The Thorn West is a state and local news roundup compiled by members of DSA-LA. Our goal is to provide a weekly update on the latest developments in state and local politics, and to track the issues that are most important to our membership.

Issue No. 161 - June 9, 2023

State Politics

• Stricter work requirements for people who receive welfare benefits, recently implemented at the federal level as part of negotiations over raising the debt limit, may clash with California law, which has been trending in the opposite direction.

City Politics

• Knock LA covers the wave of violent right-wing anti-LGBTQ+ protests at local schools, which began last Friday at Saticoy Elementary School and intensified this week in Glendale. Coverage draws attention to the failure of the LAPD to intervene to protect people against this violence, and the failure of the local press, which has repeatedly characterized the protests as being led by “concerned parents” despite the presence of Proud Boys and other known right-wing activists with no personal connections to the schools.

• By a 12 – 0 vote Friday, the LA City Council voted to adopt a sanctuary city motion co-introduced by councilmembers Nithya Raman, Eunisses Hernandez, and Hugo Soto-Martinez. Sanctuary city policies, which prohibit local city departments from collaborating with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), have long been a target of DSA-LA campaigns.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies violently arrested two volunteers at a Pride event in West Hollywood. The arrests followed comments made by one of the volunteers objecting to the presence of police at Pride events. The arrests stemmed from a warrant issued on spurious charges of “robbery” stemming from an incident at a protest of a drag queen story hour event in April, where a far-right activist had a phone knocked out of his hand. Follow-up statement from Stonewall Democratic Club here.

Labor

• The membership of SAG-AFTRA has voted 97.91% in favor of strike authorization, ahead of the guild’s contract negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Pictures and Television Producers, which began on June 7. A strike has not yet been called. More in Jacobin.

• Metro recently implemented a program of having Transit Ambassadors on public transportation to help riders. This weekend, many of the workers in the program, who are employed by a third-party contractor, will hold a unionization vote.

• As the Los Angeles Times Guild is in negotiations with management over a new collective bargaining agreement, workers at the paper were blindsided with a wave of layoffs. Statement from the guild here.

Transportation

• Beginning on July 1, Metro will introduce fare-capping. As long as riders purchase all of their trips on the same TAP card, all rides will become free after spending either $5 a day or $18 a week. The original Metro proposal included raising fare prices and reducing free transfers, but those changes were scrapped after negative rider feedback.

• This week the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to amend the county traffic code to allow bicyclists to ride on the sidewalk in all county unincorporated areas.

Environmental Justice

• LA City Council approved a motion from Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez to study the costs and feasibility of a “cooling mandate” for all rental units citywide. Currently, air conditioners or central air are not required to certify a rental unit as habitable in California.

• The California Senate passed legislation that would require public and charter schools and districts to strategize on how to introduce more shade on campus, plant gardens, and use alternatives such as grass and wood chips to replace surfaces that hold on to a lot of heat.

• LAist explains how “community solar” programs — neighborhood-sized solar projects of a scope between the industrial and the individual-consumer level — could make access to the benefits of solar power more equitable.