Local Subgroup Officer Elections Timeframe and Processes

It’s time to elect a new leadership body for our Chapter’s Local Subgroups (Committee and Working Groups)! In the coming weeks, DSA Los Angeles will be holding elections for the next Committee and Working Group leadership, whose terms will be one year and begin at the end of this month (January 2021).

HERE IS THE LINK TO THE NOMINATION FORM

NOTE: Due to a bylaws change voted on by members at the 2020 convention, committee leadership elections are being conducted differently than they have been in previous years. The Nominations committee would like to acknowledge that this has led to some confusion and questions regarding the upcoming DSA-LA committee leadership elections.

All committee leadership will be voted on by the entire chapter membership.

Bylaws language (In Article VI, Sec 2) has changed between this year and last year that changes voting membership from committee membership to rank-and-file membership of the entire DSA-LA Chapter. You can read DSA-LA’s bylaws HERE.

Please email [email protected] with any questions!

 

ELECTIONS TIMELINE

  • Wednesday January 6: Candidate filing period opens (link above).  All candidacy submission forms and candidate eligibility information can be found below.
  • Friday, January 15th at 11:59PM: Candidate filing period closes.

  • Saturday, January 16th: Final candidate list and statements released to membership.

  • Tuesday, January 19th: Voting period opens. (Different than last year, the entire chapter will be voting on Committee leadership, rather than just subgroup members).
  • Tuesday, January 26th 11:59pm: Voting period closes.

  • Wednesday, January 27th: Election results released to membership.

CANDIDATE STATEMENTS

Candidate statements are available at the link HERE

GET TO KNOW THE CANDIDATES

Each individual Committee/Working Group may choose to arrange its own separate meeting, forum, or discussion for their leadership candidates. These meetings/discussion will be required to be made available to the entire membership via Zoom call.  You can view all scheduled Committee/Working Group election-related discussions or meeting here: (this page will be updated on an ongoing basis).

VOTING SYSTEM

According to the bylaws, Nominations Committee is responsible for administering the elections for Local Subgroups. Different than last year, committee leadership will be voted on by the entire chapter rather than solely by the members of any given committee. 

The DSA-LA Local Subgroup Officer Elections will be using ranked-choice voting, specifically modified Borda Count. The modified Borda Voting system was used for the 2018, 2019, and 2020 DSA-LA Local Officer elections. Voters rank candidates in order of preference and candidates are awarded points based on their ranking.  An incomplete ballot results in all un-ranked candidates receiving an equal number of points (the number of points determined by the first rank not submitted by the voter).

For example, in this system, the voters will rank eight candidates in order of preference for five at-large positions on the DSA-LA Steering Committee. Your first choice vote will receive 8 points, your second choice vote will receive 7 points, descending down to 1 point for your eighth choice. If you were to submit an incomplete ballot ranking only three candidates, your first choice vote will receive 8 points, your second choice vote will receive 7 points, your third choice vote will receive 6 points, and each un-ranked candidates will receive 5 points. The points awarded to each candidate will be tallied. The top five point-getters will make up the at-large body of the Steering Committee. 

Committee/WG Positions, Eligibility Requirements and Candidacy Submission Forms

This page includes information regarding each of the DSA Los Angeles Committee / Working Group elected leadership positions, leadership candidate eligibility criteria, and candidate submission forms. 

Committees

  • Administrative Committee
  • Agitation & Propaganda (Agit-Prop)
  • Climate Justice
  • Electoral Committee
  • Healthcare Justice
  • Housing & Homelessness
  • Immigration Justice
  • Labor
  • Mutual Aid
  • NOlympics
  • Political Education
  • Prison Abolition

ADMINISTRATIVE COMMITTEE

About the Committee:

Administrative Committee is established in order to implement the basic administrative work of the local. It is responsible for the work of promoting recruitment, member development, and the healthy growth of the organization — leveraging the resources offered by the chapter’s various committees, while supporting and working through all branches of the chapter.

Elected Leadership Positions:

  • Chair (1)

Candidate Eligibility Criteria

  • DSA-LA member in good standing
  • Candidate must be a part of Admin’s appointed membership

AGITATION & PROPAGANDA (AGIT-PROP)

About the Committee:

The DSA-LA Agitation and Propaganda (Agit-Prop) committee is dedicated to furthering the goals and work of DSA-LA and it’s committees and working groups. As democratic socialists we recognize that everyone is a product of the oppressive and capitalist system they were raised in, and that countering the narrative of the capitalist hegemony is a key step towards building a more just world. 

  • Platform
  • Email: agitprop(at)dsa-la.org

Elected Leadership Positions

  • Chair (2 Co-Chairs will be elected)
  • Coordinator

    Candidate Eligibility Criteria

    • DSA-LA member in good standing
    • Have attended two (2) AgitProp Committee meetings in the last 12 months

    CLIMATE JUSTICE

    About the Committee

    The Climate Justice Committee of DSA-LA recognizes the current moment as a historical apex; one that must end with the dismantling of capitalism as well as the reconstitution of society and its relationship to the Earth. In our dedication to a politics that places people and the planet before profit, the Climate Justice Working Group of DSA-LA will work to agitate, educate and organize on the local, state and national levels for an ecosocialist future in which democracy and equity are united with sustainability.

    • Platform
    • Email: climatejustice(at)dsa-la.org

    Elected Positions

    • Chair (2)
    • Coordinator (2)

    Candidate Eligibility Criteria

    • DSA-LA member in good standing

    ELECTORAL COMMITTEE

    About the Committee:

    The Electoral Committee shall be a five member Standing Committee elected by the Local. The responsibilities of the Electoral Committee shall be: Advancing the Local’s electoral strategy, Advising and supporting the Steering Committee in maintaining relationships with Local member-electeds, Facilitating Local Endorsements, including coordinating votes to ensure that the Local is not overburdened, Establishing and coordinating open non-deliberative bodies or subcommittees to expand and implement the chapter’s electoral work and strategy, including supporting any working groups established in support of Local Endorsements. Electoral Committee members may not be employed by campaigns seeking Local Endorsement.

    Elected Positions

    • At-Large Committee Chairs (5) 

    Candidate Eligibility Criteria

    • DSA-LA member in good standing

    HEALTHCARE JUSTICE

    About the Committee

    The DSA-LA Healthcare Justice Committee seeks to achieve a socialist health care system, clear from profit motives, as a human/moral right for all.

    • Platform
    • Email: healthcare(at)dsa-la.org

    Elected Positions

    • Chair (2)
    • Coordinator (2)

    Candidate Eligibility Criteria

    • DSA-LA member in good standing
    • Have attended at least two (2) meetings or HCJC events in the past twelve (12) months.

    HOUSING & HOMELESSNESS

    About the Committee

    Given Los Angeles’s persistent housing crisis and capital’s return to the city’s urban cores, we do not view housing access and protections, rising rents, land speculation, environmental degradation, and homelessness as discrete issues. Rather, they are bound intimately together, each amplifying the others and creating stark, tangible manifestations of the ways capitalism displaces and dispossesses our communities.

    Elected Positions

    • Chair (2)
    • Coordinator (2)

    Candidate Eligibility Criteria

    • DSA-LA member in good standing

    IMMIGRATION JUSTICE

    About the Committee

    The Immigration Justice Committee fights to organize and support the self-organization of immigrant communities as a central struggle in the larger fight against capitalism.

    • Platform
    • Email: immigrationjustice(at)dsa-la.org

    Elected Positions

    • Chair (2)
    • Coordinator (2)

    Candidate Eligibility Criteria

    • DSA-LA member in good standing

    LABOR

    About the Committee

    The Committee is dedicated to developing worker consciousness and solidarity, both within our chapter and among the greater Los Angeles community. At the national level, the Committee also works in conjunction with the Democratic Socialist Labor Commission (DSLC), a network of DSA committees, working groups, and other bodies that formally interacts with other organizations that belong to or support the labor movement.

    Elected Positions

    • Chair (2)
    • Coordinator (2)

    Candidate Eligibility Criteria

    • DSA-LA member in good standing
    • At least one co-chair must be a union member who is not also staff of a union

    MUTUAL AID

    About the Committee:

    Mutual aid is a voluntary exchange of resources and services for the mutual benefit of all people involved. It involves comrades coming together to work as equals for the common good by assessing what people need and what people can provide. Mutual aid projects come from and are run by the community rather than nonprofit workers, foundations, or charity programs created by the ruling classes. No one is made to feel inferior for receiving help, as it is fundamentally an organic and egalitarian social relationship, not a material one based on hierarchy, and everyone provides what they can rather than separating into “givers” and “receivers.”

    • Platform
    • Email: mutualaid(at)dsa-la.org

    Elected Positions

    • Chair (more than 1 can be elected)
    • Coordinator (more than 1 can be elected)
    • Administrator (more than 1 can be elected)

        Candidate Eligibility Criteria

        • DSA-LA member in good standing
        • Per Mutual Aid Committee Bylaws, chapter members interested in running for a Committee Officer position must be a Committee Member in Good Standing[1] and have attended 10 committee meetings in 2020, with 5 of those being in the second half of the year, and 2 of them being in the last quarter.[2]

        PLEASE NOTE: Eligible candidates for Mutual Aid Committee Officers will receive a separate email from the Nominations Committee. If you have not received this email and feel that is an error, please write us at [email protected]. 

        NOLYMPICS

        About the Working Group

        The NOlympics LA Coalition is changing the conversation on an LA 2024 2028 Olympics, because the Olympics destroy communities and kill cities. Regardless of how “successfully” they are executed, these “Games” will expose tens of thousands of our fellow Angelenos to incalculable risk and feed the problems which are already devastating and destroying the fabric of our communities today, while depriving us of the resources we need to make the city better. Our goal is still to stop the Olympics.

        • Platform
        • Email: nolympics(at)dsa-la.org

        Elected Positions

        • Chair (2)
        • Coordinator (2)

        Candidate Eligibility Criteria

        • DSA-LA member in good standing
        • NOlympics-LA member in good standing

        POLITICAL EDUCATION

        About the Committee:
        Capitalism has taught us that a society structured around an endless quest for profit and the pursuit of individual self interest is natural; as socialists, we identify capitalism as the artificially imposed set of relations that it is. The Political Education Committee seeks to challenge what is understood to be “common sense” under capitalism and offer ongoing opportunities to expand our collective understanding of socialist concepts, histories, and strategies.

        • Platform
        • Email: politicaleducation(at)dsa-la.org

        Elected Positions

        • Chair (2): Responsible for ​formulating agendas, and for facilitating regular meetings. Helps maintain focus and move forward on the program and priorities that were established by the Committee.
        • Coordinator (2): Responsible for staying updated on ongoing work and opportunities to collaborate and share resources across DSA-LA’s Internal Resource and Issue-based Committees. 

        Candidate Eligibility Criteria

        • DSA-LA member in good standing
        • Have attended at least three (3) committee meetings and two (2) of any external facing event in the year leading up to the election.

        PRISON ABOLITION

        About the Committee

        The DSA-LA Prison Abolition Committee works toward a future of total prison abolition, which entails the abolition of all forms of the carceral state, including policing as well as public and private prisons. We work toward building well informed and researched alternatives that foster a fair and equal society that come in many forms: rehabilitation, medical and mental care, health care in the form of food, housing, physical and community support. We wish to collectively demystify the idea of prison abolition and work toward a future void of punitive and vindictive justice where every person’s humanity is realized.

        • Platform
        • Email: prisonabolition(at)dsa-la.org

        Elected Positions

        • Chair
        • Membership Coordinator
        • Coalition Coordinator
        • Communications Coordinator

          Candidate Eligibility Criteria

          • DSA-LA member in good standing
          • Must have attended at least one (1) Prison Abolition Committee meeting some time in the last five (5) months