme Court, vote MELODY STEWART.
7. In For Justice of the Supreme Court, vote MICHAEL DONNELLY.
8. In For Justice of the Supreme Court, vote LISA FORBES.

A detailed rationale for each recommendation follows.

Disclaimer: No recommendations made here are endorsements. Columbus DSA has not endorsed any candidate in this upcoming election. These recommendations are tactical considerations meant to minimize the harm likely to occur to the working class here and abroad as a result of this election.

Do you lament the lack of socialist, abolitionist, and pro-BDS candidates running for office? You can be a part of changing that, whether by running for office yourself or helping us to discover and cultivate future socialists-in-office. To advance the democratic socialist movement in Central Ohio, join DSA today: www.columbusdsa.org/join/.

Endorsed “YES” vote for Issue 1

Issue 1, the Citizens-Not-Politicians anti-gerrymandering ballot initiative, is an absolutely vital step to increase democratic representation in Ohio. We are proud to have overwhelmingly voted to endorse a YES vote for Issue 1 at our September General Meeting. 

Gerrymandering will always be a problem in politics: entrenched power has a habit of working to stay entrenched. Although Issue 1 is unlikely to eliminate the threat of gerrymandering, and we must always stay vigilant, the protections provided by the amendment and the constitutional body it creates to draw districts are much better than the politician-ran redistricting body we are currently oppressed by. Instead of having politicians draw their own districts and keeping power in the hands of political parties, Issue 1 would create a redistricting body made up of representatives from the two largest parties AND political independents (those who do not vote in partisan primaries). 

Issue 1 provides an opportunity for political voices outside entrenched parties – like us – to have a role in shaping the future of the state by creating a more realistic legislature that actually aligns with how Ohioans vote. This would be an incredible blow against the GOP-dominated state legislature, which has entrenched their supermajority not through the power of their politics (which are unpopular and not supported by Ohioans), but through bureaucratic rule-making such as redistricting. Fairer districts would also provide more opportunities for us to run our own socialist candidates in the future, creating additional pathways for us to build the power of the working class and begin to create the foundations of a party that actually serves working people instead of simply using them as an electoral base for liberal half-measures. 

It is absolutely vital that we pass Issue 1, and we strongly endorse a YES vote. Columbus DSA is also hosting canvasses in support of Issue 1 each Sunday at 1:30pm. Visit our calendar at columbusdsa.org/calendar to join one of our canvases.

Recommended “YES” vote for Issue 46

Issue 46 is a property tax levy to fund Franklin County Children Services (FCCS). Columbus DSA supports programs that help both children and families and strive for them to be robust. This is what taxes are supposed to be for: direct, material services to the people. FCCS provides a variety of important services including an abuse hotline, mental health counseling, adoption and foster care, and mentorship services. Columbus DSA has not officially endorsed Issue 46, but we recommend a YES vote to provide funding to FCCS. 

Recommended “YES” vote for Issue 47

Issue 47 is a sales tax levy providing funds to improve public transportation in the Columbus area with the Central Ohio Transport Authority (COTA) and LINKUS. More accessible and widespread public transportation is vital to driving demand away from automobiles. This would reduce pollution, help the climate, make roads and sidewalks safer. Too many of our neighbors have died while simply walking or biking city streets due to cars. The proposed funds would also be used for sidewalks, greenways, and bike paths, making our city more accessible and providing alternatives to personal cars. Columbus DSA wants to see our city thrive, and this is one way to do that while helping the world too. While we have not officially endorsed Issue 47, we recommend a YES vote on Issue 47 to fund COTA/LINKUS.  

No endorsement for President

There are no candidates for President who are fighting for working-class power on Ohio’s ballot. Donald Trump and Kamala Harris; at the end of the day, these are our options for the presidential election. These are also two candidates Columbus DSA cannot and will not endorse. We have already seen the disastrous consequences of a Trump presidency, and while a Harris White House may be less disastrous than another Trump term, Harris has not done nearly enough to earn Columbus DSA’s endorsement. She refuses to end weapon shipments to Israel despite their ongoing genocide of Palestinians and violent invasion of Lebanon. She has withdrawn support for Medicare For All – which she supported in her 2020 presidential run – and has recommitted to increased oil drilling and supporting fracking. Harris has made no commitment to ending the massive wealth disparity between rich and poor, and she has done little to fight corporate power in her time in office. 

Ohio is not even considered a “battleground” state anymore due to the abject failure of the Ohio Democrats to offer Ohio workers anything of value, so considerations of “tactical voting” are entirely worthless. Besides, we are not blind to the fact that Democrats are not working to save us from the corporate-fascist alliance that is building to take power. In many ways, they have aided and abetted it, and this nation is now at a point where half-measures are no longer good enough. 

Therefore, we offer no recommendations for the Presidential race. Members should choose for themselves the best course of action in this race. 

No endorsement in the Senate race

As with the presidential race, we cannot extend an endorsement to either of Ohio’s Senate candidates. Bernie Moreno has been involved in several lawsuits from former employees for discrimination and wage theft. Despite being an immigrant himself, he supports the mass deportation of immigrants, who are just working people just trying to make a living. He has also spoken against bodily autonomy, complaining that women over 50 should not care whether or not we have a right to an abortion. Sherrod Brown has a long history of support for working people and unions, but the majority of his policy focus is on trade, which often favors business owners over workers. These policies often harm working people in other countries for the profit of American big business. While he did vote to send humanitarian aid to the Palestinians in Gaza, he has failed to call for a ceasefire to end the genocide, voting again and again to send Israel military funding instead. While Brown may do less harm than Moreno in the long run, Columbus DSA cannot endorse lukewarm support for working people and failure to stand up against genocide. We offer no recommendations for the Senate race, and members should choose for themselves the best course of action in this race. Furthermore, the Senate should be abolished.

Recommendation for Supreme Court Candidates

Melody Stewart, Michael Donnelly, & Lisa Forbes 

The Ohio Supreme Court has been held under a Republican stranglehold for 40 over years. While many decisions over this time have shown that they are inadequate to be in such a position of power, there have been a few over the past 2 years and some coming up that are why we are recommending Melody Stewart, Michael Donnelly, & Lisa Forbes. One, we endorsed Issue 1(reasoning above), the Republicans on the Supreme Court have shown that they will do nothing to stop their friends, like Frank LaRose, Mike Dewine and other Republicans officials in the state from drawing unconstitutional maps, putting incorrect language on the ballot, to confuse voters and blatant voter suppression tactics, like allowing someone to drop off your ballot at a Dropbox. The Ohio Reproductive Freedom Amendment established a clear framework protecting everyone’s right to access abortion, but it is up to our court system to make sure that this amendment doesn’t just become a meaningless piece of paper. We need justices that will enforce the amendment, not ignore it like they have with anti-gerrymandering legislation. We would also like to have Supreme Court justices that do not change the definitions of words to benefit corporate America. 

Hello hello! Contemplating going to the annual conference in Chicago next year but not sure if it’s worth your time? I went this year, so here’s an overview of what it was like for me.

Overall experience / what to expect:

Six of us from the chapter went together and rented a van. The “road trip with friends” aspect was a lot of fun, and this probably turned out cheaper splitting the rental/gas/parking costs for one vehicle between six of us rather than people bringing their own vehicles. I acquired some new songs for my playlist from other people’s lists. Also, I highly recommend stopping at Cheddar’s on the way for mealtime. The portions of food that you get are huge relative to what you’d normally get for that price elsewhere.

At the conference proper, the logistics were pretty convenient. The conference is at the Hyatt’s convention center, which is attached to the Hyatt hotel building itself, so you don’t have to go outdoors to go between them, have time to stop by your room in between sessions if you need to drop something off, etc. If you book through the link on the conference website you get a substantial discount on rooms (mine was $114 a night, of which I only actually paid half because two of us shared a room to save money). The food in hotel venues was priced about as high as you’d expect, but there were mini-fridges in the rooms and a microwave in the common area with the ice machine, so it’s easy to swing by Walmart on the way and do some weekend grocery shopping instead. There seemed to be a decent amount of all-gender restrooms throughout the conference center, and I never saw a line for any of the bathrooms.

Session-wise, there were a LOT of sessions occurring at the same time (up to fifteen per time slot in some cases). I recommend taking advantage of the Sched app they link to in the schedule emails beforehand, or being ready to mark up your printed program, to help narrow down your favorites and keep straight where you want to go. They run on a schedule of 1.5 hour sessions and 30 minute breaks though, so it’s easy to grab a cup of coffee, charge your laptop a little, poke around the bookstore, etc. in between them. Some are also live-streamed / recorded, so if you’re stuck deciding between multiple, you can also factor in which ones you can catch later versus which ones you have to catch live.

Finally, you might also consider bringing your laptop. I seemed to be in a small minority that did so, but I found it very useful for taking notes, especially when some DSA members put together a collaborative notes document so people back home or who attended other sessions could get info from the sessions other people attended. Although one hang-up was battery life - I had to work at 10-15% screen brightness to make my battery last between opportunities to charge it. Next year I’m going to bring a portable battery with me as well.

Oh, and, bring a sweater or something. It was weirdly chilly in the hotel halls and some session rooms for late summer, and I ended up wearing my jacket almost the whole weekend.

What I liked about the conference content wise:

I enjoyed the variety of sessions to choose from. One big theme that I noticed was the connectedness of everything: issues weren’t presented in a siloed way (at least for the sessions I attended), but as something that relates to at least five other things. Decarceration is central to covid justice because covid is used as an excuse to deny people resources in prison despite guards not masking. Demilitarization is crucial to climate justice because of how big a negative impact our military specifically has on the environment. Trans misogyny is a weapon/tool of colonial imperialism. Freedom for Palestine is related to our own police state because our cops train with Israel, and to reproductive justice because part of that is the freedom to raise your child(ren) in a safe environment, which Palestinian parents don’t have. Affordable housing is a vital part of whether a state is a safe state for trans people, because you can’t move there if you can’t actually afford to live there. Etc. You can’t be a “one issue person” in some ways because nothing is an isolated issue.

Social-wise, I got to know people from my chapter better, and meet people from other chapters. I got some ideas to bring back to our electoral working group, some good podcast recommendations, and decided to officially join a caucus I was practically a member of by this point anyway. I also got a signed copy of Nick Estes’s Our History is the Future, and a Palestinian flag to add to my handheld flag collection.

What I would like to see next year or do differently:

Conference wise, I wish there was more music. A couple sessions had a minimal amount of singing, but we didn’t even sing “Solidarity Together” as a collective to my knowledge. I would love it if there was a session devoted to singing Pete Seeger songs or the like for an hour, similar to how there were evening events for trivia and board games. (I put this on the post-conference survey, so fingers crossed.) I also think it’d be cool if there was a session about the neurodiversity movement, since that ties in with queer rights (statistical overlap between the autistic and ace & trans communities).

Personally, I think I need to be more prepared to spend money on food/drinks next year. I was a little disappointed halfway through about the extent to which I’d been able to hang out with new people because it seemed like everything was “bar this, brewery that, up to 3 am,” whereas I was more interested in chatting with people over coffee at the breakfast bar before the first session of the day. Enough hang-out type events had been planned by the end of the conference though, I think this has more to do with me always wanting to do more in a day in these situations than I have the social capacity for, or not having planned to spend much money eating out. Next year I’m just going to plan more lunches-out into my financial expectations.

Conclusion

Overall, it was a very positive experience, and I would recommend it to others. I’ll definitely be going again in 2025, which is happening July 3rd to 6th.

NPEC is excited to announce that Democratic Socialists of America: A Graphic History is here and ready for chapters to be used in their political education. This comic, completed with financial support from the DSA Fund plus research and input from many generations of DSA members, was written and penned by Paul Buhle and Raymond Tyler with illustrations by Noah Van Sciver. This is a 24-page online graphic history of DSA that can be used to give members a quick overview of our origins and campaigns. This is a fantastic and fun tool for new and experienced people to learn about DSA’s history and development and the dynamic force it is today. 

View the Democratic Socialists of America: A Graphic History here

Important links for DSA’s National Capital Reading Group. RSVP’s links via our Action Network for all the sessions, Slides and the Recording of the opening night event and a link to join our discussion category on the DSA discussion board.

• SLIDES FROM 10/01 CALL and Recording of the 10/1 Call
• 10/29–FIRST Mass Discussion of Parts I + II tinyurl.com/NPECCRG1 
• 11/24–LABOR Supplemental discussion tinyurl.com/NPECCRGLABOR 
• 12/17–SECOND Mass Discussion of Parts III + IV tinyurl.com/NPECCRG2 
• 01/21–THIRD Mass Discussion of Parts V, VI, and (part of) VII tinyurl.com/NPECCRG3 
• 02/25–LAST Mass Discussion to the End…of Capital tinyurl.com/NPECCRG4 
• Link to Capital Reading Group Category on the Discussion Board

Thorn West: Issue No. 217

State Politics

• AB X2 – 1, which requires oil companies to maintain higher reserves with the goal of preventing gasoline price spikes, was approved by the State Senate today in a special legislative session. All that remains now is for the Assembly to approve the Senate’s amendments. Governor Newsom promoted the legislation and called for the special session.

City Politics

• DSA-LA has released its voter guide for this November! Read and share!

• Across California, ballots are in the mail. Here is how to register to vote.

• A quarter of the way through the current fiscal year, the city has already spent the entire $100 million budgeted to settle liability claims against the city. The Controller’s office had previously broken down which city departments are most responsible, with the LAPD responsible for over half of the city’s liability.

• Following the latest round of settlement payouts, the city’s reserve fund is now below 4% of the total general fund, and is likely to dip further. Per the Controller’s office, dropping below 2.75% triggers an official “fiscal emergency.”

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• Amid a budget crisis, Charter Amendment FF would spend 23 million to give certain police officers and park rangers better pensions. The LA Times (and DSA-LA) endorses a no vote.

• Non-stop fear-mongering from media, politicians, and law enforcement about a non-existent crime wave appears to have made an impact on voters. Nathan Hochman, considered the most right-wing primary challenger of incumbent LA County District Attorney George Gascón, leads him in the general by high double digits, according to a recent poll. Similarly, Prop 36, which rolls back criminal justice reforms voters approved in 2014, also shows broad support in polls.

Labor

• 2,400 Kaiser Permanente behavioral health workers in Southern California, represented by the National Union of Healthcare Workers, have announced that they will go on indefinite strike beginning on October 21 if their demands are not met. At issue are several concessions won by a similar strike of Kaiser workers in Northern California, in 2022.

Transportation

• AB 761, which further enables California municipalities to take advantage of federal loans to fund critical infrastructure projects, has officially passed. The new funding opportunity has been suggested as a way to expedite the planned extension of the Metro K Line from LAX to West Hollywood.
• This Sunday from 9am – 4pm, CicLAvia will hold one of its biggest car-free open streets events of the year, closing a route sprawling from Echo Park to East LA to all auto traffic.

Climate Justice

• The California Air Resource Board will soon consider whether to amend the Low Carbon Fuel Standard to require that gasoline manufactured in California produce less carbon-intense emissions. Meanwhile, the media has focused on the likelihood that this would likely raise the price of gas.

The post DSA-LA Voter Guide is Here + LA Over Budget On Liability Claims appeared first on The Thorn West.

In the last year, the US and Israel have killed over possibly 200,000 Palestinians and devastated millions more lives in its genocidal assault to destroy Gaza and the West Bank. […]

The post Statement After One Year of Resistance to Genocide appeared first on Houston DSA.

Thorn West: Issue No. 216

State Politics

• The deadline for Governor Newsom to sign or veto state legislation passed on Monday. Prominent legislation vetoed by the governor include SB 1047, an AI safety bill, SB 961, a bill that mandated new cars sold California warn drivers when they’re speeding, and AB 3129, which would have allowed the state to block private equity purchases of health care facilities. Further roundup here. 

• Newsom approved several bills that derived from the work of the California Reparations Task Force, including one that required the state to acknowledge and formally apologize for the its role in American chattel slavery. However, Newsom vetoed SB 1050, which facilitated restitution for those who had property taken through racially motivated eminent domain, because it relied on a separate bill to establish a Freedmen Affairs Agency, which was stalled just before the legislative deadline.

• It’s rarely noted in media coverage of vetoed legislation, but of the 189 bills Newsom vetoed, 170 passed with veto-proof majorities in both chambers. However, the legislature has not overridden a governor’s veto since 1979.

City Politics

• Newly appointed City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson sat for an interview with LA Public Press

• Leaked documents revealed that the state attorney general wants Los Angeles to redraw council districts ahead of the 2026 election, after the most recent redistricting process in 2020 was discredited by scandal.

• Mayor Bass has appointed former Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell to serve as chief of the LAPD. Next, City Council will vote on the appointment.

• Two candidates from DSA-LA’s 2024 endorsement slate have received endorsements from the LA Times: Karla Griego for School Board District 5 and Ysabel Jurado for CD 14. To help get DSA-LA’s endorsed candidates elected, see our event calendar, or sign up for a working group here.

Housing Rights

• DSA-LA was part of a coalition that organized a tenants and workers solidarity march on Saturday to demand affordable rent and liveable wages. This year, the city will reconsider the formula that determines how much  rent on the city’s rent-stabilized units can be raised each year. DSA-LA is organizing to ensure that the adjustments favor tenants; see here for more.

• The city of Los Angeles must increase its zoning capacity by 250,000 residential units to comply with state housing law. The LA Times notes that almost all of this added capacity is currently being planned for already dense areas. This makes it more likely that building the new units will come at the expense of tenants, and will require demolishing existing rent controlled units.

The post Tenants and Workers Rally for Fair Rent and Wages + Gov Newsom Vetoes 16% of 2024 Legislation appeared first on The Thorn West.

Yesterday, HDSA members showed up in solidarity with the @ilasagcd dockworkers on day one of their strike on USMX. 45,000 workers are on strike for the first time since 1977, […]

The post Statement On ILA Strike appeared first on Houston DSA.