Uncategorized

Nothing to Lose but Our Cars

While libertopians dream of staying in their cars, public transit moves to integrate micro-transportation.

As long as we are working within the spatial and technological limits we have now, mass transit is a threshold issue for egalitarian thinking. This is especially frustrating considering we have developed the ability to almost instantaneously connect with each other across vast distances — as well as connect organizations, businesses and campaigns to their supporters and customers through processes like email append. And yet, developments in American mass transit have been minimal. 

Climate & Capitalism lists mass transportation as a key demand for a more sustainable and fair system. Elon Musk's promise to overcome those limits was an explicit acknowledgment of them. It was accompanied by (and, some might say, necessitated by) his distaste for being around other people. Musk called public transit "painful" and offended many MT advocates. 

There may be other reasons why people less class-privileged than Musk may not want to ride around with a lot of people near them. Social anxiety, PTSD, or even just a preference for not being spatially near others (while perhaps staying in communicative proximity with others via technology). As one blog points out: "We’ve all been in the scenario of rushing for a bus, just catching it, and then fumbling in our bag, purse or pocket for the right change. We can feel the eyes of other passengers watching us, and the impatience of the driver. When you have a mental health condition, it can be difficult to just shrug off experiences like this, and they can discourage you from traveling again." We need public transit, but need to respect people's preference for a security bubble around them — and we need to do that without collapsing back into the "lone driver" icon of American "freedom." 

This is why I'm happy to see that the discussion about the integration and mutual beneficiality of mass-and-micro-transit is being heard by more people. Superpedestrian, a micro-mobility firm, and the Cities Today Institute peer-to-peer group just released a report on the integration of e-scooters and public transportation networks. So while we've all been complaining about all the e-scooters lying around blocking pedestrian traffic, researchers examining Seattle, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh and Madrid considered challenges and solutions including fare integration, e-scooters filling gaps in evening and overnight transportation, and the integration of "multimodal trips." The very fact that people are having this conversation is encouraging at a time when nations are struggling to convince their elected officials to do anything about infrastructure. After all, as one advocate told the researchers, "even if e-scooters replace one kilometre that would have otherwise been a car trip, that definitely feels like a win.” 3,000 people per month in the United States die from car accidents, and we're a long way away from environmentally neutral fleets of cars being the norm.

How far we've come, how much we've lost that we don't know about, and how far we have to go: over 100 years ago the entire "transportation system" abruptly transformed into a corporate, private sector construct where cars took over the roads and the individualization of automobile transport made it harder to organize than railroads had. Jaywalking was a capitalist-inspired offense, manufactured by the carmakers after citizens started to circulate mass petitions to limit cars' speeds to 25 miles an hour. "Local car firms got boy scouts to hand out cards to pedestrians explaining jaywalking," the BBC explained, quoting one historian who says the cards informed pedestrians that walking on the roads was "dangerous and old fashioned." Not too much later, corporations criminally conspired to kill mass transit, buying up transit systems in 25 cities and shutting down electric rail. 

Now, the video for Red Barchetta (to be fair, a decent song) playing perpetually in his head, Elon tries to save the car and driver, the hallmark of individualism. Instead, let's integrate and socialize people's spatial needs in a larger system that includes scooters, smart cars, trains, buses, and boats. There are plenty of opportunities to make things better, including the paradox where, on the one hand, cities like Seattle field many complaints (70 in Seattle's case) every month, while on the other hand, the drive for more cops and metal detectors on buses and subway terminals, whatever the justification, will offset some of the coming increase in ridership (cops make some folks uncomfortable, surprise surprise) and more instances of negative encounters between the people and the police. We need to continue to search for alternatives to over-policing in public spaces. And we'll need to address worker shortages (we're down 55,000 transit workers in the U.S.), and the need for people to comfortably socially distance. 

Ridership on L.A. Metro dropped substantially during the pandemic, but it's going back up, and the pandemic actually gave innovators and policymakers an opportunity to re-design and re-integrate transit systems inside and out. The modest infrastructure spending Congress actually did approve will make many of these improvements possible. What will really make a difference in the next two decades, however, is that more and more young people, comfortable with transit and with less savings to buy cars and trucks of their own, will start voting for candidates who will turn the current political exile of mass transportation on its head. 

Ultimately, the social and ethical case for mass transportation and, in a more foundational sense, public transportation, rests on the hard evidence that scaling, cooperating, and sharing in our transportation solutions is cheaper, better for the planet, and more accessible to everyone than ridership as individual property. But in order to truly test that proposition, we need communities and leaders with the political will to build the best systems we have to offer.

by Sarah Goldzweig

Ending Childhood Poverty & Protecting our Children

Toxic Water.

Toxic Air.

Toxic Soil.

Defunded Public Education.

Nonexistent Public Safety.

A severe lack of affordable and public housing.

Climate Change.

For-profit and inaccessible healthcare.

Social Injustice.

Denial of child and human rights.

Our State has failed our children.  Prior public policy has failed our children.  Our governments have failed our children.  We cannot be in this moment, facing the crises we are facing and come to any other conclusion. We have not protected our children and this high cost and heavy burden is being forced upon them.  This high cost and heavy burden is impacting their psychological and physical health, their academic and professional success, micro- and macro- economic growth, and outright denials of both their child and human rights on a livable planet.  It’s unacceptable.

Whether we realize it or not, we each pay a high price for exacerbating poverty in our society with superficial & means-tested efforts whose goal is to reduce poverty.  The Congressional Budget Office says that the federal government spent $3.7 trillion in 2015 - the annual cost of poverty efforts to reduce childhood poverty cost $1.03 trillion in 2015, or about 5.4 percent of the gross domestic product of the United States. Studies have also found that for about every dollar spent on reducing childhood poverty, the country would save at least $7.  These costs are calculated from the loss of economic productivity, along with increased health, crime & homelessness costs with an innovative poverty calculator.

As California remains the State with the highest poverty and childhood poverty rates in the country - Ending Poverty in California is in all of our collective self-interests and community interests.  And ending childhood poverty is not only the moral, ethical, compassionate and just thing to do - it is also cost-avoidant.

According to federal and State data, nearly one in five children in California under 18 years old,  about 2 million children, live in poverty.  More than 8 out of 10 Californian children in poverty live with at least one adult who is working.  And in spite of State programs to reduce childhood poverty, we still have a number of counties where more than 40% of all youth live in poverty.  And Pre-COVID, over half a million children in California live in families considered “deep poverty” with families who make less than 50% of the official federal poverty income level.

No more.

It is time to have a government and Governor who values our present and our futures - and who recognizes that protecting our children is the only way we can do this.

Investing in programs that end childhood poverty and protect #OurCalifornia’s children is both basic and radical, both smart and effective economic policy.  When #OurCalifornia’s most marginalized are protected and succeed, we all win.

As your Governor, I intend to End Poverty in California, and this is how I believe protecting our children will help us achieve this:

• Cities and States set precedent in signing onto the Paris Agreement in spite of the US withdrawal, I intend to sign onto the UN Declaration of Child Rights and ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child in spite of the Federal government’s refusal to implement one of the most ratified treaties in the world. I will uphold standards for youth well-being in #OurCalifornia;
  • Ratifying the CRC will require us to confront some hard truths about the exceptionally bad way we treat children in the US, specifically in California and will require us work to bring our laws and practices in line with basic human rights. This includes, but is not limited to:
    • Our school-to-prison pipeline;
    • Amending SB 394;
    • Foster Care;
    • Public Education
    • Environmental injustices;
    • Child trafficking - both labor and sexual;
    • Child abuse - labor, physical & sexual;
    • Child refugees entering our State;
• Eager to work with the California Lifting Children and Families out of Poverty Task Force to ensure all recommended strategies can be funded and achieved for #OurCalifornia through public policy, action & the robust social safety nets we deserve in our resilient and sustainable communities;
• Revamping public Pre-K-Post Secondary education;
• Collaborate with grassroots youth activists, advocates and impactful organizations on the forefront of movements for safe, affirming and bias-free schools to ensure all our students, especially our marginalized and underserved populations in schools - disabled, ethnic & religious minorities, LGBTQ+, are welcome and able to thrive. Create the State and locality-specific new framework that affirms Identity, Diversity, Justice and Action within all educational environments and the Project Based Learning settings;
  • State Legislation which implements, expands and fully funds:
    • K-12 Literacy-based anti-bias curriculum & critical practices
    • Peer-mentor networks;
    • Mental health specialists (counselors & psychologists) trained in culturally responsive de-escalation, working with individuals with disabilities, restorative justice, and more - responding to individuals experiencing a mental health crisis;
    • School climate specialists—trained in culturally responsive de-escalation, working with students with disabilities, restorative justice, and more—who can intervene in emotionally or physically volatile situations and act with the best interests for all students involved;
    • Education Support Professionals (ESPs) promote student achievement, ensure student safety, and help establish a healthier school climate.
    • Anti-bullying and emotional intelligence series;
    • Student-Led Sexuality and Gender Acceptance Clubs;
    • Any additional initiatives that activists, advocates, and disabled youth need/would like to see in their educational settings to encourage their holistic growth and success;
    • Fund State and locality-specific equity audits;
  • The federal government has never come close to providing the promised 40% pledge for special education costs - it has fallen to 14%.  And as a result, the federal government’s failure and inability to value the public education of individuals with disabilities, State’s have assumed almost all of the costs which have often resulted in cutting critical services. In Solidarity with disabled youth across this country, I call for our federal government to fully fund ESEA Title I, Part A and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act & to amend part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to provide full Federal funding.  And as such, I support the following federal legislation:
    • The Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA) 
    • Equality Act
    • Keep our Pact Act
    • Ensure Washington Funds Government Responsibly Act
    • IDEA Full Funding Act
• Ending youth food insecurity by expanding #SNAPForAllCalifornians
• Ending youth period poverty by free menstrual product inclusion within the Department for Reproductive Justice for the Underserved & Marginalized;
• Ending homelessness for at least 370,000 children and youth across the State with our #UniversalHousing plan;
• Including children, California Indian youth organizations, youth-led activist organizations, & child advocacy groups in the Tax Fairness Commission (TFC)  Impacted Parties Council to ensure youth representation and direct involvement in building resilient communities with sustainable futures for all;
• Enacting the Green New Deal and addressing environmental injustices within each locality that children bear the brunt of - for the present and future;
• Holding corporations and the government of our State accountable for violations of CRC, the Green New Deal & Tax Fairness Commission, Reproductive Justice for the Underserved & Marginalized, for youth and for #OurCalifornia;
• Ending the State’s long history and exploitative nature of child marriages/marrying minors allowed in this State. California law currently can ignore the will or consent of the child with parental/guardian consent, or a formal court order:
  • Ending the State’s no legal age minimum to sync with the legal age of consent - 18;
  • Increasing and protecting the rights of the child, including children who are emancipated, pregnant or otherwise, throughout this process to ensure that the marriage is indeed their choice and wish for their future;
    • Create legislation which attaches the rights of Californian children regardless of their physical location in this country or abroad;
      • Thus closing loopholes which allow children of California to be sent/shuttled to other states or countries;
  • As our government currently does not - I will require the State of California to maintain records of all child marriages in the State:
    • Past;
    • Present child-consenting child marriages;
• Strengthening advocacy, protections & services to children in our State’s foster care system and ensuring services to all former and current foster youth as they age out;
  • Ensure Child Protective Services is not weaponized as a tool against the Poor or marginalized communities to remove children. We live in a society where children may not have access to health care, childcare, food, shelter—all of these are internationally recognized human rights. If anyone should be charged with neglect it should be the State of California or the Federal Government of the United States - not parents struggling within a system never intended for their success.  All too often biased viewpoints regarding race, class and gender have played powerful roles in shaping the perception of child abuse which are often directly at odds with available data and disproportionately target poor African American families above others.  Poverty is too often equated with abuse, which substantially increases over-reporting, weighing down the child welfare system in unnecessary & costly investigations, which in turn reduce funding for other critically necessary services in the department. We need a systemic overhaul in within our Department of Child Protective Services Department, the Foster Care system & a robust social safety net to End Poverty in California;
  • Reduce bureaucratic “red tape” and paperwork and increasing more & effective action on behalf of the child, child’s safety & well-being;
  • Bringing needed resources to the public school system to increase critical support for foster-care youth;
  • Expanding services to youth who age out with transition assistance available, including but not limited to resources and referrals for: family reunification, Universal Housing, Post-secondary Education, fully-covered care under MediCALForAllCalifornians, State Jobs Guarantee, etc.;
  • Funding successful community support & public safety programs that address the generational trauma of foster care children, birth parents & biological family members;
  • Reducing harm for foster care children, with special care, community support & public safety programs with a rights affirming framework that address, educate and respond to physical, psychological & sexual child abuse;
  • Reducing harm for foster care children, with special care, community support & public safety programs with a rights affirming framework that address, educate and respond to child sex atrafficking activities - in person and online;
  • Increasing participation in and full funding of the Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) Program. CASAs are currently volunteers who work with children in foster care as they advocate for their best interests in courtrooms and communities.
• Eager to work with International Indigenous Youth Council, Youth Uprising, California Indian Environmental Alliance, Abundant Beginnings, Beyond Emancipation, California Immigrant Youth Justice Alliance, Youth Organizing! disabled and proud, HOMEY, Maven, Urban Youth Movement, Californians for Justice, Outlet, YO! California, Jewish Family and Community Services, Teaching Tolerance, Youth Service Bureau of the Redwood Community Action Agency, Lambda Youth Project, The Campaign for Fair Sentencing for Youth, Black Organizing Project, Arcata High's Sexuality and Gender Acceptance Club, Unchained At Last, NAMI of California, Tahirih Justice Center, Huckleberry Youth Program, Young, Gifted and Black, Perspectives for a Diverse America, School of Liberty and Liberation, Jewish Youth for Community Action, Opportunity Point, Sunrise Movement - CA Branches, OUT There Adventures, PODER, Fighting Back Santa Maria Valley, Young Justice Coalition, The Center for Race, Poverty and the Environment, California Alliance - Youth and Community Justice, Institute for Policy Studies, grassroots and all other impactful organizations, advocates, activists and pillars in fields of the human rights, education, social justice, environmental justice, and research communities to ensure the needs of ALL youth in #OurCalifornia are inclusive and sustainably met;
• State Deputization of chosen grassroots nonprofits who are successfully providing dynamic and critical social services to #OurCalifornia to act as an extension of our government in expanding their work and services with the funding, staffing and State recognition they deserve;
  •  Will participate within the State Jobs Guarantee Program;
• In the true spirit of Upton Sinclair’s End Poverty in California campaign, I will call on fellow Citizens, Socialists, Governors, and fellow Socialist Gubernatorial campaigns across this country to adopt and implement the same.

by adriel

Immigrants are #WelcomeHere

This nation and State are on stolen land - a land of settler colonists, historically revised as immigrants.  The Spanish, Franciscan Friars, Mexican Colonizers, US Colonizers & just about every group since, excluding slaves and their descendants, have been settler colonists.  Being a settler colonist isn’t shameful, but a fact.  Immigration to this space has long been a part of our history.

The American Dream, the California Dream has always been a point of pride, a symbol of economic prosperity - a belief that we all can contribute to and benefit from the good, the successes, we helped create for the prosperity of our present and for our futures.  History shows however this American & California Dream has excluded many, specifically California Indians, Black, Chinese, Mexican, and countless other Peoples since 1850.  Our legal and socioeconomic systems have limited the successes of some, preying upon and further marginalizing entire communities - forcing assimilation, overpolicing, denying rights and denying social services.

Fresh off the heels of horrific imperialist action in the Middle East and across Central America, Congress and President Ronald Reagan instituted the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, commonly referred to as “Amnesty Law” which both made it illegal to hire undocumented immigrants, established financial penalties to employers for doing so, and also granted amnesty to about 3 million undocumented immigrants in the United States at the time.

Our current immigration system, in all its horrors, is relatively new.  It’s almost 30 years old and a direct result of Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, neverending federal reach with the Patriot Act have overhauled immigration enforcement in the United States laying the unconscionable groundwork for the massive deportation machine that exists today in the world’s largest immigrant detention system.

For decades California’s government voluntarily helped ICE detain migrants & asylum seekers through California jails, prisons, locality police, public education, and a vast array of State and local agencies.

These governmental abuses contributed to the over-policing, mass incarceration, and deportation of Black, Brown and Indigenous communities in our State while exponentially increasing profit shares for Geo Group, CoreCivic, Management and Training Corporation, Emerald Corrections, & others.  Under lucrative arrangements, our State leased immigrant detainees for sharecropping work - mostly harvesting food for American consumers - at exponential rates not seen since the Reconstruction Era & Jim Crow.

For decades now, our State has freely collaborated with the federal government, actions that have ultimately subjected immigrants in their care to:

• Violations of international law, standards & precedent
• Unconstitutional treatment
• Physical, psychological, sexual abuse
• Eugenics and Reproductive injustices
• Free labor
• Family separations
• Child trafficking

While our State has wasted our tax dollars encouraging others to distribute illegal, cruel and inhumane punishments - our State has catapulted the occupancy rates and profits of these for-profit prisons.  Our State and localities governments have colluded with these corporations at all our moral, ethical, financial, & economic expense. This has never been about our public safety and these corporations will continue to place their financial gain above internationally recognized rights, treaties, or the public interest of safety.

And as a result, we’ve fostered a for-profit prison system that completely relies on federal contracts, our tax subsidies, and exploited asylum seekers’ free labor to exist.  We choose to make them wealthy at our own expense.   Our federal government has allowed this.  Our State government has allowed this.  And our current Governor upholds this status quo every time he has voluntarily collaborated with ICE & encouraged all our State and localities’ departments to do so.

No more.

I believe it’s critical to have Solidarity with immigrants, migrant workers, asylum seekers & families who have come to the United States, to California, in search of better lives, peace & economic prosperity.

Our government cannot continue to participate in the world’s largest immigrant detention system and must immediately end our active participation in the harassment, overpolicing and terrorizing of Indigenous, Black, and brown communities across our State under the guise of safety.

I support a family-based and just immigration system that is grounded in abolitionist theory, expands public safety and strengthens protections for civil and human rights for all within our State and Country.  It’s long overdue - our government must ensure that California is a welcoming State, and the sanctuary State it is meant to be.

As your Governor, I believe we can be united in opposition to deportations and the criminalization of migrants continues to disrupt #OurCalifornia’s families, communities & economy. I believe that we can aim to achieve full civil and human rights for all inhabitants of California through humane, safe, diverse and innovative policies.  When #OurCalifornia’s most marginalized are protected and succeed, we all win.  I intend to End Poverty in California, and I believe the following policies that ensure Immigrants are #WelcomeHere will help us achieve this:

• Ensure immigrant & migrant inclusion, eligibility, accessibility & use of the Ending Poverty in California office and services:
  • Universal Housing for All;
  • Increase housing services and State funding of current migrant housing cooperatives across the State;
  • #MediCALForAllCalifornians
  • #SNAPForAll
  • #ChildcareForAllCalifornians
  • #EducationForAllCalifornians
  • State Jobs Guarantee
• Create an intersectional, immigrant-led, pro-Black & pro-Queer abolitionist commission to create policy that ensures California remains a constitutionally-protected & Supreme Cour rod the United States upheld  Sanctuary State and fulfills all of its Sanctuary State values;
• Expand California’s Sanctuary State Law to prohibit all California agencies and departments, including the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the Office of the Governor, from voluntarily working with ICE and Customs & Border Patrol  - actions must be in alignment with warrants or specific federal mandates;
  • Reporting and accountability requirements which include easier and expedited pathways for community members to hold Californian agencies accountable and communicate additional loopholes that CBP & ICE will try to carve out as a result of this;
  • Enforcement of noncompliance and accountability for harm by any State employee or Agency with prosecution under the Office of the Attorney General;
  • Limit the information that can be shared by any Agency within the State of California with CBP & ICE;
• Uphold our State’s Constitutional ban on privately operated prisons and federally operated immigrant detention centers in the State of California (AB32) and apply extensions for previously excluded spaces privately owned or operated and staffed by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation;
• Create legislation which challenges the Constitutionality of the existence of ICE and it’s ever expanding powers under the Patriot Act with the sole purpose of abolishing ICE;
• Challenge the constitutionality of the Federal Bed Quota for Immigrant Detention (34,000 beds at any given time) which allows ICE to expand contracts through private prisons to house federal immigrant detainees and asylum seekers.  This Federal Bed Quota provides incentives to maintain private prison contracts and keep immigration detention beds full.
• Call for the federal repeal of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA):
  • Abolition of the “cancellation of removal” limitation standards
  • Abolition of penalizing nonviolent crimes;
  • Abolition of “unauthorized immigrant” eligibility to apply for legal status — even if he had married a US citizen, or qualified for a green card through a relative;
  • Abolition of the 3- and 10-year bars;
• Call for the removal and repeal of sticking immigration provisions in federal welfare reform and the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (or AEDPA);
• Call for the federal repeal of the 2001 Patriot Act as it is an endless expansion of federal domestic surveillance, overpolicing, and still unconstitutionally targets Immigrants of Middle Eastern and African descent;
• Call for reform to the REAL ID Act of 2005 as the law makes it more difficult for immigrants to obtain asylum;
• In supporting a family-based & just immigration system grounded in civil and human rights:
  • Expand Legal Protections within California Superior Court for California residents and Asylum Seekers of all ages, including but not limited to:
    • Immigrant Right to Counsel within civil proceedings in our State;
    • Re-instituting eligibility to make an international human rights claim to asylum in our State - even after traveling through a so-called safe third country or after being in the United States for one year;
    • Provide a humane, transparent & accountable alternative to ORR-custody of unaccompanied children;
  • Create legislation which challenges the Constitutionality of recent withdrawals of Flores Agreement decree - allowing the federal government and agencies to indefinitely hold migrant families who lack the legal paperwork to be in our State or this Country - a direct constitutional violation of due process;
  • Create legislation inspired by the Flores Agreement which previously protected migrant children - however instead of a 20-day limit on detaining families in immigration jails within our State, it would be no more than 48 hours and fully align with the 1997 Federal court-ordered consent decree resulting from a federal class-action lawsuit identifying  physical and emotional harm was done to immigrant children held for extended periods in the detention facilities;
  • Support federal legislation that:
    • Creates a fair and accessible pathway to citizenship for DREAMERS, TPS recipients and all undocumented people living in our State and Country;
    • Ensures poverty penalties are removed from the USCIS application process for citizenship & asylum;
    • Expands the number of refugees and asylum-seekers admitted to the United States of America;
  • Support the Preliminary Injunction of the USCIS’ Fee Rule Imposing a Wealth Test for Citizenship - as Unprecedented Costs on Asylum Applications since it would have raised application fees for many essential immigration benefits by as much as 500 percent, while also eliminating most fee waivers for qualifying low-income immigrants.  This Fee Rule is a penalty for the Poor and is in complete opposition of Ending Poverty in California;
    • Challenge the constitutionality of current and future application fee schedules for immigration benefits, including citizenship and asylum which penalize the Poor;
• Create legislation which challenges SCOTUS Nielsen v. Preap precedent ruling that immigrants with criminal convictions, no matter how minor the crime and no matter how long ago the conviction (including time served, and fines paid), can be detained indefinitely without any possibility of a bond hearing.
  • Especially as both liberal and conservative justices alike stated major concerns that “the mandatory-detention law itself is unconstitutional” and the basic constitutionality of holding people without bond will be called into question in future cases which they would rule differently on.
• Support federal legislation that has an abolitionist framework in:
  • Defunding the world’s largest immigrant detention system;
  • Abolition of ICE & CBP;
  • Abolition of all for-profit prisons contracted and subsidized through the federal government;
  • Abolition of forced labor programs;
  • Abolition of refugee-filled for-profit orphanages that traffick children;
  • Ensure public safety through the expansion of and reinstatement of non-imprisonment and abolitionist-framed risk assessment tools for federal civil cases;
• Provide my Office of the Attorney General with the resources and support to formally investigate and prosecute For-profit prisons, and all related firms involved with and profiting from the world’s largest immigration detention system.  Hold these Corporate Empires of the prison industrial complex to account for the social injustices they’ve caused, violating Constitutional & Civil Rights, Unethical/Illegal Business Practices, systemic physical, psychological and sexual abuse and generational trauma, and lobbying for significant influence and favor of our government officials & corruption:
  • Investigation & Prosecution sets the foundation to ensure our government has addressed Private Prisons,  and the prison industrial complex’s corruption, mismanagement and highlight that our government works to ensure it doesn’t continue. It sets precedent and warns others of the outcomes for bad actors. It allows the public to again have competitive and ethical markets for consumption of public goods;
  • Applying sanctions when found responsible for violations of the law will include restitution and up to public domain/asset forfeiture;
• Ensure Immigrants are not left out or behind in decriminalization efforts and reform;
• Invest in community-based & community-led organizations that work in migrant & immigrant neighborhoods in an effort to fulfill Ending Poverty in California’s goals of promoting local economic development, assisting small businesses, and encouraging homeownership:
  • As local economies across #OurCalifornia rely on our diversity, ensure resilient communities and increasing immigrant financial market participation with extensions to capital for immigrant-run small businesses from our Public Bank;
• Eager to work with the California Lifting Children and Families out of Poverty Task Force to ensure all recommended strategies can be funded and achieved for #OurCalifornia through public policy, action & the robust social safety nets we deserve in our resilient and sustainable communities;
• I am eager to work with the Cultiva La Salud, Mujeres Unidas y Activas, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), ICE out of LA, La Cooperativa Campesina, Líderes Campesinas, Oasis Legal Services, Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area (LCCRSF), California Immigrant Policy Center (CIPC), California Farmworkers Foundation, Organization for Refuge, Asylum & Migration (ORAM), Prisoner Advocacy Network, California Coalition for Rural Housing, Asian Immigrant Women Advocates, Comité Cívico del Valle, La Cocina, California Domestic Workers Coalition, Immigrant Legal Resource Center, PODER, California Farm Bureau Federation, California Rural Legal Assistance, Chinese Progressive Association, Anti-Racist Action-Los Angeles/People Against Racist Terror (ARA-LA/PART), Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council (A3PCON), CARECEN Los Angeles, San Diego Rapid Response Network, Accion Latina, APIENC (API Equality - Northern California), Rosenberg Foundation, Proteus, Inc, Migration Policy Institute, Grassroots Policy Project, Sustainable Economies Law Center, Institute for Policy Studies & all other grassroots, impactful organizations and pillars in fields of the immigration, human rights, education, social justice, environmental justice, employment, housing and research communities to ensure the needs of ALL immigrants in #OurCalifornia are inclusive and sustainably met;
• State Deputization of chosen grassroots nonprofits who are successfully providing dynamic and critical social services to #OurCalifornia to act as an extension of our government in expanding their work and services with the funding, staffing and State recognition they deserve;
  • Will participate within the State Jobs Guarantee Program;
• In the true spirit of Upton Sinclair’s End Poverty in California campaign, I will call on fellow Citizens, Socialists, Governors, and fellow Socialist Gubernatorial campaigns across this country to adopt and implement the same.

by adriel

#CripTheVote

Californians with physical & developmental disabilities rely on state funded services to live, thrive and survive. I fully support the critical and vast array of programs that are available today for the Disabled in California, but I believe we’re more than capable of restructuring and expanding service delivery systems to ensure ALL disabled Californians can receive the highest quality of individualized services they need and deserve in order to stay safe, healthy, independent, full inclusion and integration in our communities across #OurCalifornia.

Effective, healthy, and beneficial pathways have not been built to link us to one another or society as a whole.  These policy failures impact people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in vastly different measurable ways. Economic inequity, generational, cultural isolation, and discrimination in education, employment and a broad range of societal activities are often specific to a person’s disability, which are generally nonfactors for non-disabled individuals across the State.

Our State has denied human rights, dignity and the basic humanity to Disabled people existing within this State’s borders.

California’s history of reforms tells somewhat of a different story however - inclusive and empathetic, even when lacking funding, effective implementation or enforcement mechanisms.  The State began with the Short-Doyle Act in 1957, which provided a funding mechanism for community mental health services.  The State’s efforts to reduce State hospital and institutionalized populations began soon after.  By 1968, The Lanterman-Prentis-Short Act required a judge to sign off on the commitments of patients, bringing a more uniform approach to commitments.  California also enacted Government Code 11135 by 1977 which barred any program or activity funded by the state from discriminating on the basis of ethnic group identification, religion, age, sex, color, or physical or mental disability.  Though it lacked effective implementation and enforcement mechanisms, Government Code 11135 was still remarkable in its day for its inclusion of both physical and mental disability in a more general civil rights statute.

On paper, California generally stood equal to or ahead of the nation when it came to protecting the interests of  people with disabilities, be it:  requirements for physical access to State buildings, employment discrimination law, equal education opportunities, disability-specific public accomodations laws addressing physical and sensory disabilities, the Unruh Act, & anti-discrimination law for recipients of State funding, which explicitly covered both physical and mental disabilities.  On paper, the State was progressive, mindful & humane.

But these policies versus the reality of these reforms and recognized rights of the Disabled falls far short in the State’s practice - and always has.

The State has long-treated individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities in this State and in their care, cruelly and inhumanely.  Equality and equity in healthcare, housing, education, employment, discrimination, & the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation have never been achieved for individuals with physical and developmental disabilities.  These abject policy failures result in denying individuals with disabilities opportunities for safe, healthy, independent lives.  And denying opportunities for full inclusion and integration for our most marginalized, ultimately harms us all.

California’s history of dealing with mental health mirrors our nation’s sadly - inadequate, neglectful and violent.  In 1853, three years after entering the Union, the State of California built the Stockton State Hospital - the only hospital able to provide short- and long-term care for California’s disabled.  Police, Courts, Families and hospital staff, often forced the disabled to stay in this State Hospital, which became severely overcrowded and ill-equipped to meet the needs of individuals there by 1857.  It wasn’t until 1875, that the State opened it’s first State Asylum - a gothic Victorian four story, 500 bed facility with a self-sufficient farm, animals and crops on it’s original 192 acres known as the Napa State Asylum.

State Hospitals and Asylums grew over the years, but a majority of these facilities quickly became overcrowded, with many falling into severe disrepair. State and locality Institutional treatment became synonymous with neglect and extreme abuse of patient - Napa State Asylum became something horror films were inspired by. By 1891, 500 beds were home to 1,373 people under the care of the State who needlessly endured extreme experimentations, therapies and practices including:

• Lobotomies
• Organ transplants
• Hydrotherapy
• Intentionally providing incorrect medication
• Unconsented medical trials
• Starvation
• Solitary confinement
• Hysterectomies
• Medicinal genocide
• Electroconvulsive therapy
• Physical, psychological and sexual assault
• Refusal to provide basic medical, dental & vision care
• Refusal to effectively treat or quarantine lethal and infectious diseases

Treatment of the Disabled in the State and County Jail Systems didn’t differ.  This is treatment that was on par for 1800s and a majority of these practices still remain today for most individuals with disabilities under State care today.

The federal government and State of California combined contribute less than 40% of the $13.2 billion in special education spending in California, with school districts paying the rest out of their general budgets.  So the quality of education for individuals with disabilities becomes more what a district can afford rather than equitable and tailored education to their individual needs.  Recent State budgets have have plateaued at just above $13billion, with forecasted changes to come after a decades-old funding formula left vast differences between school districts in how much money schools received to educate students with special needs - and for seven long decades have failed our students with disabilities.

In a 1999 study for the California Policy Research Center, Professor Joan Petersilia concluded, “If a culture is measured by how it treats its weakest members, then the handling of people with physical and cognitive disabilities in our criminal justice system reveals American justice at its basest and it is unconscionable.”

Our State denied human rights, dignity and the basic humanity to people in their care - the people most in need of support and some basic decency.

No more.

For far too long, Californians with intellectual and developmental disabilities have been silenced, ignored, and neglected.  It’s time that the State’s, Nation’s & World’s largest minority receive the respect, dignity, policies and support they deserve.

I believe that protecting and expanding disability rights is essential to a thriving economy, just society & the resilient communities we are entitled to.  #OurCalifornia deserves a government and Governor that strives for the complete integration and inclusion of disabled people in our communities and across our State.  I recognize this commitment must move past empty platitudes and superficial policies that do not transform our ableist spaces, government and laws - and in order to achieve this I am eager to work with disability activists, advocates, and disability organizations across this State and nation to ensure we get this right.  We must.

We cannot continue to allow the logistical, social and structural barriers people with disabilities face without full, systemic & nonincremental change.   We cannot elevate healthcare, women’s rights, LGBTQIAA rights, civil rights and human rights without ensuring that disability rights are at the forefront of the conversation.  Because of the unique and often disability-specific experiences, insights and perspectives people with intellectual and developmental disabilities must be empowered to lead this movement, take part in this movement and see this movement as a pathway to community-led and community-based changes our State deserves.

As your gubernatorial candidate for 2022, I proudly call for our government, and our communities to protect and advance the rights of individuals with disabilities across California and I’m ready to #CripTheVote.  When #OurCalifornia’s most marginalized are protected and succeed, we all win.  I intend to End Poverty in California, and I believe the following policies that protect and expand disability rights will help us achieve this:

• Create additional State legislation that further expands protections and rights of the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), the Unruh Civil Rights Act, the Disabled Persons Act, and federal legislation of Rehabilitation Act, ADA &  ADA Amendments Act of 2008;
• Although the State has a Department of Developmental Services which “oversees the coordination and delivery of services to over 350,000 individuals who have cerebral palsy, intellectual disabilities, autism, epilepsy, and related conditions through a network of 21 regional centers and state-operated facilities” individual localities across the State are responsible for ADA compliance.  Most ADA departments and programs however are severely defunded and remain underfunded departments across our great State. This lack of financial support makes the true progress and success incompatible despite apparent public need and benefit.  I believe we must create a State ADA office and increase State funding to ensure full ADA compliance and ADA program initiatives of all CA localities can be achieved;
  • Ensure all State ADA & #OurCalifornia disability initiatives hire and are run by Californians with disabilities;
• Ending the Homelessness crisis for disabled individuals through #OurCalifornia’s Universal Housing for All program & the Whole Person Care Program expansion to ensure support services are provided to meet the range of needs of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities so they can live independent and normal lives as is their right;
• Construct all future State public housing that is fully ADA-accessible and compliant and sustainable:
  • Expansion of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973:
    • Instead of 5%, mandate 35% of all dwelling units are fully ADA-compliant and, including for hearing and visually impaired
  • Expansion of The Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988 (FHAA)
    • All ground floor and additional units will be ADA-compliant and adaptable
  • Working with State ADA to build and expand dedicated residential and community care service solutions in close proximity of all new State public housing to meet the range of needs of#OurCalifornia’s Disabled and/or their families in this State;
• Healthcare is a human right. Guaranteeing #MediCALforAllCalifornians means health care that meets the need of all abilities and disabilities within #OurCalifornia. This means, without waitlists, asset or income restrictions, we will provide:
  • Respectful and quality client-centered care that recognizes your distinct individual needs and functional independence;
  • Physical and mental health care;
  • Mindful construction of systems that implement disability inclusion strategies;
  • Ensuring full treatment regimens, necessary therapies and mobility aids are available;
  • Residential- and community-based support services;
• Transform our healthcare system, products, service and care received for #OurCalifornia.
  • The development of these techniques and their practical applications must involve disability activists, advocates and organizations that place disability rights at the forefront;
  • Policies that ensure the protection and expansion of disability rights and healthcare services - including accessibility, employment,
  • These 5 major shifting techniques are proven and will significantly improve population health, client care,  and ensure cost-avoidant practices for the State:
    • Enable proactive, preventive & predictive care over the reactive “sick” care system based on the episodic, acute care model most currently receive;
    • Promote personalized care instead of one-size fits all approaches, ensure healthcare services are client-centered;
    • Decentralize healthcare locations and instead of our current institution-centered focus;
    • Empower patient involvement in their health and health journeys with agency, input, and empathy rather than paternalistic, dismissive or shaming experiences often had;
    • Promote value-based care for clients over volume-based care of clients;
  • State reporting/enforcement mechanisms from the State’s ADA, DDS & Office of the Attorney General that hold institutions and individuals accountable for violating civil, constitutional and human rights of any disabled individual within our State;
• Creating an Disability Interagency Services Committee to:
  • Audit California’s processes and implement State and Locality best practices for State ADA, Disability Services, Labor, Healthcare & Housing;
  • Reduce bureaucratic red tape and paperwork by allowing forms to be shared between agencies - reducing cost, time, stress & work from persons with disabilities & representatives working on their behalf;
  • Establish a clear standard for the delivery of premium services;
• In EPIC fashion, #OurCalifornia will fund disability initiatives that supplement expansion of both Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income programs so recipients are 50% above federal poverty level;
  • Ensure these funds are ineligible for debt garnishment nt surrounding ;
• Call for federal garnishment reform on Social Security benefits which can be garnished for student
• Challenge the constitutionality of the SSI asset test and marriage penalty through legislation which are measures implemented to specifically police and further disenfranchise the Poor;
• Since this program is not available in all counties, ultimately not all children with disabilities in the State of California can receive the benefits of the California Children’s Services Whole-Child program.  I will fully fund the California Children’s Services Whole-Child Model Program so that it is available to children in all 58 counties across this State;
• Work with State ADA, disability rights organizations, students with disabilities & workers from our education & labor movements to:
  • Ensure we address and reduce inherent ableist structures/systems within education, and provide critical support with intention in and out of the classroom;
    • Expand alternative diploma pathways for students with disabilities;
    • Expand funding for Regional Disability Centers that address pre-K and high school graduates
      • Review the prospect of creating another facility or system that works better than RDCs if they aren’t meeting the needs of individuals with disabilities;
    • Expand necessary funding for Resource and Special Education teachers, along with Educational Support Specialists to ensure quality, individualized & equitable education and services are provided to all in need;
  • Incorporate policy recommendations into all Project Learning Based models within the State for public schools and/or academic institution at every academic level (K-Postsecondary);
• Increase State government funding for our students with disabilities and special needs:
  • Increase State funding to 40% specifically for serving students with disabilities and special needs;
  • Increase State funding to 40% of the additional costs of serving students with disabilities in the general education classroom above the cost of average per pupil expenditures;
• Collaborate with grassroots youth activists, advocates and impactful organizations on the forefront of movements for safe, affirming and bias-free schools to ensure our disabled youth, in all their intersectionalities, are welcome and able to thrive. Create the State and locality-specific new framework that affirms Identity, Diversity, Justice and Action within all educational environments and the Project Based Learning settings;
  • State Legislation which implements, expands and fully funds:
    • K-12 Literacy-based anti-bias curriculum & critical practices
    • Peer-mentor networks;
    • Mental health specialists (counselors & psychologists) trained in culturally responsive de-escalation, working with individuals with disabilities, restorative justice, and more - responding to individuals experiencing a mental health crisis;
    • School climate specialists—trained in culturally responsive de-escalation, working with students with disabilities, restorative justice, and more—who can intervene in emotionally or physically volatile situations and act with the best interests for all students involved;
    • Education Support Professionals (ESPs) promote student achievement, ensure student safety, and help establish a healthier school climate.
    • Anti-bullying and emotional intelligence series;
    • Student-Led Sexuality and Gender Acceptance Clubs;
    • Any additional initiatives that activists, advocates, and disabled youth need/would like to see in their educational settings to encourage their holistic growth and success;
    • Fund State and locality-specific equity audits;
  • In Solidarity with students, families, and communities across this country, I support the following federal legislation:
    • As the federal share of IDEA has fallen to less than 14 percent, the lowest level since 2001, - and all disabled students are suffering from our broken promises.  The failure to appropriately fund IDEA has shifted costs onto States, forcing them to choose between raising taxes and cutting critical services.  I call and support the federal government to finally achieve it’s fully federal-funded commitment to ensuring a free appropriate public education that is tailored to their individual education needs and related services eligible to all children with disabilities for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA);
      • I support increasing the federally obligated percentage of 40% to 65% as all our States and our children are in need;
    • Support the full funding of ESEA Title I, Part A and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act;
    • Amending Part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to provide full Federal funding;
    • The Equality Act;
• Create legislation which expands Pregnancy Disability Employment Protections & General Rights under the California Pregnancy Disability Leave Law;
• Create legislation which expands California State Family/Maternity Leave/Care rights and protections;
• Create legislation which expands Reasonable Accommodation Leave protections for pregnancy-related disabilities;
• According to a report by the Treatment Advocacy Center, people with untreated mental illness are 16 times more likely to be killed during a police encounter than other civilians approached or stopped by law enforcement. Because of this prevalence, reducing encounters between on-duty law enforcement and individuals with the intellectual and developmental disabilities may represent the single most immediate, practical strategy for reducing fatal police shootings in the United States.
  • Create an effective mental health and psychiatric care system under #MediCALForAllCalifornians so that individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities are not left to deteriorate until their actions provoke a police response;
  • Create a publicly accessible database, LEO Public Conduct Database, of all law enforcement officer complaints (formally lodged and community-based) in the State of California for complete transparency, employment sanctions and finally end loopholes that allow law enforcement to be rehired in other localities after previous termination;
    • In funding this reliable State tracking and reporting of all complaints and incidents there will be specific data and review available on excessive use of force, and use of deadly force by law enforcement officers, whether lethal or not; and
  •  Assure that the role of mental illness in fatal police shootings is identified and reported in government data collection;
• As 4(+) out of 10 incarcerated peoples in California have been found to have a disability, it is imperative that the State transform our carceral state and the way in which our State treats the disabled within our systems from:
  • Drastically expand critical community services, quality public health and community-based organizations that effectively address the needs of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities across #OurCalifornia:
    • Enforce and uphold the Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision, including applications for individuals with mental illness, in both public and private
    • Educational programs and training that empower individuals with intellectual abilities to protect their rights, as a victim/survivor or suspect, when interacting with the justice system and the general community. Enable cross-training for all community leaders, members and government offices/departments - we cannot continue to fail the disabled and #OurCalifornia;
  • Begin abolition of the prison industrial complex;
  • Transform ableist courts, including predatory and punitive measures which have proven to penalize disabled populations;
  • Ban the cruel and inhumane practices of solitary confinement current State variations;
  • Offender Bifurcation:
    • Using a personalized justice plan, offer alternatives to incarceration by identifying community support and programs to treat and sanction disabled offenders without further entrance into the prison industrial complex;
• In collaboration with human & disability rights organizations and the Office of the Attorney General, audit all conservatorships, cases, and decisions authorized by the State of California to ensure that the most restrictive form of “protection” available in the United States is:
  • Necessary (probate, LPS, or otherwise);
  • Honoring supportive decision-making & ensuring it is afforded to all individual conservatees regardless of their disability to ensure the protection of their human rights;
  • Not weaponizing courts or laws to further abuse the Disabled;
• Reform State of California Conservatorship in accordance to the findings of audits, and construct new policies written with, for & by the Disabled;
• Hold the government and for-profit managed care organizations for both the disabled and elders accountable for systemic financial, physical & emotional abuses; lobbying and government corruption;
• Investigate and prosecute pharmaceutical companies, medical professions and institutions found responsible for prescription abuse and MediCAL fraud which data shows drastically diminishes quality of life.  It’s critical that we completely transform our healthcare system, especially for Elders, the Disabled & all other high-risk patient populations, that are overprescribed by enabling proactive, preventative, predictive & quality care;
  • Create legislation that bans and financially disincentivizes medical practitioners from big pharmaceutical tactics of:
    • Prescribing harmful, unnecessary medication to all Californians; additional sanctions applied when conduct occurs with Elders, the Disabled, Women and Childbirth and all other high-risk populations;
    • Misdiagnosing & prescribing for MediCAL & Medicaid billing purposes; additional sanctions applied when conduct occurs with Elders, the Disabled, Women and Childbirth and all other high-risk populations;
• Addressing labor abuses and illegal practices regularly experienced by individuals with disabilities from employment discrimination, sub-minimum wage compensation, retaliation et. al. by holding employers accountable.
  • Completing the backlog of labor complaints and incomplete investigations through interagency support of both State ADA, Disabilities Services, Labor & federal EEOC support (if necessary) impacting all disabled working populations in the State;
• Ensuring the Disabled within our State are given safer and healthier workspaces, respecting labor with liveable wages under the State Jobs Guarantee program;
  • Work with the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division to ensure all SJG employment positions and training are Title I ADA compliant for all state and local government employers.

• Ensure every polling location in the State of California meets ADA standards, and has functioning ADA-accessible voting stations & machines;
• Eager to work with the California Lifting Children and Families out of Poverty Task Force to ensure all recommended strategies can be funded and achieved for #OurCalifornia through public policy, action & the robust social safety nets we deserve in our resilient and sustainable communities;
• In Solidarity with disabled individuals across this country, I support the following federal legislation:
  • As the federal share of IDEA has fallen to less than 14 percent, the lowest level since 2001, - and all disabled students are suffering from our broken promises.  The failure to appropriately fund IDEA has shifted costs onto States, forcing them to choose between raising taxes and cutting critical services.  I call and support the federal government to finally achieve it’s fully federal-funded commitment to ensuring a free appropriate public education that is tailored to their individual education needs and related services eligible to all children with disabilities for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA);
    • I support increasing the federally obligated percentage of 40% to 65% as all our States and our children are in need;
  • Support the full funding of ESEA Title I, Part A and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act;
  • Amending Part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to provide full Federal funding;
• Call for federal government to renew the funding (and fully funded) for all States’ programs similar to the California Community Transitions (CCT) program, as a Medi-Cal funded program available through the state Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) to give people who have their medical coverage through Medi-Cal living in a medical facility with  the extra help they need to move from a medical facility to their own home;
• Work with Sins Invalid, Disability Justice Culture Club, Native American Disability Law Center, California Community Living Network, Disability Rights California, Each Mind Matters - California’s Mental Health Movement, Life Eldercare, Youth Organizing! disabled and proud, Community Resources for Independence, Learning Rights Law Center, Bay Area Association of Disabled Sailors - BAADS, Wayfinder Family Services, California Disability Services Association (CDSA), Prisoner Advocacy Network, Fiesta Educativa, Deaf West Theatre, SAGE, Teaching Tolerance, The California Aging and Disability Alliance, Jewish Family and Community Services, NAMI of California, Asians and Pacific Islanders with Disabilities in California (APIDC), Perspectives for a Diverse America, Lavender Seniors, Team of Advocates for Special Kids (TASK), Disabled Resources Center Inc, The ARC, California Collaborative for Long Term Services and Supports, Communities Actively Living Independent and Free (CALIF), Openhouse, Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF), California Council of the Blind, FREED Center for Independent Living, Betty Clooney Foundation, Californians for Disability Rights, Campaign for Justice, Grassroots Policy Project, Sustainable Economies Law Center, Institute for Policy Studies & all other grassroots and impactful organizations, activists, advocates and pillars in disability rights, health, human rights, labor education, and research communities to ensure the needs of ALL in #OurCalifornia are inclusive and sustainably met;
• State Deputization of chosen grassroots nonprofits who are successfully providing dynamic and critical social services to #OurCalifornia to act as an extension of our government in expanding their work and services with the funding, staffing and State recognition they deserve;
  • Will participate within the State Jobs Guarantee Program;
• In the true spirit of Upton Sinclair’s End Poverty in California campaign, I will call on fellow Citizens, Socialists, Governors, and fellow Socialist Gubernatorial campaigns across this country to adopt and implement the same.

by adriel

LGBTQ+ Rights

When #OurCalifornia’s most marginalized are protected and succeed, we all win.

• Collaborate with grassroots youth activists, advocates and impactful organizations on the forefront of movements for safe, affirming and bias-free schools to ensure all our LGBTQ+ youth, in all their intersectionalities, are welcome and able to thrive. Create the State’s and locality-specific new framework that affirms Identity, Diversity, Justice and Action within all educational environments and the Project Based Learning settings;
  • State Legislation which implements, expands and fully funds:
    • K-12 Literacy-based anti-bias curriculum & critical practices
    • Peer-mentor networks;
    • Mental health specialists (counselors & psychologists) trained in culturally responsive de-escalation, working with individuals with disabilities, restorative justice, and more - responding to individuals experiencing a mental health crisis;
    • School climate specialists—trained in culturally responsive de-escalation, working with students with disabilities, restorative justice, and more—who can intervene in emotionally or physically volatile situations and act with the best interests for all students involved;
    • Education Support Professionals (ESPs) that promote student achievement, ensure student safety, and help establish a healthier school climate;
    • Anti-bullying and emotional intelligence series;
    • Student-Led Sexuality and Gender Acceptance Clubs;
    • Any additional initiatives that activists, advocates, and disabled youth need/would like to see in their educational settings to encourage their holistic growth and success;
    • Fund State and locality-specific equity audits;
  • In Solidarity with LGBTQ youth across this country, I support the following federal legislation:
    • The Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA) 
    • Equality Act
    • Keep our Pact Act
    • Ensure Washington Funds Government Responsibly Act
    • IDEA Full Funding Act
• Expanding the rights of Transgender, Non-binary & Gender nonconforming people with true enforcement and sanctions by the Office of the Attorney General
• Tackling the criminalization of sex work, with BIPOC Trans, Non-binary & Gender Nonconforming sex workers bearing the brunt of harm with:
  • The decriminalization of sex work;
  • With legislation that supports and expands SB233 that removes penalties applied to sex workers;
  • Pardoning all active sentences, waiving all fees & expunging all criminal records any #OurCalifornia residents who were targeted by localities or the State for all laws which criminalized sex and sexual services between consenting adults;
  • Reducing incarceration and improving the treatment of LGBTQ people in the legislation, justice system, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and all immigration systems;
  • State recognition of sex work as legitimate and legal work maximizing their protection, dignity & equality;
  • Maximize sex workers’ legal protection and their ability to exercise their human, constitutional and civil rights in a nondiscriminatory fashion;
  • Support of a Sex Workers Union;
  • Collaborate with grassroots activists and organizations on the forefront of movements for survivor advocacy, LGBTQ liberation, bodily autonomy, and sex work positivity for State Policy and Community impact;
• Our government has policed specific sexual acts and legitimized these as barriers from outdated fearmongerIng & discriminatory practices, in spite of all donated blood products being tested for HIV and other pathogens, such as hepatitis C virus the exact same.  My administration will legally challenge Federal FDA Blood Donation Guidance for Gay Men through new State legislation which permits all blood donations regardless of intimate sexual acts between consenting adults.
• Develop a new State Office, Reproductive Justice for the Underserved & Marginalized.
  • Research
  • Policy Development
  • Compose and Publish a State Resource Guide for Holistic Treatment Options by County for Reproductive Justice for the Underserved & Marginalized
    • Research
    • Policy Development
    • Compose and Publish a State Resource Guide for Holistic Treatment Options by County for Reproductive Justice for the Underserved & Marginalized
    • Hire Culturally-Competent Care Consultants who work with Local Public Health Departments, Private + Public Hospitals and Clinics to appropriately train Sexual Health and Reproductive Health on the needs of #OurCalifornia’s underserved & marginalized communities - specifically including but not limited to Trans/ Non-binary/Gender Nonconforming, Black Maternity & Infant Mortality, California Indian Maternity & Infant Mortality, Intersectionality of #OurCalifornia’s Poor, Environmental Injustice & Healthcare disparities
    • Support grassroots organizations and local community mutual aid efforts to include but not limited to:
      • Diaper Banks
      • Intimate Hygiene, Tampon, Sanitary Napkins & Condom Bank
      • LGBTQIA sexual and reproductive health services
      • Specifically Trans, Gender Non-Binary & Gender nonconforming sexual and reproductive health services including Transitioning, Hormone Replacement Therapy,
    • Receive complaints and determine economic sanctions for hospitals, clinics & healthcare service providers in the State failing to serve or provide reproductive justice to #OurCalifornia
• All reproductive health services, from wellness checks, STIs, fertility, cancer screenings, contraception, reproductive hygiene products, transitioning, gender affirming hormone therapy, family planning, abortion will be free at the point of service under my #MediCALForAllCaliforniansCalifornians program.
  • To ensure #OurCalifornia receives the reproductive health care we deserve, I will expand funding and resources for all other State initiatives that protect Women’s, Men’s, Trans & Gender Non-binary reproductive health.
    • State investment in reproductive health care has doubled over the past two years, allowing Planned Parenthood and other community health providers to open more physical, sexual & reproductive health centers all while expanding their telehealth service options. I will double this State investment for my term as Governor.
  • All participating providers, facilities, and pharmacies will be required to prominently display, in plain language, & in multiple languages as based on needs of the community, information of California patients’ rights under our #MediCALForAllCalifornians, as well as resources to file complaints.
• Eager to work with the California Lifting Children and Families out of Poverty Task Force to ensure all recommended strategies can be funded and achieved for #OurCalifornia through public policy, action & the robust social safety nets we deserve in our resilient and sustainable communities;
• In Solidarity with LGBTQ+ people across the country I support federal legislation including:
  • the Customer Non-Discrimination Act,
  • Do No Harm,
  • End Racial and Religious Profiling Act,
  • the Equality Act,
  • Every Child Deserves a Family Act,
  • Fair and Equal Housing Act,
  • FAMILY Act
  • Healthy Families Act
  • Jabara-Heyer NO HATE Act
  • Jury Non-Discrimination Act/Jury ACCESS Act
  • Justice for Victims of Hate Crimes Act
  • PrEP Access and Coverage Act
  • Prohibition of Medicaid Funding for Conversion Therapy Act
  • Real Education for Healthy Youth Act
  • Therapeutic Fraud Prevention Act
  • Transgender Military Service
  • Tyler Clementi Higher Education Anti-Harassment Act
• I am eager to work with the Bay Area American Indian Two Spirits (BAAAITS), TGI Justice Project, Compton's Transgender Cultural District, TransLatina Coalition, One Love Oceana, Disability Justice Culture Club,  Sins Invalid, Maven, Intersex Justice Project, API Equality, Lavender Seniors, El/La Para TransLatina, Bayard Rustin LGBT Coalition (BRC), Flying Over Walls, Openhouse, Transgender Law Center, School of Liberty and Liberation, Outlet, Brown Boi Project, The Berkeley Free Clinic, Bay Area Association of Disabled Sailors (BAADS), GaymerX, AIDS Emergency Fund, Arcata High's Sexuality and Gender Acceptance Club, National Queer Trans Therapists of Color Network, Intersex Genderqueer Recognition Project, Golden Gate Business Association, Queer Humboldt, Organization for Refuge, Asylum & Migration, NIA Collective, Asian Americans For Community Involvement, Grassroots Policy Project, Project Open Hand, Oasis Legal Services, Homobiles, Life Eldercare, Sustainable Economies Law Center, Castro Community On Patrol (CCOP), Teaching Tolerance, Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, African Human Rights Coalition, Asamblea Gay Unida Impactando Latinos A Superarse (AGUILAS), Gender Spectrum, The Hunger Intervention Program Helping Other People (HIPHOP), Maitri, Jewish Family and Community Services, Lambda Youth Project, Trans Justice Funding Project, Hispanics in Philanthropy, Perspectives for a Diverse America, Eye Zen Presents, Center for Third World Organizing, NAMI of California,  GLBT Historical Society, United Territories Of Pacific Islanders' Alliance - U.T.O.P.I.A., Brava! for Women in the Arts Center for Research & Education on Gender and Sexuality (CREGS), LGBTQ+ Freedom Fund, Institute for Policy Studies & other grassroots & impactful organizations, advocates, activists  and pillars in human rights, the gender-affirmation, restorative justice, reproductive justice, human rights, and research communities to ensure the needs of ALL in #OurCalifornia are inclusive and sustainably met;
• State Deputization of chosen grassroots nonprofits who are successfully providing dynamic and critical social services to #OurCalifornia to act as an extension of our government in expanding their work and services with the funding, staffing and State recognition they deserve;
  • Will participate within the State Jobs Guarantee Program;
• In the true spirit of Upton Sinclair’s End Poverty in California campaign, I will call on fellow Citizens, Socialists, Governors, and fellow Socialist Gubernatorial campaigns across this country to adopt and implement the same.

by adriel

Reproductive Justice in Communities of Color & the Black Maternal Mortality Crisis

At no time in our State’s history, have Women, especially Black Women, had the reproductive justice that they deserve. In spite of the advances that the State of California has made in reducing maternal & infant mortality by 55%, Black Women in California continue to die at a rate three to four times higher than white women from pregnancy or delivery complications - regardless of education, income, or any other socio-economic factors. I applaud the advocacy & legislative work of Senate Bill 464 - the California Dignity in Pregnancy and Childbirth Act, but believe implicit bias training for perinatal healthcare providers is not enough nor does this provide holistic healthcare, reproductive justice or redress to Black Women in our State. Furthermore, data has consistently shown significant harm & disparity in reproductive justice and health outcomes in this State for Black, Brown & Indigenous Women as a whole.  This is unacceptable and our State government has yet to make amends and finally provide equity and reproductive justice to ALL who have long been most  in need. When #OurCalifornia’s most marginalized are protected and succeed, we all win.

As your gubernatorial candidate for 2022, I proudly call for our government to finally commit to ensuring reproductive justice in Communities of Color and finally addressing the Black Maternal Mortality Crisis within our communities and State.  I intend to End Poverty in California, and these are the policies and the vision I believe will achieve it:

• Since 2006, California has seen maternal mortality decline by 55 percent between 2006 to 2013, however #OurCalifornia needs an update from the California Pregnancy-Associated Mortality Review (CA-PAMR) for Maternal and Infant data for years 2014-2020 to identify pregnancy-related deaths, causation and contributing factors, and then make recommendations on quality improvements to maternity care.  Specifically reviewing the successes and the continued extreme racial disparities for Black Women in the State of California which have not seen declines;
• As evidence-based strategies have confirmed, socially disadvantaged & at-risk expectant mother’s + babies have significantly better birthing and early life outcomes when receiving care from a Doula, I will expand Statewide culturally competent care through the utilization of Black Doulas State program to effectively address maternal and infant needs of Black Women that our current medical system and structure continue to ignore;
  • Will provide training and certification for State Doula job to ensure a culturally competent qualified individual is paired with each Black expectant mother throughout her pregnancy & 2-year postpartum process;
• Increase State funding to hospitals where concentrations of Black Mothers and Parents receive care, so these hospitals can implement evidence-based protocols and fine tune culturally competent care strategies to lower Black Maternal and Infant mortality rates;
• Require public and private hospitals operating within the State of California to establish standard protocols to rapidly address postpartum hemorrhage, a leading cause of maternal mortality in Black Women in our State;
• To improve the well-being of California’s highest at-risk Mothers of Color, particularly Black Mothers, we must legislate with data, intention & different frameworks to make their entire lives during this critical time much better - and that involves economic parity & redress.
  • I will expand San Francisco’s trial program, the Abundant Birth Project, to all Black, California Indian & other Indigenous expecting mothers residing within the State of California. This additional $1000/month pregnancy supplemental income program recognizes Health goes beyond medical intervention, and the State has a responsibility to protect the lives of both the mother & baby from first trimester thru two years postpartum within a system which has consistently devalued and harmed their lives;
• Provide economic, medical & psychological Redress to all Survivors/Lineage of California’s forced sterilizations & eugenics predominantly completed on Black, Brown & Indigenous Women of Color by the California Corrections Department and Rehabilitation from 1909-2014.  These medical procedures were not done for the betterment of the individual, reducing recidivism or the benefit of community; instead these acts were cruel, inhumane & a violation of State & National Medical oaths, and internationally recognized human rights;
  • All affiliated CDCR employees, healthcare providers, practitioners & clinics who performed these acts will be held to account under the fullest extent of the law under my Government;
• Develop a new State Office, Reproductive Justice for the Underserved & Marginalized:
  • Research;
  • Policy Development;
  • Compose and Publish a State Resource Guide for Holistic Treatment Options by County for Reproductive Justice for the Underserved & Marginalized;
  • Hire Culturally-Competent Care Consultants who work with Local Public Health Departments, Private + Public Hospitals and Clinics to appropriately train Sexual Health and Reproductive Health on the needs of #OurCalifornia’s underserved & marginalized communities - specifically including but not limited to Trans/Gender Non-binary/Nonconforming, Black Maternity & Infant Mortality, California Indian Maternity & Infant Mortality, Intersectionality of #OurCalifornia’s Poor, Environmental Injustice & Healthcare disparities;
  • Support grassroots organizations and local community mutual aid efforts to include but not limited to:
    • Diaper Banks;
    • Intimate Hygiene, Tampon, Sanitary Napkins & Condom Bank;
    • LGBTQIA sexual and reproductive health services;
    • Specifically Trans, Gender Non-Binary & Gender nonconforming sexual and reproductive health services including Transitioning, Hormone Replacement Therapy;
  • Receive complaints and determine economic sanctions for hospitals, clinics & healthcare service providers in the State failing to serve or provide reproductive justice to #OurCalifornia;
• Eager to work with the California Lifting Children and Families out of Poverty Task Force to ensure all recommended strategies can be funded and achieved for #OurCalifornia through public policy, action & the robust social safety nets we deserve in our resilient and sustainable communities;
• I look forward to working with Sister Song, Black Women for Wellness (Reproductive Justice Policy Work), California Black Women's Health Project, Black Women’s Health Imperative, California Women’s Law Center, Access: Women’s Health Justice, Building Healthy Communities, 4Kira4Moms, National Black Women's Justice Institute (NBWJI), NIA Collective, California Latinas for Reproductive Justice, The Women’s Foundation of California, Organization for Refuge, Asylum & Migration (ORAM), California Immigrant Policy Center, A New Way of Life Reentry Project, California Coalition for Reproductive Freedom, Oasis Legal Services, Los Angeles Coalition for Reproductive Justice, National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum, Institute for Policy Studies & other grassroots and impactful organizations, advocates, activists and pillars in Black Maternal Health, reproductive justice for Communities of Color, human rights, gender-inclusivity and research communities to ensure the needs of ALL in #OurCalifornia are inclusive and sustainably met;
• State Deputization of chosen grassroots nonprofits who are successfully providing dynamic and critical social services to #OurCalifornia to act as an extension of our government in expanding their work and services with the funding, staffing and State recognition they deserve;
  • Will participate within the State Jobs Guarantee Program;
• In the true spirit of Upton Sinclair’s End Poverty in California campaign, I will call on fellow Citizens, Socialists, Governors, and fellow Socialist Gubernatorial campaigns across this country to adopt and implement the same.

by adriel

Reproductive Healthcare and Justice for All Californians 

Our State’s highest court recognized abortion rights under the California Constitution in 1969, four years before the Roe decision.  And as such, our State law protects the right to personal reproductive decisions regardless of whether Roe v Wade ever falls.

However, at no time in our State’s history have Women, especially Black, Brown & Indigenous Women, had the reproductive justice that they deserve. I say this as in the last decade, the State of California has made significant advancements in reducing maternal & infant mortality by 55% - a statistic that excludes Black Californian Women, regardless of wealth, still remain three to four times more likely to die than their White Californian peers.

As your gubernatorial candidate for 2022, I proudly call for our government to finally commit to ensuring #ReproductiveHealthcareAndJusticeForAllCalifornians.  When #OurCalifornia’s most marginalized are protected and succeed, we all win.  I intend to End Poverty in California, and these are the policies and the vision I believe will achieve it:

• All reproductive health services, from wellness checks, STIs, fertility, cancer screenings, contraception, reproductive hygiene products, transitioning, gender affirming hormone therapy, family planning, abortion will be free at the point of service under my #MediCALForAllCalifornians program;
  • To ensure #OurCalifornia receives the reproductive health care we deserve, I will expand funding and resources for all other State initiatives that protect Women’s, Men’s, Trans & Gender Non-binary reproductive health;
    • State investment in reproductive health care has doubled over the past two years, allowing Planned Parenthood and other community health providers to open more physical, sexual & reproductive health centers all while expanding their telehealth service options. I will double this State investment for my term as Governor;
  • All participating providers, facilities, and pharmacies will be required to prominently display, in plain language, & in multiple languages as based on needs of the community, information of California patients’ rights under our #MediCALForAllCalifornians, as well as resources to file complaints;
• State insurance cards will allow for free in-store purchase of contraception and birth control methods from private retailers;
• State insurance cards will allow for free in-store purchase of reproductive hygiene products (sanitary napkins, tampons, period cups, limited period/leak proof underwear, etc);
• Ensure contraception, birth control methods &  reproductive hygiene products are free and available at all State/County Public Health offices;
• As the reproductive health programs are part of the #MediCALForAllCalifornians initiative - ensure that the #MediCALForAllCalifornians in its entirety - including #ReproductiveHealthcareAndJusticeForAllCalifornians are available and utilized by all individuals under State care - be it our incarcerated and/or those under psychiatric care;
• Create legislation which expands Pregnancy Disability Employment Protections & General Rights under the California Pregnancy Disability Leave Law;
• Create legislation which expands California State Family/Maternity Leave/Care rights and protections;
• Create legislation which expands Reasonable Accommodation Leave protections for pregnancy-related disabilities;
• Create legislation that bans introducing habit-forming opioids to women after childbirth;
• Continue to support California’s Attorney General Office in challenging new 2020 & 2021 Federal Hurdles restricting abortion coverage, from the $1 abortion care premium to legal attempts to challenge the Hyde & Helms Amendments;
• Develop a new State Office, Reproductive Justice for the Underserved & Marginalized:
  • Research;
  • Policy Development;
  • Compose and Publish a State Resource Guide for Holistic Treatment Options by County for Reproductive Justice for the Underserved & Marginalized;
  • Addressing COVID-19 barriers to reproductive health care in the State of California promptly through expansion of information & public service announcements, #MediCALForAllCalifornians rights &  transportation assistance;
  • Hire Culturally-Competent Care Consultants who work with Local Public Health Departments, Private + Public Hospitals and Clinics to appropriately train Sexual Health and Reproductive Health on the needs of #OurCalifornia’s underserved & marginalized communities - specifically including but not limited to Trans/Gender Non-binary/Nonconforming, Black Maternity & Infant Mortality, California Indian Maternity & Infant Mortality, Intersectionality of #OurCalifornia’s Poor, Environmental Injustice & Healthcare disparities;
  • Support grassroots organizations and local community mutual aid efforts to include but not limited to:
    • Diaper Banks;
    • Intimate Hygiene, Tampon, Sanitary Napkins & Condom Bank;
    • LGBTQIA sexual and reproductive health services;
    • Specifically Trans, Gender Non-Binary & Gender nonconforming sexual and reproductive health services including Transitioning, Hormone Replacement Therapy;
  • Receive complaints and determine economic sanctions for hospitals, clinics & healthcare service providers in the State failing to serve or provide reproductive justice to #OurCalifornia;
• Eager to work with the California Lifting Children and Families out of Poverty Task Force to ensure all recommended strategies can be funded and achieved for #OurCalifornia through public policy, action & the robust social safety nets we deserve in our resilient and sustainable communities;
• I look forward to working with Sister Song, Black Women for Wellness (Reproductive Justice Policy Work), California Black Women's Health Project, Black Women’s Health Imperative, California Women’s Law Center, Access: Women’s Health Justice, Building Healthy Communities, 4Kira4Moms, National Black Women's Justice Institute (NBWJI), NIA Collective, California Latinas for Reproductive Justice, The Women’s Foundation of California, Organization for Refuge, Asylum & Migration (ORAM), California Immigrant Policy Center, A New Way of Life Reentry Project, California Coalition for Reproductive Freedom, Oasis Legal Services, Los Angeles Coalition for Reproductive Justice, National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum, Institute for Policy Studies & other grassroots and impactful organizations, advocates, activists and pillars in Black Maternal Health, reproductive justice for Communities of Color, human rights, gender-inclusivity and research communities to ensure the needs of ALL in #OurCalifornia are inclusive and sustainably met;
• State Deputization of chosen grassroots nonprofits who are successfully providing dynamic and critical social services to #OurCalifornia to act as an extension of our government in expanding their work and services with the funding, staffing and State recognition they deserve;
  • Will participate within the State Jobs Guarantee Program;
• In the true spirit of Upton Sinclair’s End Poverty in California campaign, I will call on fellow Citizens, Socialists, Governors, and fellow Socialist Gubernatorial campaigns across this country to adopt and implement the same;

by adriel

Reparations: #ADOS

California was a slave territory - both of Indigenous Californias and of Black slaves.

California became a State in 1850, entering the Union as a “Free State” while also granting important concessions to the South which included the draconian federal Fugitive Slave Act & State pro-slavery legislation including California’s State Fugitive Laws which specifically targeted Black people who had not fled from slave states, but came to California as Freedman and Slaves, to be forcibly returned and re-enslaved down South.

California Historical Society’s Gold Chains: The Hidden History of Slavery in California archives evidence, our State’s history; that slavery was socially practiced and openly upheld in spite of the State’s Constitutional ban on slavery.  Be it the San Francisco Herald & Sacramento Transcript containing ads for the purchase and sale of Black slaves, court dockets enforcing State Fugitive Slave Laws, Freedman lawsuits challenging the legality & application of California’s Fugitive Slave Laws to them, a pro-slavery State Supreme Court, and uprisings w/ the armed liberation of slaves occurring from the Sierra Nevadas through farmlands of Central Valley.

California was a slave state.  California remained a slave state for 15 years. California maintained 90 years of Jim Crow including Black Codes, sharecropping, denial of GI Benefits, social segregation, theft of black-owned land by the government or individual white citizens - via eminent domain or documented terrorist attacks, environmental injustices, & intentional denial and defunding of public services to Black Californians and in Black communities.

California upheld 3.5+ decades of racist and exclusionary social mobility practices from President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s GI Bill, as well as racist and exclusionary housing practices from President FDR’s New Deal, especially the Home Owners Loan Corporation funding criteria, ie, redlining.  The California Realtors Association, locality’s realtor & homeowner associations used racially-restrictive housing covenants and blockbusting as common practice to deny Black people residence in spite of State and Federal law.  Californians voted to uphold and maintain these racially-restrictive housing covenants with Prop14, whose ripple effects continue to shape and strengthen predatory practices impact housing markets, accessibility, and common practices today which impact Black Californians the worst.  Our recent history is laced with Supremacist responses to Black People, be it at least 112 cities and some counties across the State being Sundown Towns - some of which still are; to 1960s public action from the American Nazi Party & KKKParty to ensure whites-only neighborhoods remained that way in Southern California; with a century’s worth of history of firebombings and cross burnings at Black homes and business from Shasta to Orange to Lassen to San Luis Obispo to Los Angeles Counties with the intent to terrorize and/or force residential relocation as recent as 2016.  Black Californians have endured decades long community racial cleansing campaigns, the last being prosecuted by the federal government as recent as 2011.

There’s systemic public-private partnerships which undervalue property of Black homeowners in California and across this country. And still, to this day, California’s State & local governments intentionally allow government neglect through the overt defunding of Black communities and services, and discriminatory practices that are only and consistently occur in Black communities.  Displacement of housing in Black communities by factories, sports complexes, freeways, train tracks and oil refineries without adequate replacement is a racially motivated housing issue which remains prevalent to this day in Black communities. Government and Independent study after study find homelessness disproportionately impacts Black People across this State as a direct result of localities policy, public-Private partnership & racist practices. It must be said that present day experiences are stacked upon generations of trauma from Black Californians.  Furthermore, Black Californians’ present day experiences have been the outcome of decades of active and intentional efforts to keep power, wealth & land in the hands of those who have it - which has never been Black Californians.

Oakland, Los Angeles, Fresno & other localities have federally sued major financial institutions for re-redlining practices in the last decade stemming from predatory tactics during the Great Recession and won. Care, active policy and State action must be at the forefront during our current COVID-19 and economic crises.

This is Californian history and these are our Californian truths.  Long and complex truths in the last two centuries that involves a documented Public-Private partnership of systems intentionally designed with surgical precision to deny Black Californians’ right to exist, freedom, Constitutionally protected rights, exclusionary government laws, social practices and continued legal denial of federally protected civil rights to Black People afforded through the 1964 Civil Rights Act which confine a majority of Black Californians to areas with substandard public services, stagnant property values and violence.

Present day circumstances for most Californian #ADOS are not a question of individual choice, but outcomes of deliberate and systemic action and inaction which successfully continues to deny Black Californians equality and equity under the law.

No more.

There are moral, social & economic debts that must be paid by both the State of California and the United States of America. These debts are owed to Californian #ADOS Californians and American #ADOS. The State of California and my government have an obligation to right these wrongs, beginning to make American Descendants of Slaves whole.  When #OurCalifornia’s most marginalized are protected and succeed, we all win.

This begins with our truths, our apologies & most importantly - redress.

According to Economist and Professor Sandy Darity Jr.’s report “Resurrecting The Promise Of 40 Acres: The Imperative Of Reparations” that Federal debt comes to the grand total of $16 Trillion dollars.  In working with California’s own ADOS Redress Commission, we believe redress is possible through specific means and program details outlined below.

As your gubernatorial candidate for 2022, I proudly call for our government to finally commit to a new State of California #ADOS Department that utilizes the “Economics of Reparations” model of Professor Sandy Darity Jr. & Professor Dania Frank, to implement Statewide ADOS programs.  When #OurCalifornia’s most marginalized are protected and succeed, we all win.  I intend to End Poverty in California, and these are the policies and the vision I believe will achieve it:

• The creation of the State of California #ADOS Department which will coordinate and distribute services to all eligible Californian #ADOS
  • Research
  • Economic State Redress
    • Home ownership program ($300,000)
    • Business Financing Support to include:
      • One small business loan per Californian ADOS
        • Loan Benefits:
          • No down payment
          • State Government-backed loan & Federal interest rate
          • Ability to borrow up to conforming loan limit
          • Once loan is paid off, eligibility for one small business loan remains through single loan second tier entitlement
          • Loan is assumable
        • Equity licensing
        • Using the standard definition of a small business to include operations with up $7million in revenue or 500 employees. Ranges of revenue thresholds for small businesses would determine the small business loan
          • Below $100,000
          • $100,000 - $1,000,000
          • $1,000,001 - $3,000,000
          • $3,000,001 - $5,000,000
          • $5,000,001 - $7,000,000
      • Guaranteed government employment business employment contracts
  • ADOS Wills Initiative
    • 23% of all African Americans have wills, resulting in a majority of assets left as heirs’ property.  Heirs’ property leaves the estate  extremely vulnerable to developers who can use legal loopholes to acquire it. Having no will is the leading cause of AA involuntary loss of land in this country.
    • This initiative will ensure that all Californian ADOS will receive financial and legal support to complete a living will, with the goal of obtaining 100% completion by all ADOS participants above the age of 18
    • Californian ADOS wills can be updated through this initiative as often as needed;
    • This Initiative will also provide land-grant extension agents to all California #ADOS enrolled in the program for additional assistance, support & protection;
      • Land-grant extension Agents will be assigned 1:4
  • Rectifying Redlined Communities through reinvestment of housing, healthcare, re-evaluating and correcting present and long-documented devaluation of Black property and assets,
  • K-12 Curriculum & Textbook Revisionist Review & Replacement
  • Support HR 1636 which establishes a Commission on the Social Status of Black Men and Boys,
  • Promote State legislation to close the racial wealth gap for #ADOS
    • produce asset-building policies specifically for Black Americans
  • Create an #OurCalifornia ADOS Board to compose new State Policy to benefit California’s ADOS population and advocate for Federal adoption
• Create State legislation which extends and adjusts current GI Bill benefits to all descendants of millions of Black American Veterans who served in WWII, the Korean War, or Vietnam who were denied the benefits of GI Bill.  Such legislation would compensate Veterans and their families for the withheld benefits to which they and their relatives were legally entitled and were unjustly denied while also formally addressing the racial wealth gap.
• Call for Federal legislation which extends and adjusts current GI Bill benefits to all descendants of millions of Black American Veterans who served in WWII, the Korean War, or Vietnam who were denied the benefits of GI Bill.  Such legislation would compensate Veterans and their families for the withheld benefits to which they and their relatives were legally entitled and were unjustly denied while also formally addressing the racial wealth gap.
• Create state legislation affirming that California ADOS reparations do not deduct Federal ADOS reparations, nor do they detract from Federal obligations.  A Federal debt is still owed;

Using the standards set out in the paper by Prof. Darity and Prof. Frank, “The Economics of Reparations,” as a guide the criteria for Californian ADOS eligibility would be:

• Must be born in California (or legal resident of California by a specified date)
• Must be 18 years old
• Must have lineage that ties them both to American chattel slavery with a 1776 to Present Window Claim

In the true spirit of Upton Sinclair’s End Poverty in California campaign, I will call on fellow Citizens, Socialists, Governors, and fellow Socialist Gubernatorial campaigns across this country to adopt and implement the same.

by adriel

Revitalizing California’s 58 Counties

Many of us are struggling to survive.

No more.

I recognize that prior cookie cutter approaches & one-size fits all policies have failed individual counties.  These abject policy failures have overfunded some counties and defunded and neglected others.  They have compounded poverty across this State.  That is unacceptable.

I believe that our government has lost its way and is barely able, if at all, to ensure our survival during these unnecessarily trying times as we face both the pandemic and subsequent economic crises it has caused.  It is time we have a Governor and government with a goal of not just surviving - but thriving.  It is time we have a Governor and government dedicated to addressing the individually unique needs of each of our 58 counties and the diverse populations within them.  I know that we must invest in ourselves to have the present and futures #OurCalifornia deserves - with communities that are resilient, sustainable & thrive with life-affirming public policy.

Life affirming policies that empower Californians to not just survive, but thrive.

Life affirming policies that are individually unique and County specific.

Life affirming policies that End Poverty in California.

Life affirming policies that promote public safety.

Life affirming policies that fight against federal projects that will harm #OurCalifornia - be it violent resource extraction or bioengineering.

Life affirming policies that improve the air, water and soil quality of Central Valley, Imperial Valley, San Joaquin Valley.

Life affirming policies that hold energy and resource extraction companies accountable for their toxic dumping.

Life affirming policies that end the school to prison pipeline.

Life affirming policies that promote our health as our wealth - and not a commodity to be had, sold at exorbitant costs for natural human occurrences of sickness.

Life affirming policies that promote and advance public education for us all.

Life affirming policies that honor the true value of labor in this State.

Life affirming policies that proactively respond to wildfires and failing infrastructure detrimental to our safe and peaceful existence.

Life affirming policies that value the lives of our most marginalized populations: California Indian, Indigenous, Black, the Poor, Disabled, LGBTQIA+ - prioritizing Trans & Gender nonconforming, Immigrants, Veterans and their families, our incarcerated, our unhoused, our Elders, our children.

These life affirming policies are all long overdue.  We deserve them all, same as we deserve to have our constitutional and civil rights protected.  These are the resilient and sustainable communities we are entitled to.   The debt is owed.

As your gubernatorial candidate for 2022, I proudly call for our government to finally commit to revitalizing all 58 counties throughout this State.  When #OurCalifornia’s most marginalized are protected and succeed, we all win.  I intend to End Poverty in California, and these are the policies and the vision I believe will achieve it:

• Upholding healthcare as a human right, #MediCALForAllCalifornians will expand single-payer healthcare in its totality for all Californians and require an end to for-profit commodification of our health, lives & existence:
  • Expanding quality care and critical services to rural & underserved communities across the State;
  • Free at point-of-service medical, dental, hearing, vision, and home- and community-based long-term care, in-patient and out-patient services, mental health and substance abuse treatment, reproductive and maternity care, prescription drugs, and more;
  • Ending ambulance and air ambulance surprise bills;
  • Providing real and community-based solutions to the health hazards unique to the Central Valley, San Joaquin Valley,
• TFC-Impacted Parties Council will distribute funding for critical repair and upgraded infrastructure unique to each county’s needs;
• Holding large energy & resource extraction corporations accountable for the significant harm they’ve caused with redress and solely reinvesting in critical programs and initiatives unique to meeting the needs of  frontline communities they’ve devastated in each locality;
• Building sustainable State public housing to immediately end homelessness and promptly address the State’s affordable housing crises in each locality with #UniversalHousingForAllCalifornians, and hold the corporations and predatory real estate speculators accountable for their crimes that have substantially increased costs and reduced availability for their profit;
• Green New Deal will be a gamechanger for rural and urban localities alike:
  • Allow for sustainable energy sources that are customer-owned cooperatives;
  • Expanding quality employment opportunities, workforce redevelopment & economic prosperity for all;
  • Manufacturing quality and sustainable products;
  • #GreenFleet Public Transportation;
  • Transforming our waste to energy w/ multi-use and green facilities.  Think #Copenhill, but we’ll make it for #OurCalifornia;
• #BroadbandForAllCalifornians;
• Expanding small business support, compliance assistance, financing opportunities & providing further economic incentives for good actors with their workforce;
• Strengthening conservation efforts with environmental stewardship to ensure we Honor our State and every Californian’s right to clean air, land & water;
• Addressing counties with excessive pesticide drifts, over sprays, and toxic runoffs by ending Big Ag power, presence and abuses;
• Ensuring & supporting localities are funding critically lacking land-use planning initiatives;
• Create, support and invest in all other life affirming policies that are individually unique and County specific;
• Eager to work with the California Lifting Children and Families out of Poverty Task Force to ensure all recommended strategies can be funded and achieved for #OurCalifornia through public policy, action & the robust social safety nets we deserve in our resilient and sustainable communities;
• Expand my accessibility to #OurCalifornia. Regularly meet with Constituents, take on Constituent cases & answer Constituent letters;
• Hold a town hall within each county annually in order to listen, to build coalitions, and turn what I hear from you into legislation that works for #OurCalifornia;
• Ensure that my Office of the Attorney General fights on behalf of #OurCalifornia and not the protection of the powerful, wealthy donors, or Corporations;
• In the true spirit of Upton Sinclair’s End Poverty in California campaign, I will call on fellow Citizens, Socialists, Governors, and fellow Socialist Gubernatorial campaigns across this country to adopt and implement the same.

by adriel