2016

LA LEFTIST VOTER GUIDE

Hey all you LA lefties out there! Are you tired of all the so-called progressive voter guides that claim to give you the straight scope on who
the real champions of the people are, only to quickly discover that the progressive candidate, who you were told had your best interests
at heart, is still playing the same old tired political game once in office? Heres a guide that doesnt pander to worthless liberals, and that
gives you some actual analysis, along with a few jokes sprinkled in for good measure. The guide covers all of the LA County area down-
ballot legislative races, with a conditional recommendation on a choice when too frequently there isnt one we really can support. We are
also working on providing you with a supplementary guide to all the California ballot measures that will hopefully come out before
November 8th. Enjoy!

Below is our simple slate for your convenience when you fill out your ballot please do read the analysis before casting your vote - and
hang on to this document, which we will refer to after the election in several organizational events to develop better options in the future.
1. CA State Assembly District 36 (Lackey vs. Fox) Vote Fox
2. CA State Assembly District 38 (Smith vs. Acosta) Vote Smith
3. CA State Assembly District 39 (Lopez vs. Bocanegra) Vote Lopez
4. CA State Assembly District 41 (Holden vs. Higgins) Vote Holden
5. CA State Assembly District 43 (Friedman vs. Kassakhian) Neutral
6. CA State Assembly District 45 (Dababneh vs. Kowal) Vote Dababneh
7. CA State Assembly District 46 (Nazarian vs. Rupert) Vote Nazarian
8. CA State Assembly District 48 (Ellenson vs. Rubio) Vote Rubio
9. CA State Assembly District 49 (Chau)
10. CA State Assembly District 50 (Bloom vs. Craffey) Vote Bloom
11. CA State Assembly District 51 (Gomez vs. Everling) Vote Gomez
12. CA State Assembly District 52 (Rodriguez vs. Avila) Vote Rodriguez
13. CA State Assembly District 53 (Santiago vs. Mendoza) Vote Santiago
14. CA State Assembly District 54 (Ridley-Thomas vs. Ratcliff) Vote Ridley-Thomas
15. CA State Assembly District 55 (Fritchle vs. Chen) Vote Fritchle
16. CA State Assembly District 57 (Calderon vs. Topalian) Vote Calderon
17. CA State Assembly District 58 (Garcia vs. Alvarado) Vote Garcia
18. CA State Assembly District 59 (Jones-Sawyer)
19. CA State Assembly District 62 (Burke)
20. CA State Assembly District 63 (Rendon vs. Miller) Vote Rendon
21. CA State Assembly District 64 (Gipson vs. Sanford) Vote Gipson
22. CA State Assembly District 66 (Hadley vs. Muratsuchi) Vote Muratsuchi
23. CA State Assembly District 70 (ODonnell vs. Flores-Gibson) Vote ODonnell
24. CA State Senate District 21 (Wilk vs. Ervin) Vote Ervin
25. CA State Senate District 25 (Portantino vs. Antonovich) Vote Portantino
26. CA State Senate District 27 (Fazio vs. Stern) Vote Stern
27. CA State Senate District 29 (Newman vs. Chang) Neutral
28. CA State Senate District 33 (Lara vs. Robson) Vote Lara
29. CA State Senate District 35 (Bradford vs. Furutani) Neutral
30. Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors District 4 (Hahn vs. Napolitano) Vote Hahn
31. Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors District 5 (Barger vs. Park) Vote Park
32. Californias 25th Congressional District (Knight vs. Caforio) Vote Caforio
33. Californias 27th Congressional District (Chu vs. Orswell) Vote Chu
34. Californias 28th Congressional District (Schiff vs. Solis) Vote Schiff
35. Californias 29th Congressional District (Cardenas vs. Alarcon) Vote Alarcon
36. Californias 30th Congressional District (Sherman vs. Reed) Vote Sherman
37. Californias 32nd Congressional District (Napolitano)
38. Californias 33rd Congressional District (Lieu vs. Wright) Vote Lieu
39. Californias 34th Congressional District (Becerra vs. Edwards) Vote Edwards
40. Californias 35th Congressional District (Torres vs. Fischella) Vote Torres
41. Californias 37th Congressional District (Bass vs. Wiggins) Vote Wiggins
42. Californias 38th Congressional District (Sanchez vs. Downing) Vote Sanchez
43. Californias 39th Congressional District (Royce vs. Murdock) Vote Murdock
44. Californias 40th Congressional District (Roybal-Allard vs. Gonzalez) Vote Roybal-Allard
45. Californias 43rd Congressional District (Waters vs. Navarro) Vote Waters
46. Californias 44th Congressional District (Hall vs. Barragan) Neutral
47. Californias 47th Congressional District (Lowenthal vs. Whallon) Vote Lowenthal

1. CA State Assembly District 36 (Lackey vs. Fox)

Tom Lackey Republican
Tom Lackey is running for reelection to the California State Assembly for District 36, which covers the Antelope Valley region north
of Los Angeles. Before becoming a member of the California Legislature, Lackey was a Palmdale City Councilmember. He also spent
around 30 years working as an officer for the California Highway Patrol. Given his background, it should come as no surprise that
Lackey likes to tout his tough on crime bona fides, and he has been keen to remind voters about his commitment to law and order
throughout the campaign. While he supports more punitive policing and carceral policies, Lackey is also deeply committed to
reducing spending on almost everything else, and consequently he has received a 100% approval rating from conservative outfits
like the California Taxpayers and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers associations. Moreover, Lackey, who has received numerous
campaign contributions from the oil industry, has also shown zero interest in confronting the realities of climate change, and he is
opposed to a number of legislative initiatives aimed at reducing Californias carbon emissions, including proposals to expand high
speed rail in the state. Adding further to this political horror show, we have Lackeys shilling for the drone industry. If you are going
to shill you might as well do it proudly, and Lackey certainly does not disappoint, since the first banner background picture on his
official webpage is of a drone. It should be obvious to working class Californians that Lackey has little to offer them aside from more
prison cells, and that his dystopian vision of more drones and mass incarceration must be aggressively opposed. At least Lackey has
lived up to his name, and his gratuitous corporate glad-handing provides us with this elections most perfect aptonym.

Steve Fox Democrat
The District 36 race is a replay of the 2014 contest, with the Democratic candidate Steve Fox campaigning to regain the position in
the State Assembly that he previously held from 2012 to 2014. Other than not being Tom Lackey, Fox really does not offer much for
working class voters. In fact, prior to his 2012 election to the California State Assembly as a Democrat, he had run unsuccessfully as
a Republican. In this years race, he has often spoken about the need to bring more jobs to the district, but his jobs and the
economy strategy largely hinges on corralling more pork barrel legislation aimed at increasing drone manufacturing in the Antelope
Valley, which has been dubbed the Drone Capital of California. Building more drones, not only destroys the lives of people abroad
who are on the receiving end of US imperialism, it also does little to actually provide decent employment for all but a fairly limited
cohort of aerospace engineers. In addition to being an unabashed champion of the military industrial complex, Foxs problematic
record while a member of the State Assembly included votes against bills requiring sustainability plans for groundwater usage,
easing penalties on cocaine possession, and a bill to repeal Californias prohibition on bilingual education. Fox has also taken a
similar approach to his Republican opponent on criminal justice issues, and he has been advocating for more funding to local police
departments. Fox has even sought to out tough Lackey by resorting to over the top and largely baseless scaremongering about
dangerous sex offenders in an effort to justify his opposition to much needed legislation aimed at reducing Californias massive
prison population.
Education is one issue where Fox has made a few more encouraging statements in the past. For example, during the
campaign Fox declared, Weve seen too many budget cuts that have resulted in increased class sizes, teacher layoffs and fewer
resources for our classrooms. I will fight for increased funding for education. While he was an assemblymember, Fox also
authorized a study on the feasibility of establishing a California State University satellite program and independent college campus in
the Antelope Valley. Though Fox is clearly far from an ideal candidate, and working class voters should retain no illusions about his
candidacy, he at least appears to be somewhat more amenable to increasing funding for public education than his objectively awful
opponent.

Vote Fox

2. CA State Assembly District 38 (Smith vs. Acosta)

Christy Smith Democrat
Christy Smith is running to replace outgoing Republican State Assemblymember Scott Wilk in District 38. The district encompasses
the mountainous inner northern suburbs of Los Angeles, including the Santa Clarita and Simi Valleys, along with parts of Soledad
Canyon and the northern San Fernando Valley. Smith received a degree in political science from UCLA, and subsequently went on to
work as an analyst for the Department of Education in Washington D.C. Upon returning to California, Smith became involved in local
education, and was elected to the Newhall School Board, where she served as chair of the successful Measure E Prop 39 bond
campaign that provided $60 million in resources for facility and technology upgrades. In her 2016 campaign, Smith has argued that
she will build upon this past work, and look to secure more funding for Californias public school students. Leaving aside her
problematic calls to increase funding for local law enforcement, it is heartening to see that she has also taken positions in favor of

boosting spending on Californias environmental, healthcare, and welfare programs. On an especially promising note, Smith has
refused to abide conservative arguments about fiscal austerity, by indicating that she will not sacrifice critical programs in order to
balance the states budget.
Still, it is unclear how Smith will bring in all the funding that she has promised for the states vital social programs, since she
apparently does not believe that Californias tax policies need to be significantly adjusted. Considering that US state governments
are legally bound to maintain balanced budgets in ways the federal government is not, a well-developed revenue generation plan is
especially crucial for any state legislator seriously looking to beef up spending. Unfortunately, Smiths failure to put forward a
progressive taxation proposal completely undermines her social program goals because it is difficult to see how the state can
adequately support education and other social programs going forward without actually confronting Californias wealthy elite, and
ultimately raising their taxes.

Dante Acosta Republican
Dante Acosta is a Santa Clarita city councilmember, who is campaigning on the usual Republican program of low taxes and small
government. Acosta is committed to ensuring that the anti-property tax measure Prop 13 remains the law of the land in California,
and he has declared that he will make tough decisions on government spending. Acosta also wants everyone to know that he
believes that mans rights to life, liberty, and justice come from our Creator not the government. Apparently, the Creator is mostly
interested in reducing property taxes for Californias most affluent residents. It should come as little surprise though that Acostas
religiously inspired small government ideals suddenly disappear once the conversation shifts to issues of criminal justice. He is a
strong opponent of any legislation aimed at rolling back mass incarceration, including the legislative measures AB 109 and Prop 47,
which he argues have led to more criminals on the street, more drug problems, and more homelessness, and it puts our families
and communities at risk. Basically, for Acosta, only the punitive side of the state is Bible approved, while those programs designed
to teach, feed, and care for the needy are just big government stuff that Jesus would hate.

Vote Smith

3. CA State Assembly District 39 (Lopez vs. Bocanegra)

Patty Lopez Democrat
Patty Lopez is the incumbent member of the California State Assembly, currently representing District 39, covering the northeastern
portion of the San Fernando Valley. Prior to her election in 2014, Lopez was a community representative for the North Valley
Occupational Center-Aviation Center. This years contest in District 39 is a repeat of the 2014 race, which saw Lopez narrowly
defeating fellow Democrat Raul Bocanegra, who was then the incumbent. Her victory in 2014 was a major surprise, since Lopez was
hugely outspent during the campaign, and Bocanegra had secured all of the major Democratic Party endorsements. Once again, she
will have a major fundraising deficit, since Bocanegra has received almost ten times the amount of campaign contributions in the
run-up to the 2016 vote. During her two years in office, Lopez has amassed a progressive voting record on education, healthcare,
and immigration, and she has sought to prioritize those issues that most concern her districts largely working class Latino
residents. In her campaign literature, Lopez has declared that her priorities are ensuring the provision of adequate social services,
partnering with various groups, organizations, and community schools to promote and make higher education more accessible, and
finding a way to increase funding for adult education. Since being elected, Lopez has demonstrated her commitment to working
class Californians by focusing on efforts to secure resources for those most in need. She has strongly supported legislation requiring
overtime for farmworkers, and she co-sponsored a bill expanding healthcare coverage to undocumented immigrants, which passed
in 2015. Lopez has also been bringing attention to issues of environmental racism, and has spoken out about the need to address
the numerous threats to sanitation and health that impact so many minority and working class LA residents who often live in close
proximity to toxic sites.
Throughout the campaign, there has been an unsettling degree of condescension on the part of some Democratic
politicians directed towards Lopez, who was born in Mexico and speaks English with a strong Spanish accent. A number of
Democratic legislators and California party leaders have tried to paint Lopez as a clueless political amateur. For instance, her
opponent has been quoted, in an LA Times article that came out the day before this years primary, proclaiming, Its great that
weve got somebody that looks like us, but weve got needs, and more than just the idea of drying clothes on clotheslines. In the
aforementioned quote, Bocanegra was referring to one of Lopezs few successfully passed bills that established the right of
apartment dwellers to hang clothing outside in order to save money on laundry expenses. The tendency of the local Democratic
Party leadership to view Lopez as a political outsider has meant that she has been campaigning without the institutional advantages
that incumbents usually enjoy. This lack of party support, led Lopez to voice her frustrations to the LA Times, where she was quoted
saying, I dont feel respected as a member [of the California State Assembly]. Im a Democrat, a 100%, progressive Democrat, and
Ive proven it. To treat me this way, its unfair. Still, Lopez has at least been able to secure endorsements from some of the citys

most politically significant labor unions, including the United Teachers Los Angeles, SEIU, and the California Nurses
Association. Given her past advocacy and her labor endorsements, activists would be wise to support Lopez this fall so she can
continue fighting for the interests of working class Californians, and challenging the complacent politics of Californias Democratic
Party establishment.

Raul Bocanegra Democrat
Raul Bocanegra served as District 39s representative to the California State Assembly from 2012 to 2014. He earned a Masters
degree in Urban Planning from UCLA, and his past professional experience includes working as an aide to Los Angeles City Council
President Alex Padilla and teaching at California State Northridge. Bocanegra makes a lot of his supposed policy expertise, and he
cites his background in urban planning as providing him with the necessary training to pursue the types of government initiatives
that can improve the LA economy. According to his campaign literature, While serving as a top aide to former Los Angeles City
Council President Alex Padilla, Raul helped implement numerous successful projects resulting in new job creation and much needed
economic investment in the Valley. The most significant law that Bocanegra co-authored expanded tax credits for film and TV
production in California, and he was also especially important in leading the effort to redevelop the Price Pfister property into Plaza
Pacoima, which he claims has helped to generate hundreds of good-paying jobs in the heart of the Valley. Though Bocanegra
argues that developments like these have been beneficial to the underserved communities of the Northeastern San Fernando Valley,
it is not at all clear how the low wage service sector jobs at the supermarkets and retail stores that now occupy Plaza Pacoima
actually provide real opportunities for local residents to achieve much in the way of economic advancement. Aside from a
temporary uptick in construction jobs, developments like Plaza Pacoima mostly just enrich investors, developers, and contractors,
while they fail to provide large numbers of quality jobs for working class residents.
It should come as no surprise then given his pro-development track record that Bocanegra has raised as of this past June
more than $640,000, largely from pro-business interest groups and corporations. Additionally, according to the LA Times, by June he
had also benefited from more than $660,000 in independent expenditures supporting him and opposing Lopez, mostly by the
California Assn. of Realtors, the California Charter Schools Assn. and oil companies. While the strong support he has been receiving
from conservative business groups is certainly troubling, activists should be especially worried that charter school interests are
backing his campaign, since nothing has done more to undermine LAs public schools in recent years than the growth of
charters. Californias Democratic Party establishment has revealed their true cards in this political contest, since Bocanegra has
managed to earn the states Democratic Party endorsement despite Lopezs incumbent status. Activists already had good reasons to
be suspicious of Bocanegra due to his ties to powerful real estate interests, but the support he is now receiving from the charter
school lobby and oil companies should make it even more obvious at this point that Bocanegra is the corporate candidate in this
important California State Assembly race.

Vote Lopez

4. CA State Assembly District 41 (Holden vs. Higgins)

Chris Holden Democrat
Chris Holden in running for reelection in District 41 of the California State Assembly, which covers Pasadena and a number of other
San Gabriel Valley and Foothill communities. Holden was first elected to the State Assembly in 2012, and had previously spent time
on the Pasadena City Council. During his time in the Pasadena government, Holden was closely involved in efforts to revitalize
Downtown Pasadena. While the citys downtown revitalization may have been good for business and for generating tax revenue,
it also led to major spike in real estate values and the cost of rent that priced many working class residents out of the area. Though
Holdens role in revitalization has certainly been problematic from a working class perspective, he has at least taken some decent
positions on labor issues. For instance, as a member of the Pasadena City Council, he helped push for the creation of a living wage
ordinance in Pasadena that was beneficial to local workers. In addition to his past support of workers rights, Holden has also
tended to take a somewhat less punitive approach to criminal justice issues than many of his colleagues in the State Assembly, and
he co-sponsored legislation that reduced the period of imprisonment from 3-5 years to 2-4 years for individuals convicted of
possessing or purchasing cocaine with the intent to sell.
A further investigation of Holdens policy statements and his voting record also suggest that he will most likely continue to
take a fairly progressive position on education. Though he has not come out directly against charter schools, Holden has voiced
skepticism about their merits in the past, by making reference to studies finding that charters do not actually improve educational
outcomes. During the campaign, he has made a number of assertions about the importance of funding public schools, and he has
been critical of an approach to balancing the California budget based on cutting education. However, Holden also seems to share
with most of his Democratic colleagues too much faith in an approach to urban revitalization that fails to address how such
initiatives often raise the cost of living for working class residents. We should not expect a whole lot from Holden, but he is clearly

preferable to his Republican opponent, and if he is reelected, activists should concentrate on pressuring him to take actions to
increase funding for public education, while also calling on him to push back against the growth of charter schools.

Casey C. Higgins Republican
Casey Higgins earned his law degree from Loyola Marymount Law School in 2004, and has worked as a Deputy District Attorney since
2006. In his 2016 run for the State Assembly, Higgins has been playing up his prosecutor background, and his campaign has
remained narrowly focused on issues of criminal justice. Higgins seeks to maintain and some cases return to highly punitive criminal
sentencing guidelines in California. He is particularly keen to overturn Proposition 47, which was passed in order to reduce prison
overcrowding, and to provide opportunities for prisoners with nonviolent convictions to receive rehabilitation and reduced
sentences. Higgins has argued that Prop 47 did not really do what it claimed, and What it really did was make felony possession of
drugs a misdemeanor. It removed the threat of serious jail time, which was the only way to get people to participate in drug
programs. It also reduced most felony theft and repeat theft offender charges to misdemeanors. It released thieves onto our
streets. So basically, as the aforementioned statement makes clear, Higgins wants to go back to the harsher sentencing that
created Californias current problems of an exploding prison population, and a state budget geared towards policing and mass
incarceration rather than the promotion of quality education, healthcare, and affordable housing for residents. Since Higgins has
not really addressed any of Californias other pressing issues during this years campaign, his harsh stance on criminal justice should
be enough of a reason not to vote for him this fall.

Vote Holden

5. CA State Assembly District 43 (Friedman vs. Kassakhian)

Laura Friedman Democrat
Laura Friedman is running to replace Mike Gatto to become a member of the California State Assembly for District 43. The district
includes Burbank, Glendale, and parts of Los Angeles, including Los Feliz, East Hollywood, and Silver Lake. Friedman has been a
member of the Glendale City Council since 2009, and served for a stint as the citys mayor in 2011-2012. Prior to her political work
in Glendale, she spent 20 years working in the film and television industry as an executive and a producer, and since 2000 she has
been the owner of a small business specializing in vintage jewelry and decorative arts. During the campaign, she has strongly
emphasized water conservation and other environmental issues. In order to address the effects of the recent drought, Friedman
argues that Californias water challenges would best be resolved by reducing local dependence on imported water, and making
major investments in Southern California groundwater recharge and clean-up, expanding local storage for rain and storm water
collection, conservation and water system efficiency, and advanced water recycling. Unfortunately, she does not talk much about
the powerful agribusiness interests that are the major factor in the states current water crisis.
rd
This years contest in the 43 District has been an extremely expensive affair, and both Friedman and her opponent
have been receiving huge campaign contributions from corporate interests. While she has been supported by some progressive
labor unions, including the California Nurses Association, Friedman has also received a lot of money from Bay Area high tech firms,
and most troubling, she has been showered with funding from the charter school lobby. Though she claims not to have solicited her
charter school campaign contributions, Carlos Marquez, the political director for the Parent Teacher Alliance, a charter school
committee backing Friedman, declared that his organization interviewed candidates and chose to support those who seemed most
open to charter interests. In response to these developments, teacher unions, including the California Teachers Association and the
United Teachers Los Angeles, have decided to back Kassakhian in this race. While she talks about bringing art back to Californias
schools, she often employs Silicon Valley style rhetoric about using the arts to kick start innovation instead of treating such programs
as simply being integral to any well-rounded elementary and secondary education. Friedman also likes to tout her past commitment
to fiscal responsibility while a Glendale City Councilmember, and she has taken credit for helping to balance the citys budget by
reducing Glendales payroll and pension costs. Friedmans past fiscal conservatism and the fact that she is being so strongly
supported by charter school interests should make it obvious that she is no friend of working class voters.

Ardy Kassakhian Democrat
Ardy Kassakhian has been a Glendale City Clerk since 2005. Like Friedman, he has emphasized stimulating economic growth through
the promotion of high tech industries and innovation. The main area where he appears to have staked a position to Friedmans left
is on education. Kassakhian has released a statement declaring that he will make sure our schools have the funding they need by
making Prop 30 permanent, and that he will increase funding above the Prop 98 floor, while working to direct more funds to the
neediest schools. Hopefully, the support he is receiving from teachers unions will incline him to actually pursue legislation if
elected that increases K through 12 funding.

Aside from education, Kassakhian also claims to be a strong supporter of affordable housing, and he has come out in
support of increased funding at the state and local level through a combination of both public and public-private partnerships to
create more affordable housing units. While it is nice to see that Kassakhian is speaking out about the scarcity of affordable housing
in the state, it is less clear how efficacious public-private partnerships actually are when it comes to generating affordable
housing. In the past, when LA developers have been given the go ahead on building projects after claiming that a certain percentage
of their dwelling units were affordable, more often than not, these units have ended up still being too expensive for many local
residents. As a result, such public-private development schemes have tended only to enrich developers and to trigger gentrification
by raising surrounding property values, which inevitably results in the removal of low income populations from the area. Given that
Kassakhian is being heavily supported via large campaign contributions from developer groups in this years contest, it seems likely
that his vague calls for affordable housing are merely a posture aimed at placating opponents of gentrification during the campaign
season. From the looks of things, the real estate lobby appears to have jumped behind his candidacy because they see him as a
pliable errand boy, who can be counted on to serve their interests once in office.

Neutral

6. CA State Assembly District 45 (Dababneh vs. Kowal)

Matt Dababneh Democrat
Matt Dababneh is currently running for reelection to Californias State Assembly for District 45, which includes most of the western
San Fernando Valley. Prior to becoming a member of the Assembly, he served for eight years as the District Chief of Staff and Senior
Aide to U.S. Congressman Brad Sherman. Dababneh was first elected to the California State Assembly in 2013, and in the primary
contest this past June he was widely viewed as the more corporate friendly Democrat in his race against Doug Kriegel. In the run up
to the primary, he received more than $350,000 from independent expenditure committees, including significant contributions from
the finance, insurance, and real estate industries. The California Charter Schools Association Advocates, California Apartment
Association, and Keeping Californians Working, an independent expenditure committee funded by Chevron, have all been
supporting Dababneh in this years campaign. His Democratic Party primary challenger Kriegel alleged this past spring that
Chevrons support for Dababneh had been payback for his efforts to weaken legislation aimed at reducing carbon emissions in
California. Dababneh had questioned parts of Senate Bill 350, a climate bill that passed last year. Environmentalists were upset
after a key provision to significantly reduce gas consumption was eliminated from the final version of the bill.
Concerns over Dababnehs ties to corporate interests led several Democratic clubs, including the Stonewall Democratic
Club, the Democratic Party of the San Fernando Valley, and the San Fernando Valley Young Democrats, to refuse to back his re-
election bid. Additionally, the San Jose Mercury News has included Dababneh in a list of 10 moderate Democrats in the California
Legislature strongly backed by business groups. Dababnehs pro-corporate record is also evident from the California Chamber of
Commerces 2015 report, which shows that he voted 40 to 59 percent of time with the Chamber on issues. Leaving aside his
problematic voting record, Dababneh has also made a number of statements suggesting that he is not very interested in the needs
of working class constituents. For example, Dababneh has explained that he is a strong supporter of the anti-property tax measure
Prop 13, which has made it extremely difficult to properly fund public services in California since it was approved back in 1978, and
his campaign literature has further emphasized the supposed necessity of containing government spending. Unfortunately, the
Republican challenger Jerry Kowal does not provide a positive alternative. This is probably dreaming, but maybe the fact that
Dababneh has been put on the defensive about his pro-corporate policies during this campaign season will at least provide activists
with a bit of leverage in their future fights with this uninspiring public servant.

Jerry Kowal Republican
Jerry Kowal is a former corporate attorney, who has been a digital media business executive since 2005. Kowal says he wants to
reduce government spending, protect gun rights, and pursue harsher punishments for criminals. Additionally, he has made some
idiotic statements about how Latinos are unwilling to learn English and become good Americans. According to Kowal, Californias
Latinos are failing in school because the states schools do not mandate English-language instruction, and California has wasted
billions and billions of dollars on making immigrant families feel good rather than educating them. So he plans to solve the
problem by supporting legislation that requires our schools to teach in English so that our kids have the necessary tools to succeed
in life and in our global economy regardless of ethnic origin or socioeconomic status. Kowals aforementioned backlash
sentiments reveal that he is either a complete idiot or a vile opportunist, since his policy prescriptions completely fail to address the
real needs of LAs working class Latinos and immigrant families, who are struggling to cope with citys the lack of decent paying jobs,
limited affordable housing, and deteriorating public schools.
Kowal also emphasizes the importance of promoting small business and talks about how he believes that Californias
overregulated economy has harmed smaller enterprises. In order to improve the states business climate, he claims that he will

defeat job-killing initiatives like minimum wage hikes and mandatory insurance requirements that put small companies out of
business. Given these statements, it should come as no surprise that Kowal shares with his Democratic opponent a strong
appreciation for Prop 13. When it comes to criminal justice, he opposes prisoner early-release programs and other dangerous
initiatives that will put our children at risk and leave our neighborhoods less safe. Considering his terrible positions on various
issues, it is at least good to know that Kowal has barely managed to raise any money. During the campaign, he has really embraced
his apparent outsider status, and proudly proclaimed, Im not a career politician, and I never will be! Activists might consider
doing Kowal a favor this fall by ensuring that he never has a reason to be tempted by such potential horrors.

Vote Dababneh

7. CA State Assembly District 46 (Nazarian vs. Rupert)

Adrin Nazarian Democrat
Adrin Nazarian is seeking reelection in District 46, covering the southeastern portion of the San Fernando Valley. Nazarian has been
a member of State Assembly since 2012, and had previously served as the Chief of Staff for Assemblymember and LA City
Councilmember Paul Krekorian beginning in 2006. Since being elected to the California Legislature, Nazarian has amassed a largely
progressive voting record. Nevertheless, he appears to take a fairly technocratic approach to governance. Rather than following the
game plan of someone like Bernie Sanders, and seeking to rally populist pressure in support of progressive legislation, Nazarian is
happy to work on the inside for whatever crumbs Californias power brokers and their political lackeys might leave on the table,
after the feasting has finished. A good example of Nazarians technocratic tendencies was his role in legislative wrangling that
eventually led to the writing and passage of Prop 1 in 2014. Nazarian had been working on legislation similar to the $7.5 billion
water bond found in Prop 1, and he strongly supported that measures passage. While it is certainly the case that California
desperately needs to invest in protecting its water systems, the power of the agribusiness lobby has led the state to approach the
problem in a rather ineffective and pro-corporate way. Prior to its passage, Adam Scow of Food and Water Watch cautioned that
Proposition 1 would put our States budget in another $7.5 billion of debt, which adds up to $14.4 billion when you include interest
payments. This debt would force increased spending of $360 million for 40 years to fund wasteful dam projects that wont create
any new water for most Californians. Instead of blowing large sums of money on unnecessary and prohibitively expensive dams, a
populist campaign to take on corporate agricultures wasteful water practices would have not only have addressed the main source
of states water problems, but it would have saved ordinary taxpayers a significant chunk of money, which could have otherwise
been spent on necessities like education and healthcare.
Nazarians flaws are shared by the California Legislatures better Democratic politicians, but they are something activists
should be well aware of. Nevertheless, Nazarian has been pretty good about pushing back against conservative demands to cut
social spending. For example, he released an encouraging statement announcing that he has made it a priority for the Legislature
to protect Proposition 98 educational funding, insuring that our schools are the absolute last items on the chopping block during our
budget battles. Nazarian has also taken some strong environmental positions, and in 2013 he sponsored a bill that would have
instituted a moratorium on the practice of fracking in California. The ruling class has little to fear from wonkish technocrats like
Nazarian, however, given the lack of decent alternatives, he still represents the best option for voters in District 46 this year.

Angela Rupert Democrat
Angela Rupert was a write in candidate during the primary, who received 131 write-in votes and therefore qualified to face off
against Nazarian in the general election. She began her career as an attorney, where according to her campaign, she represented
consumers defrauded and injured by corporations and advocated for the rights of the disabled. Rupert currently educates those
who wish to immigrate to the United States about their legal rights. Though Rupert says that she decided to run because she felt
unrepresented as a resident of District 46, her policy positions are fairly vague, and it is hard to get a good sense of what her politics
are. She says she is for improving education and protecting the environment, but she also supports more funding for the LAPD. One
of her strong points appears to be her genuine support for immigrants rights. Though Nazarian has amassed a mostly solid voting
record on labor and immigrants rights, Ruperts campaign rightly called him out for missing a vote on a bill requiring that Californias
farmworkers receive overtime. Still, at least Nazarian has a track record that can be scrutinized. Ultimately, Ruperts positions on a
number of issues are simply too vague to know if her election would be either an improvement or a step backwards.

Vote Nazarian

8. CA State Assembly District 48 (Ellenson vs. Rubio)

Cory Ellenson Republican
Two political novices are vying to replace Roger Hernandez, who will not be seeking reelection to California State Assembly for
District 48, which encompasses the eastern San Gabriel Valley. The Republican contender in this contest is the dimwitted Cory
Ellenson, an intrepid citizen candidate who claims he is not a politician, and it is certainly best to keep it that way. When hes not
moonlighting at Ellenson Legal and Financial Services, hes bleating about lowering job-killing taxes and the frustrating
regulations of the state bureaucracy. The bulk of his campaign website is devoted to decrying an alleged crime wave and the
hallucinatory attack on (to use his ludicrous euphemism) public safety professionals. These are the same public safety
professionals that have a job which is statistically less dangerous than taxi drivers, and who were responsible for killing 19 people
last year alone. Ellenson should be considered a routine rightwing laughingstock who likely will soon be forgotten after November
8th.

Blanca Rubio Democrat
Blanca Rubio, the Democratic frontrunner, is a former board member of the Baldwin Park Unified School District and is duly
endorsed by all liberal standard-bearers, including labor, Democratic politicos, and assorted progressive organizations. One can
search in vain for any mention of a political program or policy position on her campaign website or in its distributed literature. The
San Gabriel Valley Tribune, in its endorsement, spends the bulk of its time discussing the extraordinary story arc of her life.
Exclusively discussed is her legitimacy as an educator and her narrative as a formerly deported undocumented immigrant. While
these may sincerely indicate a sound history on which to build a progressive platform, none is forthcoming. This race is a perfect
example of how LA County Democrats could not ask for a better opposition than the paranoid anti-big government Republicans,
since their GOP rivals make them seem more reasonable than they really are, while freeing them from actually having to articulate a
politics. Since Ellenson clearly has nothing positive to offer, it appears that Rubio is the only option that working class voters have in
this race, but there is no reason for us to enthusiastically support her candidacy.

Vote Rubio

9. CA State Assembly District 49 (Chau)

Ed Chau Democrat
In District 49, which covers the western San Gabriel Valley, Democratic incumbent Assemblymember Ed Chau is running unopposed.
Since he first began representing the district in 2012, Chau has amassed a solidly progressive voting record on most labor,
environmental, and criminal justice issues. Nevertheless, his statements on fiscal policy and general economic matters leave much
to be desired. By indulging in rhetoric about fiscal discipline and entrepreneurial solutions to structural problems of political
economy, Chau, like most of Californias Democratic legislators, often concedes too much legitimacy to the arguments of his
Republican colleagues in the State Assembly. Instead of advocating class based arguments of economic redistribution, we are left
with politically substanceless pronouncements about bringing people together and finding intelligent solutions to tough problems,
and giving small business owners the tools they need to grow.
Chaus weaknesses when it comes to articulating a serious alternative to the neoliberal status quo are typical of most so-
called progressives. However, in contrast to some of Californias other liberal Democrats, he also appears to have an unfortunate
puritanical streak. For instance, Chau failed to vote on legislation exempting minors from prostitution charges, and he is also
supporting a bill that would allow kids to be suspended or expelled from school for sexting. The idea of criminalizing adolescent
sexuality and severely punishing children for mistakes in a way that will so drastically affect their lives is pretty disgusting. It is sad to
see how some of todays liberal Democrats have become unthinking participants in this most recent moral panic about adolescent
sexuality. It is also unclear how taking such a puritanical and simple-minded approach to sexuality in schools will actually address
the issues of sexual bullying and harassment that cause real psychological pain for students. While teaching children the possible
repercussions of sending sexual images is important, far more important is teaching them that privacy and intimacy are to be
respected, and that consent extends to sharing images and emotions. What kind of clueless person would propose punishing
children in such a detrimental way for what could conceivably be consensual non-malicious experimentation?

10. CA State Assembly District 50 (Bloom vs. Craffey)

Richard Bloom Democrat
Richard Bloom is running for reelection in District 50 of the California State Assembly, which includes Malibu, Santa Monica, Beverly
Hills, West Hollywood, and parts of Central Los Angeles. Bloom was elected to the Santa Monica City Council in 1999, and has
represented District 50 as a member of the State Assembly since 2012. During his time in government, Bloom has tended to
emphasize the importance of environmental protection. He has spent much of his time advocating for green jobs and technological
innovation, while also taking a conservative fiscal approach to spending. Though Bloom has been a big booster of high tech
industries in the West LA area, he has shown little interest in creating decent paying jobs for less affluent Californians. In reference
to the years he served as a city councilmember and as Santa Monicas mayor, Bloom stated that some of his proudest
accomplishments were 13 consecutive years of balanced city budgets and AAA Bond ratings, thousands of jobs created, scores of
new businesses locating in the city, encouraging innovation and providing infrastructure that led to Santa Monica being dubbed
Silicon Beach. Going forward as member of the California Legislature, Bloom believes that the greatest challenge the Assembly
faces is putting California on a fair, responsible, and sustainable fiscal path. Blooms aforementioned statements ought to be rather
alarming for working class Californians, who desperately need the state to spend money in order to adequately fund various social
welfare programs.
In addition to receiving significant financial contributions from labor unions in this years campaign, Bloom has also
acquired major funding from real estate interests, and from communications and electronics companies. Blooms sources of funding
and his public statements on economic matters indicate that he will remain mostly concerned with the needs of the high-income
professionals and high tech entrepreneurs who populate his district. While his economic outlook should not warrant much
enthusiasm from working class voters, his statements on foreign affairs and civil liberties have also been troubling. Bloom is a big
supporter of Israel, and this past February he introduced the Combating the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions of Israel Act of
2016, which sought to bar state contracts worth over $10,000 from going to entities that boycott Israel. The combination of Blooms
conservative economic positions and his aggressive campaign against activists defending the rights of oppressed Palestinians offers
little reason for anyone on the Left to be overly concerned about reelecting him this fall.

Matthew Gene Craffey Republican
Matthew Gene Craffey is currently the Director of Prospect Management at UCLA. Craffey worked for both the Ventura Police
Department and the Ventura County Sheriffs Department before switching over to his current occupation. His past political
activism has included serving on the board of the Ventura County Rainbow Alliance, which is an organization devoted to fighting for
LGBT equality in Ventura, and he is currently the President of the Log Cabin Republicans of Los Angeles. Basically, Craffey is offering
voters a standard Republican program of cutting taxes and weakening government regulations. He also has plans to further
undermine public education by advocating that government do more to promote the growth of charter schools. In order to achieve
this, he has voiced support for expediting the charter school review process. Additionally, Craffey wants to take drastic measures to
change Californias tax policies, which he claims are necessary to stimulate the economy, and he has called for reducing state income
taxes and slashing the states corporate tax rate to 5%.
Craffey at least takes a more liberal approach to social issues than many of his fellow Republicans, and he advocates
strengthening housing and employment protections for marginalized individuals. While Craffeys statements on a number of social
issues certainly sound more humane than typical Republican positions, if successfully implemented, his education proposals, and his
plans for massive corporate tax cuts and reduced state income tax rates would be absolutely devastating to Californias working
class constituents by seriously limiting the states ability to fund essential programs.

Vote Bloom

11. CA State Assembly District 51 (Gomez vs. Everling)

Jimmy Gomez Democrat
Jimmy Gomez is running for reelection to the California State Assembly for District 51, encompassing northeastern Los Angeles. He
was first elected to the California Legislature in 2012, and previously worked for a labor union as the political director of the United
Nurses Associations of California. During his time in office, Gomez has amassed a solid progressive voting record, and he has
focused on a number of issues which are particularly relevant to Californias working class residents, such as increasing funding for
community colleges, strengthening family leave requirements, and ensuring that a higher percentage of state infrastructure
spending goes to low-income communities. Earlier this year, a bill sponsored by Gomez was successfully passed that increased
Californias family leave requirements, with the largest increases going to low-income workers. Starting in 2018, employers of

workers receiving less than $20,000 per year will be required by Gomezs bill AB 908 to raise their family leave obligations from 55 to
70 percent of the employees income. Gomez also authored legislation, which if enacted would require that 25% of the fees
currently being paid by polluters into the states Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund be invested in low income communities.
Gomezs legislative efforts show that he is inclined to look out for the interests of working class Californians on state policy
matters. However, it is unclear that he has the vision to adequately confront the political and economic forces that are making life
increasingly precarious for the working class residents of District 51, who are struggling under the onslaught of
gentrification. Gomez appears to have bought into the revitalization rhetoric undergirding the land grabs currently underway in
Northeast LA. His uncritical support for LA river revitalization efforts has served to provide cover for all the gentrifiers who are
buying up land in close proximity to these initiatives. The consequence has been a dramatic increase in the cost of rent for tenants,
which has occurred in neighborhoods like Frogtown in just the past few years, and if these developments continue apace more and
more working class Latinos in Northeast LA will be pushed out of the district in the near future. While we should applaud Gomez for
some of his legislative wrangling in support of progressive causes, we should also be well aware that, like most of his Democratic
colleagues in the LA area, Gomez is comfortably seated aboard the gentrification train.

Mike Everling Libertarian
Mike Everling is a libertarian, who does not appear to have functioning campaign website at the moment. I guess the big
government bureaucrats and the crony capitalists must be trying to silence him or something. While theres no accessible
information on Everling, his status as a member of the Libertarian Party provides us with all the information we need to dismiss his
candidacy.

Vote Gomez

12. CA State Assembly District 52 (Rodriguez vs. Avila)

Freddie Rodriguez Democrat
Freddie Rodriguez is seeking reelection to the California State Assembly for District 52, which includes Pomona and other parts of
western Inland Empire. Rodriguez had previously been a Pomona city councilmember before joining the State Assembly in 2013,
and has worked for over 30 years as an emergency medical technician. His ideologically incoherent campaign statements combine
conservative sounding arguments about wanting to create a business friendly environment in District 52, while at the same time
claiming that he will look out for the interests of workers. For instance, Rodriguezs campaign website states that Freddie
understands the challenges that working families and small businesses face every day. In the face of increased living costs and high
energy prices, he knows that good, well-paying jobs are the result of a business friendly economy. During his time in the Pomona
City Council, he supported efforts to revitalize Downtown Pomona, and he has unsurprisingly received a significant amount of
campaign contributions from real estate interests. Rodriguez has made some decent remarks about providing housing for
Californias homeless population, and he sponsored legislation that would enable the city of Pomona to purchase the vacant
Pomona Armory, and transform it into homeless shelter. On another positive note, Rodriguez also supports raising salaries for
Californias teachers. Overall, Rodriguez is fairly run-of-the-mill Democrat, who can be expected to cater to the needs of developers
and other powerful local economic actors if he not pushed by disruptive social movements to shift his focus to the concerns of
working class residents.

Paul Avila Democrat
Paul Avila has been a member of the Ontario City Council for four years, after having spent 16 years serving on the Ontario-
Montclair School Board. According to his campaign literature, Avilas first priority is easing congestion for commuters while adhering
to air quality standards. He claims that during his time as a legislator he has concentrated on fighting fraud and abuse in
government. Avila has certainly made many enemies as an Ontario city councilmember, but it is unclear if this is actually due to his
supposed crusade against corruption. In 2014, the other four Ontario councilmembers voted to sanction Avila, stripping him of his
committee assignments and travel privileges, and barring him from representing the city at public events. This was after Avila had
apparently sent a shirtless photo of himself to his colleague Councilmember Dorst-Porada, and later called her an unattractive
woman when the incident was being investigated. Sanctions were imposed during a meeting after Avila went on a series of rants
where he cursed out and ridiculed the other councilmembers. Electing Avila might provide some comic relief in the California
Legislature, but unfortunately buffoonery has nothing to do with being the peoples champion.

Vote Rodriguez

13. CA State Assembly District 53 (Santiago vs. Mendoza)

Miguel Santiago Democrat
Miguel Santiago is the incumbent in District 53, which covers Downtown LA, Boyle Heights, MacArthur Park, Koreatown, Vernon, and
Huntington Park. Prior to entering the California Legislature in 2014, he was an aide to Assemblymember John Perez, who
represented District 53 from 2008 to 2014. Santiago was also a member of the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees.
In 2011, he served as the Boards president, and led the effort to pass Measure J, which built and renovated community colleges in
the district. Santiagos campaign website contains almost no information pertaining to his policy positions, and it appears from past
statements that he mostly just toes the line behind Californias Democratic Party establishment.
Santiago has at least taken some long overdue steps recently to help address the Excide Battery Plant lead contamination
that has affected parts of Vernon, Boyle Heights, and unincorporated East LA. This past spring, Santiago authored AB 118, which
expedited the allocation of $176.6 million in cleanup funds for residents suffering as a result of gross negligence on the part of the
Department of Toxic Substances Control, which enabled the Excide plant to operate without a full permit for three decades while it
racked up environmental violations for spewing lead, arsenic, and other dangerous pollutants into the surrounding communities,
endangering an estimated 10,000 households. While it is nice to see that LAs political representatives are finally doing something
about these horrors, activists will need to keep the pressure on Santiago and his colleagues, since they are only now taking action in
order to cover their backsides after seeing all the bad press that followed from the lead contamination episode in Flint, Michigan. So
far Santiago has not done enough to prove that he actually represents a departure from the kind of politics that allows working class
constituents to be poisoned at expense of corporate profiteering.

Sandra Mendoza Democrat
Sandra Mendoza is a Democratic challenger to Santiago in a repeat of the 2014 contest. Mendoza, who has been doing some
progressive posturing during the campaign, began her career in the garment industry, and she is a member of the IBEW Local 11
union. However, she also sits on the board of the Youth Policy Institutes charter schools. Mendoza does not appear to have any of
the important Democratic Party and labor union endorsements that Santiago has received, and she is being considerably outspent in
this years campaign. While this apparent outsider status may seem attractive to voters tired of the political establishments
failures, her charter school connections indicate that she does not represent an acceptable alternative to the status quo in this race.

Vote Santiago

14. CA State Assembly District 54 (Ridley-Thomas vs. Ratcliff)

Sebastian Ridley-Thomas Democrat
Sebastian Ridley-Thomas is seeking reelection in District 54, encompassing Culver City and parts of LAs Westside. Since graduating
from Morehouse College in 2009, he has followed in his fathers (LA County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas) footsteps to join the LA
political scene. Ridley-Thomas has clearly been the beneficiary of the standard nepotism that has a long tired history in Los Angeles
politics. The 29-year-olds political connections have certainly been a major factor in his ability to outspend his opponents ever since
he first decided to take up the family business in 2013, when he was successfully elected to the California Legislature at the ripe old
age of 26. During the past three years, his voting record has included problematic votes against legislation allowing people to sleep
in their cars, and a bill requiring paid sick leave for employees. In addition to all the money he has received from labor unions,
Ridley-Thomas has also collected large campaign checks from oil corporations, the pharmaceutical industry, and wretched payday
loan companies. The incredible fact that Ridley-Thomas is the progressive candidate in this contest, should tell you all you need to
know about the wondrous state of representative democracy in Los Angeles.

Glen Ratcliff Republican
Glen Ratcliff is the hopeless Republican challenger in this highly Democratic district. He employs the usual anti-big government
rhetoric, and calls for pro-business tax breaks. He claims that should he be elected he would push to immediately overturn Prop 47,
which he hyperbolically claims has unleashed a bunch of dangerous criminals onto Californias streets. He also wants to encourage
employment by fighting oppressive minimum wages and benefits. Clearly, Ratcliff does not offer a decent alternative to the
depressing status quo politics that Ridley-Thomas embodies.

Vote Ridley-Thomas

15. CA State Assembly District 55 (Fritchle vs. Chen)

Gregg Fritchle Democrat
Gregg Fritchle is the Democratic candidate running for State Assembly District 55, which includes the southeastern San Gabriel
Valley, along with parts of northern Orange County. Here we have a rare specimen, a genuinely leftwing candidate that deserves
our ardent (if, as always, somewhat critical) support. Fritchle, who has been a worksite steward, contract bargaining negotiator, and
statewide Executive Board delegate for SEIU locals, not only has a proven devotion to working class political activity, but offers
uniquely detailed and bold proposals in his campaign literature. He exhibits a command of political specificities and an eagerness to
engage political issues well beyond routine liberal tropes. His openly stated positions include forcefully combating pension reform
(so often championed by our craven political class), installing a system of publicly-funded elections, dismantling regressive taxation,
broadening government transparency, crafting alternatives to rampant development that results in gentrification, and, most
shockingly satisfying, using the powers of eminent domain to assert control over the states water supply in order to combat the
ongoing drought. This last tidbit hints at a truly well-formed vision of an alternative leftwing model for structuring an economy and
distributing resources one that places Fritchle among the rare candidates that the Left should consider potentially working with
and actually becoming excited about.

Phillip Chen Republican
Alas, District 55 skews deep red, and his challenger, Phillip Chen, has establishment Republican support. Republican State Senator
Bob Huff, who last time around endorsed Chens victorious opponent Ling Ling Chang, has finally come around to singing Chens
praises as a small business owner who knows how excessive regulations and high taxes work against job creators. When Chen
isnt creating jobs at his mysteriously alluded to property management company, supposedly overseeing commercial and
residential properties, he is touting his credibility as a former Los Angeles County Sheriff Reserve Deputy. His site includes
references to no less than four gun rights advocacy groups, and one of his clearly stated objectives is to prevent the release of
prisoners. The endorsements plastered over his page trip over themselves repeating the mantra of lower taxes, private property
rights, and sonnets to law enforcement. The district is as close to a sure thing as Republicans can get their hands on, but Chens
arrival in state government should be considered a step backward for human society.

Vote Fritchle

16. CA State Assembly District 57 (Calderon vs. Topalian)

Ian Calderon Democrat
California State Assembly District 57 encompasses a portion of the Gateway Cities region in southeast Los Angeles County and parts
of the southwestern San Gabriel Valley. Abandon all hope ye who enter here, for this assembly race is a ghastly sight to behold. In
the Democratic corner, we have boy wonder Ian Calderon, the thirty-year-old Assembly Majority Floor Leader, who was first elected
in 2012. He is the nephew of Ron and Tom Calderon (the two who pleaded guilty recently to the corruption scandals that rocked the
state congress in 2014; Tom recently was sentenced to a year in prison, while Ron awaits sentence) and the son of Charles Calderon,
former Majority Floor Leader. After growing tired of the professional surfer life, Calderon got his start in politics when his father
paid him at least $41,990 to work on his campaign in 2010 a minor bit of nepotism (considering the bloodline) that only yielded
a $600 fine for Ian. His credentials in his opening bid were a video from what appeared to be a seventeen-year-olds dorm room
where he pitches himself while seated in a black-and-white recliner adorned with the portraits of John Lennon, Che Guevara and
others. Calderon won his first election, despite a debate in which he pleaded guilty to not knowing what single-payer healthcare
was, and yet he appears to be a rising star in the California Legislature. While he did co-sponsor the newly-enacted overtime bill
for farmworkers, his legislative focal point is the Right to Try bill, which lowers FDA barriers to enable patients to seek out
experimental treatments, and was cooked up in the labs of the Goldwater Institute, a notorious rightwing think tank that specializes
in bills designed to sabotage healthy state functioning. Calderons other pet causes are bills protecting digital assets after death and
a bill prohibiting discrimination based on employment status both fine causes, but hardly a counterweight to his bludgeoning
stupidity and obvious disregard of political purpose. Fortunately for him, the alternative in this race is another hopeless Republican
with nothing to offer District 57s mostly working class Latino residents.

Rita Topalian Republican
Adding further to the black comedy that is this years District 57 race, we have Rita Topalian, who comes across as a 2016 LA version
of Margaret Thatcher. Topalian says she was inspired to run after some of her closest friends said they were going to leave the
state, since according to Topalians campaign literature, California is well on its way to becoming a nanny state. As has become a

common refrain among the Republican contenders in this guide, Topalian hates Prop 47, loves Prop 13, and she wants to go back to
the old days of integrity and honesty. We are almost tempted to advocate voting for her just to stick it to a fail son turned
rising star like Calderon, but we wouldnt want Topalian to lose her wonderful sense of outsider self-righteousness.

Vote Calderon

17. CA State Assembly District 58 (Garcia vs. Alvarado)

Cristina Garcia Democrat
Cristina Garcia is the incumbent candidate for District 58 of the California State Assembly, which contains portions of the Gateway
Cities southeast of Downtown LA, including Commerce, Montebello, Pico Rivera, Downey, and Cerritos. Her past four years as an
assemblymember have shown her to be a committed feminist, and Garcias record in the California Legislature provides some
valuable insights into both the mainstream feminist movements strengths and its weaknesses. Although her feminism has relied
too heavily on the criminal justice system at times, Garcia has been involved in some critical legislative efforts aimed at creating
greater gender equality in California. Earlier this year she authored legislation to end the tampon tax, which is not only a regressive
tax, but also a gendered one. Garcia succeeded in pushing her legislation through the state legislature, but it was subsequently
vetoed by our deficit hawk governor, who incredibly is still revered by some delusional liberals for his supposed progressive
credentials. Garcia also recently sponsored legislation redefining the concept of rape in California. While leftist feminists should be
wary of the perils of carceral feminism, in this case Garcias legislation would simply take the already criminalized actions of
nonconsensual penetration with a foreign object and forcible sodomy, and redefine those behaviors as rape. Its certainly true
that redefining an action can serve to empower oppressed groups in our society, but it is important that we also remain highly
cognizant of the ways that feminism has been coopted in recent years, and used as a bulwark against efforts to challenge Americas
oppressive system of mass incarceration.
In addition to her aforementioned progressive legislative efforts, Garcia has supported overtime for farmworkers, and
unemployment insurance for school classified employees (bus drivers, custodians, and cafeteria workers) so that they are paid over
school breaks. Garcia also authored a successfully passed bill that encourages that the Mexican Repatriation, the unconstitutional
deportation of over a million US citizens and lawful residents of Mexican descent that occurred during the 1930s, be included in
Californias student history textbooks and courses of study. Regrettably, Garcia has fallen short in a place that often plagues
feminists, especially the more radical second-wave elements, and that is in her support for anti-human trafficking laws. While these
laws sometimes allow those designated as human trafficking victims to receive certain services, they also transparently serve to
further criminalize sex workers. Advocates for sex workers should press the issue with Garcia, and inform her of the faulty logic that
undergirds such laws, since she is a supporter of these carceral reforms, and yet seems to care deeply about both workers and
womens rights. Garcia is clearly a sure bet to win reelection, and we should be there to meet her with our support, and our dissent.

Ramiro Alvarado Republican
Ramiro Alvarado is running against Garcia, after securing 19 write-in votes during the primary. Mr. Alvarado has not held public
office before and its unclear actually what his policy positions are, but his website lists the following values: family comes first,
integrity matters, justice should prevail, service above self, honesty is a given, humility is a gift, and bipartisanship is a
must. How these phrases would translate into legislation is left for us to suss out, but considering that he posts many pictures of
himself with law enforcement, and he often shares quotes from the infamous, fictional, and definitely evil Frank Underwood on his
social media, perhaps we should just leave him to continue his ongoing fight for justice in the self-created fantasy world that he
apparently dwells in.

Vote Garcia

18. CA State Assembly District 59 (Jones-Sawyer)

Reggie Jones-Sawyer Democrat
Democratic Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer is an incumbent candidate running unopposed in District 59, encompassing most
of South Los Angeles. Prior to his joining the California Legislature in 2012, Jones-Sawyer worked as the Director of Asset
Management for the City of Los Angeles, where he managed $22 million in leases for 800 city-owned properties, and he also served
for a period as the Assistant Deputy Mayor for the City of Los Angeles. According to his campaign literature, While working for the
City of Los Angeles, Jones-Sawyer transformed the city's complicated and complex permit development bureaucratic system into a
more customer-friendly agency that expedited the processing of many huge developments, including the building of the Magic

Johnson Theater (now the Rave in Baldwin Hills) and the Staples Center Arena. Given the role that the Staples Center has played in
the gentrification of Downtown Los Angeles, Jones-Sawyers past connections to redevelopment projects should be concerning for
working class voters who have been struggling with dramatic increases in the cost of living that has resulted from these initiatives.
While Jones-Sawyers past role in gentrifying redevelopment schemes is problematic, since joining the Assembly he has
been involved in a number of efforts that have been beneficial to the working class constituents in his district. For example, he
authored and helped pass the Fair Chance Employment Act, which decreased the impediments for ex-offenders to obtain
employment by requiring private contractors to remove the conviction history box from job applications when hiring workers for
jobs that fall under the State Contract Act. Jones-Sawyer has also supported legislation to allow felons to serve on juries, and which
makes individuals with criminal records a protected class when searching for housing. Other important criminal justice legislation
that he has initiated include providing services for those who have been wrongfully convicted once they are released, and requiring
a disclosure of rights given up in a plea deal. Moreover, it has been especially promising to see Jones-Sawyer speak about how these
progressive criminal justice reforms are part of his larger vision to end the school-to-prison-pipeline. As a part of this endeavor,
Jones-Sawyer has also led the way to secure nearly $100 million for recidivism reduction grants as Chair of the Public Safety
subcommittee. In his past campaigns, Jones-Sawyer, who once served as Vice President of SEIUs (Local 721) Los Angeles
Professional Managers Association, has garnered the support of SEIU, CNA, and IBEW, as well as dozens of other unions. Activists
should offer Jones-Sawyer their critical support going forward, by pushing him to continue pursuing progressive criminal justice
reforms and working to bring further resources to constituents of District 59 as part of this vital struggle to end LAs oppressive
school-to-prison-pipeline.

19. CA State Assembly District 62 (Burke)

Autumn Burke Democrat
Incumbent Assemblymember Autumn Burke, who was first elected in 2014, is running unopposed in District 62, which covers the
southern part of the Westside and the northern South Bay region. Since joining the State Assembly, she has been part of some
important efforts to protect womens reproductive health. Burke has recently supported a bill allowing women to sell their eggs for
research purposes (currently they must be donated in the state of California), along with legislation to allow women to see ob/gyn
physicians without referrals, and outside their healthcare provider networks in cases of emergencies. During past campaigns, she
has accepted money from employees from charter schools, which raises a red flag, and her tendency to emphasize support for small
business owners (instead of say, workers) again should raise concerns. Her campaign literature includes a lot of neoliberal
arguments about the importance of entrepreneurship, and thus she should not be counted on to look out for the needs working
class constituents on most economic policy matters. On a positive note, Burke does appear to be strongly committed to helping
those who require in-home medical care, and she has authored AB 763, which opens the eligibility for Medi-Cal specifically to low-
income seniors and adults with disabilities. There is not much to suggest that Burke is anything other than a fairly standard
neoliberal Democrat, but activists may have some luck pushing her to take more progressive positions on healthcare policy and
womens rights.

20. CA State Assembly District 63 (Rendon vs. Miller)

Anthony Rendon Democrat
Anthony Rendon is the incumbent candidate representing District 63, which encompasses part of the Gateway Cities region of
southeast LA County. Rendon recently became Speaker of the California State Assembly in March of this year, and has been an
influential figure in the state legislature since he first assumed office in 2012. He received a PhD in political philosophy and theory
from UC Riverside in 2000, before going on to work as an adjunct professor at Cal State Fullerton, and later as an executive officer
with the nonprofit Plaza de la Raza Child Development Services Inc. During his time in the California Legislature he has worked to
secure more funding for early childhood education, and he has backed legislation requiring Californias private sector employers to
provide their workers with paid sick leave. Rendon has received a large number of campaign contributions from labor unions, and
he has amassed a solid record of supporting legislation in support of workers rights. Yet, he has also received considerable funding
from real estate interests, telecom companies, and the pharmaceutical industry.
Rendon has made some strong statements about the government needing to be focused on poverty and income
inequality, but he could never have risen to his position as Speaker if the more moderate figures in the legislature did not trust him
to take a highly technocratic approach to governance. The most significant piece of legislation that Rendon has worked on since
being an assemblymember was 2014s successfully passed water bond. Rendon wrote Prop 1, a $7.5 billion water bond, which
provided money for infrastructure projects designed to secure the states water systems. While the states water systems certainly
needed to overhauled, the bill failed to take on the agribusiness lobby, and thus it served to protect the highly wasteful corporate

farms that are the main culprits in Californias water crisis. Though there are worse Democrats who could be serving in Rendons
place as Speaker, in the absence of social movement pressure, working class voters should not expect him to pursue the kinds of
wealth redistribution policies that require a serious fight with Californias corporate power brokers.

Adam J. Miller Republican
Adam Miller, who also ran for District 63 in 2014, is once again mounting another hopeless protest campaign. Miller believes that
the old guard GOP has lost its way, and that Californias Republican Party should be doing more to support entrepreneurship and
pushing public schools to emphasize the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, as well as creative
thinking and language skills. From the looks of it, he does not appear to have much in the way of money, media exposure, or
significant endorsements to make this a competitive contest.

Vote Rendon

21. CA State Assembly District 64 (Gipson vs. Sanford)

Mike Gipson Democrat
In District 64, covering parts of South Los Angeles and the South Bay, Mike Gipson, the Democratic officeholder since 2014, is easily
rolling into his designated parking spot this November. A member of the Legislative Black Caucus, Gipson is from Watts and
maintains a keen interest in underserved communities and at-risk youths. His legislative accomplishments demonstrate a
preoccupation with homelessness among youth and expanding services for those within the foster care system. While this
community commitment is sincere at heart, it also comes wrapped in an unfortunate brand of liberal ideology, as his position page is
awash with references to the scourge of the gangland lifestyle, drugs, the lack of positive imagery, and a pointed nod towards
God. These liberal platitudes are often deployed to reaffirm the vision of urban decay resulting from a degenerative underclass
and its violent culture that deflects attention from the structural critique offered by more radical activists. Gipson, a former police
officer, is certainly more at home in this safe critique which calls for self-improvement and betterment than in a serious critique
of economic devastation. Still, Gipson has evinced some sympathy for radical struggles of the past, including authoring legislation
commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Watts revolt. Gipson has two-plus decades of experience in the labor movement, and
has worked in a variety of capacities for SEIU, including as a statewide political director. Most promisingly, he has sponsored
legislation that would open up charter school financial records to greater public view, which sadly was recently vetoed by Governor
Brown. Gipson is an ardent Clinton supporter and someone who is very much bounded by Democratic orthodoxy; he should be
pressed to continue to broaden his work for communities of color, and forced by activists to respond to a more structural critique of
poverty and homelessness.

Theresa Sanford Republican
Gipsons opponent, Theresa Sanford, is a no-name Republican candidate to be ritually sacrificed. Her webpage contains some brief
references to fiscal responsibility, but otherwise it simply links to the California Republican party platform. Shes a placeholder,
and one that wont last long.

Vote Gipson

22. CA State Assembly District 66 (Hadley vs. Muratsuchi)

David Hadley Republican
David Hadley is seeking reelection in State Assembly District 66, which is located in the South Bay region, and includes the Beach
Cities, along with the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Hadley is a former businessperson and investment banker turned politician, who
previously served as the chairman of the Board of the Los Angeles County Republicans. Hadley is a big proponent of school choice,
and he has authored legislation that would allow Gardena and Lomita to form their own school districts, which would make it easier
for local schools in these municipalities to exclude poor kids from neighboring parts of the LA Unified School District. Apparently
Hadley studied under the wrong professors when he was getting his masters degree from the London School of Economics and
Political Science back in the early 1990s because he spouts a lot of economic nonsense about government regulation causing
poverty. Hadley is also opposed Prop 30, which increased state taxes on California residents with incomes above $250,000, yet in
this years campaign he has attempted to deflect attention from his service to the wealthy few by employing obfuscating libertarian
rhetoric about his opposition to crony capitalists. Given how affluent the residents of Palos Verdes and significant portions of the
Beach Cities are, it unclear whether it is even possible to elect a progressive candidate in District 66, but you certainly cant do much

worse than Hadley.

Al Muratsuchi Democrat
Al Muratsuchi is running to regain the position he once held in California State Assembly after being narrowly defeated by Hadley in
2014. Muratsuchi is a former prosecutor, who often emphasized issues of law and order during his time as an assemblymember
from 2012 to 2014, and he is once again touting his tough on crime bona fides in 2016. Before joining the State Assembly,
Muratsuchi had served as a Torrance School Board member, where, according to his campaign literature, he fought to create a rainy-
day fund aimed at preventing cuts to local classrooms in the event of a future economic crisis. During his time in the State Assembly,
he took part in efforts to restore funding to Californias state and local schools, which had been slashed following the 2008
recession. On the environmental front, he has opposed oil drilling in Hermosa Beach, and Muratsuchi claims that he will stand up
to powerful special interests to keep our air, drinking water, and beaches free of pollution. While he may be preferable to Hadley
when it comes to environmental regulation and funding for education, it is important to keep in mind that Muratsuchi is being
supported by a number of conservative groups, including the California Police Chiefs Association, Los Angeles County Police Chiefs
Association, and the California Small Business Association. Consequently, voters should have no illusions about his candidacy, and
view him as nothing more than the lesser evil in this contest.

Vote Muratsuchi

23. CA State Assembly District 70 (ODonnell vs. Flores-Gibson)

Patrick ODonnell Democrat
Patrick ODonnell is the incumbent candidate representing District 70 of the California State Assembly, which is centered on the
Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Prior to joining the California Legislature, ODonnell spent time on the Long Beach City Council,
and he is a former high school history teacher. In his campaign literature, ODonnell has strongly emphasized his support for
punitive policing and carceral measures, including more funding for police gang-unit officers. He has also highlighted his past efforts
to balance Long Beachs budget, and his commitment to fiscal prudence. While his largest campaign contributors have been labor
unions, he has also received money from oil corporations, telecommunication companies, and real estate interests. The money he
has received from the fossil fuel industry may have influenced his decision not to vote on a bill that established a joint legislative
committee on climate change policies. As ODonnells past record and his policy statements should make clear, there is no reason
for leftists to be enthusiastic about what his reelection might offer.

Martha Flores-Gibson Republican
In this years campaign, Martha Flores-Gibson has declared that she believes commitment to public safety and putting people
ahead of political gain are two of the most important functions of an elected official. In her campaigns webpage, she builds
further upon this vague central message with gems of insight like Remembernothing fights off crime better than the people! and
Our business Success, leads to our quality of Life. Short & Sweet...If you enjoy them, Patronize Them, & Tell Others! We thought
ODonnell had this one in the bag, but, once people hear about these brilliant policy solutions, Flores-Gibsons political career should
surely take off.

Vote ODonnell

24. CA State Senate District 21 (Wilk vs. Ervin)

Scott Wilk Republican
In State Senate District 21, Scott Wilk is the Republican candidate hoping to replace Sharon Runner, who recently passed away. This
conservative district includes the Antelope Valley, Victor Valley, and most of the Santa Clarita Valley. Wilk, who has been
representing State Assembly District 38 since 2012, has a background in business and is a member of the Simi Valley Chamber of
Commerce. While liberals may dismiss him as an unremarkable Republican ideologue, Governor Brown appears to have an ally in
the archconservative aspiring state senator. Wilk has praised Brown in the past for recognizing that the state government must hold
down its spending, and begin paying down its long-term debt. Wilk justifies his commitment to fiscal austerity with quaint homilies
like Families save for rainy days and government should do the same. However, when the Antelope Valleys defense industry
executives come begging for corporate welfare, Wilk suddenly seems unable to call on these middle American values. For instance,
he co-authored AB 2389 and SB 718, which provided $420 million in tax break giveaways to Northrop Grumman and Lockheed
Martin. For someone who claims he wants to break with politics as usual, Wilk sure has proven he can still play the old political

game pretty well when it comes to aiding and abetting a bunch of murderous war profiteers.

Johnathon Ervin Democrat
Given the political forces that dominate District 21, it should come as no surprise that the Democratic contender in this contest,
Jonathon Ervin, appears equally prepared to grease the wheels for local military industrial complex ghouls. Ervins campaign
literature contains plenty of imperialistic cheerleading and love letters to the leaders of Antelope Valleys aerospace industry. For
example, after a banal ode to the importance of service before self, the first bit of text that one finds upon visiting his campaign
webpage begins with Ervin proclaiming, I fully understand that the world is a dangerous place and our district has a very important
role to play in the defense of our great nation and our allies. Ive seen our districts innovation first hand in the Middle East as we
launched an arsenal that we developed. Every time I walk down the flight line while I am on reserve duty, I get to see our districts
proud aerospace legacy in action. About the only decent thing Ervin has made reference to in his campaign literature is preventing
utility rate hikes, and vague promises about how he will ensure that our community colleges and state universities receive the
resources they need to train our workforce for the jobs of the 21st Century. Ervin might be less of a conservative ideologue than
Wilk, but he may as well be a Republican given his policy prescriptions.

Vote Ervin

25. CA State Senate District 25 (Portantino vs. Antonovich)

Anthony Portantino Democrat
Anthony Portantino, Jr. is running to replace Senator Lui in State Senate District 25. The district contains Glendale, Pasadena, and
various other San Gabriel Valley and Foothill communities. Previously, Portantino had served in the California State Assembly,
representing District 44 from 2006 to 2012 before being termed out. Portantinos voting record from his most recent government
position indicates that he usually goes along with his Democratic colleagues on most issues. When labor related bills have come up
in the California Legislature, Portantino has been generally supportive of workers rights, and he voted for legislation aimed at
making it easier for California workers to unionize. However, he did miss a vote authorizing farmworkers to sue employers for
health and safety violations, along with a vote establishing wage, hour, and working condition requirements for domestic
workers. In 2009, Portantino authored AB 48, which reestablished government oversight of Californias for-profit colleges after the
previous regulatory legislation had expired in 2007. While new regulatory measures were urgently needed at the time, some
consumer advocates complained that the bill did not contain the same degree of consumer protections as the expired
regulations. His voting record on issues of criminal justice has also been particularly disappointing. During his time in the State
Assembly, Portantino has voted against legislation aimed at reducing sentencing, and efforts to amend Californias Three Strikes
Law.
In this years campaign, Portantino has received a significant amount of financial contributions from labor unions, but he
has also obtained funding from various corporate groups, including Farmers Insurance, Pacific Gas and Electric, Wells Fargo, and the
California Apartment Association. Portantinos record and his sources of funding suggest that he will probably continue to support
socially liberal causes, but it is less clear where he stands on economic matters. He has been endorsed by the conservative California
Small Business Association, and his campaign has released a troubling statement announcing that he will look at creative incentives
to lower workers compensation costs without sacrificing protection. Statements like these coupled with Portantinos sources of
funding should make it clear that there is little reason to believe he will be all that interested in the needs of working class
Californians. On a positive note, he has spoken about Californias failure to properly fund the UC and Cal State schools, and he
declared that he is determined to make the legislature reinvest in the Master Plan for Higher Education, 50 years after it was
adopted. Portantino does not offer much, but he is preferable to his Republican opponent, and if he is elected activists should
continue to push him to follow through on his campaign promise to make tuition more affordable at Californias public colleges and
universities.

Michael D. Antonovich Republican
Michael D. Antonovich first got his start in politics way back in 1969, when he was elected to the newly formed Los Angeles
Community College District Board of Trustees. He has since been a member of the California State Assembly, chairman of the
California Republican Party, and has served as a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors since 1980. The recent
establishment of term limits for LA County supervisors will result in him being termed out from his current position at the end of this
year. Antonovich has been stressing his willingness to fight crime in the district, which he claims has risen as a result of the criminal
justice and carceral reforms implemented in recent years under AB 109 and Proposition 47. AB 109 addressed prison overcrowding
by shifting low-level, nonviolent, nonsex felony offenders to local jails, while Proposition 47, was also aimed at easing overcrowding
in the prison system by reducing the penalties for shoplifting, forgery, fraud, petty theft, and possession of small amounts of drugs

including cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines. Antonovich argues that these policies have hampered local law enforcement
efforts.
Antonovichs calls for harsher criminal punishments is the last thing California needs at a moment when so much money
that could be spent on improving education, healthcare, and providing jobs is going to police and prisons. In reference to LA
Countys high rates of homelessness, Antonovich asserts that more housing will not solve the problem because the homeless
population is divided into four different groups: drug addicts, alcoholics, the mentally ill, and the economically deprived. Of those
four, only the economically deprived will benefit from housing and job training to become productive citizens. Basically,
Antonovich has given up a huge chunk of the states prison population, and instead of providing the necessary resources and
opportunities for these Californians to improve their situations, he prefers to just spend more money on incarceration. While he can
clearly be counted on to ensure that plenty of government money continues to be spent on police and prisons, he has also boasted
about how as a county supervisor he helped prevent the LA County government from spending much money on anything
else. Consequently, given that he has spent his long career promoting mass incarceration, while also fighting to reduce funding for
necessities like housing and education, there is no reason we should not feel inclined to finally kick Antonovich off of the public dole
for the first time in nearly five decades this November.

Vote Portantino

26. CA State Senate District 27 (Fazio vs. Stern)

Steve Fazio Republican
In District 27, which includes portions of eastern Ventura County, along with Malibu, and the western San Fernando Valley, we have
Republican contender Steve Fazio. Fazio has a business background as the owner of Fazio Cleaners, and he has also served as a
reserve police officer with the Los Angeles Police Department from 1981 to 2011. Though he is a Republican, Fazio claims that his
views are far removed from some of the activities that we often see these days in Washington DC. Fazio has also stated that he is
a big believer in bipartisanship, and that he takes a moderate position on social issues. Moreover, he has sought to further
differentiate himself from many of todays Republicans by asserting that he strongly favors protecting the environment.
Nevertheless, Fazio has been especially keen to emphasize the theme of law and order in his campaign. Not surprisingly,
Fazio has received the endorsement of the Los Angeles Police Protective League. Like his Democratic opponent in this contest, Fazio
believes that Prop 47 has made law enforcement more difficult, though his critique of the measure goes further than Sterns, since
he has also declared that Prop 47 undermines efforts to police the homeless population. Apparently, Fazio has no problem spending
unlimited sums of money imprisoning the states most deprived constituents because his campaign literature includes paranoid
complaints about how Californias laws no longer allow for homeless individuals who commit crimes to be jailed for long enough
periods of time. Fazios harsh approach to dealing with homelessness, and his support for more punitive sentencing in general
should make it crystal clear that he is not a good alternative to Stern in this State Senate race.

Henry Stern Democrat
Henry Stern is running to replace Fran Pavley, who will be retiring this year. Sterns background is in environmental law, and he has
been an environmental policy advisor to Senator Pavley for the past four years. As a state senator, Pavley often focused on
environmental issues, and Stern supported her efforts to improve energy efficiency and access to clean sources of fuel for schools
and public buildings. He also helped write legislation sponsored by Senator Pavley to regulate fracking in California, and his
campaign statements indicate that he will likely continue to emphasize environmental issues as a member of the California
Legislature if he is elected this fall.
During the campaign, Stern has argued that his environmental interests closely align with his plans for local economic
development, which he believes should revolve around the creation of green jobs. While his pronouncements on green jobs sound
good on the surface, Stern also resorts to conservative sounding arguments about the need to support small businesses and
entrepreneurship. There is certainly nothing in his economic statements to suggest that he will be particularly attentive to needs of
working class Californians. Nevertheless, the California Labor Federation strongly supported him during the primary, enabling Stern
to defeat his Democratic opponent Janice Kamenir-Reznik, who had been well-funded by real estate interests. While his statements
on economics have been fairly vague, Stern has spoken about the need to increase funding for schools. For example, he has
addressed the fact that state funding for schools and community colleges has been cut by more than $20 billion since 2007-08, and
his campaign released a statement declaring that Henry will fight for more resources for our schools.
When it comes to criminal justice, Stern has taken a similar if somewhat more mild approach to that of his Republican foe.
He argues that as a consequence of Prop 47 it is now necessary to prioritize all funding for local public safety protection programs
and ensure continued funding for adult criminal justice facilities that will meet needs created by realignment. Sterns call for more
money to local law enforcement has won him the endorsement of both the Association of Los Angeles County Sheriffs and the

California Association of Highway Patrolmen. While his positions on economic matters and criminal justice issues do not look
promising, an examination of his past experience and his campaign statements suggests that activists may be able to push him to
support more funding for education and to pursue more serious environmental regulations if he is elected.

Vote Stern

27. CA State Senate District 29 (Newman vs. Chang)

Josh Newman Democrat
Josh Newman is the Democratic candidate running for the California State Senate in District 29, which straddles the intersection of
the Los Angeles, Orange, and San Bernardino counties. He was the surprise victor of the primary in June against the more
established and experienced DNC candidate Sukhee Kang, a former mayor of Irvine. Newmans platform is largely anodyne centrist
fare, with a brief nod to marijuana legalization (dubbed liberalization on his website), along with an inordinate amount of text
about his devotion to balancing the budget, and him guaranteeing that he is not a politician but a public servant. His platform
seems to have little to offer the average person in concrete plans for the future, except a performative outsider position. During
the campaign, Newman has been emphasizing the importance of education, and has been quoted saying that he is committed to
ensuring that every California child has the best opportunities throughout their studies regardless of zip code, which would be a
nice sentiment if it did not parrot the motto of a charter school network (Caliber Schools), whose employees donated $1,000 to his
campaign. Those who are interested in the future of our public education system should be very concerned by this candidate. On
the issues more generally, considering his meandering faux-folksy policy statements, Newman does not seem like someone to place
a lot of confidence in.

Ling Ling Chang Republican
Ling Ling Chang is the Republican candidate in this rather uninspiring contest. She is currently a California state assemblymember
and as far as Republicans go, fairly innocuous. She has supported anti-tampon tax legislation during her time in the California
Legislature, as well as various other vaguely technocratic but pro-gender equality bills for getting girls into STEM education
programs, and for ensuring equal pay for female soccer players. Interestingly, she calls the anti-tampon tax bill tax relief for
women, while her Democratic colleagues are more bold-faced about the use of the word tampon. These subtleties suggest
perhaps more than they mean to. She, of course, being a Republican sees regulations as the source the states economic troubles.
Working class voters obviously lack a real champion in either Chang or Newman, making the District 29 race another depressing
example of the incredibly narrow range of choices that our electoral system so often seems to offer.

Neutral

28. CA State Senate District 33 (Lara vs. Robson)

Ricardo Lara Democrat
In District 33, which covers a strip of the Gateway Cities, stretching from parts of eastern Los Angeles to the Port of Long Beach, we
have incumbent Ricardo Lara. Lara won election in 2012 by sixty percentage points, after being opposed only by a candidate from
the radical left Peace and Freedom Party. The result is set to look similar this year, as Lara, a prominent member of the Senate and
chair of its Appropriations Committee, is opposed only by a throwaway Libertarian candidate.
Lara has positioned himself within the California government as, in the words of the LA Times, the point man in the push
for immigrant rights. In 2014, he authored the Health for All Act, which was signed into law by Governor Brown last year. The Act
calls on California to request a waiver from the federal government to allow undocumented immigrants access to healthcare
exchanges run through the Affordable Care Act. Lara also supports bilingual education and Proposition 58 (which itself repeals
proposition 227, the English Language in Public Schools statute), and he has introduced bills prohibiting the state from contracting
with for-profit detention centers. Lara certainly has shown himself to be sympathetic to the struggles of undocumented immigrants,
and he has been a committed proponent of expanding access to government programs, even if some of his most notable
achievements, such as the California DREAM loan act, stay within the bounds of neoliberal market-based solutions to social
problems. For instance, the aforementioned loan act plays into the problematic notion that reducing barriers to entry by widening
the availability of debt can take the place of real wealth redistribution and universal social welfare programs.
Nevertheless, Lara has also introduced several bills surprisingly antagonistic towards the carceral state, including SB 504,
which eased the process of sealing juvenile records, and SB 411, which reiterated every citizens right to record law enforcement
officers while on duty. However, this antagonism remains mild and subject to its natural limits. Laras Appropriations Committee

procedurally buried SB 1286, a bill that would have opened to the public all documents related to law enforcement disciplinary
proceedings (currently, California is one of only three states in which all internal law enforcement documents are withheld from the
public). This bill represented one of the key explicit policy demands of Black Lives Matter groups within California. Additionally, Lara
failed to vote on SB 1132, the proposed fracking moratorium from 2014, which ended up going down to defeat in a close State
Senate vote. All told, Lara should be considered marginally above par on issues of immigration, though deeply compromised by both
archliberal and careerist political considerations.

Honor Mimi Robson Libertarian
Honor Mimi Robson is the hopeless Libertarian Party candidate in this race, who is not worth your protest vote. Remember the
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Libertarian Party wants to go back to the good old days of the 19 century robber barons, when labor union organizing and strikes
were often suppressed with incredible violence, there were no minimum wage or child labor laws, Social Security did not exist, and
many cities were completely devoid of adequate sanitation and public health safeguards.

Vote Lara

29. CA State Senate District 35 (Bradford vs. Furutani)

Steven Bradford Democrat
The California State Senate race in District 35, which straddles Interstate 110, including the inland portions of the South Bay, will be
won by a Democrat, since the party secured the two highest spots in the primary. The primary winner, Steven Bradford, appears to
have a comfortable lead in the run-up to the general election vote. He is a mundane apparatchik of the Democratic machine, and is
endorsed by anyone who is anyone within the party. His website, fittingly for his political career, is nondescript. The Daily Breeze,
which has also endorsed him, even admits he is probably most well known for authoring a bill that gives bicyclists a three-foot
safety zone. He does at least support broadly accepted progressive agenda items, including raising the minimum wage to $15 an
hour and expanded universal healthcare. Also found amongst all the pablum are invocations about the need to design a regulatory
framework that provides businesses with the certainty that they need to invest in California as well as the acknowledgement of
having consistently been a strong ally with law enforcement to promote neighborhood security and keep local neighborhoods
safe. This sort of equivocation, absent the acknowledgement of an ongoing crisis of police violence, and the economic devastation
visited upon the working class, is unexceptionable but duly noted.

Warren Furutani Democrat
Bradford is opposed by Warren Furutani, a former assemblymember, who has the advantage of taking discernable positions, but not
of taking better ones. His most notable achievement while in the State Assembly was AB 340, the California Public Employees
Pension Reform Act, which capped certain benefits, raised the retirement age on new employees, and increased employee
contributions over labor opposition. In response to a questionnaire, Furutani has indicated he is undecided on Proposition 62
(repealing the death penalty), and that he opposes Proposition 58 (which repeals mandated English-only education in public
schools). During the campaign, he has at least spoken of his concerns about providing low-cost housing and addressing
homelessness, and he has been advocating for the reestablishment of the Community Redevelopment Agency. Nevertheless, given
his political contours, these initiatives that Furutani favors should be approached warily, and with an eye towards the potential
dangers of gentrifying types of development. Moreover, working class voters have plenty of reason to remain highly skeptical of
Furutanis approach to economic revitalization given his stated desire to combat the economic downturn by creating a Silicon South
Bay. Bradford seems primed for victory, but for anyone on the committed left, both of these candidates are a hard pass.

Neutral

30. Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors District 4 (Hahn vs. Napolitano)

Janice Hahn Democrat
Janice Hahn is running for office to the LA County Board of Supervisors in District 4, which stretches from Marina del Rey and LAX,
through the South Bay, Los Angeles Harbor Region, and the Gateway Cities, to the southwestern San Gabriel Valley. Hahn comes
from an important Los Angeles political family, and her father served for 40 years as LA County Supervisor. Her past political
experience includes working as a LA City Councilmember, and since 2011 serving as a member of the US House of Representatives.
Hahn has a solid track record when it comes to defending workers rights and she was viewed to be one of the most pro-labor
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members of the LA City Council during her time spent representing the Councils 15 District. In 2002, Hahn defended dockworkers

from the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) in their struggle with the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), after
the PMA resorted to a lockout in an effort to extract concessions from the ILWU during contract negotiations. When the Bush
Administration threatened to send in the National Guard to keep the Port of Long Beach open in the event of a strike, Hahn spoke
out forcefully against the possibility of such an action by declaring, Theres no room for the federal government. Theres only one
reason for them to get involved, and thats to break the union.

Aside from her past support for workers rights, Hahn has tended to take positions that are well within the
Democratic Partys mainstream on most issues. When it comes to the environment, she has spoken in opposition to proposals for
more offshore oil drilling in Californias coastal waters. Yet, Hahns overall environmental record has been problematic at times. In
2012, Hahn voted for a bill requiring the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to approve a permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline
project, an effort to bring oil extracted from Canadas tar sands to US refineries, which would have exacerbated climate change by
increasing carbon emissions, and also brought the threat of toxic oil spills to a number of communities located along the proposed
pipeline route. However, she did subsequently change her outlook, and ultimately voted against approving the project in 2015.
Hahn certainly shares many of the limitations of her fellow Democrats, but her strong statements in support of workers rights and
her past history of walking picket lines nonetheless suggests that she is still far more inclined to enter the fray on the side of working
class constituents than the vast majority of her Democratic colleagues.

Steve Napolitano Republican
The Republican contender in this contest is Steve Napolitano, who has worked as the Senior Deputy to the soon to be termed out
current District 4 Supervisor Don Knabe. Before joining Knabes office, he served on the Manhattan Beach City Council from 1993 to
2005, where he apparently never missed a single Council meeting. In his campaign literature, Napolitano has sought to downplay
his party membership and emphasize his commonsense and nonpartisan approach to government. Nevertheless, being the
good conservative that he is, Napolitano proclaims that Public Safety has to be governments #1 priority. You cant have good
schools, good neighborhoods or a good economy if people dont feel safe. Still, in contrast to many of the other Republicans in this
guide, he has issued a statement calling for diversion programs that would end the practice of cycling addicts and mentally ill
individuals through LAs jails, and he has spoken about the need to obtain increased federal aid to help the county address
homelessness. Napolitano has also acknowledged the high rates of poverty that exist in LA County, but unfortunately, in his
proposed solutions to such hardships, he mostly resorts to a lot of tired old arguments about the importance of creating a business
friendly regulatory environment. As if politicians have not been doing exactly that for decades, and yet poverty remains widespread.
As far as Republicans go, you could definitely do worse than Napolitano, but his quaint idealism about public service and
nonpartisanship is no substitute for a political program with specific measures to materially improve the lives of District 4s working
class residents.

Vote Hahn

31. Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors District 5 (Barger vs. Park)

Kathryn Barger Republican
In District 5, which covers the Antelope Valley, parts of the San Gabriel Valley Foothills, and Glendale, Kathryn Barger is looking to
replace her old boss Michael Antonovich, who is about to be termed out. She has spent the past 15 years working as District 5s
Chief Deputy Supervisor, and her campaign literature claims that her work with Supervisor Antonovich has made her an expert on
healthcare, mental health, and childrens issues. Barger is being backed not only by Republicans in this contest, but also by Mayor
Garcetti, who has declared that she has the experience and the ability to hit the ground running. She has also been endorsed by
the Democratic 3rd District Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, and by former Supervisor Gloria Molina, also a Democrat. Throughout the
campaign, Barger has been touting her commitment to bipartisan, along with the fact that she is not a career politician. There is
often nothing more ideological than claiming not to have an ideology, and Bargers non-ideological program includes the usual
conservative tropes about fiscal responsibility and public safety.

Darrell Park Democrat
Darrell Park is the Democratic contender in this race. According to his campaign literature, Parks past career experience has
included a stint in Washington D.C. working in the White House Office of Management and Budget, and since moving to Los
Angeles County over a decade ago, he has divided his time between helping clean energy start-up companies, teaching, and writing.
Like Barger, Park also emphasizes his commitment to fiscal discipline, and he has highlighted his role helping the Clinton
Administration balance the federal budget back in the 1990s. He has made some reasonable sounding statements during the
campaign about improving the foster care system, protecting services for disabled residents, and he has spoken out against the
influence of large corporations on government policy. Still, most of his policy recommendations have been fairly vague, and his

fetish for balanced budgets suggests that if elected he will hold to the status quo on most issues. On a more promising note, Park
has stated that the provision of housing represents the key to tackling the countys homelessness crisis. This may be an issue that
activists could press him on if he is elected, since Park seems to be one of the very few LA politicians to seriously stress how allowing
individuals struggling with homelessness to secure housing is the critical first step to actually addressing their needs.

Vote Park

32. Californias 25

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Congressional District (Knight vs. Caforio)

Stephen Knight Republican
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Stephen Knight is the incumbent candidate in Californias 25 Congressional District, which includes the cities of Santa Clarita, Simi
Valley, Palmdale, Lancaster, and a portion of the northern San Fernando Valley. Knight is running for a second term in LA Countys
most Republican congressional district, after having previously been a state senator from 2012 to 2014, and an assemblymember
from 2008 to 2012. Knight, who loves himself some guns, had spent 18 years working for the LAPD before entering politics. Since
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Knight represents the cop paradise that is the 25 Congressional District, it is not surprising that hes also been known to pepper his
campaign literature with badass action movie statements like Those who commit acts of violence, regardless of how they do it,
should be put in prison, where they belong. Even more awesome, Knights House website allows you to purchase flags, and you
will be glad to know that All flag purchases include a dedication message, which may be customized for the recipient and You
may choose to have your new flag flown over the U.S. Capitol for an additional charge of $7. I mean if you really love America, how
are you not voting for Knight and buying yourself some premium flags in 2016.

Bryan Caforio Democrat
Given what you now know about Knight, you would think that Bryan Caforio has no chance against the heroic incumbent
congressman. Unfortunately for Knight, his time-consuming patriotic duties, and the need to respond to numerous customized flag
dedication requests must have made it difficult for him to address the Aliso Canyon gas leak that occurred in his district last year in
close proximity to the Porter Ranch neighborhood. Apparently, Knight failed to appear publicly in Porter Ranch for a full two and
half months after the leak was discovered, resulting in some bad press, and Caforio has been harping on issue during the campaign.
Caforio is an attorney, who claims to have taken on some of the biggest banks in the world, and won, and throughout the
campaign he has been pushing a populist anti-establishment and anti-corporate message. However, his actual policy prescriptions
are fairly mild, and he takes mostly standard Democratic Party positions on various issues. Caforio has at least come out strongly
against corporate tax breaks, and for requiring millionaires and billionaires to pay the same percent of their incomes towards Social
Security as less affluent Americans. On economic policy, Caforio employs the usual Democratic talking points about the importance
of small businesses, and he wants to expand the availability of Small Business Administration loans. On a more disturbing note, he
has been rather bellicose on foreign policy matters, and has been scaremongering about Iran possibly cheating on the nuclear deal.
Overall, Caforio, despite his populist style, does not offer a substantive left alternative to Knight, though he appears to be the lesser
evil in this contest.

Vote Caforio

33. Californias 27

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Congressional District (Chu vs. Orswell)

Judy Chu Democrat
Judy Chu is running for reelection in District 27, which covers significant portions of the San Gabriel Foothills. Chu, who became a US
Representative in 2009, has had a long political career. She got her start in politics back in the 1980s when she joined the Monterey
Park City Council. In the House, Chu has mainly emphasized education, while also supporting campaign finance reform, along with
legislation aimed at protecting members of the public from government spying. She has sponsored a number of bills that would
provide more resources for the nations public K through 12 schools, and has sought to lessen the burden of student loan debt for
college graduates. One of her more encouraging actions was introducing HR 6204 in 2010, which would have subjected US charter
schools to greater accountability with regards to their financial dealings. Additionally, Chu has been a vocal supporter of immigrant
workers rights, and she has received strong labor union support in the past. On economic policy, Chu has generally taken
progressive stances on taxation and government spending, and has refused to abide conservative arguments about the necessity of
fiscal austerity in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crash.
In addition to being supportive of increasing the federal governments commitments to education and other social
welfare programs, Chu has on multiple occasions voted to decrease military spending. Yet, despite these solid progressive stances,

she has not proven immune from hawkish foreign policy arguments. For instance, Chu voted to authorize President Obamas use of
force against Libya back in 2011, contributing to the terrible destruction and chaos that now engulfs that country. Chus support for
military action in Libya after the recent disastrous episode in Iraq definitely makes one question her political judgment. Chu, like
most of her Democratic colleagues, also came out in support of Hillary Clinton over the much more progressive Bernie Sanders
during the recent primary contest. In addition to receiving large financial contributions from labor unions, she has also been well-
funded by real estate interests, the pharmaceutical industry, and telecommunications firms. In her rhetoric, even though she
remains supportive of increasing government spending to create jobs, Chu tends to adopt a lot of neoliberal talking points about
promoting innovation and the importance of small business startups. While Chus record suggests that she is one of the more
progressive US Representatives, her lack of populist combativeness and her unwillingness to act independently of the Democratic
Party establishment should make it clear that she will not be pushing for serious change any time soon unless she is forced to
respond to pressure from below.

Jack Orswell Republican
Jack Orswell is a former FBI Agent, who has been trying to use the deadly attack in San Bernardino as political capital in his quixotic
quest to enter the US House of Representatives. During the campaign, he has complained about the fact that Chu voted against
requiring background checks for Syrian refugees, and his campaign literature suggests that a flat income tax might be required in
order to reduce the federal deficit. Orswell is right to argue that we need new people in Congress, he just doesnt happen to be
one of them.

Vote Chu

34. Californias 28

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Congressional District (Schiff vs. Solis)

Adam Schiff Democrat
Adam Schiff is the incumbent candidate in District 28, covering parts of Hollywood, Los Feliz, Silver Lake, Glendale, and Burbank.
Prior to his political career, Schiff obtained a law degree from Harvard, and gained some fame back in the 1980s, when he was
responsible for prosecuting Richard Miller, an FBI agent, who was eventually convicted of espionage for providing classified
documents to Soviet intelligence agents. After a short stint as a member of the California State Senate, he joined the US House in
2001, where he has become an influential figure on foreign policy and national security issues. For some reason, Democrats who
vote for idiotic policies like the Iraq War always seem to be taken more seriously by the American foreign policy establishment and
their stenographers in the media. Along with voting to give George W. Bush the go ahead against Saddam in 2002, Schiff also voted
to authorize military intervention in Libya, and he refused to support a resolution that would have removed US troops from
Afghanistan in 2011. He has now amassed a long track record of working with neocons in support of militaristic foreign policy
measures while making US imperialism an easier sell to more skeptical members of the public by giving it a nice liberal sheen. Schiff
has combined such craven services to the Pentagon with the usual unwavering apologetics for Israeli war crimes.
In addition to his problematic foreign policy outlook, Schiff has been generally supportive of anti-labor free trade
agreements during his time as a US Representative. Nevertheless, US labor unions continue to endorse him and generously fund his
campaigns. Though he receives a large amount money from labor, Schiff is not overly dependent on unions for contributions, and
his campaign coffers are overflowing with money from the finance, real estate, electronics, and defense industries. One of the
relative bright spots in his voting record has been on climate change and other related environmental legislation. Schiffs overall
domestic economic positions appear to be fairly moderate, and he generally toes the standard Democrat Party line when it comes to
taxation and fiscal policies. His past votes in favor of free trade agreements with Peru, Panama, and South Korea suggest that he is
basically a neoliberal who, in slight contrast to the Republicans, favors a bit more government regulation in order to ensure that the
capitalist system functions smoothly. Consequently, working class voters have little reason to get excited about this race, and given
that Solis has very little hope of making things competitive anyway, it does not make a lot of sense to waste much energy supporting
Schiff this fall.

Lenore Solis Republican
Lenore Solis is a Republican outsider lacking the money and campaign infrastructure to make this much of a contest. Solis runs a
small document preparation business in Atwater Village, and from the little bit of information available about her from past failed
runs for office, we have gathered that she hates class war and loves God, though, from the reviews, her store seems to have pretty
reasonable prices if you need help getting any documents prepared or notarized.

Vote Schiff

35. Californias 29

th

Congressional District (Cardenas vs. Alarcon)

Tony Cardenas Democrat
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Tony Cardenas is running for reelection to US House in Californias 29 Congressional District, which encompasses areas of the East
San Fernando Valley, including Sylmar, Pacoima, Panorama City, Van Nuys, and North Hollywood. Cardenas has long been an
important political figure in the East Valley, starting when he first caught the attention of the political power broker James Acevedo,
who oversaw his first successful run for office in 1995. After his tenure in the State Assembly, which lasted until 2002, Cardenas
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eventually went on to join the LA City Council in 2003, and he has represented the 29 Congressional District since 2013. Cardenass
background is in real estate, and thus its no surprise that a political deal maker turned real estate developer like Acevedo decided to
seek him out as an ally. In his campaign literature, Cardenas speaks of attracting businesses to the Valley and creating quality jobs,
but, as his record plainly demonstrates, Representative Cardenas has a habit of employing such rhetoric in order to justify shady
dealings that subsidize corrupt developers and slumlords. For example, a 2008 LA Weekly investigation revealed how one of his
campaign contributors, Ruben Islas, who Cardenas publicly vouched for after Islas received $8 million in taxpayer money from the
Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) for a controversial renovation of the Rosslyn Lofts in Downtown LA, had been responsible
for maintaining deplorable conditions at the nearby Alexandria Hotel, one of Islass other publicly subsidized developments. On July
9, 2008, the LA Weekly reported that tenants at the Alexandria had no running water or drinking water in the midst of summer
heat, and, without running water, toilets were backing up with raw sewage. Not only did Cardenas provide Islas cover when
constituents voiced complaints at a CRA hearing, but emails obtained by the LA Weekly revealed how he privately pressured Mayor
Villaraigosa to step in on his slumlord friends behalf after the CRA had opposed Islass demand for an extra $4 million in subsidies.
Apparently, the citys public servants eventually saw the light, and the CRA suddenly reversed course to approve the deal.
The above episode perfectly illustrates the way so much of LAs politics is driven by the needs of unscrupulous developers,
who make a living off seizing government money that could otherwise be spent actually meeting the needs of ordinary residents.
Politicians like Cardenas may spout liberal platitudes, but protecting real estate vultures who contribute to their campaigns is usually
priority number one. No matter how Cardenas might try rationalize his actions as being necessary to get things done, working
class Californians should waste no time abiding such nonsense since Cardenas has nothing to offer them other than more of the
same sycophantic establishment politics that has left so many Angelenos with inadequate housing, schools, and mass transit.

Richard Alarcon Democrat
Like Cardenas, Richard Alarcon got his start in East Valley politics after being groomed by James Acevedo. Alarcons political career
began when he was elected to the LA City Council in 1993, and he subsequently went on to spend time in the California State
Assembly and State Senate. Though they eventually had a falling out, when they first joined forces in the 1990s, Alarcon and
Acevedo were mainly committed to getting Latinos elected to political office since at that time the San Fernando Valley was
completely devoid of successful minority politicians. Although Alarcon has been known to engage in the usual political nepotism, he
has, in sharp contrast to Cardenas and Acevedo, at least taken some steps to assist his working class Latino constituents. With his
2016 run for Congress, Alarcon is seeking a return to politics, following a brief hiatus where he faced charges for allegedly not living
in his district during his second stint as a Los Angeles city councilmember from 2007 to 2013. This past spring an appeals court
overturned Alarcons conviction, enabling him to mount another campaign for office, though his candidacy has been considerably
weakened by the whole affair.
Although Alarcon leaves much to be desired, in the past he has tended to rely more heavily on backing from labor unions
than Cardenas, who in turn has typically received more support from developers. In this years contest, the situation is even more
stark, with Cardenas holding a considerable advantage in overall campaign contributions, including especially large donations from
pharmaceutical companies, entertainment firms, and finance, along with all the money that his campaign continues to rack up from
real estate industry snakes. During his career, Alarcon has also tended speak much more forcefully than Cardenas about the need to
fight poverty in the East Valley, and as a member of the California State Senate, he established the Senate Select Committee on the
Status of Ending Poverty in California back in 2003. At the time, Alarcon explained that the committees objective would be to draft
a master plana substantive package of legislation, which will be held up as a commitment from our state to end poverty.
Moreover, as a state senator, Alarcon helped to secure $200 million for teacher recruitment training and salary increases, and with
Gil Cedillo, he co-authored the Cedillo-Alarcon Community Clinic Investment Act in 2000 that brought an additional $85 million to
the states community health clinics. While Alarcons support for working class Californians has often been more symbolic than real,
he is certainly preferable to his pro-slumlord opponent.

Vote Alarcon

36. Californias 30

th

Congressional District (Sherman vs. Reed)

Brad Sherman Democrat
Brad Sherman is the incumbent member of the US House of Representatives for Californias District 30, which encompasses the
western San Fernando Valley. After receiving his law degree, Sherman worked as a Certified Public Accountant during the 1980s,
and he later went on to serve on the California State Board of Equalization, before joining Congress in 1997. Given his accounting
background, it makes sense that Sherman often tends to focus on the arcane technocratic side of the legislative process, and less on
the articulation of a clear political vision and ideological perspective. When it comes to domestic affairs, Sherman has generally
gone along with his Democratic colleagues on most issues. He has taken some solid positions on consumer protection, and has
authored legislation to defend credit card holders from arbitrary interest rate increases and retroactive interest rate hikes on
existing balances. Sherman has also spoken out against the offshoring of manufacturing jobs, and has voted against various free
trade deals since joining Congress.
Whatever limited merits a bland centrist like Sherman has on domestic matters disappears when it comes US foreign policy.
Sherman voted to authorize the Bush Administrations use of force in Iraq back 2002, and he has been a crazed devotee of any and
everything Israel does during his almost two decades in office. Recently, he has been rattling on about the supposed Iranian threat,
and he voted against the Obama Administrations nuclear deal. Over the years, Sherman has played a central role in congressional
efforts to lavish untold weaponry on our erratic and murderous closest ally and friend in the Middle East. Apparently, Sherman,
who has received sizeable financial contributions from the Pro-Israel lobby, is either incredibly craven or delusional, since he is also
calling for the US to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, which would dramatically exacerbate tensions in the region.
Apparently, Shermans new hobby horse is going after free speech on college campuses, where, in contrast to the US Congress,
people are able to actually talk about facts on the ground in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. In an effort to undermine the Boycott,
Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, Sherman has recently been leading the charge to censure UCLA students who support
BDS and voice criticism of Israels violent suppression of the Palestinian people, by accusing BDS activists of anti-Semitism.
Unfortunately, Shermans ludicrous and unfounded charges against BDS activists have been repeated by many of his fellow House
Democrats, including a number of representatives from California, who have happily chosen to participate in this disgusting smear
campaign.

Mark Reed Republican
If voters were looking for a decent alternative to an unhinged imperialist like Sherman, they certainly will not find it in Mark Reed. In
between all the God bless America boilerplate that covers his campaign webpage, theres some nice scaremongering about ISIS,
along with a link to a video of President Reagan talking about the dangers that centralized power poses to individual freedom.
Further adding to the dystopian experience is an amusing advertisement from some pro-Israel group blaming Obama for not doing
enough to kiss Israels backside. The few substantive tidbits one comes across suggest that Reed is basically just vying for a chance
to grease the wheels for more pork barrel defense industry boondoggles. If for some reason none of what you have just read about
Reed and Sherman is inspiring you to make your voice heard, it looks as though Sherman is a sure bet to win this years contest, so
we totally understand it if you decide to leave this one blank on your 2016 ballots.

Vote Sherman

37. Californias 32

nd

Congressional District (Napolitano)

Grace Napolitano Democrat
Grace Napolitano is the incumbent in District 32, which includes El Monte, Monterey Park, West Covina, and southern Glendora.
Napolitano is currently running unopposed after her opponent Democratic State Assemblymember Roger Hernandez dropped out of
the race this past September following a scandal involving allegations of domestic violence against his ex-wife. Napolitano, who has
been a member of the US House since 1999, was also once a California assemblymember, and a Norwalk City Councilmember.
Napolitano is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and she has tended to emphasize the issues of mental healthcare
and water security during her tenure in the House. As far as water goes, Napolitano has made some encouraging statements in the
past urging the Environmental Protection Agency to hold polluters responsible and require them to provide the funds necessary to
restore clean groundwater. However, she appears to put too much stock in the efficacy of desalination, which is both prohibitively
expensive and a way to skirt the need to confront Californias corporate agriculture giants over their profligate water usage.
Napolitano also led an effort to establish the House Mental Health Caucus, and she has been a strong advocate for increasing the
federal governments commitment to improving access to quality mental healthcare.

Like many of her fellow Democrats in the House, Napolitano unfortunately tends to emphasize the importance of
entrepreneurship when it comes to job creation. Nevertheless, she has also sought to prevent the outsourcing of manufacturing
jobs. As part of these efforts, Napolitano took part in the formation of the Manufacturing Task Force in her district. However, it is
not yet clear if this initiative really has workers interests at heart, since it also appears to be an attempt on the part of local
Chambers of Commerce to rebrand their efforts to secure corporate tax breaks and other business friendly legislation. Napolitano
has generally been less bellicose on foreign policy than many other members of Congress, and she voted against the authorization to
use force in both Iraq and Libya. Nevertheless, she is a vocal supporter of Israel, and last year she broke with most of her
Democratic colleagues to vote against the Iran nuclear deal, which the pro-Israel lobby also vigorously opposed. There are worse
representatives than Napolitano out there, but nonetheless she remains a deeply flawed candidate.

38. Californias 33

rd

Congressional District (Lieu vs. Wright)

Ted Lieu Democrat
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Ted Lieu is seeking reelection to the Californias 33 District of the US House of Representatives, which stretches from Malibu
through the Beach Cities to the Palos Verde Peninsula. Lieu, who joined Congress in 2015, after having spent time in both the
California State Assembly and State Senate, is another member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, whose voting record
sometimes make you wonder what the word progressive even means. Last year, he joined his fellow Progressive Caucus member
Grace Napolitano in voting against the Iran nuclear deal, and he has been a leading supporter of the crackdown against BDS at UCLA.
Still, Lieus foreign policy orientation is less coherent than many of his fellow warmongers, and he has sponsored some reasonable
legislation calling on the US government to block arm sales to Saudi Arabia in response to the devastation that our second closest
Middle East ally is currently inflicting upon Yemen. If there is one area where he appears to be more consistent and progressive, it is
on environmental matters. In 2014, while a member of the California State Senate, Lieu voted for establishing a moratorium on
fracking that unfortunately failed to pass. When it comes to addressing global warming he has suggested that the US should study
countries that have been more successful at reducing carbon emissions, and begin implementing similar measures at home. As far
as political fundraising goes, Lieu has received major campaign contributions from the real estate industry, finance, and from the
pro-Israel lobby. A thorough investigation of Lieus political resume and his sources of funding make it exceedingly clear that he
leaves much to be desired, but regrettably we are left with no good alternatives to his candidacy this November.

Kenneth Wright Republican
Lieus challenger in 2016 is Kenneth Wright, who when hes not surfing at Torrance Beach works as a pediatric eye doctor. Dr.
Wright calls himself a Progressive Republican, and why shouldnt he given the nebulous nature of the term progressive in todays
political discourse. Yet, unlike a lot of the other Republican so-called outsider candidates, Wright does come across as a well-
meaning though misguided person, who genuinely wants to help less advantaged members of society. In his campaign literature,
Wright appears to be struggling to formulate a humane approach to social policy within the constraints of a neoclassical economic
framework that forecloses the possibility of any alternative to market-based remedies. So it should come as no surprise that Dr.
Wrights solution to the flawed Obamacare insurance system is not single-payer, but more free market nonsense. Sadly, Wright
seems to have also bought into a lot of the conservative fetishism about deficits and fiscal responsibility, and his responsible
approach to governance offers nothing for working class Americans to get behind.

Vote Lieu

39. Californias 34

th

Congressional District (Becerra vs. Edwards)

Xavier Becerra Democrat
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Xavier Becerra is a longtime incumbent, who currently represents Californias 34 Congressional District, which includes
neighborhoods in Central, East, and Northeast Los Angeles. Prior to joining the House, he served as Deputy Attorney General in the
California Department of Justice from 1987 to 1990, before going on to join the State Assembly for a brief stint. Despite his
supposedly progressive credentials, Becerra has been a fairly reliable supporter of free trade ever since he voted for NAFTA in the
early days of his congressional career. A perusal of his initiatives in Congress indicates that Becerra tends focus on relatively
innocuous and technocratic legislative matters. Given that Becerra, who comes across as a wonkish liberal, received his formative
legislative training during the Clinton Era, it should come as no surprise that Becerra also loves himself some balanced budgets. As
his 2016 Democratic National Convention speech illustrates well, Becerra likes to resort to cheesy personal anecdotes and banal
clichs that are supposed compensate for his lack of a well-articulated political vision and program. Despite his shilling for a
warmonger like Hillary Clinton in 2016, at least Becerra tends to take a less belligerent approach to foreign policy issues than many

of his fellow Democrats. Still, Becerra is not much for taking bold stances, and anti-imperialists should not view him as anything
close to an ally given his obvious careerist tendencies. Becerra is fortunate to be surrounded by a bunch war hawks and corporate
underlings, since his nondescript status quo politics does very little to inspire much enthusiasm.

Angela Nicole Edwards Democrat
Angela Nicole Edwards is the protest vote candidate in this foreordained Becerra landslide. Her campaign website does not appear
to be in operation anymore, and it is impossible to find much in the way of information about her political outlook. However, she
did post some videos of Bernie Sanders on her Facebook page during the run-up to last Junes primary. Voters might as well try to
boost Edwardss 2016 general election numbers just to shake Becerra out of his complacent servitude to the Democratic Party
establishment.

Vote Edwards

40. Californias 35

th

Congressional District (Torres vs. Fischella)

Norma Torres Democrat
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Norma Torres is seeking reelection to Californias 35 Congressional District, which covers portions of the western Inland Empire,
including Chino, Fontana, Ontario, and Pomona. Torres was born Guatemala, and relocated to Los Angeles as a child. Prior to
entering politics, she worked as a 9-1-1 dispatcher, while being an active member of AFSCME, and serving as local 3090s shop
steward. After spending time on the Pomona City Council, Torres eventually entered the California Legislature in 2008, and is now
coming to the end of her first term in the US House of Representatives. Despite her experience in the labor movement, she does not
evince much class consciousness in her various campaign and policy statements. While she often begins her policy declarations with
sympathetic feel your pain homilies, she usually follows this up with apolitical calls for unity. For example, in a 2012 statement
that acknowledged the weakness of the economic recovery, Torres explained that it is critically important that local and state
elected officials join business leaders to come up with innovative, out of the box policy solutions that will speed things along and get
our community back to work. Torress habit of resorting to these sorts of paeans to business leaders and innovation may partly
explain why she appears to have had such little difficulty raising money from various corporate lobby groups, though its certainly
also possible that her past vote against Californias proposed fracking moratorium may provide an even better explanation for why
many of these business leaders have come to view Torres as such a worthwhile investment opportunity. Still, you have to at least
give Torres some credit for her unwillingness to kowtow to the Clinton political machine and remain neutral in this years
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Democratic Primary contest, that is until she finally caved a week before the vote to become the 36 out of 39 Democratic members
of the US House from California to endorse Secretary Clinton (none of the 39 endorsed Senator Sanders).

Tyler Fischella Republican
Thankfully, Tyler Fischella, the Republican contender in this race at least provides voters some much needed comic relief this year
(we encourage readers to go online and check out his campaign site just to view the webpages slick photo of this proud millennial).
Fischella loves himself some Uber and some charter schools, and he should have no trouble winning the millennial vote, since, unlike
these old guard politicos, Fischella really knows what young peoples primary concerns are (NASA cuts of course). Thus, in his
campaign literature, he reminds us of that terrible day back in 2010 when President Obama cut NASAs budget, which made
millennials and the science community furious! In addition to supporting more giveaways to the aerospace industry, Fischella
declares, He will support private companies such as SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, Orbital Sciences Corp, and any missions to Mars. Just
think about how many more millennials Bernie Sanders could have turned out to vote during the primary if only he had talked more
about Mars.

Vote Torres

41. Californias 37

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Congressional District (Bass vs. Wiggins)

Karen Bass Democrat
Karen Bass is the incumbent US Representative from Californias District 37, which covers parts of West, Central, and South LA,
including Culver City, Baldwin Hills, the Crenshaw District, Exposition Park, along with portions Westwood and Koreatown. She has
been a member of Congress since 2011, after serving for three terms as a California assemblymember. Bass, who is a member of the
Congressional Progressive Caucus, has amassed a solidly liberal voting record, and in the past she has been a critic of fiscal austerity
and cuts to various social programs. During her time in the California Legislature, she helped author legislation that imposed

stronger regulations on subprime lending, and co-sponsored a bill expanding access to transitional housing services for foster youth.
In Congress, she has continued to look out for the needs of foster children by authoring the successfully passed Education Stability
for Foster Youth Act, which was aimed at ensuring that the nearly 400,000 young people who are a part of our nations foster care
system can stay in the school of their choice if they move homes and guarantees foster youth have a support system to help them
throughout their educational career. Regrettably, on more general matters of economic policy, Bass remains trapped inside the
same neoliberal box that seems to limit the political vision of so many of her fellow Progressive Caucus Democrats. She has called
for tax credits to small businesses, and her campaign literature includes standard neoliberal evocations about the wonders of
innovation. While Bass tends to be less hawkish than other members of Congress, she did vote to authorize President Obamas
use of force in Libya. Furthermore, her enthusiastic support for Clinton during the primary also suggests it is unlikely that she would
ever come out in strong opposition to the Democratic Party establishment on matters of both foreign and domestic policy.

Chris Wiggins Democrat
The challenger in what is likely to be a Bass landslide is Chris Wiggins, who is running as a Democrat and as a Bernie Sanders
supporter. According to his campaign website, he has spent the past 5 years working as a recruiter for various LA area
entertainment and media companies. In addition to his recruiting work, Wiggins currently serves on the Advisory Board of the
Design and Gaming School of Los Angeles, and he also does work with A Place Called Home, a South Central based non-profit.
Despite his identification with the Sanders insurgency, Wiggins comes across as a standard neoliberal Democrat, whose main
criticism of the US political establishment is its failure to get money out of politics. While it is certainly the case that our democracy
has been perverted by corporate cash, Wigginss narrow focus on campaign finance reform and overturning Citizens United fails to
address the depth of the American political systems rot. In contrast to Sanders, his campaign literature seems to be wholly lacking
in any kind of class analysis. Unfortunately, Wiggins shares a lot of the same ideological limitations that plague his opponent
Representative Bass, as he tends to emphasize the importance of opportunity rather than wealth redistribution. This emphasis on
opportunity fits nicely with market-based solutions like charter schools, and predictably Wiggins takes the position that There
should be choices available, so more opportunities for students to attend public, charter, and magnet schools which fit their needs.
On a positive note, he at least says that he supports single-payer healthcare. Wiggins certainly is a flawed candidate, but it would be
a good idea for leftists to vote for him simply as a way to keep Bass from completely ignoring her left flank. Nevertheless, while it
makes sense to tactically support self-identified Berniecrats like Wiggins, in order to put pressure on establishment candidates who
have chosen to fall in line behind Clinton, working class voters should have no illusions about any candidate who fails to put class
struggle on the table.

Vote Wiggins

42. Californias 38

th

Congressional District (Sanchez vs. Downing)

Linda Sanchez Democrat
Linda Sanchez, who has been a US Representative since 2003, is running for reelection in Californias 38th Congressional District,
comprising areas of southeastern Los Angeles and parts of the San Gabriel Valley. Sanchez began her career as an attorney
specializing in labor law, and has also worked as a compliance officer for Local 441 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical
Workers (IBEW) Local 441. Additionally, prior to joining Congress, she served as the Executive Secretary/Treasurer of the Orange
County Central Labor Council. Considering the congressional candidates that have populated the guide thus far, it is certainly a
breath of fresh air to come across a Progressive Caucus member who actually has a bit of class struggle bite, at least in terms of her
rhetoric. As a consequence of her labor background, Sanchez, unlike many of her fellow progressive Democrats, seems comfortable
deploying populist class tinged language in her policy arguments, and she was a co-founder of the Labor and Working Families
Caucus, whose sated purpose is to protect workers rights and working families by tackling important issues like overtime,
minimum wage, and health care.
While she has been known to voice support for unions and workers rights, Sanchez also tends to come across as a much
bolder opponent of the neoliberal fiscal austerity logic than most of the other so-called progressive Democrats in the House. Among
Californias congressional Democrats, Sanchez has been one of the most outspoken critics of the ongoing Republican campaign to
cut food stamps. After the GOP gained control of Congress following the 2010 midterm elections, she led the charge against a Farm
Bill containing $8 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which, sadly, was eventually passed in
2014, thanks to the support of many Democratic House members. At the time, Sanchez complained, These proposed cuts to SNAP
would quite literally take food out of the mouths of children. In my district, SNAP helps provide food for seniors, kids, veterans, and
working familiesI dont understand why in good conscience Congress would ask millions of struggling Americans to go hungry in
order to subsidize big agribusiness. Its also heartening to note that in addition to her strong opposition to cutting various federal
social programs, Sanchez supports reducing defense spending as a preferable way to overcome budgetary constraints. Yet, in spite

of her calls to reduce spending on the military, Sanchez has not exactly been an opponent of US imperialist practices, and she voted
to support the Obama Administrations 2011 bombing campaign in Libya. Even on the domestic front, Sanchezs populism has its
obvious limits, as her vocal support for Wall Streets favorite candidate during the 2016 presidential primary clearly demonstrates.
Regrettably, Sanchezs willingness to fight for the interests of working class Americans appears to be seriously compromised by the usual
careerist calculations.

Ryan Downing Republican
Ryan Downing, the hopeless Republican challenger in what looks to be a foreordained Sanchez victory, comes across as fairly mild and sane
compared to many of the other Republican wackos and narcissists that populate our guide. He appears to be trying to brand himself as a
Republican with sensible views on immigration. However, his campaigns actual immigration program is nowhere to found, since he is only
asking that California adhere to the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, and continue to grant amnesty to undocumented
immigrants who are able to prove that they have resided in the US continuously since January 1, 1982. This Republican so-called friend of
immigrants offers no specific policy proposals that apply to those undocumented residents not covered by the 1986 Act, and the rest of his
campaign literature is equally irrelevant and nebulous.

Vote Sanchez

43. Californias 39

th

Congressional District (Royce vs. Murdock)

Ed Royce Republican
Ed Royce is an incumbent and longtime member of the House, representing Californias 39th District, which includes various municipalities
and suburban areas near the intersection of the Los Angeles, Orange, and San Bernardino counties. According to his campaign literature,
before becoming a politician, Royce had been a business owner, a controller, a capital projects manager, and a corporate tax manager.
After spending some time in the California State Senate, he has been a member of Congress since 1993. Royce tends to focus on fighting
pork barrel legislation, which in his mind is anything not spent on the war machine, and that actual benefits ordinary Americans. Since he
has little to offer his constituents on domestic matters, it not surprising that Royce spends an inordinate amount of time scaremongering
about illusory threats to American power. The current boogeyman of the moment appears to be Russia, though he has also been playing
the Iran card a lot in recent years. Not surprisingly, in addition to the sizeable protection payments that he has received from the usual
Wall Street crooks, Royce has also been well-funded by the pro-Israel lobby in this years campaign. Additionally, he has collected large
checks from real estate sharks, who have been happy to repay Royce for all those years of public service devoted to reducing the
governments involvement in the provision of affordable housing. Given Royces aforementioned resume, working class constituents of
District 39 have plenty of reason to vote for Royces long overdue retirement in 2016.

Brett Murdock Democrat
The Democrat in this race, Brett Murdock at least talks a good game about campaign finance reform, and overturning Citizens United.
However, this a pretty easy stance for an outsider candidate to take, and it remains to be seen whether Murdocks populist pandering is
more than just a useful rhetorical device that he has chosen to employ in order to gain admission to the party. His campaign literature also
highlights the issue of debt-free college, and predictably, given his legal background, he proposes to solve the problem by amending the
tax code to make it easier for middle class Americans to pay back student loans and take serious steps toward making higher education
affordable for all. Even with Sanders opening up the mainstream discourse to the concept of free college during the 2016 campaign
season, Murdock appears uninterested in proposing anything of the sort, and instead chooses to advocate fairly tepid and vague solutions
to this ever worsening crisis of unaffordability. The rest of Murdocks campaign statements consist of the usual Democratic Party
boilerplate, leaving working class voters with very little that would inspire much enthusiasm, but at least hes not Ed Royce.

Vote Murdock

44. Californias 40

th

Congressional District (Roybal-Allard vs. Gonzalez)

Lucille Roybal-Allard Democrat
Lucille Roybal-Allard is seeking reelection to the US House for Californias 40th District, which covers parts of South Central, East Los
Angeles, and southeastern LA County. Roybal is a longtime incumbent, who prior to entering Congress in 1993, had spent time in the
California State Assembly. She is another Congressional Progressive Caucus member, whose rhetoric is fairly bland and devoid of a class
critique. Roybal has spent much of her time in office focusing on health issues, and one of her more recent initiatives on that policy front
was the Newborn Screening Saves Lives Reauthorization Act, which she introduced and helped pass in 2014 that expanded programs that
screen for heritable diseases in newborns and children. Despite her past legislative work in support of similarly sensible health policy
initiatives, Roybal has failed to speak out strongly for anything resembling a real universal healthcare program, and she has uncritically

lauded the severely compromised and market-based Affordable Care Act. This could have something to do with her own ideological
blinders, but it also may be no coincidence that various corporate entities associated with the healthcare industry complex have been some
of her key sources of campaign contributions in recent years. One area, where she has shown a bit more concern for working class
interests has been on the issue of farmworkers rights, and during past two presidential administrations she has repeatedly introduced the
Childrens Act for Responsible Employment (CARE), which seeks to end the double standard that allows an estimated 400,000 farm worker
children to work for longer hours and at earlier ages than children in every other industry. While the aforementioned proposed legislation
is much needed, most of Roybals other policy prescriptions are neither radical nor terribly specific. Overall, Roybal seems to be another
run-of-the-mill California Democrat, who is comfortably situated in a well-insulated congressional sinecure.

Ramon Gonzalez Independent
Ramon Gonzalez is another worthless outsider candidate who, for some reason, believes, or at least pretends to anyway, that his
presence in Congress, unlike that of career politicians like Roybal, will magically transform the nations rotten political economic order.
Still, you have to give it to this outside the box thinker for apparently finally discovering the solution to gun violence, which turns to be
more anger management classes for youth, since The weapon is not the root cause of the issue, violence is. The rest of Gonzalezs gun
violence reduction plan reads like someone trying brand himself as a cross between a NRA gun nut and a self-help shyster, while his other
policy solutions prove to be equally empty and incoherent.

Vote Roybal-Allard

45. Californias 43

rd

Congressional District (Waters vs. Navarro)

Maxine Waters Democrat
Maxine Waters is the incumbent candidate representing Californias 43rd Congressional District, which is located in South LA County, and
covers portions of Los Angeles, Carson, and Torrance. Waters is currently the most senior Black Congresswoman, having served in the US
House since 1991, after a stint in the California State Assembly from 1976-1991. In the past, she has been an outspoken advocate for South
LAs minority populations, and has often expressed a more radical posture on various domestic and foreign policy issues. For example, she
was one of the few US Representatives, who voiced some sympathy for participants in what the mainstream press dubbed the LA riots back
in 1992, but which she at the time called a rebellion, and a spontaneous reaction to a lot of injustice. Waterss more thoughtful response
was in sharp contrast to all the moralizing and law and order rhetoric saturating the national airwaves and political discourse at the time.
She has also been significantly better than the vast majority of her fellow Democrats when comes to foreign policy, and she was one of the
most vocal opponents of the deplorable 2003 Iraq War. On domestic affairs, Waters has been an important figure in efforts increase access
to affordable housing, and she introduced legislation in 2009 that would have expanded federal subsidies to tenants under the Section 8
voucher program, which was regrettably buried in the House Financial Services Committee. On healthcare policy, Waters was more critical
of Obamacare at the time of its passage than most of her Democratic colleagues in the House, and she has recently co-sponsored the
single-payer bill HR 676. Nevertheless, Waterss willingness to challenge the Democratic Party establishment has its limits, and she chose
to endorse Hillary Clinton in the 2016 primary. Waters should be viewed as one the members of Congress most inclined to safeguard social
spending at home, and to oppose imperialist adventurism abroad, but as is the case with so many of her fellow Democrats in Congress, she
tends to lose some of her critical fire during periods when a Democrat happens to be residing in the White House.

Omar Navarro Republican
Sadly, Omar Navarro, who is probably running just in order to network with a bunch of other rightwing goofballs for his small business
serving the tech industry, will soon be forgotten by most of us. Yet, for those fortunate enough to have taken part in Navarros Pro-
Active Leadership for the 21st Century campaign, the memories of his outsider run for Congress will surely last a lifetime. So lets hope for
an absolutely crushing Waters landslide on November 8th.

Vote Waters

46. Californias 44

th

Congressional District (Hall vs. Barragan)

Isadore Hall III Democrat
Isadore Hall III is running to replace departing US Representative Janice Hahn, in Californias 44th Congressional District, which straddles
Interstate 110, including the inland portions of the South Bay, along with the Port of Los Angeles. Hall, who has been endorsed by Hahn,
and the rest of the Los Angeles Democratic Party establishment in this contest, has spent the past two years in the State Senate, after
having also served in the past as a California assemblymember and a Compton city councilmember. In his policy positions, Hall mostly
resorts to standard Democratic Party talking points, though he occasionally employs more troubling conservative sounding rhetoric about
cutting red tape in order to help small businesses prosper. When it comes to the Los Angeles Port, he seems to be especially concerned
about maintaining a business friendly environment, though he at least throws a few bones to workers by reminding voters that businesses

also need to respect the legitimate rights and wishes of their workers in order for the Port to continue to thrive as a workplace for both
workers and businesses. The rest of his policy statements are equally generic and dubious. During his time in the California Legislature,
Hall has mostly voted with his Democratic Party colleagues on various measures, though he did vote against a bill requiring overtime for
farmworkers, which likely explains why agribusiness groups have decided to so generously fund his campaign. Overall, Hall comes across as
a fairly nondescript political figure, who is likely to quickly fall in line behind the congressional Democratic Party establishment if he is
elected to the US House in 2016.

Nanette Barragan Democrat
Nanette Barragan, who has been endorsed by the Bernie Sanders outfit Our Revolution, is the challenger to the Democratic Party
establishments candidate in this contest. During her career, she has worked as an attorney, and has held a variety of political posts, most
recently serving in the Hermosa Beach City Council for two years. Despite the endorsement from Our Revolution, Barragans campaign
literature essentially consists of customary Democratic Party fare. For example, her campaign webpage mentions how Barragan as a
Hermosa Beach city councilmember balanced fiscal common sense with the right priorities. She balanced budgets, fixed streets, helped
expand afterschool programs and hired new police officers without raising taxes. There is certainly no mention of any proposals for
wealth redistribution, and very little economic populism to be had in any of her policy prescriptions. Barragan makes a lot of her
commitment to standing up to the oil industry, but most of her environmental proposals are similar to other mainstream Democratic Party
politicians, and she calls for creative strategies to attract and incentivize clean green businesses... On education, she does offer up the
vague proposal that we should provide free-to-low-cost education to students who want an education. For those prefer trade schools and
skills, we need to make sure they have access and affordable training. It may be worth voting for Barragan just to see how she responds to
peoples potentially overinflated expectations of her candidacy once in office, but there is very little here of substance for working class
voters to get behind. Consequently, it appears that we have been left with two rather uninspiring options in District 44 despite all the hype.

Neutral

47. Californias 47

th

Congressional District (Lowenthal vs. Whallon)

Alan Lowenthal Democrat
Alan Lowenthal is an incumbent Democrat, who was first elected to Congress in 2012. He represents Californias 47th Congressional District,
which includes Long Beach, along with nearby portions of northwestern Orange County. Previously, Lowenthal had been a member of both
the California State Senate and the State Assembly, and he began political his career as a member of the Long Beach City Council starting in
1992. During his time in government, Lowenthal has tended to emphasize environmental issues, and he has helped lead efforts to reduce
pollution in the Long Beach Port area. In 2000, he authored legislation requiring that petroleum coke piles at the Port be covered, in order
to protect residents from harmful airborne particulate matter. As a Congressman, Lowenthal has also spoken in favor of a more peaceful
approach to foreign policy, while also voting against government spying at home. Sadly, despite his relatively dovish foreign policy
statements, Lowenthal appears to be a PEP (Progressive Except on Palestine), and he has backed the disgusting campaign to censure BDS
activists at UCLA.
While Lowenthal has a solid record on the environment, his economic positions are less clearly defined. In his past opposition to
Congressional Republican efforts to slash spending, he argued that, as an alternative to the Republican sequestration initiative, Congress
should agree to a set of responsible spending cuts and increased revenues generated by closing tax loopholes that solely benefit the very
wealthy. In terms of campaign fundraising, Lowenthals largest donors are labor unions, though he has also received some money from
corporate entities, such as the AES Corporation, Edison International, and AT&T. While he may lack the personality and rhetorical bite of
some of his Progressive Caucus colleagues, Lowenthal deserves credit for not completely buckling to careerist pressures in the run-up to
the 2016 presidential primary, since, even though he never went so far as to endorse Senator Sanders, Lowenthal was one of only three
Democratic House members from California who remained neutral until the voting was finally concluded. Lowenthal has not done anything
to suggest that he can be counted on to stray too far beyond the neoliberal consensus, but he nonetheless seems to have a bit more self-
respect than his sycophantic fellow progressive Democrats, who have been falling over themselves in praise of a warmonger and Wall
Street chum this whole campaign season.

Andy Whallon Republican
Andy Whallon has worked in the real estate industry since 1991, and he is advocating an extreme rightwing program aimed at slashing
government spending. Like Trump, Whallon would like America to be great again, since our founding fathers gave us the freest country on
earth, and as a result, America became the richest nation on earth. In addition to gutting spending, Whallon wants to get rid of our
governments supposedly freedom crushing regulations. He is proposing that every federal agency should be required to cut its regulatory
burden in half before it can issue a single new regulation, and that for every new regulation, another regulation, whose burden is twice as
great, should be repealed. Since people can never have too much freedom, Whallon also wants to end the federal governments
commitment to providing Social Security and Medicare. It really makes one wonder how it is that these libertarian types never seem to be
able to find a constituency for their agenda considering all the freedom on offer here?