Electoral and Endorsement Committee
In 2020, then Councilmember David Ryu asked East Valley Indivisibles to endorse him as he ran for re-election in Council District 4. We thought this was a great way to enter the endorsement process and see how it would work for our group. We held an in person endorsement meeting - remember in person meetings?! - where the three candidates showed up to try to earn our endorsement. Our group ended up overwhelmingly voting to endorse Nithya Raman, who of course went on to defeat Ryu in the general election. It was exciting to see her win and also to be part of the grassroots movement that got her elected. It built a strong relationship between EVI and the Councilmember, and whet our appetite for even more endorsements!
We all know 2022 is a big election year. Of course we have Congressional midterm elections, but there are also statewide, countywide and citywide elections that will impact our everyday lives. This time around we made things even more official and established an Electoral and Endorsement Committee to run our endorsement process. The first thing the Committee did was decide to endorse in only three races. Why? Because our endorsement comes with a promise of people power - we will work to get our candidates elected - and if we endorse too many candidates it will weaken our ability to work for them in an effective way. We also decided to endorse in one local, one county, and one state election - no federal elections - because we believe we can have a greater impact closer to home.
So… (insert drumroll here)... we’re endorsing in the races for Mayor, County Supervisor District 3 (currently Sheila Kuehl’s seat), and State Senate District 18 (currently Bob Hertzberg’s seat). These three elections are wide open - there is no incumbent running in any of them. We’re going to hold two endorsement meetings in January and one in February (everyone will get info about the dates and times as we get closer). Prior to the meetings, we’re asking all the candidates who want to participate to fill out a comprehensive questionnaire about where they stand on the issues that matter to all of us. We’ll share those questionnaires with our membership and at the meetings each candidate will get a chance to present their case and answer questions live, as well. Finally, the group attending the meeting will vote on which candidate to endorse - or whether to endorse at all.
Once our candidate slate is chosen, we’ll support our endorsed candidates with Get out the Vote (GOTV) events and give our membership a chance to meet them and work for them. We’re also planning to hold a couple of educational forums about races in which we’re not endorsing - probably including Congressional District 30 (currently Brad Sherman). Finally, we’ll be putting out our wildly popular compilation of endorsements from lots of different progressive groups for lots of different elections in early May. It’s a Voter Guide for the progressive who doesn’t have time to do all this research themselves (isn’t that all of us?).
Keep an eye out for our endorsement meeting announcements (check your email and make sure we’re not going to your spam) and be a part of this process. It’s a terrific opportunity to hear from the candidates in an intimate setting and play a role in getting someone elected. Our endorsement means something. We hope you join us.