Friend,

As 2019 comes to a close, DSA-LA resolves to double down on its commitment to envision and work towards a transformative politics that'll shift power from capital to people. 

Already in recent months, our members have been hitting the streets, phones, and every channel at our disposal, in support of Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign. Bernie's at the top of the polls in California and we have seen an influx of new members as a result of our campaign.

In fact, here's an important campaign update:

If you’re registered to vote in California as “no party preference” but you’d like to vote for Bernie in the Democratic primary on Super Tuesday, March 3rd, you can remain unaffiliated and still vote for him by filling out the form that was send to you in the mail, and returning it today.

Hate filling out forms? You can always switch your registration to the Democratic party by visiting registertovote.ca.gov. The last day to register to vote in the primary is 15 days ahead of the election, February 18th.

In other important election news: DSA-LA has voted as a chapter to endorse our member, Nithya Raman, for Los Angeles City Council District 4.

Council District 4 encompasses Hancock Park, Hollywood, Hollywood Hills, Larchmont, Los Feliz, Miracle Mile, Sherman Oaks, Silver Lake, Toluca Lake, Windsor Square, and a portion of Koreatown. CD4 is home to hundreds of DSA-LA members.

Nithya Raman is most well known for her recent work as Director of Time’s Up Entertainment, where she’s championed the voices of Hollywood workers who have suffered abuse, harassment, and retaliation on the job.

Before Time's Up, Nithya co-founded SELAH Neighborhood Homeless Coalition, which has organized hundreds of volunteers to administer mutual aid programs like food redistribution and mobile showers to benefit unhoused communities in the city.

While working for the City Administrative Officer in 2014, she wrote a critical report of the eight figure budget Los Angeles spent to criminalize its unhoused residents, rather than provide them with basic services or housing.

Earlier, Nithya founded Transparent Chennai in eastern India, where she advocated for running water and other basic sanitation services in severely resource-deprived areas.

Finally, she is the current Co-Chair of the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council’s Homelessness Committee. Her resume and dedication to eradicating homelessness in Los Angeles and beyond is clear.

Nithya has promised to fight for causes that are important to our membership and to working class people everywhere. She has pledged:

+ An immediate rent freeze in Los Angeles

Skyrocketing rents and accelerating homelessness are affecting the entire state, but CD4 has been suffering through both even worse than most areas in recent years. The majority of California voters say that rising rents and homelessness are their number one concerns heading into 2020. Nithya recognizes that housing is a human right, and has pledged to take bold action on housing accessibility immediately.

+ A carbon neutral Los Angeles by 2030

The 2019 IPCC report has warned the world that if we don’t reduce our carbon emissions drastically by 2030, then we’ll be facing certain catastrophic climate change. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has pledged to reach a carbon neutral Los Angeles by 2050, 20 years after the most urgent deadline in the history of the planet.

Nithya's key primary opponent is incumbent David Ryu, who campaigned for office in a district plagued by housing unaffordability and homelessness on the pledge that he would rebuke campaign contributions from developers. As the Los Angeles Times recently reported, Ryu’s workaround has been to simply take that money from those developers’ brokers, lawyers, and contractors instead. Ryu has raised an unprecedented amount of money for a Los Angeles City Council campaign.

In fact, as of recently, almost half of Ryu’s publicly visible campaign contributions came from outside of Los Angeles. He also takes questionable donations from folks looking for certain business licenses in CD4, particularly people connected to concert promoters, hoteliers, big cannabis, and even literal foreign agents like Richard Smotkin, a lobbyist for the Moroccan government who infamously helped arrange a trip for disgraced Trump EPA head Scott Pruitt. Each of these donors would be thrilled to do more business in Hollywood and the rest of CD4.

In the past year, DSA-LA has stood side by side with the striking workers of the UAW and with the striking teachers of UTLA. We also campaigned successfully for the election of DSA-LA member Jackie Goldberg to the Los Angeles Unified School District Board.

We look forward to hitting the ground for Nithya in the coming weeks and months, and to helping deliver real change to City Council this March.

If you’d like to join the DSA-LA for Nithya Raman campaign, please click here.

MORE NEWS:

+ Our membership has approved a proposal for the chapter to pursue the rental of an office space.

The chapter Steering Committee is now tasked with: establishing the parameters of an appropriate office space; researching the cost and availability of office space; returning to the general membership within two months with office space proposals; and producing a report on the potential impact to our chapter's financial health as a result of securing an office. The pursuit begins!

+ Tomorrow, Saturday, at 11:59 p.m., is the deadline to vote for our next Steering Committee and Branch Coordinators for our Central, San Fernando Valley, and Westside chapter branches.

You can learn more about the roles and read all of the candidate statements by clicking here.

If you didn’t get a ballot in your inbox and you think you should have, double check for emails from “[email protected] via Survey Monkey”. If you didn’t receive a ballot, contact [email protected] for assistance.

Finally! If this applies to you: Renew your DSA dues, or sign up for a new membership!

Renew or sign up by December 31st, and the national DSA office will mail you the lovely, attached “Housing Is A Human Right” stickers. Get 'em while they're hot!

To get involved with any of our chapter projects or committees visit dsa-la.org

Solidarity forever!

DSA-LA

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