Hello, and welcome to the DSA-LA Electoral Politics committee’s voter guide to the elections on June 5, 2018. Click here to read the complete guide, and check out a cheat sheet for the races below.
There’s a lot to vote for this year, so we decided to do the research on every contested race on the ballot so you could know who and what you’re voting for when you mark those little dots in the polling booth.
Given the huge number of races pertinent to LA county, we decided to create a cheat sheet with our recommendations—many of which represent “lesser evil” calculations. Only Gayle McLaughlin for Lieutenant Governor and Steve Dunwoody for Assembly District 54 have been endorsed by DSA-LA as a whole, so please don’t take these suggestions as the recommendation of the entire chapter—these are just what a few dedicated DSA members in the Electoral Politics committee came up with after hours of researching the races through a pragmatic leftist lens.
If you scroll down to a particular race in the complete guide, you’ll see that the information provided varies slightly between races—this was a long and communal effort, but we decided to share as much information as seemed useful for you to make a considered choice. Often, we omitted Republican or Libertarian candidates—if you’re reading this, we don’t imagine you’d vote for them anyway—and occasionally we limited our research to the candidates with a decent chance of winning.
You might also notice that many of these races are either literally or practically uncontested, or that most of the candidates seem bland, hazily defined, and mildly corrupt. This is a consequence of our big-money political system that rewards machine candidates and incumbents and drastically hampers the democratic process.
Even so, especially for the downballot and local races, your vote and the votes of your friends and family can make a big difference in our collective lives, so please hit the polls on June 5.
And if the choices seem dispiriting, we invite you join us in DSA-LA to work towards building a better future. Our government, our economy, and our society has been stolen from us by a venal mob of mediocre plutocrats, but we can take it back if we band together and fight.
You can look up your district here: http://findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov/
And find your polling place here: http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/polling-place/
And if you’d like to find out more about any of these candidates or races, feel free to email us at [email protected], and we can either answer your questions, point you towards more information, or help you learn how to do this research yourself.
If you don’t see a race in your district listed here, that’s because we did some research and found that the race was essentially uncontested—typically because no one is mounting a real challenge to the incumbent (which is very difficult, especially at the federal level), or there’s only one candidate running to the left of the Republican or Libertarian candidates.
Click here to read the complete guide, and check out a cheat sheet for the races below.
Underlined = Endorsed by DSA-LA!
Governor of California - Delaine Eastin (or Gloria La Riva)
Lieutenant Governor of California - Gayle McLaughlin
Attorney General of California - Dave Jones
Secretary of State of California - Ruben Major
Treasurer of California - Fiona Ma
State Superintendent of Public Education - Tony Thurmond
Insurance Commissioner - Asif Mahmood or Ricardo Lara
Board of Equalization, 3rd District - Doug Kriegel or Micheál "Me-Haul" O'Leary
United States Senator - Not Dianne Feinstein
United States Congressional District 25 - Jess Phoenix
United States Congressional District 29 - Angelica Dueñas
United States Congressional District 30 - Jon Pelzer
United States Congressional District 34 - Kenneth Mejia
United States Congressional District 39 - Andy Thorburn or Sam Jammal
California State Senate District 22 - Mike Eng
California State Senate District 32 - Vivian Romero
California State Assembly District 39 - No recommendation
California State Assembly District 45 - Ankur Patel
California State Assembly District 53 - Miguel Santiago
California State Assembly District 54 - Steve Dunwoody
California State Assembly District 58 - No recommendation
California State Assembly District 63 - Maria D. Estrada
LA County Assessor - No recommendation
LA County Sheriff - No recommendation
Superior Court Judges:
Office #4 - A. Veronica Sauceda
Office #16 - No recommendation
Office #20 - Wendy Segall
Office #60 - Holly L. Hancock
Office #63 - No recommendation
Office #67 - Maria L. Armendariz
Office #71 - Danielle R.A. Gibbons
Office #113 - No recommendation
Office #118 - No recommendation
Office #126 - No recommendation
Office #146 - Armando Durón
Ballot Propositions:
Yes on 68
Yes on 69
No on 70
Yes on 71
Yes on 72
Click here to read the complete guide.