Some California Down Ballot Suggestions

There's no one that great running for governor but there's a great candidate for Superintedent of Public Instruction

Every couple of years at this point in the cycle, Californians ask me who to vote for in down ballot races. I don't know who will be the best judges but I try to figure it out. I spend my time trying to figure out who the best candidates for Congress will be. And in California the Democratic incumbents who really don't deserve reelection are Jim Costa, Ami Bera, Scott Peters and Lou Correa. Some the others are great-- like Ro Khanna, Ted Lieu, Alan Lowenthal, Barbara Lee, Mark DeSaulnier and Judy Chu-- and others are just the lesser of two evils. As for non-incumbents congressional candidates, these are the ones I'd vote for:

First and foremost is Kevin de León for the U.S. Senate. As far as the House:

• CA-8- Marge Doyle
• CA22- Ricardo Franco
• CA-23- Wendy Reed
• CA-39- Sam Jammal
• CA-45- Katie Porter
• CA-49- Doug Applegate
• CA-50- Ammar Campa-Najjar

Go ahead-- give it a try

The very worst Democratic congressional non-incumbent candidates are, the ones for progressives to avoid like the plague:

• CA-22- Andrew Janz
• CA-25- Bryan Caforio
• CA-39- Gil Cisneros
• CA-45- Dave Min
• CA-48- Omar Siddiqui
• CA-49- Mike Levin
• CA-49- Paul Kerr

The California gubernatorial race doesn't excite me, although we laid out the strategic reasons to vote for Antonio Villaraigosa. Too bad Gvin Newsom will probably win; he's terrible. There are more interesting candidates for Lieutenant Governor, Democrat Jeff Bleich and independent Gayle McLaughlin. I'm going to vote for Dave Jones for Attorney General and Richard Lara for Insurance Commissioner. As far as state Senate goes, opposing the Josh Newman recall (SD-29) is really important. For Assembly, Steve Dunwoody (AD-54) and Eloise Reyes (AD-47) are important candidates to back and the Speaker who killed Medicare-for-All, Anthony Rendon, should be defeated and made an example of. His district is AD-63, which includes Maywood, Bell, Cudahy,South Gate, Lynwood, Paramount, the eastern part of North Long Beach and Lakewood. If I lived there I'd vote for Maria Estrada.

That all said, I asked my old friend-- a progressive and school teacher-- to explain why she supports Tony Thurmond for state Superintendent of Instruction over right-wing privatizer Marshall Tuck.




Why I'm Voting for Tony Thurmond for CA Supt. of Instruction
by Marcy Winograd

As California’s June 5th primary approaches, please help me save public education from deep pocket Republicans trying to take over our schools.

Elect a progressive: Tony Thurmond, Oakland Assembly Member, former Contra Costa School Board Member, 20-year social worker, and champion for publicly run and publicly operated schools; endorsed by the LA Times & California Teachers Association.

As a California lawmaker, Tony Thurmond authored AB1014, a bill that allocates 35 million from the criminal justice system directly to the schools. Plus, this week, Tony's bills to increase resources for special education and bilingual education passed through the Assembly and are on their way to helping two of the student groups most impacted by the achievement gap-- students with special needs and English language learners.

As chair of the Assembly STEM Education Committee-- that's science, technology, engineering, and math-- Tony is pushing the state to allocate $200 million to expanding STEM education, especially in low-income and rural school districts. Trump has suggested $200 million for the entire country, but Tony understands that we have to invest more in preparing our kids for the jobs of tomorrow.

Tony Thurmond and the people of California are engaged in an epic battle to save public education from the likes of Betsy DeVos. His opponent, funded by rich Republicans and the charter school lobby, is also running as a Democrat, but not as a progressive Democrat. For more on Tony’s opponent, read this.

Below is a video of Tony’s speech to the California Democratic Party. It'll help you understand who he is and why Marcy is so enthusiastic about helping elect him: