To say that Tony Thurmond is an accomplished education advocate would be a massive understatement. Just during 2018, his final year this year as the State Assembly member for District 15 (Richmond-Berkeley), he authored or led support for these laws:
AB 2153 Educator Training in LGBTQ Student Services AB 2514 Expanding Bilingual Education AB 2960 Improving Access to Childcare and Early Education AB 3089 College Grants for Foster Youth AB 406 Ban For-Profit Charter Schools AB 2098 Adult Education Immigration/Refugee Integration SB 354 Special Education Translation SB 720 Environmental Education AB 2303 Ending the School to Prison Pipeline (not passed into law) Budget items for local school districts, improving low-performing students’ achievement, career technical education, coding programs, educator recruitment and retention, foster youthThe other candidate in the race, Marshall Tuck, was a (nonprofit, to be sure) charter schools executive. At its convention of delegates this year, the California Democratic Party overwhelmingly gave its endorsement to Thumond.
Insurance Commissioner: Ricardo LaraIn 2012, Lara became the first openly gay person of color to be elected to the California State Senate [District 33, Huntington Park-Long Beach]. He recently chaired the influential Senate Appropriations Committee and notably authored the Health for All Kids Act, which Gov. Jerry Brown signed in 2015, to extend Medi-Cal to undocumented children.
Meanwhile, “former” Republican Steve Poizner is making full use of our state’s dumb “top 2” jungle election system and lists himself as “no party preference,” thus pulling a snow job on a whole lot of voters. He held the insurance commissioner position 2007-2011, and then he ran for governor when he still publicly identified as Republican, with all the awfulness that that entails.
US Senator: Kevin de LeónKevin de León, who this year wrapped up his tenure as leader of the State Senate from District 24 (East Hollywood-East Los Angeles), had the right reaction to the 2016 election results: immediate, clear, outright defiance of Teh Donald and of the Republican leadership’s racist, corrupt agenda.
Diane Feinstein publicly entertained the idea of giving Teh Donald a chance to be a “good president.”
As ranking Judiciary Committee member, Feinstein must have at least assented to Schumer’s outright capitulations on letting Federalist Society and plainly wholly unqualified judicial appointments sail through. On top of a long history of supporting the military-intelligence-industrial complex, she is completely unsuited to fighting fascism. A Democratic caucus with senators like Feinstein in charge will not impeach perjurious and racist judges, will not expand the number of justices on courts to compensate, will not act anywhere nearly aggressively enough to save the country.
De León’s time as State Senate pro Tem gave him plenty of experience to become an influential US senator and a leading champion for California on the national stage. The delegates of the California Democratic Democratic Party made some serious waves when they cleared a supermajority threshold to endorse de León over a multi-term incumbent US senator. kos likewise gave a resounding endorsement. Would only the state’s voters make the same waves.
Defy the polls. Please ask every Californian you know to vote for these excellent candidates.