The Nomination Committee will do our best to publish these statements in Spanish as well, however the translation and proofreading will take additional time, so we’ve decided to release the statements in English for now, especially with the Candidate Forum coming up so quickly! Please note that Jason Small has withdrawn his candidacy for Steering At-Large and Alissandra Valdez has withdrawn her candidacy for San Fernando Valley Branch Coordinator.

Steering Committee Candidates

Steering – At-Large

Addley Walker

Andrew Richard Perrine

Aura Vasquez

David Abud

Miloš

Jack Suria Linares

Yvonne Yen Liu

Steering – Campaigns Coordinator

Leslie C

Steering – Communications Director

Lori D

Steering – Recording Secretary

Andre Arguelles

Dan McCrory

Steering – Treasurer

Nick H

Branch Coordinator Candidates

Central Branch

Alex M

Arielle S

Eastside & San Gabriel Valley Branch Coordinator

Janet Hurtado

Janet Yuen

San Fernando Valley Branch

Duane Paul Murphy

South Central Inglewood Branch

Adriana Cabrera

Westside Branch

Mark Gaynor

YDSA Coordinator

Abdullah Farooq

Childcare For All LA Campaign Working Group Co-Chair

Carley Towne

Farzana W.

Steering Committee Candidates

Steering – At-Large

Addley Walker

How long have you been a member of DSA-LA?

Around 5 years

What experience do you have organizing within DSA-LA? (e.g. What projects and in what capacity have you participated in DSA-LA?)

I’ve mostly involved myself with the Housing and Homelessness Committee, with a large focus on Street Watch.

Do you have any experience organizing with other organizations? If so, which and in what capacity?

Yes I’ve done work with a few different orgs, mostly around my involvement with Los Angeles Community Action Network, which is where I learned what it was like to organize around issues of poverty. I mostly helped organize the ticket clinic, a place where Skid Row residents could find pro bono help from lawyers, largely revolving around landlord issues. I also had a hand in miscellaneous other efforts, such as data entry and direct action planning.

Why are you running for this position?

I’m trying to investigate the structure of our organization in order to help better understand how to align our actions with our mission, which are things I think that have diverged. While I will do my best to uphold the work and projects which members have poured great amounts of time and love into, I feel that most of us are ready to reassess what it is we are building here together.

What skills do you feel you have that contribute to the position for which you are applying?

Through years of dedicated study of the contemporary materialist theory of contradiction espoused by such thinkers as Slavoj Zizek and Alenka Zupancic, I feel that I am prepared to engage with our chapter recognize and respond to our internal antagonisms, which is necessary if we are to hold ourselves together instead of splitting apart. Through attentive listening and solid communication skills, I can help connect disparate ideas in our multi-tendency organization to actualize real collective action.

What are the most important successes the Local has achieved over the last year? Why do you consider these to be the most important?

I’m sorry but I have been absent from the chapter over the course of the pandemic, and can’t pinpoint any particular successes. While getting back in touch with the org in general I’m impressed what folks have been able to do, but I have to admit it is dwarfed by what I believe are our failures, such as providing an actual alternative to the Democratic establishment which runs Los Angeles.

What are some of the most important areas of improvement for the Local? How can these improvements be made? How will you contribute to this improvement?

From my perspective the local is not cohesive, but fractured, and lumbering. I also do not think that this problem is one that ends with our chapter, and I sincerely question what relevance the DSA as an organization even has today. The political moment that lifted me into the org seems to have fallen flat and disappeared. However I do not merely want to wander in its ruins, and believe it is absolutely essential we meet the problems of today with a strong socialist answer. While I work for what membership has decided to do, I will try and help the chapter process and reconcile with its issues, some of which may take lots of difficult discussion for us to even recognize, and some of which may not be possible to overcome in our current form, necessitating change.

What should the Local prioritize over the next year?

Strengthening the ties between different work in our chapter so that we can better coordinate our efforts and respond to problems we face creatively.

What will be the biggest challenges for the Local over the next year?

In the most general terms I think our biggest challenge will be overcoming a fear of taking risks, while honestly and rigorously assessing our failures and limits..

What implications will each of the Local’s Priority Resolutions have on the position you may hold? (Green New Deal for Public Schools, The DSA-LA Organizing Institute, and Childcare for All)

I was not involved with convention and until recently have been away from the chapter since 2019. I don’t have any opinions on these resolutions. They are all great in name, and in the aims they have articulated, but it will depend for me on how they unfold.

Andrew Richard Perrine

How long have you been a member of DSA-LA?

Since December 2017

What experience do you have organizing within DSA-LA? (e.g. What projects and in what capacity have you participated in DSA-LA?)

I’ve done a lot of stuff, from formal leadership as Labor Coordinator 2019, Mutual Aid Coordinator 2019, Co-chair 2020-2021, Westside Branch Coordinator 2020, and interim Prison Abolition Chair currently, I’ve also been involved in projects including but not limited to Prop 10 Canvassing, Bernie Canvassing, Phonebanking for DSA-LA member Fatima Iqbal-Zubair (who is running for re-election btw and you can sign up here https://fatimaforassembly.com/get-involved/ ), being involved in various abolitionist campaigns such as the Prisoner’s strike in 2018, helping bottomline the Westside Neighborhood Hangout, heading up the Community Defense subcommittee from 2019-2021, abortion defense in 2018 when we did that, serving as Comms Liaison for MA 2019, part of the Organizing For All Task Force 2019-2020 for the Westside Branch Representative, National Convention Delegate 2019, being part of the BDS Working Group, heling with Mutual Aid Free Brakelight Clinics, as many anti-oppression and conflict resolution events as I can manage, being in the Queer Caucus, the Libertarian Socialist Caucus (Zapatista), and also helping chair the Rapid Response Network as part of the Black Liberation Task Force, along with helping out with the Political Education training requirements under that, and also trying to do Neighborhood Organizing and Phonebanking people on the Westside for last year’s In Response to Crisis resolution. I also regularly facilitate the Definitive Readings About Mutual Aid’s book club series. Also, as comrades reminded me upon helping edit this, I also am a part of the BDS National Working Group, working the the Elections and Education sub-committee on chapter platforms and questionnaires and educational film screenings; if you’d like to support our efforts, please see the link below, or contact me directly (nomcom: Please delete this sentence but I welcome the contact info of people looking to talk about the BDS WG). Also, I guess it still counts, but I’ve been active in Streetwatch since 2018, on and off.

Do you have any experience organizing with other organizations? If so, which and in what capacity?

Yes, I organized with Occupy ICE even when DSA-LA refused to be involved them, I’m an active member of Ground Game LA, I’m an at-Large member of the Symbiosis Federation and helped draft the founding documents and facilitate at their convergence (as well as efforts to start up a local liberarian Municipalist federation), I’m involved in the Bus Riders Union, I help with transit and homelessness issues in Mar Vista Voice as well as general anti-nimby measures and mutual aid, and have also worked with the Labor Federation and others to plan the post-biden victory March for Democracy and May Day 2021.

Why are you running for this position?

I am deeply dissatisfied with what I’ve experienced as almost willful breaking of our chapter work. It doesn’t have to be this way. A steering committee less committed to its own internal politics at the exclusion of other work can empower members to do what they are truly passionate about, to become more involved in projects that inspire them to deepen their involvement in socialism

What skills do you feel you have that contribute to the position for which you are applying?

I’m able to listen, I try to build up towards consensus solutions to work for as many as possible, as broadly as possible, but also don’t leave critical groups behind.

I try to engage others actively in the work. I seek out delegation and empowerment.

I’ve tried to keep everyone as comrades so they can come and talk to me, though the last year has laid bare that I’ve had shortcomings–just simply materially, with how things went down.

What are the most important successes the Local has achieved over the last year? Why do you consider these to be the most important?

While I know it’s been only a corner of the org, the BDS working group has been some of the work I’ve been proudest to ever have done in DSA. I came into this organization knowing that many serious and committed socialists, many who I consider my elders and mentors, considered the vast majority of the membership to be… well, little better than useless liberals on the very important issues of internationalism and opposing things like military funding. But when we all got into the street, we built up relationships with Palestinian Youth Movement to the point where it was clear there was a relationship with a real, respected org, well known for their struggle against imperialism and oppression, and making inroads with their community–and because we had that relationship, we were invited to help with other organization’s events, and start building up a coalition–and also training them from our own deep experiences with street actions on how to better, and more safely, carry them out–and intensify their struggles, even.

This has all recently been dashed with the exclusion of any meaningful stand for their solidarity with our platform, however, and the NPC’s handling of Jamaal Bowman’s crossing of the BDS picket line has likely made further relationships very difficult, and we’ll have to re-engage with the process of trust building if it’s possible. But if we can’t stand up for these kinds of relationships we’ll be very much up a creek without a paddle.

What are some of the most important areas of improvement for the Local? How can these improvements be made? How will you contribute to this improvement?

We’re really falling into a critically low engagement where we can’t even engage all of our members. It’s hard to grow, and well, a lot of members I talked to only had brief tenures, and felt very alienated by the way they were onboarded and such–sadly, I can only do so much individually and in my small corner of the org to keep everyone around. And there’s only so much we can do overall as well. But it’s just a really low depressing morass, especially with the prevailing narratives about engagement and building power.

Also, I don’t think we do a good job of listening. Many friends have left as they don’t feel their concerns over anti-blackness and/or queerphobia were at all respected over this past year. ANd when that’s almost all of our black membership, and we’re repeatedly wronging the like this, we build up a reputation–and it’s one I’d say we earned, at least vis a vis my own queerness allows me to look into that. I mean, it’s been two years since the LGBTQ caucus published a piece supporting Bernie in Wehoville, with meetings with steering and the public, and the closest we’ve come to a solution is “If steering is nice we can get resources.” It really does feel like we’re just expected to *behave*, that our queerness is being policed–and while I don’t want to minimize worries about members flying off the handle completely, I do hope others can have empathy–or at the very least a materialist analysis of our own organization–and see how this behavior can be really not great towards a group that’s still got to put up with a lot of shit with society (and I mean, I understand how privleged my fluidity lets me be, going around as a cis white male as much as I want).

What should the Local prioritize over the next year?

Member engagement. We have a larger chapter membership and actual participation has dwindled over the past few months as people have burnt out or been disaffected by previous leadership decisions, or the effects thereof.

Look, I know my more specific politics are well known, but the more important thing has always been making a working organization where people can do things, and seeing that being fought over has been just so very disappointing. I’m not here to shut down the Hugo campaign because I’m jaded and cynical about any chances of singular city council races doing much good with how Nithya’s term has been going. I’m not going to tell everyone to get into Leimert Park and organize against Metro penalizing the poor by continuing racist fare and code of conduct policies. But I’m going to try to make space for people to incubate the work they want to do, to work with others in the ways they can, and maintain some sense that this is a *socialist* organization in the ways that are important: Socialism, democracy, and liberation. At least as far as we can push it.

What will be the biggest challenges for the Local over the next year?

Probably engagement after so many of our members feel that there’s little point in engaging, being entirely lost, or being so disconnected they never really consider engaging. And that’s to speak of nothing like the large number of people who consider the DSA unable to cope with problems of racism, queerphobia, etc., or unwilling to meet them on their level to engage them in a project. As our guest facilitator from the IAF said in DRAMA’s reading of Braiding Sweetgrass, “Mostly I just expect the DSA to be asking me to be the Red man in their ‘Multiracial Working Class,’ and don’t show any solidarity beyond that.”

What implications will each of the Local’s Priority Resolutions have on the position you may hold? (Green New Deal for Public Schools, The DSA-LA Organizing Institute, and Childcare for All)

I am convinced that our priority resolutions, decided in many cases by only 100 or so members in an organization of 5,000, will further marginalize us into oblivion and obscurity like many a leftist microsect (just with an unusually large mailing list), while claiming to be ever closer to a ‘mass movement’ as our active membership shrinks (in the same damn pattern). It became clear at convention that the only means to power through the two external ones was through door-knocking, at least as they were intended, and a narrow ideology.

Aura Vasquez

How long have you been a member of DSA-LA?

I have been a member of DSA since 2012

What experience do you have organizing within DSA-LA? (e.g. What projects and in what capacity have you participated in DSA-LA?)

I have been a community organizer with my family since I was a child. With DSA-LA my experience organizing has been leading the climate justice committee. In 2021, we organized a series of webinars to educate the community on climate justice and capitalism. We also created a map of places where there is urban oil drilling in our neighborhoods. Most recently, I helped develop the strategy for a Green New Deal for Public Schools in Los Angeles. I also supported the electoral work in 2020 for the Nithya Raman campaign. I am a member that also ran for office in 2020 and was supported by DSA-LA.

Do you have any experience organizing with other organizations? If so, which and in what capacity?

I am an experienced organizer in Los Angeles. I started my career in California organizing with the Pico Network on immigrant rights issues. I also worked as an organizing representative for the Sierra Club, where I led the campaign that got LA off of coal power by 2025. With the Center for Popular Democracy, I participated in efforts to lead 14 different states around climate justice issues. I have served on multiple boards, such as the Koreatown Neighborhood Council, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and the LA League of Conservation Voters. Currently, I’m the chair of the Climate Action Committee for the Sierra Club Angeles Chapter and I’m also elected to their executive committee. I also co-founded a mutual aid organization at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic called Ready To Help Mutual Aid Community Network.

Why are you running for this position?

I’m running to be part of the steering committee because I want to bring my extensive experience in organizing and winning campaigns. I’m also part of a lot of efforts in Los Angeles, and I can be a great bridge between other organizations and DSA-LA. More importantly, I want the Steering Committee to be accessible and to be a place where our community feels heard. I’m willing to put in the time to make sure that we create a process where everyone’s voice is counted. Also, I want us to look at our campaigns from an organizing lens where we win policies that can improve people’s lives.

What skills do you feel you have that contribute to the position for which you are applying?

I have over two decades of professional organizing experience. I have served for LADWP, the largest public utility in the country as a commissioner. I have spent a big chunk of my career training other organizers on how to run successful campaigns, both electoral and issue based. I take great pride in being a “forever” student and keep sharpening my skills every day.

What are the most important successes the Local has achieved over the last year? Why do you consider these to be the most important?

We helped elect Nithya Raman to the City Council. That is huge! We have an ally and someone that we can count on to help us move our local resolutions.

What are some of the most important areas of improvement for the Local? How can these improvements be made? How will you contribute to this improvement?

We have an engagement problem. Our reach is big in Los Angeles but DSA-LA members are not engaged at the rate that we need them to in order to win our campaigns. We need to change the way we communicate with folks and how we engage them. We need more training and give people responsibility. I have years of experience engaging diverse communities on how to take action. I’m ready to share my knowledge and experience with the steering committee and DSA-LA to have an engaged constituency that will shape and change the way Los Angeles is today and bring improvements to peoples’ lives.

What should the Local prioritize over the next year?

2022 is an election year, we need to make sure to support policies to get the money out of politics and get good candidates that reflect our values in office. We have some exciting resolutions that we need to lay the foundation for. Also, help pass local ordinances that can get us the policy goals that we need.

What will be the biggest challenges for the Local over the next year?

I believe economic recovery after the Covid19 pandemic is one of our biggest challenges. Also, addressing climate change with the urgency that it requires. We have the opportunity to put people back to work and revitalize our economy by enacting a Green New Deal. Every night in Los Angeles, thousands of our neighbors don’t have a place to sleep. We need to address this issue by pushing to house folks first and pairing that with wrap-around services.

What implications will each of the Local’s Priority Resolutions have on the position you may hold? (Green New Deal for Public Schools, The DSA-LA Organizing Institute, and Childcare for All)

I’m currently leading the Green New Deal for Public Schools at the Climate Action Committee and also I’m the point person for the working group. Passing a city-wide resolution that will bring funding to decarbonize our schools, teach students about the benefits of renewable energy in their curriculum, and greening up their open space is something I’m planning to bring to the Steering Committee.

David Abud

How long have you been a member of DSA-LA?

6 months

What experience do you have organizing within DSA-LA? (e.g. What projects and in what capacity have you participated in DSA-LA?)

While I have only been a member of DSA LA for a few months, I have been involved with DSA since 2016 when I spearheaded a number of direct actions with the immigration committee around sanctuary policies, deportation defense campaigns, and protests surrounding the election of Mayor Eric Garcetti.

Do you have any experience organizing with other organizations? If so, which and in what capacity?

I am the Lead Organizer at the Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance. I have coordinated campaigns on the local, state, and national level, as well as transnational campaigns involving the migrant caravans in 2017 and 2018. I have expertise in running grass-roots deportation defense campaigns, as well as policy campaigns while I worked at the National Day Laborer Organizing Network as a Regional Organizer. I was the field lead for the Jackie Goldberg campaign for school board in 2018, and in 2020 I ran the Koreatown field program for the Nithya Raman for City Council campaign. Currently, I lead a number of labor and workplace organizing campaigns at KIWA in the restaurant and retail industry.

Why are you running for this position?

I want to be able to contribute to socialist organizing in a more significant way, and organizing is my expertise. I have significant experience training and developing organizers, as well as recruiting from ethnic and racial backgrounds that seem to be lacking in DSA nationally and locally. DSA-LA has the capacity to be a large power player in LA politics as well as on the grass-roots level, and I think I have the tools and expertise to be able to bring DSA-LA´s organizing work to build a local that is ready to fight and win.

What skills do you feel you have that contribute to the position for which you are applying?

My experience as an organizer, as well as the relationships I bring locally, nationally, and internationally, my fluency in Spanish and a deep knowledge of the LA organizing and political landscape.

What are the most important successes the Local has achieved over the last year? Why do you consider these to be the most important?

I think the continued engagement of socialist activists and the building of DSA-LA into the city’s largest socialist organization is significant.

What are some of the most important areas of improvement for the Local? How can these improvements be made? How will you contribute to this improvement?

The development of strong and stable leadership that comes from diverse backgrounds representing the working class, as well as developing long-lasting permanent structures of power are significant ways the local can improve. Bringing DSA-LA to be a true political force that can win grass-roots, policy, electoral, and labor campaigns should be improved, and turning the local into a serious political force that is changing the landscape of power in LA. The locals ability to develop strong leadership, consistently recruit members, and develop and win innovative campaigns should all be improved.

What should the Local prioritize over the next year?

Recruiting and developing strong leadership, designing winning campaigns, and recruiting a strong membership base.

What will be the biggest challenges for the Local over the next year?

The lack of a continuous recruitment mechanism, clear power structures, and strong leadership will be significant challenges for the local.

What implications will each of the Local’s Priority Resolutions have on the position you may hold? (Green New Deal for Public Schools, The DSA-LA Organizing Institute, and Childcare for All)

I am very excited for the commitment to organizing. Through my work, I have developed a strong organizing methodology that can be easily replicated and scaled up which I think will lead to a very powerful local.

Miloš

How long have you been a member of DSA-LA?

A year

What experience do you have organizing within DSA-LA? (e.g. What projects and in what capacity have you participated in DSA-LA?)

I was a neighborhood organizer in Koreatown, and helped start the neighborhood walks program. I am also on the International Committee with DSA National.

Do you have any experience organizing with other organizations? If so, which and in what capacity?

20 years of experience, from anti-Milošević protests in Yugoslavia, organizing against the anti-Iraq war in the US, labor organizing with my graduate employees union in Illinois (IFT/AFT Local 6300) – I was a communications officer for said union, and we won two strike actions and negotiated salary increases and benefits for those in our bargaining unit. In Germany, I organized in a migrants’ and refugees’ rights organization that successfully campaigned to get an immigration detention center closed. I also have experience organizing in right-to-the-city organizations in Serbia and Bulgaria. This included this summer, when we won a change in Belgrade’s urban plan, bringing a heavy rail subway line to 60 000 people in four working-class neighborhoods. I’d like to bring that experience and those connections to DSA-LA leadership.

Why are you running for this position?

I believe DSA-LA is at a critical juncture. It’s membership participation is shrinking, and in order to be a relevant force in city politics we must rethink some of how we do things – from meetings to political action.

What skills do you feel you have that contribute to the position for which you are applying?

Beyond my academic qualifications, I have worked within a number of leftist organizations, both as a member and a part of leadership (listed above). I’ve led demonstrations, organized publications, meetings, campaigns, film screenings. I also have extensive contacts in leftist organizations in Europe and the Middle East, whose knowledge we could lean on. Some of these have been successful at taking power at a local level.

I am also one of the few, or perhaps the only candidate for DSA-LA Steering who has lived under socialism. That kind of subjectivity and experience can only benefit in shifting our strategic discourse from what is possible under capitalism to what had already been possible under different regimes. Indeed, I’d like to serve the role of living proof that there is an alternative to the present order.

What are the most important successes the Local has achieved over the last year? Why do you consider these to be the most important?

In my experience, the neighborhood organizing program was very effective in bringing people of different backgrounds and tendencies together around a shared goal. I’d like to help think about how we can grow those kinds of programs in DSA-LA.

What are some of the most important areas of improvement for the Local? How can these improvements be made? How will you contribute to this improvement?

We have to become a force in local politics, from the grass-roots level to the electoral. This means taking seriously how we think about major urban issues in Los Angeles – housing insecurity, transit and transportation, state and public violence, displacement and cost-of-living.

What should the Local prioritize over the next year?

We should prioritize local, urban politics – housing insecurity, transportation and transit, as well as the displacement of minoritized and working populations.

What will be the biggest challenges for the Local over the next year?

Becoming a relevant force in local politics, by garnering the strength of our membership instead of letting it dissipate.

What implications will each of the Local’s Priority Resolutions have on the position you may hold? (Green New Deal for Public Schools, The DSA-LA Organizing Institute, and Childcare for All)

I believe some of these resolutions can be a crucial component in a wider vision for a socialist Los Angeles. That said, I do feel the resolutions must fit within a broader political platform for the chapter. It is our task to develop that together.

Jack Suria Linares

How long have you been a member of DSA-LA?

I joined DSA-Los Angeles 8 years ago in January 2014, when I signed up as a volunteer in the NYC national headquarters. I was 20 year old in YDS as a lead organizer of the End Student Debt campaign throughout the various colleges and universities. Throughout 2014, we ended up forming 6 YDS clubs thanks to the work of the campaign in Columbia University, The New School, New York University, CUNY Graduate School, The City College of New York, and Lehman College.

What experience do you have organizing within DSA-LA? (e.g. What projects and in what capacity have you participated in DSA-LA?)

I served as Central Branch Coordinator during 2020, helped found the nonprofit workers circle back in 2019, and had previously co chaired the Immigration Justice Committee (IJC) in 2018-2019. Through these various leadership roles I moved a cohesive strategy that combined an internationalist vision with recruitment objectives and emphasizing the Angeleno working class. In IJC, I moved program to expand political education on the attempted coup in Venezuela and the coup in Bolivia, invited guests to speak to DSA-LA on how to organize immigrants due to the most recent Central American Exodus, and generally amplified the reality that for DSA-LA to succeed we must recruit Angeleno immigrant workers as they hold leverage in various industries critical to running the city.

Do you have any experience organizing with other organizations? If so, which and in what capacity?

In October 2019, I helped coordinate an Immigrant Workers National Day of Action in Downtown Los Angeles of almost 400 Angeleno workers showing up on the streets demanding an end to deportations. Through IJC, I coordinated with groups like UTLA, CISPES, IDEPSCA, and other groups that could not be publicly supported within the nonprofit world. We spoke with these groups, both to endorse the action, but also to give serious commitments of 1-1 outreach of their bases to make sure we amplified the demand and organized workers to take action. We also worked to ensure we had marshaling and many of the attendees mentioned it was the first time they felt that a march was seriously organized throughout. We had over 20 organizations speak throughout the day and it appeared on the news briefly.

In addition, key work that I do for DSA at a national level is to build relationships with our international partners all over Latin America and the U.S. I have done this with groups in Costa Rica, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Bolivia, and Japan amongst others. I established a partnership with the Farabundo Marti Liberation Front, the Mass Workers Party in El Salvador and it led to coordinated support during their local elections and when the Right wing assassinated political activists, I helped fundraise over $5000 as DSA. FMLN mentions repeatedly to their base that we have been the only organization abroad to take seriously the internationalist dimension of class struggle in its regional contexts. Now, FMLN has agreed that their members living in the U.S. should build close relationships with DSA chapters and the Los Angeles contingency has established communications with us and to support our endorsed candidates through fundraisers, GOTV, and outreach about DSA.

These two examples are serious ways of coalition building where our partner groups and individual members join DSA, some of which are now leaders inside DSA, and generally embrace our work.

Why are you running for this position?

I am running to be reelected to the Steering Committee as At-Large member because I want to establish a Growth and Development Department to provide a chapter wide strategy on recruiting Immigrant Workers. The Steering Committee has the power to establish such a department as this would be general support for our external facing campaigns. Unfortunately, there was a lot of push back to discuss strategy, recruitment, and envisioning a chapter that reflects Los Angeles as it is, not as it has been or as we wish it to be. I am running for DSA-LA Steering Committee because I have serious experience in shifting this situation at a national level, and in specific ways in Los Angeles. I recruited and trained over 50 immigrants during the 100K drive, many of which are now active in different organizing spaces including neighborhood councils, IJC, and tenant organizing.

What skills do you feel you have that contribute to the position for which you are applying?

I believe that my greatest skill has been on power mapping Los Angeles politics by implementing a recruitment strategy directly tied to our labor and electoral work, as well as the ability to work with coalition partners in a way that does not leave us as junior partners but amplifies DSA and our vision for the U.S. Through DSA-LA I was able to recruit my coworkers to DSA and we all unionized our workplace over the course of 3 years. The union then began taking DSA seriously and built a relationship where the union provided financial resources and we organized workers to both join DSA and establish union contracts in other workplaces. Similarly, I have negotiated with liberals to support expanding the right to vote for noncitizens in LAUSD as a general tactic to expand community power.

What are the most important successes the Local has achieved over the last year? Why do you consider these to be the most important?

The greatest achievement that DSA-LA has made over the last year is the publication of the Democratic Socialist Program which sets up our municipal strategy for the next 6 to 8 years. As a main writer and editor of the program, I am honored and excited to see a comprehensive yet short strategy document that reflects a materialist analysis of Los Angeles, understands the coalition that we will have to work in to succeed, and presents serious transformative reforms that strengthens the working class and builds up DSA’s collective power throughout the county. It is the type of strategy analysis that will shape U.S. history if we are able to implement it as a coordinated effort.

In addition, the Labor circles have expanded throughout various industries, and have garnered experience and strength throughout multiple unions. DSA-LA members are more now than ever before realizing that we are all workers and organizing around concrete demands in our workplaces.

What are some of the most important areas of improvement for the Local? How can these improvements be made? How will you contribute to this improvement?

DSA-LA is stronger, more politically developed, and more organized than ever before but our chapter still faces many hurdles in our attempt to build and maintain the power of workers in Los Angeles. This task is all the more difficult when the chapter does not leverage externally facing campaigns with strong internal structures. These are essential to building organizational unity, and without organizational unity, we will always punch below our weight.

Although chapter membership expanded greatly, having tripled in membership based on the actual Angeleno working class, it is the first year since 2017 that our chapter seriously confronted the question of membership retention and leadership development. This was most evident through the uneven development of branches and branch leadership. Further, although consensus has been established at a chapter and national level that DSA is a mass organization of workers, there are still ongoing attempts to sideline majoritarian perspectives of the general membership. Finally, elected leaders across the board resigned throughout the year citing personal reasons, activist burnout, political motives, or a general inexperience of coordinating at a scale of a 5,000 membership chapter.

This assessment is not meant for criticism, but for an honest assessment with the general membership on the state of the chapter, which is crucial as we attempt to foresee the path to victory for the organization long term. DSA-LA proved over the last two years that our positions and organizing capacity can obtain serious concessions from the status quo. In doing so, DSA-LA is proving to the larger Los Angeles Left, and to our enemies, that we are a mass socialist organization shaping regional politics. DSA-LA also proved that regional branch organizing amplifies retention and continues to grow our membership, as shown in the Eastside, Central, and Westside branches.

As a Steering Committee member, I will work to establish a Growth and Development Department for DSA-LA to assess our weaker branches like San Fernando Valley Branch and South Central Branch and recruit Angeleno workers to run these branches with the strong external-facing campaigns of C4A and GND4PS.

What should the Local prioritize over the next year?

DSA-LA must prioritize our GND4PS and C4A campaigns throughout our branches and combine where possible these demands on the specific platforms of our 2022 electoral endorsements. We also must amplify the DSP every moment we can so that the Democratic Socialist constituency which helped Bernie Sanders win the California Primary can learn about DSA and have a stronger understanding of what we need to work on for this upcoming decade.

What will be the biggest challenges for the Local over the next year?

As we move on to 2022, the attention on our organization will grow as we tackle serious strategies to build power. DSA-LA is entering a year that will define Los Angeles politics for the next decade. From union bargaining, international crises, to local, state and federal midterms, all 5,000 DSA-LA members will be engaging in external facing struggles year round. That will be our biggest challenge: How do we engage our members to embrace themselves as protagonists, expand our own experiences and capacities, so that we can define and shape struggle. 2022 provides the opportunity for DSA-LA to test our power and become a real force in social movements. And ultimately, to govern.

What implications will each of the Local’s Priority Resolutions have on the position you may hold? (Green New Deal for Public Schools, The DSA-LA Organizing Institute, and Childcare for All)

I am fully aligned with these Priority Resolutions and believe the will of the membership has made serious commitments to work together to ensure these succeed.

Yvonne Yen Liu

How long have you been a member of DSA-LA?

1 year 7 months

What experience do you have organizing within DSA-LA? (e.g. What projects and in what capacity have you participated in DSA-LA?)

I participated in the neighborhood council project and was elected along with a slate of DSA-affiliated candidates to the LA32 Neighborhood Council.

Do you have any experience organizing with other organizations? If so, which and in what capacity?

I have 20 years of experience organizing as a social anarchist. I became politicized by the global justice movement in the early aughts and organized youth turnout for mobilizations against free trade agreements. I have been affiliated with different organizing projects over the years, including the War Resisters League, United for Peace and Justice, Institute for Social Ecology, the Institute for Anarchist Studies, the Industrial Workers of the World, and Bring the Ruckus. More recently, I’ve been active in the solidarity economy movement, co-founded a worker self-directed nonprofit Solidarity Research Center and served on the board of the US Solidarity Economy Network. Currently, I work at the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW).

Why are you running for this position?

I want to bring my deep background in organizing and movement building to build a strong movement to resist and build, as my mentor Emily Kawano says, or build and fight from Kali Akuno. We need to resist the current attacks on the safety net and the public good, and build a new world in the shell of the old. This is our moment, during the COVID recovery, to propose a new vision for our city.

What skills do you feel you have that contribute to the position for which you are applying?

Research, data analysis, mobilizing, network building

What are the most important successes the Local has achieved over the last year? Why do you consider these to be the most important?

The neighborhood council project is an important win towards building progressive power at the local level. We held a study group to understand municipalist movements across the world.

What are some of the most important areas of improvement for the Local? How can these improvements be made? How will you contribute to this improvement?

I think we could focus less on electoral campaigns and more on building popular power.

What should the Local prioritize over the next year?

We need to prioritize building our membership and developing leadership among our members, especially by BIPOC. We also need to integrate an analysis of racial capitalism throughout our political platform.

What will be the biggest challenges for the Local over the next year?

I think the expiration of the eviction moratorium will create a housing crisis for Angelenos that we will need to respond to.

What implications will each of the Local’s Priority Resolutions have on the position you may hold? (Green New Deal for Public Schools, The DSA-LA Organizing Institute, and Childcare for All)

The local priority resolutions will guide the decisions I make if I am seated as an at-large steering committee member.

Steering – Campaigns Coordinator

Leslie C

How long have you been a member of DSA-LA?

1 year 9 months

What experience do you have organizing within DSA-LA? (e.g. What projects and in what capacity have you participated in DSA-LA?)

When I joined DSA-LA in March 2020, I was primarily involved with establishing and building out the Eastside + San Gabriel Valley branch. This included leading efforts to formalize our branch, serving on the provisional coordinating committee, and coordinating data needs to bring new local organizers into Neighborhood Organizing. From that experience, I joined the Admin Committee (AdCom) and coordinated our efforts to run the 100k Recruitment Drive locally, and helped Branch Coordinators organize around Resolution 3: In Response to Crisis (Neighborhood Solidarity Program). This past year, I built off these efforts as a member of the Steering Committee. In my capacity as Campaigns Coordinator, I worked with Branch Coordinators to develop work plans and build local organizing capacity; worked with our Events Production Team to hold chapter and branch meetings; drove content creation for our Local Convention; and developed chapter-wide trainings to further our membership’s understanding of how to build strategic campaigns. As a member of Steering, I also participated in our weekly meetings to support operations within our chapter.

Do you have any experience organizing with other organizations? If so, which and in what capacity?

On the electoralism end, I’m an elected delegate for 49th Assembly District of the California Democratic Party (ADEMs) and I’ve led canvassing and phone banking efforts for school board and city council elections. Outside of elections, I’ve previously organized with Greenpeace to fight oil drilling and advocate for setbacks from oil drilling sites around the Los Angeles area, including San Pedro, Wilmington, and Aliso Canyon. I currently volunteer with Wealth for Health at their free COVID-19 and flu vaccine clinics.

Why are you running for this position?

As the largest mass socialist organization, DSA-LA is well positioned to catalyze change at the local level. We must, however, BE organized if we want to be successful AT organizing. Our organization should be structured to allow us to achieve our long-term goals of activating a broad, working-class constituency, diverse not only in terms of class and race but also ideas. This necessitates setting out a clear Theory of Change that articulates DSA-LA’s overall goals, the pathway that we need to take to actualize impact, and the stakeholders that we must involve in our work as we build the power to win.

I see these activities as central to the Campaign Coordinator’s responsibility of facilitating internal and external coordination needed to build campaigns. I am running for the Campaigns Coordinator position to ensure that our campaigns are adequately resourced, encourage mass member participation, and contribute to our overall goals as a chapter. I want to ensure that all rank and file members are empowered with the tools and skills necessary to build winnable campaigns in their neighborhoods and workplaces. This includes ensuring that all members who join DSA-LA understand what it means to be a part of a socialist organization, have a clear sense of how the chapter operates and how we plan to achieve material wins, and can meaningfully contribute their skills and experience to further our movement. In taking on this responsibility, I hope to work closely with our newly developed campaign working groups, BCs and neighborhood organizers, committees, and coalition partners to ensure that we are building collective power.

What skills do you feel you have that contribute to the position for which you are applying?

My professional background is rooted in global health and development, and I have experience working in countries throughout the global south. Centering the community and building hyperlocal consensus and capacity was key for all of my projects. I bring a strong, bottom-up organizing perspective and understand how to effectively communicate socialist ideals to a diverse and wide range of communities. As one of the Campaigns Coordinator’s primary responsibilities is to track DSA-LA’s coalitions and external relationships, my field experience and knowledge of the local organizing landscape will be extremely useful identifying not only where we can execute winnable campaigns but also where we need to grow strategically to build out our overall capacity.

In my current position, I set my company’s short- and long-term strategy, identify a clear Theory of Change, and articulate a pathway to achieving our overall vision. My work involves building out organizational capacity to better communicate both internally and externally, identifying clear metrics to evidence progress against goals, and ensuring that all stakeholders are collaborating effectively. As the other half of the Campaigns Coordinator position is to ‘coordinate the activity of committees, branches and working groups, including assisting in the organizational structure, ensuring meetings of the committees operate according to principles of transparency, accessibility, and full participation, and reporting back to the Steering Committee on the progress and operations of committee and the Local’s campaigns,’ I am uniquely qualified to support building out our organizational structure and ensuring that there are clear avenues for communication and member engagement across the chapter.

Finally, 2021 was the first year that the Campaigns Coordinator position was introduced. In my role this year, I learned a lot about not only what it means to be a part of DSA, but also what it takes to steer a chapter of our size. Although people come to DSA with differing political tendencies, we are united in our belief that society deserves an alternative to capitalism, one that is rooted in the people; one that gives the people power. This year, we exercised our capacity to organize in the midst of a pandemic. While COVID-19 is ongoing, we’ve learned about the internal structures and processes needed to drive member engagement forward. Looking ahead, I’m excited for the opportunity to further institutionalize our Campaign Working Groups so that we can unite our membership and engage our community around our external campaigns: Green New Deal for Public Schools and Childcare 4 All.

What are the most important successes the Local has achieved over the last year? Why do you consider these to be the most important?

What separates DSA-LA from other organizations is that we’re proud socialists. We have a unique vision for the world, one that guarantees equality of opportunity for all. As the progressive shift to the left continues to play out on the local and national spheres, we need to continue to build power over the ruling elite so that we have the power to make demands. As such, I believe the shift toward organizing at the local level is one of the most important successes we achieved over the last year. With so many members organizing at the site of struggle, we will be able to materially demonstrate that socialist ideals and politics can work for people. Our overall membership growth is a testament to our ability to speak to the working class, while the development within our branches and neighborhood groups demonstrate our ability to be responsive to local demands.

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What are some of the most important areas of improvement for the Local? How can these improvements be made? How will you contribute to this improvement?

I see three main, interrelated areas of improvement for our chapter. The first is building out a better process for onboarding new members to ensure that all comrades achieve political fluency in socialist ideas and praxis. As a relatively new member, I’m thankful for the comrades that helped me find my place within DSA-LA and want to ensure that all comrades have the opportunity to find their respective niches. This will ensure that our chapter is not only growing our active membership base, but also retaining comrades as well. I look forward to continuing helping guide the work that is being done around new member onboarding and engagement in branches, especially through the lens of recruitment through our external campaigns.

The second main area of improvement is ensuring that all areas of the chapter (from neighborhoods to committees and caucuses) are clearly communicating so that there is more transparency in all of our work. This hedges against duplicating work while ensuring that learnings and best practices are shared widely, provides another opportunity to bring new members into our work, and serves as an ongoing temperature check to ensure that we’re being accountable to our constituency and goals. This aspect of organizational structure and communication is one of the primary reasons the Campaigns Coordinator position was developed, and it’s also why Steering passed a policy to develop Campaign Working Groups. I look forward to working closely with co-chairs, branch coordinators, and committee chairs to ensure campaign success.

Finally, our membership must recognize that our campaigns belong to all; not just specific committees or within the working groups. I hope that we can continue our shift toward organizing at the local level. Bringing campaigns and recruitment down to the neighborhood level gives us the opportunity to empower all members, not just a few, to build socialist campaigns.

What should the Local prioritize over the next year?

In addition to the aforementioned, DSA-LA should prioritize implementing all resolutions that passed at the October 2021 convention, growing our membership in traditionally underserved communities, clearly articulating a local strategy that is inclusive and responsive, and ensuring that we allocate resources accordingly.

What will be the biggest challenges for the Local over the next year?

COVID-19 will continue to be the biggest challenge for us as organizers, both in terms of surfacing new local injustices to address and also in being a barrier to meeting up and working in-person. While we have adjusted to organizing online and have been able to identify meaningful ways to support the communities we live in, we should continue to identify ways to be inclusive in the way we organize while being cognizant of safety. Internally, we need to bolster our onboarding process and political education so that our members are part of DSA-LA beyond just in name. Steering can be a stronger driving force in helping steer our membership and defining for members what it means to be part of a socialist organization. This includes clearly defining how our internal democratic processes work, why we only strategically identify three priority campaigns a year, and how we–as a chapter–can lead campaigns and build power in a way that is different from other political organizations or non-profits. There is a unique value proposition in the existence of our organization and we need to do a better job defining it for members so that we don’t continue to amass paper members without growing our core group of organizers. On a macro-level, we are continuing to see the ruling elite prioritize corporate interest over the people and echo calls for a return to normalcy. As socialists, we know that we are at the juncture of socialism or barbarism, and that we must fight the system so that our society moves away from barbarism. The fight will not be easy, nor will it be won in a short time-frame. We should be prepared to stand up to those in power where we work and where we live, while bringing more people into our movement.

What implications will each of the Local’s Priority Resolutions have on the position you may hold? (Green New Deal for Public Schools, The DSA-LA Organizing Institute, and Childcare for All)

All three priority resolutions will impact the Campaigns Coordinator position, in that I want to ensure that all three are successfully implemented across the chapter. These are ambitious resolutions that involve a multi-stakeholder approach in developing the strategy, workplan, and implementation. I anticipate that my primary responsibility will be building out our organizational infrastructure to ensure that comrades have the means to work together, while providing project management oversight to ensure that comrades are actually working together. As I will also be overseeing campaigns, coalitions, and external relationships, I will be able to synthesize information across the chapter and plan to work with comrades to ensure that we’re clearly identifying areas of strategic growth and taking steps to build our capacity where we don’t currently have it.

Steering – Communications Director

Lori D

How long have you been a member of DSA-LA?

One year

What experience do you have organizing within DSA-LA? (e.g. What projects and in what capacity have you participated in DSA-LA?)

– Communications team and Admin Committee: Compiling DSA-LA Weekly newsletter, helping support website redesign, development of the comms ticket system, social media, editing press contact list, onboarding new members to the comms team based on skills survey answers, facilitating comms team meetings.

– Canvassing for Pasadena Rent Control campaign

Do you have any experience organizing with other organizations? If so, which and in what capacity?

– Socialists of Caltech: Abolition Discussion Group Co-Chair (weekly meetings to discuss readings on police and prison abolition), organizing community bake sales for abortion access, Organizational Health Co-Chair (supporting the good&welfare of the organization, reorganizing Slack and developing community guidelines, hosting weekly check-ins)

– YDSA Caltech club staff advisor

Why are you running for this position?

As a communications professional, I’ve built up a skill set (listed below!) that I would love to apply to building a socialist future. I am extremely excited for DSA-LA’s future and I would love to use my skills to support the chapter’s comms needs, help to build up our presence within Los Angeles by communicating our work and our wins, and help build up future organizers.

What skills do you feel you have that contribute to the position for which you are applying?

Press and media relations, writing, editing, social media strategy, WordPress / AirTable / Trello / Action Network, efficient meeting facilitation, delegating tasks and making specific asks, empathetic listening. I’m excited to keep building the comms team to both have redundancy in skills and also to find organizers with complementary strengths and skill sets!

What are the most important successes the Local has achieved over the last year? Why do you consider these to be the most important?

Endorsing DSA-LA member Hugo Soto-Martínez is a hugely important opportunity to seriously challenge Mitch O’Farrell and pull the city council leftwards. Helping to plan the May Day march and getting turnout was also very important to visibly demonstrate DSA’s presence in LA and solidarity with workers. Even though this year was still so challenging with the pandemic, there are several campaigns that are getting people engaged and excited (Hugo, Pasadena Rent Control, CalCare, Childcare4All, GND4PS). This is really heartening to me that DSA-LA members are not simply content to be a social affinity group, but are constantly finding ways to organize for a better world even in the face of an incredibly difficult year.

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What are some of the most important areas of improvement for the Local? How can these improvements be made? How will you contribute to this improvement?

Being unable to meet in person has led to some tensions and siloing. I think one way to fix this—specifically from a comms perspective—is if we more regularly update each other (across committees) about the things that everyone is organizing around. One way to do this would be to improve our weekly newsletters to be more informative not just about upcoming events and announcements, but also to include notes from various committees about what’s going on. As comms director, I would regularly check in with committee leaders to figure out how to promote their work—not just events, but reflecting on successes and room for improvement—and advertise opportunities to get involved to members and non-members. Intentionally talking about our successes, internally and externally, is critical to continually remind Angelenos of who and what we are fighting for.

What should the Local prioritize over the next year?

We should of course prioritize the resolutions voted on by the membership at convention, but additionally, as 2022 is an election year, there is a huge opportunity to build the chapter’s presence in Los Angeles: letting people know who we are and how they can join, and building power to challenge existing structures from the Left. As an all-volunteer group, there’s only so much capacity we have; we should prioritize strategic and efficient organizing so as to not burn out our members. From a comms perspective, this means ongoing conversations within the chapter about what we’re doing and where we need extra help.

What will be the biggest challenges for the Local over the next year?

– The ongoing uncertainty of the pandemic threatens our momentum and it’s hard to know if we’ll have opportunities to build in-person relationships. We’ve built up some great digital infrastructure, but it can always be improved. I think the new Steering committee will need to keep informed about the state of COVID in LA and think carefully about how to support work both online and in person. Finally, as usual, retaining and expanding capacity while protecting the health and wellbeing of our organizers is an ongoing challenge. To address this, I’m excited for the new Rose Buddies program (developing a buddy system for new and old members) and the Organizing Institute!

What implications will each of the Local’s Priority Resolutions have on the position you may hold? (Green New Deal for Public Schools, The DSA-LA Organizing Institute, and Childcare for All)

I’m excited to work closely with these working groups to make sure that all of their comms needs (graphic design, event promotion, documenting progress, and so on) are met! Additionally, I’d be happy to help develop press releases and relationships with reporters to get the word out about our campaigns. As for the Organizing Institute, I’m excited for the development of future committee, branch, and steering leaders. Expanding organizing capacity helps to fight burnout and builds solidarity!

Steering – Recording Secretary

Andre Arguelles

How long have you been a member of DSA-LA?

1 year

What experience do you have organizing within DSA-LA? (e.g. What projects and in what capacity have you participated in DSA-LA?)

I began the year by diving into the chapter’s Communications team and working to build out the group’s capacity. In an internal role, I aimed to develop the chapter’s internal communication systems and create cohesion between disparate working groups. This primarily involved serving in a liaison role with Admin Committee and relaying communications and data needs between Comms and AdCom and work to bring more cohesion between the teams.

Halfway through the year I transitioned fully into AdCom after the committee completed its mandates, worked with the Events working group to create virtual meeting infrastructure during the pandemic, established processes for smoother chapter meetings, and worked as an admin on the DSA-LA Discussion Board. On a strategic level, I collaborated with comrades to re-evaluate AdCom’s role and laid groundwork to better fit AdCom for continuous service to the chapter and for sustainable growth. If elected, I will continue supporting AdCom’s growth in 2022.

Do you have any experience organizing with other organizations? If so, which and in what capacity?

Prior to joining DSA, I was involved in organizing with my hometown’s Democratic Club to canvass and phonebank for local candidates and actions. I also canvassed in Santa Clarita and in adjacent areas for Bernie in 2020 during his primary run.

In college, I worked with various on campus groups to organize around issues such as fair pay for lecturers, volunteered to support local left candidates, and collaborated with liberal arts and STEM students to educate and raise awareness of the civic and ethical intersectionality of the two fields.

Why are you running for this position?

The Recording Secretary is also uniquely positioned on the Steering Committee to hone in on the systems that keep our chapter functioning and organizers well-equipped. Currently, access to organizing tools and knowledge of its processes varies widely across committees, branches, and working groups. I will work to bring together all the administrative tools our chapter utilizes and create a robust training program for new organizers and arm them with the tools needed to succeed in their campaigns. In addition, I hope to increase chapter transparency by making chapter documentation and knowledge (meeting minutes, vote totals, etc.) readily available and easily accessible for our membership in a central location.

Despite our growth, DSA-LA is still an organization of limited resources. We need a method to determine where we can win the most with what we’ve got. This is why I will work to recruit and develop a robust data analysis group to work directly with committees and branches in order to harness the massive amounts of data our chapter takes in and distill it into clear avenues of action for our organizers.

Finally, I hope to collaborate with other chapter leaders to establish norms and expectations of working with member data to ensure we’re protecting the information of our members.

What skills do you feel you have that contribute to the position for which you are applying?

I bring a passion for the systems and structures that prop up an organization’s strategic campaigns and for our organizers. I’ve also directly worked with the systems, programs, and tools that maintain the backend of our chapter’s platforms including but not limited to the website, Spoke, and Action Network and will use my position on steering to make the chapter structures better serve its members.

What are the most important successes the Local has achieved over the last year? Why do you consider these to be the most important?

One of our greatest successes this past year was setting up infrastructure to stay connected despite a global pandemic and stay engaged in our work despite virtual meetings and physical distance. Our successes with language justice has generated more engagement within our chapter across a multilingual city like Los Angeles. But where do we go from here? The Democratic Socialist Program outlines a cohesive strategy and outlines a pathway to victory for DSA in Los Angeles through building collective power and coalition building. It’s now on us to implement the DSP, transition from just getting by to building momentum again, and strive to build power together.

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What are some of the most important areas of improvement for the Local? How can these improvements be made? How will you contribute to this improvement?

In prior questions, I outlined a number of shortcomings of our chapter but I believe the primary obstacle holding our organizers from succeeding more is the lack of a robust system that supports their needs. I will work to ensure our systems serve the people who use it.

What should the Local prioritize over the next year?

The local should first prioritize enacting the priority resolutions voted on in convention (GND4PS, Organizing Institute, Childcare). These will form the backbones to campaigns that will not only advance a democratic socialist agenda but also create bases of support to further recruit into DSA to build towards a mass organization.

It is also imperative to establish a sustainable and growing membership in order to build capacity that can champion our local priority resolutions. This directly ties into ensuring the success of the Organizing Institute and our Political Education committee to help our members not only gain a full understanding of what it means to be a democratic socialist but also take the next step to becoming successful advocates as future leaders of DSA.

What will be the biggest challenges for the Local over the next year?

As we move on to 2022, the attention on our organization will grow as we tackle serious strategies to build power. DSA-LA is entering a year that will define Los Angeles politics for the next decade. From union bargaining, international crises, to local, state and federal midterms, all 5,000 DSA-LA members will be engaging in external facing struggles year round. Our largest challenge will be encouraging our members to embrace themselves as champions of the democratic socialist cause and expand the party’s experiences and capacities, so that we can define and shape struggle. 2022 provides the opportunity for DSA-LA to test our power, become a real force in social movements, and ultimately govern. All in all, it is essential our chapter remains focused on our priority resolutions and long term strategy. It’s on all of us to work together on the objectives our chapter has agreed to over disagreement on the items themselves.

What implications will each of the Local’s Priority Resolutions have on the position you may hold? (Green New Deal for Public Schools, The DSA-LA Organizing Institute, and Childcare for All)

The Recording Secretary would best be able to help ensure local resolution success by directly coordinating with working groups to identify and target areas to achieve the most success. I would strive to work to remove the complexity in communication between the organizers and working groups by setting up norms and expectations when working with member lists and data.

Dan McCrory

How long have you been a member of DSA-LA?

Two years

What experience do you have organizing within DSA-LA? (e.g. What projects and in what capacity have you participated in DSA-LA?)

None

Do you have any experience organizing with other organizations? If so, which and in what capacity?

I was Recording Secretary of the National Writers Union from 2005-2020. I was president of Local 9503 Communications Workers of America and previously political director of all the CWA locals of Southern California. I have been president for the last 3 years of the AT&T Pioneers, a charitable group. I have also served as a commissioner to LA Unified and the United Way. I have also served on the KCET Community Advisory Board from 1994-2000 and again from 2017-2023. I have also run for State Assembly twice.

Why are you running for this position?

Because you need people to step up.

What skills do you feel you have that contribute to the position for which you are applying?

Experience and the ability to pull people together

What are the most important successes the Local has achieved over the last year? Why do you consider these to be the most important?

Building a connection with labor.

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What are some of the most important areas of improvement for the Local? How can these improvements be made? How will you contribute to this improvement?

More action. Less talk.

What should the Local prioritize over the next year?

Forming coalitions.

What will be the biggest challenges for the Local over the next year?

Integrating actions with other activists.

What implications will each of the Local’s Priority Resolutions have on the position you may hold? (Green New Deal for Public Schools, The DSA-LA Organizing Institute, and Childcare for All)

They require the attention of focused activism and I’m committed to them all.

Steering – Treasurer

Nick H

How long have you been a member of DSA-LA?

I have been a member of DSA-LA since the summer of ’19, and was a member of DSA Boston for four years prior to that.

What experience do you have organizing within DSA-LA? (e.g. What projects and in what capacity have you participated in DSA-LA?)

I was nominated and elected to the position of Mutual Aid co-chair mid-year and was also appointed to the administration committee mid-year as well. I have been predominantly internally focused with my organizing in this chapter, as I believe that a better run DSA LA can empower our members to achieve all our various goals.

Do you have any experience organizing with other organizations? If so, which and in what capacity?

In terms of political organizing, no, I have not done any formal political organizing outside of incidental collaborations and work with other organizations.

Why are you running for this position?

After our time and energy, I believe our chapter funds are the most important resource we can use to achieve our goals of building a base, developing class consciousness, and promoting socialism in this city. The Treasury has not worked to my satisfaction in recent years, so I would love the opportunity to do what I can to work on our Treasury. This includes the development of a support team which seems necessary given the amount of transactions and work the Treasury currently has to handle. I also believe it is important that we actively educate and encourage our members to think about how the Treasury can play a more active role in supporting their organizing.

What skills do you feel you have that contribute to the position for which you are applying?

In my professional life I am a CPA and a CFA, which simply means I have extensive financial skills and knowledge that can be brought to bear on our Treasury. I believe I have also displayed a level of competency with regards to administration and facilitation, as evidenced by my nomination and election to MA co-chair and appointment to the administration committee.

What are the most important successes the Local has achieved over the last year? Why do you consider these to be the most important?

I am cautious not to cherry pick specific campaigns or projects or outreach efforts. This has been an incredibly difficult year for everyone, and organizing in a pandemic has given rise to many challenges. This to me is what is the most important success we’ve had: adapting to the changing conditions and figuring out how to continue with the work. I imagine we will have to adapt many more times in the future as the political landscape of the country changes, and overcoming the challenges the pandemic posed to us shows resilience that I am proud to see and that I imagine we will need in the future.

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What are some of the most important areas of improvement for the Local? How can these improvements be made? How will you contribute to this improvement?

As I am predominately internally focused, I see a lot of opportunities to work on our organizational structure. Obviously Treasury is the area of focus that is most important to me and if elected I want to work hard to increase transparency and communication, reliability, and support provided by Treasury. Outside of Treasury though, member onboarding, retention, and leadership development are areas that I think need much attention.

What should the Local prioritize over the next year?

Again from my perspective there is a lot of internal work we need to focus on, especially in preparation for the midterms which will invariably bring a lot of people to the local and inform much of our work. Membership onboarding and retention will be critical as we build up to this moment. We have had lots of one-off membership onboarding and retention efforts, but we need something more durable and ongoing, and I look forward to the work of the Rose Buddies program to help address these challenges. I am also concerned about the lack of a marshaling capacity in the chapter currently, as I imagine there will be many demonstrations as we head into election season. Whether homegrown or in collaboration with Red Rabbits I would prioritize this after membership work.

What will be the biggest challenges for the Local over the next year?

Continuing to organize during a pandemic which shows no signs of abating will continue to be likely the greatest challenge we face. Thankfully we have developed a lot of institutional knowledge on how to organize in such conditions. I also imagine that midterm elections will require an immense amount of work from the chapter.

What implications will each of the Local’s Priority Resolutions have on the position you may hold? (Green New Deal for Public Schools, The DSA-LA Organizing Institute, and Childcare for All)

I want to ensure that the working groups focused on these priority resolutions are properly supported by the Treasury. They need to be proactively educated about how they can and can’t use funds, and promptly supported when that financial assistance is required and approved.


Branch Coordinator Candidates

Central Branch

Alex M

How long have you been a member of DSA-LA?

February 2021

What experience do you have organizing within DSA-LA? (e.g. What projects and in what capacity have you participated in DSA-LA?)

My primary experience in DSA has been in my neighborhood group (Los Feliz/East Hollywood/Hollywood/Hollywood Hills) and branch (Central Branch). This translated to tabling for Hugo, texting for the Food 4 Less demonstration, texting in support of East Hollywood street vendors, and handling logistics for the December Central Branch meeting. I also phone banked voters in Arizona and Virginia for the national campaign to pass the PRO Act.

Do you have any experience organizing with other organizations? If so, which and in what capacity?

I started organizing as a student in undergrad, spent an election cycle as a field organizer in a congressional race, and have spent the last six years as a union representative and organizer for school employees.

Why are you running for this position?

I am running because I think the neighborhood captains of the Central Branch have been doing an incredible job and I want to ensure our branch continues to grow and build collective power in our communities.

What skills do you feel you have that contribute to the position for which you are applying?

I think my experience as a union organizer/representative has given me the most directly applicable skills for work in DSA. I am used to building consensus, operating in an environment that is member governed and member driven, and supporting member’s development to take on a greater role in their organization. In the context of the Branch Organizing Committee, building consensus and elevating rank-and-file members will allow us to encourage active participation from new members, while creating cohesive political projects.

What are the most important successes the Local has achieved over the last year? Why do you consider these to be the most important?

To be frank, I think the last year, in a global pandemic, has been incredibly difficult in the local. It is hard to build the mass, high-participation, organization I believe our members want in the environment COVID-19 created, and that inherently limits our successes. That being said, an important success of the last year was DSA LA’s effort to elect dozens of socialists to Neighborhood Councils across the City of Los Angeles. While the neighborhood council system has its limitations, especially when it comes to structural power (as compared to say the city council), this campaign put socialist politics into a space traditionally dominated by the worst elements in municipal politics. Perhaps even more importantly, it put dozens of DSA LA members into conversations and sometimes coalition with their non-socialist neighbors and stakeholders. I believe every path to power includes our membership and organization reaching out beyond the choir.

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What are some of the most important areas of improvement for the Local? How can these improvements be made? How will you contribute to this improvement?

I think the areas I would like to see the local improve most in are: member engagement/development, new member recruitment, and data management.

As a neighborhood organizer and then captain it was disappointing to look at how many members we had never contacted except by mass email, a communication method that remains important, but has an abysmal response rate and doesn’t build the same relationships as small group or one-on-one conversations. Part of this is a capacity issue, part is a tech issue, and part is the lack of new member orientations. Every new member should be contacted shortly after joining and every new member should be invited to DSA 101 and then their neighborhood’s meeting. We have a brief moment when a new member signs up when their interest is at its highest. We should capitalize on that moment and help them find their place in the organization and connect with the work they want to do. This also feeds into longer term member engagement and development.

I am thrilled to see the DSA LA Organizing Institute has become a chapter priority and excited to see what it becomes! Right now there is a gap in our membership development. As a neighborhood organizer and then captain, I heard from multiple members who had volunteered their time, that they did not feel confident they had been well prepared to take on some of the work our local asked of them. We have skilled organizers, communicators, and logisticians in DSA LA. We should connect those knowledgeable people with members ready to take on greater responsibility so that they have meaningful training and mentorship as they take on more work for the local.

If we want to become a powerful mass organization capable of transforming Los Angeles, then we need to be a lot bigger. Developing existing members is important, but so is recruiting new ones. This means talking to people who are not in DSA LA now and convincing them to either work with us or join us. I am a big believer in reaching beyond the choir, I hope future member recruitment efforts will do just that.

Data may not be the most exciting part of organizing, but it is crucial to doing it well. Too often it feels like we are not tracking how involved a member is, what they have attended, or when they have been contacted and by who. We need to be better at collecting and using basic organizing data (like who attended an event, who signed a petition, how often we are contacting a member, etc.) if we want to take the Neighborhood Solidarity Program to the next level. This will require organization wide coordination to overcome the tendency to silo data in individual subgroups of the local.

What should the Local prioritize over the next year?

We should prioritize our priority campaigns (Hugo for City Council, Green New Deal for Public Schools, Childcare for All, and Organizing Institute) and overall membership engagement and recruitment. At the Central Branch we have seen member engagement ebb and flow over the past year. I think by prioritizing member engagement with our priority campaigns through our neighborhood groups and branches we can build both a stronger Neighborhood Solidarity Program and advance our local’s agenda.

What will be the biggest challenges for the Local over the next year?

I believe the two biggest challenges for the local over the next year will be continuing to engage, develop, and grow our membership in the reality of a seemingly endless pandemic and contesting for power while also playing defense in the November 2022 elections. The challenges of the pandemic to DSA LA’s work are well known to any member involved in the organization right now. While we continue to evolve our response and eased restrictions have given us more options, I do not foresee the organizational challenges stemming from COVID-19 ending this year. When it comes to the November 2022 election we have both the goal to elect working class champions like Hugo and defend our existing public goods (like public education) and working class institutions (like public sector unions) from right-wing attack. There are two school voucher initiatives circulating for signature that would take public funds from our neighborhood schools and send them to private and religious schools. Likewise there are two attempts to undermine public sector workers and their unions, one specifically targeting education workers by opening worker protections to legal challenge and one outright attempt to ban public sector collective bargaining in the state. Playing defense, supporting our allies, and picking up important wins by electing leftists is a lot to do in a single election cycle.

What implications will each of the Local’s Priority Resolutions have on the position you may hold? (Green New Deal for Public Schools, The DSA-LA Organizing Institute, and Childcare for All)

I think the branches will have a unique opportunity to engage with the Childcare for All and Organizing Institute resolutions in particular. I look forward to the Organizing Institute perhaps becoming a training ground for current and future neighborhood captains and organizers. Similarly, I think the branches are the unit at which work for Childcare for All canvasses and signature gathering should be done. Central Branch has a current system of connecting one of the neighborhood captains with each priority resolution’s working group so that the branch is routinely updated on the resolutions progress. I would like our branch to continue this process.

Arielle S

How long have you been a member of DSA-LA?

Since Dec. 2016

What experience do you have organizing within DSA-LA? (e.g. What projects and in what capacity have you participated in DSA-LA?)

I’m the current Central Branch Coordinator, where I’ve helped build the infrastructure behind our neighborhood organizing and grow a bench of organizers who constitute our Central Branch Organizing Committee, which has become an extremely collaborative environment for thinking through member engagement, campaign implementation, and more. I’m most proud of the number of new leaders who have become a part of this body, demonstrating how branch and neighborhood organizing is a concrete way to bring new members into day to day chapter activities.

I was previously the co-chair of the Housing & Homelessness Committee, where I presided over the rapid growth of our Street Watch initiative, launched the Tenant Organizing Circle to facilitate communication between our duel members of tenants associations and DSA-LA, and represented DSA-LA in the organizing committee of Reclaiming our Homes, which successfully reclaimed 13 vacant homes owned by the state for unhoused and precariously housed tenants.

In the past, I was Communications Director on the Steering Committee, during which I led the chapter’s first priority resolution campaign for Prop 10 — identifying and supporting canvass leads, cutting turf, developing our messaging and communications strategy, and more. I also helped plan our first chapter convention, organized our monthly chapter meetings and other large-scale events (such as a fundraiser for Alexandria Ocasio Cortez), and supported the development of our first three branches.

Nationally, I’ve been elected a delegate for the chapter to the National Convention twice, and in 2019 wrote a resolution to create a national Housing Justice Commission that was successfully adopted. Since then, I was elected to serve on the inaugural Steering Committee of this new body to support tenant organizing within chapters across the country.

Do you have any experience organizing with other organizations? If so, which and in what capacity?

In my day job I work in communications for a labor union representing healthcare workers, where I have learned a lot about how to engage rank and file members and use digital tools to track engagement — skills that have been directly applicable to my work as branch coordinator.

Why are you running for this position?

I think I’ve built a solid team in Central Branch to really focus on how to onboard new members and grow the organization, but still feel like I have a little more work to do in terms of ushering in and empowering new leaders through training and delegation. I want to stay in my current role to ensure that the Neighborhood Solidarity Program, which is still very new and finding solid ground, continues to be successful in the coming year.

What skills do you feel you have that contribute to the position for which you are applying?

I have a lot of experience facilitating bottom up decision making and infrastructure building, which has been demonstrated through the solid team we have built in the central branch over the past year.

On a basic level, I have strong administrative and organizing skills, with experience in building communications strategy, event planning, one on ones, digital organizing, meeting facilitation, strategic planning, and more. I also have a deep familiarity with how the organization is run both locally and nationally.

What are the most important successes the Local has achieved over the last year? Why do you consider these to be the most important?

I’m most proud of the implementation of the Neighborhood Solidarity Program, which has brought in new members and activated existing but inactive members into political education and work with one another on a hyper local level. I also think the creation of the Democratic Socialist Program is an important first step for the organization in terms of solidifying a real vision for how we hope to engage on a municipal level in our city, and helps make broader DSA goals easier to conceptualize on a local level.

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What are some of the most important areas of improvement for the Local? How can these improvements be made? How will you contribute to this improvement?

Most importantly, organizing and decision making need to be truly bottom-up, moved to accessible and mass organizing spaces and not siloed exclusively into committees. We’ve heard time and time again that the current chapter structure is inaccessible to new members, and we should create spaces that are truly open for everyone to get involved with, while not doing away with the committees that have created a lot of growth for DSA-LA up until now. Lastly, I strongly think we need to build in more study and discussion into all meetings, to help our members’ political development and root people in their neighborhoods and workplaces as the foremost site of struggle.

What should the Local prioritize over the next year?

I think we need to prioritize leadership development first and foremost, and our organizing institute resolution is an exciting development in this regard. We should see every DSA member as a potential leader who can facilitate class struggle. Since so many people who join DSA are new to organizing, though, I think we need to be intentional about giving everyone the confidence to be a leader and talk to people they don’t know about socialism.

What will be the biggest challenges for the Local over the next year?

I am concerned now that DSA-LA has a larger profile around candidate elections that we are going to hear more from candidates who don’t align with us — becoming a target for opportunists who aren’t actually interested in growing the socialist movement. The best way to counter this is through robust internal democracy, and I think the branches have a clear role to play in that. We also have to contend with our own growth — with thousands of new members, how do we make sure they have a clear way to participate? It’s our job to make sure DSA-LA is a permanent fixture in the multiracial working class of Los Angeles, and not just part of a leftist ecosystem that activists join. It’s also going to continue to be challenging to respond to the moment as we are organizing remotely under COVID. We have to prioritize making the chapter accessible for all members, especially new ones.

What implications will each of the Local’s Priority Resolutions have on the position you may hold? (Green New Deal for Public Schools, The DSA-LA Organizing Institute, and Childcare for All)

Every resolution has an implication in the branch, because I think every resolution should be implemented in the branch. I think a lot of members might not understand why that is, but it’s because the branch — being the body that has the closest proximity to members where they currently are — has the greatest ability to connect with members, onboard them to the organization, and activate them. This membership development process has clear connections to the Organizing Institute resolution, but I think it should have clear connections to our more external campaigns, too. Because every external campaign should think about how it activates members, how it does so in an accessible way, and how it could potentially bring new members in. These are things we’ve been thinking about and grappling with together as the Branch Organizing Committee together in Central LA, and I’m excited to continue to work with my comrades in this group to strengthen DSA and win some material gains for the working class in LA.

Eastside & San Gabriel Valley Branch Coordinator

Janet Hurtado

How long have you been a member of DSA-LA?

About 2 years

What experience do you have organizing within DSA-LA? (e.g. What projects and in what capacity have you participated in DSA-LA?)

I spearheaded the establishment of the Eastside/SGV branch. I led recruitment in the most successful recruitment drive of people of color into DSA-LA to date. It has seen the most growth of people of color, of immigrants, and of working class locals, more than any other branch, and I want to continue that work.

Do you have any experience organizing with other organizations? If so, which and in what capacity?

In 2019 I organized phone-banks and events for Bernie Sanders as a volunteer. Then the campaign hired me to be a field organizer. My job was to coordinate volunteers and reach voters in the San Gabriel Valley and Eastside. I mobilized an army of volunteers to canvass hundreds of voters. I walked alongside the volunteers and listened to what residents were concerned about. Our teamwork led to Bernie winning the area. My supervisors and colleagues say I’m good at getting people involved with causes. They say I’m friendly and persistent. I’m not afraid to talk to potential members whether it’s on the phone or in person. I still talk to the many contacts I made during my time on the campaign who say they value my opinion.

Why are you running for this position?

As a Mexican-American in California I live in a bubble surrounded by like minded people, but travel outside my bubble and you will find people are not as accepting of my beliefs. I want to travel anywhere in this society and feel like I belong, and I want each and everyone of you to feel the same way. But we’re not going to get that if we sit around waiting for the perfect organization before we grow. We improve our organization and movement by building it. Our strength as a socialist organization is in our people power, and so we need to grow – and if we want to be more rooted in the diverse working class of Los Angeles, we need to intentionally recruit, and not just wait for people to join on their own.

What skills do you feel you have that contribute to the position for which you are applying?

I’ve learned how to recruit and activate people as an organizer for Bernie.

What are the most important successes the Local has achieved over the last year? Why do you consider these to be the most important?

[Left Blank]

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What are some of the most important areas of improvement for the Local? How can these improvements be made? How will you contribute to this improvement?

There needs to be better communication between membership and leadership as to build relationships with members.

What should the Local prioritize over the next year?

Focus on working on the resolutions that the members voted for at the convention.

What will be the biggest challenges for the Local over the next year?

Making sure that new people who are entering the organization are being welcomed, are being given full background about what is going on, and clearly understand that they are being asked to fully participate in all decisions and ask any questions they need to in order to do so.

What implications will each of the Local’s Priority Resolutions have on the position you may hold? (Green New Deal for Public Schools, The DSA-LA Organizing Institute, and Childcare for All)

[Left Blank]

Janet Yuen

How long have you been a member of DSA-LA?

1 year

What experience do you have organizing within DSA-LA? (e.g. What projects and in what capacity have you participated in DSA-LA?)

I have worked on Bernie Sanders campaign as a canvasser, volunteer, and phone banker for his 2016 and 2020 campaign

Do you have any experience organizing with other organizations? If so, which and in what capacity?

See above.

Why are you running for this position?

I want to get involved locally.

What skills do you feel you have that contribute to the position for which you are applying?

Am deeply passionate about progressive issues. Have lots of charisma.

What are the most important successes the Local has achieved over the last year? Why do you consider these to be the most important?

Supporting universal healthcare. To care for those who are less fortunate

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What are some of the most important areas of improvement for the Local? How can these improvements be made? How will you contribute to this improvement?

Community building efforts

What should the Local prioritize over the next year?

Establish more of a community within the organization

What will be the biggest challenges for the Local over the next year?

The Republican party and the corporate Democrats

What implications will each of the Local’s Priority Resolutions have on the position you may hold? (Green New Deal for Public Schools, The DSA-LA Organizing Institute, and Childcare for All) What implications will each of the Local’s Priority Resolutions have on the position you may hold? (Green New Deal for Public Schools, The DSA-LA Organizing Institute, and Childcare for All)

I support all progressive policies listed on the DSA website.

San Fernando Valley Branch

Duane Paul Murphy

How long have you been a member of DSA-LA?

February 2021

What experience do you have organizing within DSA-LA? (e.g. What projects and in what capacity have you participated in DSA-LA?)

Since February 2021, I have been involved with various organizing projects with the Mutual Aid Committee and the LGBTQ Caucus such as marshaling direct action efforts involving Palestinian and Afghan solidarity throughout the city as well as marching for racial justice at Pan Pacific Park, reproductive healthcare justice in North Hollywood, and queer rights in Silverlake as well as assisting with skill share resources and connecting members with mutual aid information while being a San Fernando Valley branch liaison for the MA Committee. Additionally, I also conducted voluntary text message banking for Culver City Vice Mayor Daniel Lee’s special state senate election campaign with the Electoral Politics Committee.

Do you have any experience organizing with other organizations? If so, which and in what capacity?

As a former political campaign field organizer with the Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential primary campaign between October 2019 and March 2020, I have successfully organized, mobilized, trained, and recruited volunteers to door to door canvass in person, remotely phone bank, register, re-register, and pre-register voters to support our candidate. Additionally, I have had experiences in political organizing and resource outreach with People’s Action, the Washington State Democratic Party, and Equality California.

Why are you running for this position?

I am running to become the next San Fernando Valley Branch Coordinator because I want to equally and equitably include and resource all diverse sectors, projects, and populations within DSA LA through inclusive and intersectional solidarity, honesty, transparency, and collaborative cooperation. From supporting and expanding YDSA chapters in public colleges and universities to ensuring that resources for mutual aid efforts are met appropriately, I will ensure that the San Fernando Valley branch will lead the way towards inclusive and dual-power based democratic socialist organizing for the many, not the few.

What skills do you feel you have that contribute to the position for which you are applying?

I am a team player who is honest, transparent, cooperative, and responsive.

What are the most important successes the Local has achieved over the last year? Why do you consider these to be the most important?

The most important successes the Local has achieved over the last year is organizing and mobilizing around our endorsed candidates for office such as Nithya Raman, Konstantine Anthony, and fellow DSA LA members who ran for neighborhood council.

What are some of the most important areas of improvement for the Local? How can these improvements be made? How will you contribute to this improvement?

One of the most important areas of improvement for the Local must include equal and equitable treatment and resourcing for all committees by ensuring transparency, honesty, and conflict-resolution.

What should the Local prioritize over the next year?

The Local should prioritize over the next year further enhancing resource capacities for our YDSA chapters as well as expand accessibility for members who cannot attend meetings

What will be the biggest challenges for the Local over the next year?

Challenges will include further adapting in a post-pandemic environment.

What implications will each of the Local’s Priority Resolutions have on the position you may hold? (Green New Deal for Public Schools, The DSA-LA Organizing Institute, and Childcare for All) What implications will each of the Local’s Priority Resolutions have on the position you may hold? (Green New Deal for Public Schools, The DSA-LA Organizing Institute, and Childcare for All)

Ensuring that new members will be offered opportunities with The DSA-LA Organizing Institute and current members will be informed of events surrounding the Green New Deal for Public Schools as well as Childcare for All will be a priority.

South Central Inglewood Branch

Adriana Cabrera

How long have you been a member of DSA-LA?

I registered 12/7/2021, however I have attended meetings and supported many causes led by DSA-LA for a few months now.

What experience do you have organizing within DSA-LA? (e.g. What projects and in what capacity have you participated in DSA-LA?)

I co-founded South Central Mutual Aid and have been organizing to support, uplift, and advocate with people facing homelessness. We also support street vendors who are victims or crime. In this capacity, I’ve worked with members of Street Watch LA.

Do you have any experience organizing with other organizations? If so, which and in what capacity?

I have organized with LA Tenants Union, Union del Barrio, Mutual Aid Network LA, Project Masks LA, Urban Partners LA, Dreamers of South-Central LA, Socieded de Mujeres Imigrantes, and Respect Immigrant Students’ Education at LATTC, PUENTE at LATTC.

Why are you running for this position?

I want to help strengthen the South-Central chapter. I have 16 years of experience organizing. I’m also going to take a break for 6 months from work to focus on my campaign for LA City Council District 9 and so I thought it would be good to utilize this time to also engage hundreds of people who are supporting me in DSA- LA. My purpose of running for office is not just to win the election but to engage people long term.

What skills do you feel you have that contribute to the position for which you are applying?

Organizing, bilingual in English and Spanish, 16 years of experience organizing with immigrant people, youth, black and brown working-class people, people experiencing homelessness, people facing hunger, first generation students, first generation professionals, the LGBTQ community and survivors of crime.

What are the most important successes the Local has achieved over the last year? Why do you consider these to be the most important?

The most important successes I noticed the local accomplish is being able to engage people in issues impacting their lives in a way that creates meaningful and practical change. Building consciousness about how everyone can put their granito de arena to create change is essential. We are the ones we have been waiting for and it would be an honor to join you all in the fight as an official member.

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What are some of the most important areas of improvement for the Local? How can these improvements be made? How will you contribute to this improvement?

I would say more inclusion for people of color from historically disadvantaged backgrounds in leadership positions and social media. More support for the South-Central LA chapter as it looks like it’s struggling.

What should the Local prioritize over the next year?

Local elections. This year we have a very unique opportunity to help elect candidates who will put people first and will implement policies reflecting our local’s priorities across all government sectors.

What will be the biggest challenges for the Local over the next year?

I would say, people are facing so much disparity and depression nowadays due to the times we are in. Time commitment has shifted with more people facing poverty, being displaced, and just struggling to survive over all. And so we need to build a strong support system for our members who are choosing to fight against injustices they are facing as they manage to survive.

What implications will each of the Local’s Priority Resolutions have on the position you may hold? (Green New Deal for Public Schools, The DSA-LA Organizing Institute, and Childcare for All) What implications will each of the Local’s Priority Resolutions have on the position you may hold? (Green New Deal for Public Schools, The DSA-LA Organizing Institute, and Childcare for All)

Growing up in South Central LA I fully understand the need to advocate for the DSA-LA priority resolution. Part of South-Central LA includes District 9, the area in the City of Los Angeles with the highest number of people experiencing poverty. We have food desserts, high obesity rates, high levels of gentrification, displacement, criminalization of people experiencing homelessness, criminalization of street vendors, and high rise of police abuse of power murdering black and brown people. We also do not have access to green spaces, live in the middle of factories releasing toxic fumes pulling our air, and we face hardships affording transportation. Therefore, I make a commitment towards organizing to engage people to advance the local’s priority resolutions.

Westside Branch

Mark Gaynor

How long have you been a member of DSA-LA?

I have been a member of DSA-LA since April 2017.

What experience do you have organizing within DSA-LA? (e.g. What projects and in what capacity have you participated in DSA-LA?)

I am currently a South Bay neighborhood captain in DSA-LA’s Neighborhood Solidarity Network and a financial coordinator for Street Watch LA. I have helped organize tenant canvassing, and have canvassed and phonebanked for Prop 15, Prop 10, AB1400, and SB562, as well as for several candidates DSA-LA has endorsed. I’ve done outreach and sweep monitoring with the Street Watch LA South Bay Local, and have joined DSA-LA’s labor solidarity actions with UTLA and Long Beach Port drivers. I have been an occasionally active member in the Healthcare, Immigration Justice, Prison Abolition, Labor, and Electoral Politics committees.

Do you have any experience organizing with other organizations? If so, which and in what capacity?

I helped organize and lead canvasses with Bernie 2020, and after the primary, helped form South Bay Organizing in order to canalize the energy of Bernie supporters into something more sustained. We dedicated our efforts to mutual aid work (distributing PPE, outreach to unhoused folks, and food distribution with Long Beach Community Table), local electoral efforts (Fatima Iqbal-Zubair for Assembly 2020 and Jason Boxer for MBUSD School Board), anti-racist efforts, and became a small hub for interaction and coordination between local groups and organizers (Torrance for Justice, Street Watch, and DSA-LA’s Mutual Aid Committee, among others) and many of our members have since joined DSA-LA. I have also organized with National Nurses United on various campaigns for universal healthcare and labor protections for nurses.

Why are you running for this position?

We have grown significantly over the past few years, but the threats we face due to capitalism have in many respects grown sharper. The compounding effects of the coronavirus, the climate crisis, and soaring housing costs have made the basic conditions of life for poor and working people much more perilous, and our work all the more practically necessary and important. In 2022, I think much of this work will consist in continuing to grow our organization, in developing internal and external resources for political education, and identifying sites of conflict where we can leverage our power to secure better conditions for working people.

I have immense respect and admiration for the work my comrades on the Westside have done, and I would be happy to take on more responsibilities and work alongside the Branch’s many active members to support our continued growth and the mobilization of Branch membership to build working class power in Los Angeles. DSA plays a crucial role in our struggle for a socialist future, and helping to grow the Chapter and empower its membership would be an honor.

What skills do you feel you have that contribute to the position for which you are applying?

The skills I have developed both as an organizer and as a professor of philosophy have proven useful in many areas of organizing work. I have good analytic and general problem-solving skills. I am a competent facilitator of dialogue, with particular focus on democratically distilling and summarizing the thoughts of others. I am comfortable coordinating activities for large groups of people, providing direct one-on-one training to less-experienced comrades, mediating conflicts, and conducting post-action evaluations to determine where improvements can be made. I have experience drafting meeting agendas, recording clear and comprehensive minutes, and maintaining clear records of Branch-related work. I’m also committed to frequent ongoing communication with members, and to collaborative planning and support of other members’ projects.

What are the most important successes the Local has achieved over the last year? Why do you consider these to be the most important?

Our Branch has achieved a great deal under Willie’s leadership, from a successful run of canvasses designed to educate tenants about rent relief and other resources during the pandemic to rank-and-file-led political education sessions on a variety of issues pertinent to our work as socialists. I believe the most important recent success is the existence of the infrastructure that made these events possible. Through the development of the Neighborhood Solidarity Network, internal phone- and text banking, and constructive outreach to other leftist organizations in our area, the Westside Branch has helped build a vibrant community of socialists that was hardly present several years ago.

The Neighborhood Solidarity Network has been an incredible vehicle for maintaining DSA-LA’s commitment to political education and its culture of inquiry and community discussion in the midst of the transition away from in person meetings to Zoom for Branch and Chapter meetings brought on by the pandemic. Its structure has also helped develop leaders, distribute responsibilities, and made us more organizationally agile and capable of responding to local issues as our membership grows. I think the fruits of this project have only begun flowering.

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What are some of the most important areas of improvement for the Local? How can these improvements be made? How will you contribute to this improvement?

I see much of our work going forward as a continuation of the development of the Neighborhood Solidarity Network, growing our membership, providing members with resources to facilitate their growth as socialists, and opportunities to enter into conflict with capital interests in a way that builds power for working people in Los Angeles.

I’d also like to work on healing some of the internal rifts that have developed over the past few years, between DSA-LA and Street Watch, and identify points of generative conflict with current city policy regarding treatment of unhoused people, where we can make advances towards public housing and rent control.

What should the Local prioritize over the next year?

I think we need to continue growing our membership, providing political education, and plug people into work and distribute decision-making in a way that expands our political power.

What will be the biggest challenges for the Local over the next year?

The coronavirus and its variants pose a continued risk to our in-person organizing, and makes many future plans uncertain.

What implications will each of the Local’s Priority Resolutions have on the position you may hold? (Green New Deal for Public Schools, The DSA-LA Organizing Institute, and Childcare for All) What implications will each of the Local’s Priority Resolutions have on the position you may hold? (Green New Deal for Public Schools, The DSA-LA Organizing Institute, and Childcare for All)

I will seek to integrate these chapter projects into local work, and facilitate collaborative leadership in order to grow our branch and chapter.

YDSA Coordinator

Abdullah Farooq

How long have you been a member of DSA-LA?

I have been a member of DSA-LA for the past year!

What experience do you have organizing within DSA-LA? (e.g. What projects and in what capacity have you participated in DSA-LA?)

I was one of the cofounders of the Caltech YDSA. This involved outreach to the broader Caltech community during the pandemic and running biweekly meetings over Zoom. I have also assisted in facilitating political education at Los Angeles citywide YDSA meetings, meeting regularly with the current YDSA coordinator, Michael Stenovec. I also organized as part of the CA Medicare for All campaign, where I assisted with phone banking, copywriting, and fundraising as the Data Management Co-Chair of the statewide campaign.

Do you have any experience organizing with other organizations? If so, which and in what capacity?

Caltech YDSA is currently helping to run a rent control ballot initiative in Pasadena, alongside the Pasadena Tenants Union. I have been the director of turnout operations for the campaign and currently serve on the Steering Committee for this campaign, helping to bring in ~200 volunteers with ~50 canvassers going out every week and collecting ~600 signatures per week. Our campaign has brought in many new Caltech students, and has built leadership and electoral organizing skills within our YDSA chapter. I assisted in growing this campaign from ~5 canvassers a week to ~50 canvassers a week within the course of a few months.

Why are you running for this position?

I am running for this position because I believe that YDSA represents a critical part of socialist strategy, both in Los Angeles and abroad. YDSA is socioeconomically and racially more diverse than DSA. In order to build strong, organic connections to the rank-and-file core of labour unions in the US, it is critical that socialists are organized into strategic jobs out of college. I am running for this position to build a strong YDSA presence at community college campuses across Los Angeles. I believe that building a YDSA chapter at LA Community College will enable us to build a strong core of student organizer support for Hugo Soto’s campaign in CD13. This will enable us to organize new socialists into a class struggle campaign to build up future socialist campaign leaders. In addition, I will seek to create a monthly reading group for political education for YDSA members, to enable them to grow as mature socialists in a judgment-free zone. Finally, I will engage YDSA chapters at public schools across the county with the Green New Deal for Public Schools (GND4PS) campaign, allowing us to strengthen connections to UTLA and engage students in a nationally-coordinated campaign.

What skills do you feel you have that contribute to the position for which you are applying?

I have cofounded a YDSA chapter at Caltech and have been supporting the LA YDSA group over the past year. In addition, I have organized my YDSA chapter into assisting with a rent control ballot measure campaign in Pasadena, and assisted in building up this campaign to its current success.

What are the most important successes the Local has achieved over the last year? Why do you consider these to be the most important?

I believe that being able to engage effectively with the CA Medicare for All campaign was a huge achievement of the Local. I believe this was the most important campaign as it represented a statewide collaborative effort to perform outward facing work. While the bill was eventually tabled for next year, I believe that initiating the statewide campaign built up the necessary framework for making a CA DSA structure.

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What are some of the most important areas of improvement for the Local? How can these improvements be made? How will you contribute to this improvement?

I believe that the most important area for improvement in the chapter is in engaging paper members and mobilizing them into campaigns. We have a huge number of paper members who have yet to be engaged in class struggle campaigns or workplace organizing, and it is our responsibility to engage these members. As YDSA coordinator, I will mobilize new YDSA members into campaigns across LA and ensure that members are mentored into socialist organizing.

What should the Local prioritize over the next year?

I believe that a critical priority of the chapter should be growing YDSA chapters in LA County and strengthening their connections to DSA-LA. YDSA holds great potential, growing nationally over the last year while DSA remained stagnant in new membership. In order to transition YDSA away from another student club into a site for committed socialist organizing, YDSA needs strong support from the chapter.

What will be the biggest challenges for the Local over the next year?

One of the biggest challenges the Local will face is navigating the ongoing pandemic as we partially transition back to in-person activities. Organizing over Zoom is difficult, and transitioning off of Zoom is similarly challenging. It is essential that our Local organizes frequent, COVID-safe events that mobilize our current membership and organize new members into socialism.

What implications will each of the Local’s Priority Resolutions have on the position you may hold? (Green New Deal for Public Schools, The DSA-LA Organizing Institute, and Childcare for All) What implications will each of the Local’s Priority Resolutions have on the position you may hold? (Green New Deal for Public Schools, The DSA-LA Organizing Institute, and Childcare for All)

I believe that all of these resolutions will have implications for YDSA. Critically, the GND4PS resolution is situated within the terrain of public schools. YDSA will help build a strong GND4PS Coalition with students from the schools where this struggle is taking place. Through YDSA, we provide a natural outlet for some of those most affected by the absence of a GND4PS to fight for this important bill. The DSA-LA Organizing Institute will be an excellent opportunity to train new socialist leaders from YDSA. As YDSA coordinator, I will identify emerging leaders from YDSA and engage them with the Organizing Institute to develop them into lifelong socialist organizers and leaders. Finally, the Childcare for All working group will be an excellent platform for YDSA members to engage in a coordinated manner with the GND4PS campaign. YDSA chapters at public schools will serve as an excellent pole for attracting parents into the outward facing Childcare for All working group.

Childcare For All LA Campaign Working Group Co-Chair

Carley Towne

How long have you been a member of DSA-LA?

5 years

What experience do you have organizing within DSA-LA? (e.g. What projects and in what capacity have you participated in DSA-LA?)

Over the past year I’ve been a neighborhood captain in the Westside branch, supporting the work of our branch organizing committee. I’ve also been the coordinator of the Political Education committee, supporting their efforts in various capacities over the years including as a political education facilitator and leading political education trainings. I’ve supported the efforts of the labor committee, including supporting strike solidarity and our work to pass the PRO Act. In 2019 I was also elected an at-large member of the steering committee

Do you have any experience organizing with other organizations? If so, which and in what capacity?

N/A

Why are you running for this position?

I believe that Child Care For All is a strategic demand, not only because it is winnable, but because it is widely felt. More than 650,000 children under the age of five reside in Los Angeles County, which is about one in three for that age group in California. Yet, Only 14% of infants are covered under current subsidies for childcare and 41% of all preschoolers. At the same time, Childcare is one of the lowest paid, unorganized professions in the U.S1 in 4 workers leaves the job every year.

Universal child care would build on one of the most robust universal public goods that still exists: public education. C4A campaigns have the benefit of extending a public good that the majority of people have interacted with and would sorely miss if it didn’t exist.

Universal Child Care will provide a clear external-facing campaign that can unite the neighborhood solidarity program and provide more direction. This resolution will unite the work of the neighborhood solidarity program across the chapter while also attending to branch and neighborhood-specific articulations of C4A. For example, the Westside can and should continue their canvases about the Child Tax Credit while agitating for our broader political goal. This might look different in CD-13, where a DSA-LA endorsed candidate is running for office. However, the neighborhood solidarity program can still agitate around universal child care when knocking doors for our candidate. Canvassers can use C4A, which our candidate has endorsed, as a way to articulate the candidate’s and DSA-LA’s vision for Los Angeles.

Finally, alongside 5 other comrades, I co-authored the resolution establishing this working group.

What skills do you feel you have that contribute to the position for which you are applying?

I have experience organizing successful canvassing & tabling operations, phone banking, training comrades in important organizing skills, developing educational events, and being in leadership positions in DSA-LA

What are the most important successes the Local has achieved over the last year? Why do you consider these to be the most important?

I believe that the “The “In Response to Crisis” resolution (2020)” was the most important achievement for the chapter over the last year. This has led to the beginning of the kind of neighborhood-level organizing and leadership development that I would hope to continue as the C4A co-chair.

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What are some of the most important areas of improvement for the Local? How can these improvements be made? How will you contribute to this improvement?

There’s no secret that the pandemic took a toll on our ability to organize. Not being able to meet in-person and relying on zoom meetings has made our work to develop relationships and become a fixture in our own communities difficult. The sooner we can gather in outdoor public spaces to continue to develop our organization, the better.

But more importantly, DSA-LA has struggled to focus on a chapter-wide, outward facing campaign that is deeply felt. During the course of the pandemic, some of the most challenging aspects of organizing stemmed from this lack of central focus. This resulted in a lack of cohesion and vision for socialist politics in Los Angeles, making leadership retention and development more difficult, etc. I believe C4A presents us an excellent opportunity to address all of these problems so we can advance an incredibly important public good.

What should the Local prioritize over the next year?

The local should prioritize what we democratically decided to focus on during our local convention: Child Care for All, Green New Deal for Public Schools, and The DSA-LA Organizing Institute as well as the candidate we democratically voted to endorse for City Council.

What will be the biggest challenges for the Local over the next year?

Transitioning away from what can feel easy/convenient: hosting every meeting on zoom, last-minute uncoordinated text banking and responding to events rather than planning to intervene strategically. And instead continuing to build what is necessary: training more leaders and taking up issues that are deeply felt by Angelenos,

What implications will each of the Local’s Priority Resolutions have on the position you may hold? (Green New Deal for Public Schools, The DSA-LA Organizing Institute, and Childcare for All) What implications will each of the Local’s Priority Resolutions have on the position you may hold? (Green New Deal for Public Schools, The DSA-LA Organizing Institute, and Childcare for All)

I believe all three priority resolutions can and will work together productively.

Farzana W.

How long have you been a member of DSA-LA?

16 months

What experience do you have organizing within DSA-LA? (e.g. What projects and in what capacity have you participated in DSA-LA?)

I have been involved in neighborhood organizing since I joined DSA-LA in the summer of 2020, and have been a neighborhood captain since Fall of the same year. During this time, I’ve been involved with advancing and supporting the projects of the Political Education Committee and my Branch Organizing Committee (Central Branch).

Do you have any experience organizing with other organizations? If so, which and in what capacity?

No. I have only been affiliated with the identified Left for two years now.

Why are you running for this position?

I believe that Childcare for All is a winnable and strategic campaign demand that is widely understood and supported by working people due to its clear material (and immaterial) benefits. I understand the complexities of the demand as well as the massive load of work that will need to be undertaken in order to pursue it effectively and thoughtfully. I am committed to taking on this workload in order to advance the campaign and will execute that task to the best of my ability with my fellow co-chair.

Alongside 5 other comrades, I co-authored the resolution establishing this working group.

What skills do you feel you have that contribute to the position for which you are applying?

I am currently a childcare worker, which allows me a level of understanding regarding labor relations in childcare that may potentially evade an organizer unfamiliar with such an environment (non-childcare work organizers are essential to the project, but it is equally essential to have perspectives inside the industry). I also have experience in curriculum development, canvassing/tabling operations, public presenting, and administration.

What are the most important successes the Local has achieved over the last year? Why do you consider these to be the most important?

The “In Response to Crisis” resolution (2020), which led to the development of a coherent, consolidated branch + neighborhood structure across the chapter, has created for DSA-LA a stronger and relatively unique capacity to engage in mass politics in Los Angeles County that did not exist previously. The linking of the branches to neighborhood groups, each ideally led by a competent cadre of neighborhood organizers, has set us clearly on the path of achieving the great feat of expanding organizing capacity. This is extremely difficult for any Left organization to accomplish, and we have already taken the first steps to doing this by (1) providing a venue through which organizers and leaders can develop their skills, knowledge, and local ties and (2) creating an organizational structure that Angelenos can intuitively plug into based on their geographic location.

The neighborhood groups and branch organizing committees will be essential to advancing Childcare for All in Los Angeles, and the development of these roles will accordingly be treated as a priority by the working group.

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What are some of the most important areas of improvement for the Local? How can these improvements be made? How will you contribute to this improvement?

Many Left organizations struggle with sustaining outward-facing campaigns, and DSA-LA is no different. This is not a statement on the organization’s nature but rather an acknowledgement of the state of the Left today. This acknowledgement also brings a request for solutions, two of which I believe to be: (1) the expansion of organizational capacity, which our current branch and neighborhood structure lend themselves well to supporting and (2) the intentional identification and dedicated pursuit of campaign demands that are widely and deeply felt. The DSA-LA Childcare for All campaign makes use of both, and will, in its best form, both boost outward-facing activity and recruitment while working toward expanding an essential public good.

What should the Local prioritize over the next year?

The pursuit of external-facing campaigns such as Childcare for All and Hugo2022. These would be important wins for the socialist project in Los Angeles and would also provide unique opportunities to expand the relevance and presence of our chapter in Los Angeles through reputation-building and recruitment.

What will be the biggest challenges for the Local over the next year?

We have laid the groundwork for expanding capacity in our chapter, but maintaining a steady momentum of recruitment, activation, and leadership development remains a challenge to be overcome.

What implications will each of the Local’s Priority Resolutions have on the position you may hold? (Green New Deal for Public Schools, The DSA-LA Organizing Institute, and Childcare for All) What implications will each of the Local’s Priority Resolutions have on the position you may hold? (Green New Deal for Public Schools, The DSA-LA Organizing Institute, and Childcare for All)

None of the 2021 priority resolutions clash with the aims of the others, so I anticipate that the interactions between these campaigns will be based on strategic importance and rooted in a mutual understanding of our common goals.