2024 CA-DSA Electoral Vision

Whereas, DSA’s national electoral priority commits us to a twofold electoral strategy in which we will both engage in class-struggle elections that polarize the working-class majority against the ruling-class elite, and use elections to win reforms that materially advance the interests of the working class and aim to democratize our economy and society; and

Whereas, said priority commits DSA to the project of building a working-class proto-party independent of the two parties of capital, and commits DSA chapters to developing a labor strategy for electoral campaigns (including, e.g., outreach to rank-and-file workers and encouraging union members to run for office); and

Whereas, said priority also commits us to “orienting toward running candidates for state legislatures, both as a means to contest the power of state government and to build capacity for statewide and federal races”; and

Whereas, California conditions dictate that the state legislature holds key political and decision-making power over major fiscal and social policy outcomes for working-class Californians; and

Whereas, as of 2022, there is only one socialist and a handful of progressives in the corporate Democrat-controlled California State Legislature, making it extremely difficult to legislatively advance statewide transformative reforms outside of the directly democratic ballot measure process; and

Whereas, fulfilling the above commitments requires us to distinguish strategically between candidates and ballot measures that will promote independent class-struggle politics and root socialists more deeply and broadly in California’s multiracial working class, and those that will not, even if they are generally progressive, or even specifically socialist; and

Whereas, at its February 19, 2022 meeting, the State Council created an Electoral Committee and tasked it with (among other things): “Develop[ing] a process for evaluating requests from chapters to endorse a candidate or ballot measure and making a recommendation to the State Council at large that to the extent possible uses the existing national DSA endorsement process so as not to create more work for chapters and campaigns”; and

Whereas, as a newly formed organization that has yet to run a coordinated state-level campaign of the scale and sophistication needed to win, California DSA (CA-DSA) should immediately start preparing ourselves for the 2024 elections, be it

Resolved, CA-DSA will endorse and run a slate of at least three but no more than five class-struggle candidates for the state legislature in 2024; and

Resolved, CA-DSA’s Electoral Committee will assess the material conditions of state legislative districts and identify in which districts it may be most strategic to intervene; and

Resolved, CA-DSA’s Electoral Committee will work with chapters to explore possibilities for recruiting and training working-class candidates and campaign workers in identified districts; and

Resolved, in the event that a transformative statewide ballot measure arises (e.g., if unions introduce a progressive taxation ballot measure), CA-DSA will also consider endorsing a campaign around such a measure in 2024, and, pending endorsement, advise our chapters, endorsed candidates, and socialists in office to do the same; and

Resolved, CA-DSA will only endorse a campaign for a candidate or ballot measure if/when there is a sound basis to believe that the campaign will:

1. Build class consciousness and organization, and promote the ultimate creation of a workers’ party, by connecting CA-DSA and our chapters with the labor movement, building independent political power beyond the particular campaign, and cohering socialists in office who will be accountable to a growing working-class base;

2. Root socialists in the multiracial working class, and make new socialists, by engaging in struggle alongside rank-and-file workers;

3. Strengthen DSA by developing organizational infrastructure, expanding the organizing skills and capacities of our membership, and providing political education opportunities;

4. Have winnable and transformative objectives and a concrete plan to achieve them that includes a power structure analysis, a timeline, strategies, tactics, goals and benchmarks; and

Resolved, in accordance with the above criteria, and using an application process similar to that of national DSA, CA-DSA’s Electoral Committee will consider endorsement requests from chapters and vote to recommend endorsements to the State Council, which will ultimately consider and vote on endorsements; and

Resolved, where possible, the California DSA State Council and other CA-DSA bodies will coordinate with DSA’s National Electoral Committee on shared electoral strategy and endorsements, and

Resolved, CA-DSA will avoid “paper endorsements,” and will only endorse and commit capacity and resources (e.g. fundraising through the CA-DSA PAC) to a campaign for a candidate or ballot measure at the request of a chapter which has already endorsed and committed organizing resources to the campaign.

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