The Peace and Freedom Party’s ticket of Claudia De La Cruz and Karina Garcia (President and Vice presidential nominees, respectively), of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) received 72,539 votes in California, giving the PFP our highest electoral percentage (0.5%) in a decade. The socialist movement saw a surge with De La Cruz and Garcia garnering 167,588 votes nationwide.

In contrast to these gains, the U.S. remains mired in the two party system, staggering to the right and once again electing Donald J. Trump.

The vote on the California ballot measures also indicated a rightward trend.

We saw the empowerment of the carceral system in the rejection of Proposition 6, which aimed to remove involuntary servitude (slavery) as punishment for incarcerated people, and the approval of Prop. 36, which increases the charges for drug and petty theft crimes with newly instituted or extended prison sentences.

Bond propositions posted mixed results. Two major spenders (Props 2 and 4) took a loan of $11.5 billion, which will cost taxpayers $27.5 billion over the next 40 years. Prop. 5, which would have lowered the vote threshold to pass local bond measures, was rejected.

Prop. 32’s effort towards livable wages, with a paltry increase of minimum wage to $18 an hour, was rejected.

Voters rejected Prop. 33, which would have repealed the 1995 Costa Hawkins Rental Housing Act. Passage of Prop. 33 would have given local governments the ability to institute  strong rent control policies. Along with that, voters approved Prop. 34, a punitive measure against the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which had sponsored Prop. 33 and previous attempts to overturn Costa-Hawkins

On the positive side, Prop. 35 passed, allowing the Medi-Cal health programs to maintain a steady stream of income and continue to provide medical care to those who need it most.

Finally, Prop. 3 passed by a super-majority, making the opportunity for any and all individuals of legal age to marry in the state of California a constitutional right.

Two election attorneys challenged the top-two system in Federal Court in Oakland, California on Thursday, November 21, 2024. David L. Shoen of Montgomery, Alabama, and Seyeun D. Choi of Foster City, California filed a complaint asking that California’s “Top-Two” election system be struck down as unconstitutional.

(The 12-page complaint in its entirety may be read here.)

The lawsuit is filed in the names of three California political parties – the Peace & Freedom Party, Green Party, and Libertarian Party – and six recent candidates for office, two from each participating party. 

“Top-Two” is the result of Proposition 14 in the 2010 midterm elections. (As 2008 Green Party Presidential candidate Ralph Nader wrote,”Big Business interests shamelessly dealt our already depleted democracy a devastating blow by misleading California voters into approving Proposition 14.”) Beginning with the 2012 election, the candidates of parties other than Democrats and Republicans have been almost entirely excluded from the November general election ballot for all offices other than U.S. President, although they had regularly appeared on the November ballot prior to 2011.

“The effect of Top-Two has been to limit voters’ choices in the November election,” states Kevin Akin, California State Chair of the Peace and Freedom Party.  “There have been no positive effects for voters.

 “Despite the positive rhetoric about ‘more choices’ heard at the time the constitutional change was on the ballot, none of the promises of the proponents have come true.  The real effect has been to eliminate smaller parties from the November ballot.

“While the abbreviated name of the case is ‘Peace and Freedom Party v. Weber,’ in fact this effort is fully supported by all three parties, and by candidates of these and other smaller parties.” 

Akin also commented, “It must be emphasized that voters in the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are also denied choices, particularly in districts that end up with two Democrats or two Republicans on the November ballot, as has become common. This bad law has taken away voters’ choices, and we believe it is unconstitutional.”

The Background (courtesy Ballot Access News)
In its almost fourteen years of existence, the California top-two system has essentially barred all minor party members from appearing on the general election ballot, limiting them to those races in which only one of the two major parties ran a candidate.

There is only one exception to that statement: In 2024, an American Independent Party candidate for State Assembly qualified for the general election ballot, even though there had been candidates from both major parties in the race.

No federal court has ever upheld the California top-two system. The Ninth Circuit did uphold the Washington top-two system in 2012, but the decision read in part that it was not a severe burden on the Washington minor parties to be kept off the general election ballot, because those candidates were on the late August primary ballot.

The Ninth Circuit felt the late August primary was close enough in time to the general election to give the minor parties an opportunity to participate in the election. The Ninth Circuit said it would be an entirely different case if the primary election were held in March.

But in California, in presidential election years, the primary is in early March; in midterm election years, in June. Additionally, California is the only state in which it is impossible to appear on the general election ballot in years of the presidential election for Congress unless the candidate files in the year prior to the election (barring running as a write-in in the primary).

The California top-two system was upheld in the State Court of Appeals in 2015, in Rubin v. Padilla, but that decision was marred by three factual errors. It said that the state interest in the top-two system was to enable independent voters to vote in partisan primaries.

But the Court did not know that even before top-two came into existence, independent voters were free to vote in all congressional/state office primaries of the major parties. That was true for the period 2002-2010. Additionally, the State Court of Appeals said it would be appropriate to consider the primary the general election and the general election the runoff.

But the Court did not seem to know that the U.S. Supreme Court had said in Foster v. Love in 1997 that it is illegal for states to hold congressional elections at a time earlier than November of even-numbered years. The very first sentence of the Rubin v Padilla decision refers to the general election as a “runoff”, which implies the Court of Appeals thought of the primary as the election itself.

Finally the State Court of Appeals said the U.S. Supreme Court had already upheld the top-two system: In the 2000 case California Democratic Party v Jones, the Supreme Court ruled that whereas the blanket primary was unconstitutional, a state would be free to hold nonpartisan elections with all candidates in the primary and only two in the general election.

Justice Scalia wrote the California Democratic Party v Jones decision in 2000. But Scalia meant a system with no party labels on the ballot. This is obvious because when the U.S. Supreme Court considered the Washington state top-two, footnote eleven noted that the Court was not deciding whether the ballot access restriction of a top-two system is constitutional. Instead all it did was consider whether top-two violates the freedom of association.

The Supreme Court therefore did not decide whether top-two voting violates freedom of expression, instead remanding the case back to the lower courts to decide that. Scalia dissented in the 2008 Washington state case, saying it was obvious that top-two violates freedom of expression and therefore there was no need for a remand.

For the U.S. general election to be held on November 5, 2024, the Peace and Freedom Party has nominated the ticket of Claudia de la Cruz and Karina Garcia as our U.S. Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates.

Below run official campaign bios fof bother candidates for your perusal – and PFP thanks you for voting Socialist in Election 2024!

Claudia De la Cruz, the PFP Presidential nominee
Claudia De la Cruz is a mother, popular educator, community organizer and theologian. Being at the nexus of many different projects, organizations and social movements, Claudia connects different groups of people to link and merge struggles together in the overarching fight for justice.

Born in the South Bronx to immigrant parents from the Dominican Republic, she was nourished by the Black and Caribbean working class communities of the Bronx and Washington Heights in the 1980s and 90s. At an early age, she was already questioning the conditions of poverty, violence, and oppression in her neighborhood, and what she saw and experienced served as her first entry point to understanding working class consciousness.

When she was 13, Claudia began her political organizing work at her home church—Iglesia Episcopal Santa Maria (later the Iglesia San Romero de Las Américas–UCC), grounding her work on principles of liberation theology. She actively participated in campaigns to free political prisoners; to get the U.S. Navy out of Vieques, Puerto Rico; to end the U.S. blockade against Cuba; for the freedom of Palestine; against police terror—to name a few. In high school, she became a peer educator, conducting workshops on reproductive health and safe sex at community hubs and progressive churches, particularly for youth in the Bronx. It was through this work and her experiences as a working class Black Caribbean young woman that she understood there was only one solution to our collective problems: to fight for a better future, a socialist future.

She traveled to Cuba for the first time at the age of 17 during the Special Period of extreme economic hardship, and the resilience, conviction, and revolutionary spirit of the Cuban people transformed her. Seeing their resistance reaffirmed her commitment to fight for a world free from the domination of Washington and Wall Street.

As a young woman, she was exposed to many other communities in struggle from around the world: from the Puerto Rican independence movement, the Palestinian struggle, and the communities of exiles from Chile and Colombia; to the solidarity struggles with Haiti, peasant struggles in Brazil, and the grassroots leaders from Venezuela organizing the Bolivarian Circles; to Black liberation struggles, the progressive and leftist Dominican community. Seeing people from all over the world standing up for their dignity and sovereignty only fortified her commitment to build international solidarity and political organization inside the United States.

This commitment extended to her work with youth and young adults. Through her time completing her studies at the City University of New York (CUNY),  she coordinated Palenque, a project that brought together teenagers from across the city to study histories of struggles and resistance through popular education, arts, and culture. In 2003, she participated in mobilizing youth from this program, along with church and community members to participate in rallies against  the war in Iraq, including the historic mass marches in Washington, D.C.

A year later, while working at a community based organization in Washington Heights, Claudia, along with a group of four teenage women co-founded and directed Da Urban Butterflies (DUB). DUB was a youth leadership development project and center for young women from the Washington Heights community and the Bronx to build sisterhood, learn histories of struggle and resistance, and engage in collective action for justice. For 13 years, DUB was a space where young women were able to learn about collective action and struggle, organize study circles, summer programs, conferences, summits, rallies, cultural festivals, participated in solidarity brigades, as well as build coalitions and collaborations.

Claudia completed seminary in 2007, and became the pastor of her home-church, Iglesia San Romero de Las Américas–UCC. In her commitment to sustain such a significant space for solidarity, internationalism, working class politics, culture and values—grounded on the faith, principles and traditions of liberation theology and grassroots organizing—she served the church in her position as pastor for eight years.

Most recently, she has served as the Co-Executive Director and co-founder of the The People’s Forum in New York City—a political education space and cultural home for working-class organizers, leaders and intellectuals from all over the country, and around the world. In her role at The People’s Forum, Claudia continued her work towards building internationalism and people to people solidarity. She has led and participated in numerous international gatherings and events all over the world. Claudia has been a key convener of groups and social movements, and contributor to the overall conception and development of political education and cultural programming.

For nearly 30 years, Claudia has demonstrated a fierce commitment to building people power. She has actively participated and contributed to collective grassroots initiatives, particularly in the Black and Latino neighborhoods of Washington Heights and the South Bronx, communities that continue to play a special role in her political development and journey.

Claudia lives with her eight year old son. She considers herself blessed to learn from and grow with him, and to have a community of family, friends, and fellow fighters for justice to help nourish him.

She is running for President of the United States with the Party for Socialism and Liberation with a steadfast and clear conviction that there is a need to build political organizations and a mass political movement independent from the two party system of the ruling class.

Karina Garcia, the PFP Vice-Presidential nominee
Karina Garcia is a Chicana organizer and popular educator who has been fighting for a better world since she was 17 years old as a high school student in California. From El Barrio in New York City to the border areas of Texas, she has helped lead campaigns against landlord abuses, wage theft, and police brutality, as well as fights for reproductive justice, immigrants rights and student financial aid reform. She is a founder of the Justice Center en El Barrio in New York City and is a member of the Central Committee of the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

Karina’s father migrated to the U.S. from Mexico when he was just 16 years old, and the will of working-class immigrants like him to survive and thrive inspired her to take on life with determination. This served her well when Karina received a full scholarship to study at Columbia University. She moved across the country by herself, knowing that she had to seize upon every opportunity to give back—a single year of tuition was the equivalent of her family's entire household income. As soon as she arrived, she joined every conceivable progressive organization on campus. She led struggles to expand financial aid for low-income students, for immigrant and worker rights, and to speak out against the Iraq war. In 2006, her activism received national attention when she led a campaign to confront and shut down the anti-immigrant fascist militia, the Minuteman Project.

When Karina took a semester off to do a speaking tour in California, she met with high school and college students to keep building the movement for immigrant rights. That same year, she joined the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Graduating with a degree in Economics, Karina went on to become a New York City high school math teacher. After school, she advised a student group that protested against budget cuts, the Iraq war, police brutality and anti-immigrant laws. In 2012, she moved into a national organizing position for the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice where she worked for nearly a decade training immigrant women and working-class Latina activists in New York, Texas, Virginia and Florida.

Karina believes above all in organizing the power of the working class, organizing with domestic workers and trafficking survivors in building their anti-wage theft and anti-trafficking campaigns, fighting alongside immigrant communities in NYC against ICE raids and Trump’s vitriol, and representing her fellow educators in the United Federation of Teachers. Karina writes for Breaking the Chains magazine, a unique socialist and feminist magazine and most recently she organized mobilizations against the Supreme Court decisions that eviscerated abortion rights with the goal of rebuilding a working-class women’s movement.

Maybe you’re unfamiliar with the platform of Claudia de la Cruz and Karina Garcia, the Peace and Freedom Party’s endorsed presidential ticket in the 2024 general election – not surprising, given the lack of media coverage and other exposure to which alternative political parties have access. No matter, below runs the De La Cruz-Garcia platofrm in its entirety. And thank you for voting Socialist in Election 2024!

Seize the Biggest 100 Corporations, Create A New Economy for the People
The 100 largest corporations in America should be seized from their billionaire owners and turned into public property – owned by the working class that created their vast wealth in the first place. This could serve as the foundation for a total reorganization of the economy in a way that guarantees that everyone in society will have their basic needs met, massively rebuild urban and rural infrastructure, and bring down prices and rents.

Quality healthcare, education through college and beyond, free childcare, decent housing and a living wage with union representation would become constitutional rights. A form of “card check” unionization would be enacted that certifies a union immediately after a majority of employees in a given workplace express their desire to do so. Immigrant workers – who are fleeing horrific conditions caused largely by U.S. corporations and politicians – should be given legal status and brought into unions so that solidarity prevails instead of a “race to the bottom” in wages. 

With the hospitals and pharmaceutical companies under the control of the people, they would provide care for free. Evictions would be banned, and rent capped at no more than 10% of a person’s income. Inflation would be eliminated with an across-the-board price freeze. All income and assets over ten million dollars would be subject to a 100% tax – with no exceptions or loopholes – as would all offshore corporate profits. All debt from student loans, bail bonds, medical and utility bills would be canceled.

Overthrow the Dictatorship of the Rich — Build a Democracy That Serves the Working Class
The United States needs a new system of government to replace the current one designed to maintain the dictatorship of the billionaires over everyone else. The main tools the ultra-rich use to enforce this dictatorship would be abolished. This includes the Supreme Court, the Senate, and the banker-controlled Federal Reserve. Behind the fig leaf of democracy in America, there is an enormous apparatus of violence and surveillance aimed at repressing the people. The FBI and NSA would be disbanded, and mass incarceration would be replaced by a justice system aimed at rehabilitation and reintegration into the community.

The median income for a person in the United States is $31,000, but there is currently not a single member of Congress who has to experience this reality. Workers are fully capable of making the decisions and running the government – workers already run everything else! With workers in charge, the rights of all people will finally be respected. We demand full equality for LGBTQ people in all areas of society and national legislation banning discrimination at the workplace and in all public and private institutions. Native sovereignty and self-determination should be fully recognized and treaty rights should be honored.

We want to turn the social order upside down and topple those who have all the money and power but do none of the work!

The new, socialist system of government would be based on the direct exercise of power by workers. A true democracy encourages the proliferation of many types of organizations -- youth climate corps, neighborhood associations, student groups, unions, civic organizations -- and views organizations as instruments for people to identify problems and take action together.

End the Rule of Money and Lock Up the Corrupt Elite
Bribery in America is a legal, recognized industry called corporate lobbying. This practice must be outlawed, and all politicians should be subject to a ban on serving on any corporate board or holding an executive position of any type at a private company after leaving office. All Wall Street bailouts would end immediately. Similarly, millionaires and billionaires should no longer be allowed to buy elections through lavish donations. All campaigning should be publicly financed, and the different loopholes like Super PACs that billionaires use to get around donation limits should be immediately closed.

Under a democracy by the workers, war criminals and Wall Street con men would be locked up – finally brought to justice for their monstrous crimes against the people. Corruption is a bipartisan issue for the U.S. ruling class. People like Hunter Biden and Jared Kushner alike abuse their positions of power to secure lucrative sources of income and flout the law. Some members of the ultra-rich grow even wealthier by facilitating the crimes of others, like JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, whose bank counted Jeffrey Epstein among its clients. The wrong people are in jail. Instead of incarcerating millions of poor people caught in desperate situations, the ones who should be held to account are the corrupt capitalists.

End All U.S. Aid to Apartheid Israel. End the Genocide and Free Palestine
Our campaign is fully committed to the Palestinian people's fight for freedom and an end to the genocide in Gaza. Claudia, Karina and countless campaign volunteers are proud to have taken to the streets as part of the massive people's movement that has emerged in the United States since October 7 as an expression of their long-standing commitment to the struggle for Palestinian liberation.

We stand for the immediate end of all aid to Israel. Our tax dollars should be used to meet people's needs -- not pay for the bullets, bombs and missiles used in the massacre in Gaza. Likewise, all U.S. diplomatic support to help Israel conceal its crimes, like use of the U.S. veto power in the United Nations, must stop. We stand for the repeal of all anti-BDS laws and demand an end to the repression and intimidation of pro-Palestine protesters.

The Palestinian people have been heroically resisting genocide and occupation for over 76 years. We are in solidarity with their struggle for freedom from the river to the sea!

Cut the Military Budget by 90% — Peace, Not War with China & Russia!
The world is headed towards a catastrophic, unprecedented conflict because of the unmitigated aggressiveness and recklessness of the politicians and Pentagon generals. The new Cold War against China and Russia must end, along with associated aggression like the proxy war in Ukraine, massive military shipments to Taiwan, or any and all military build up against any targeted nation. The vast network of military bases the Pentagon maintains in other countries should be immediately closed. We demand the abolition of the NATO military alliance and AFRICOM. Cruel economic sanctions imposed on countries around the world – including Cuba, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Eritrea, North Korea and Iran – must be lifted. All U.S. aid to apartheid Israel must immediately end. The CIA should be abolished, and its secrets exposed so the world knows the true extent of this agency’s crimes.

The approximately $1 trillion that the U.S. taxpayers spend every year on war should instead be spent to address the dire crises facing working people. The price of key goods, especially gas, could be dramatically lowered if the suffocating economic sanctions the U.S. government imposes on countries around the world were lifted. Humanity needs a world order based on cooperation and peace, not domination and war.

End the War on Black America!
The struggle for Black freedom brought millions of people into the streets in 2020 in the most massive social movement in U.S. history. This enormous uprising was an outraged response to the fact that a war has been waged on Black America from the very foundation of the country – from slavery to segregation to systemic racism, including decades of neoliberalism and mass incarceration that have left the country even more unequal and segregated. Reparations and the rebuilding of Black communities are essential to fully address the consequences of this war. The seizure of the 100 largest corporations – many of which historically profited from slavery – will provide ample resources for cash payments along with huge investments in services and infrastructure.

Along with reparations, we stand for a wide range of measures to comprehensively uproot the oppression of Black people. Affirmative action programs should be expanded, not shredded by unelected judges. Cops responsible for racist brutality should be given long prison sentences as an unmistakable signal that the era of impunity is over. We want to stop the white-washing of U.S. history under the guise of bans on “critical race theory” – all young people should understand the horrors of white supremacy and develop an appreciation for why racism must be eradicated from society. The transformation of the country’s healthcare system must include as a top priority sweeping action to eliminate the huge disparity in maternal mortality rates for Black women.

Defend Women’s Rights, Full Equality for LGBTQ People
Abortion should be available without restrictions and provided for free so that women and all people have the right to control their own bodies. The Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision was a historic blow to equal rights, but the court could not have done it without the help of decades of passivity on the part of the Democratic Party. The Democrats refused to take any of the many opportunities they had – including the period between the 2020 and 2022 elections – to pass a law at the federal level legalizing abortion. We need such legislation immediately, along with other measures to ensure abortion services are available on demand regardless of income.

The epidemic of violence against women must be addressed as a top priority of society. This can only be achieved through a comprehensive approach involving programs to help women leave abusive situations, an end to impunity for crimes committed against women, and cultural campaigns to uproot sexist attitudes. The constitution must finally include a provision guaranteeing equal rights for women.

We demand full equality for LGBTQ people in all areas of society and we demand to stop the right-wing scapegoating against LGBTQ people. We call to enact national legislation banning discrimination against LGBTQ people at the workplace and in all public and private institutions.

Save the Planet from Capitalism
To deal with the disastrous effects of the climate crisis, society must urgently transform the way we produce energy, grow food and move around the world. The main obstacle standing in our way is private profit, and the system that values quarterly revenue over the survival of human civilization. We can only take action at the scale and speed necessary to save the planet if the unplanned, capitalist economic system is replaced by socialist economic planning.

Fossil fuel corporations should immediately be taken over by the public and repurposed to generate renewable energy. Capitalist agriculture is enormously wasteful, especially when it comes to water resources. The vast landholdings and technological resources available to the agribusiness corporations would be seized and turned over to farmers, who would implement a democratically-determined plan to reorganize food production on a sustainable basis. Public transportation will be massively expanded with a fleet consisting entirely of electric vehicles, and the huge scale of this undertaking will ensure that no autoworker will lose their job. Massive infrastructure projects need to begin immediately to make society more resilient to the changing climate while creating millions of good-payi

Earlier this month, Peace and Freedom Party state central committee member and one-time presidential candidate Marsha Feinland was interviewed by Lola Akamu for a segment sltaed for the KPFA Saturday evening news of October 5 in advance of the PFP co-sponsored Suds, Snacks & Socialism forum held in Berkeley the following day on the subject of the 2024 national election and the very nature of elections themseleves in our time.

Unfortunately, the segment did not make the final cut of the evening’s news, but we have received permission to post Lola’s segment, including her interview with Marsha, right here on our website. Click the player below to listen.

The Peace and Freedom Party Sacramento County Central Committee was an early endorser of Dr. Flojaune “Flo” Cofer, who is running for the non-partisan office of City of Sacramento mayor.

In a hard-fought primary election campaign involving six candidates, Dr. Cofer came in first, besting the second-place finisher by nearly 8,000 votes (or about 7.7% of ballots cast). Among the field were Richard Pan, former Democratic Party member of the California State Senate; Steve Hansen, former Sacramento City Councilman; and runner-up Kevin McCarty, currently a California State Assembly representative. All there are registered members of the Democratic Party and all garnered between 21% and 21.5% of the vote.

In the November 5 general election, Dr. Cofer will be in a runoff for the mayoral seat against the termed-out McCarty. She currently enjoys a lead in the polls, and has earned the endorsement of the Sacramento Bee.

Below runs a photo of Dr. Cofer talking with constituents at one of the 90 “house parties” she has attended as part of her campaign. The Cofer campaign has now visited some 45,000 households in the city.

A number of propositions are on the ballot in California’s general election of November 5. The Peace & Freedom Party endorses a YES vote on Proposition 33 and a NO vote on Proposition 34, both critical measures for the provision of affordable housing in our state. Our reasoning is as follows.

• Proposition 33: Vote YES—Allow Rent Control Expansion
• Proposition 34: Vote NO—Do not restrict the AIDS Healthcare Foundation

You may ask why we group a measure about housing with one ostensibly about healthcare. The answer pertains to another question that applies to most of the propositions: What is the motivation and who is the money behind it? We will get to these questions later in this article.

Prop 33 is also known as the Justice for Renters Act. It allows cities to expand rent control by repealing the Costa-Hawkins Act, which was passed by the California State Legislature in 1995. Repealing Costa-Hawkins does not automatically impose strong rent control statewide. Costa-Hawkins prevents local jurisdictions from passing rent control ordinances that suit their needs. Repealing Costa-Hawkins would return decision-making to the people.

Costa-Hawkins does not allow rent control on single-family homes or any unit which is “separately alienable” (meaning it can be bought and sold on its own, like a condominium). In many communities, that is much of the housing stock. Yes on Proposition 33 would enable cities to limit annual rent increases for detached houses and condominium units of larger buildings as well as for traditional apartment units.

Passing Proposition 33 would also allow cities to enact rent control for newer buildings. Currently they can’t apply rent control to anything built after 1995, or whatever year the city first passed rent control, which in some places was the early 1980s.

Finally, Prop 33 would also allow vacancy control, limiting rent increases when a tenant moves out and a new one moves in. This is designed to reduce the incentive landlords currently have to harass long-time rent-controlled tenants to get them to leave, since currently they’re able to reset rent-controlled units to market rate rents once they’re vacated.

Before Costa-Hawkins passed in the state legislature in 1995, only five cities in California had vacancy control. In those cities (Berkeley, Cotati, East Palo Alto, West Hollywood, and Santa Monica), when a tenant moved out the rent stayed controlled at the same level as though the tenant had remained, and did not go to market level. This was particularly important in Berkeley, because of the high turnover in a college town. Rental rates in Berkeley have gone through the roof since the passage of Costa-Hawkins.

Rent control is not imposed from above. The ordinances are passed by local elected officials or by a vote of the people. In Berkeley, it was passed by popular vote in 1983 and is administered by an elected board. In some other cities, the board is selected by the city council or an elected body administers the program.

Rent control does not prevent landlords from recovering costs associated with maintaining the property. Rent control ordinances contain provisions for landlords to recover such costs, and cities with rent control have staff that assist both landlords and tenants to navigate the regulations and other issues.

Allow local jurisdictions to pass controls on rent that suit the needs of their population. End the unfair limits on rent control imposed by Costa-Hawkins. Vote YES on Proposition 33.

The Proposition 34 Connection
This is not the first time repealing Costa-Hawkins is on the ballot. Proposition 33 is similar to 2018’s Prop 10 and 2020’s Prop 21. And they were all sponsored by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which sees affordable housing as essential in the battle against AIDS.

Prop 34 looks like a reasonable measure to ensure that healthcare money is used for healthcare. In reality, it bans exactly one organization from funding propositions: the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. Prop. 34 is backed by the California Apartment Association, which is cleverly trying to stop the main funder of rent-control measures from continuing this effort.

If you are thinking that a healthcare organization should not meddle in issues around housing, consider this: Why is an association of landlords suddenly taking an interest in providing healthcare? Follow the money! Vote NO on Proposition 34.

A number of propositions are on the ballot in California’s general election of November 5. The Peace & Freedom Party endorses a YES vote on Proposition 3 and NO votes on Proposition 2 and 4. Our reasoning is as follows.

•  Proposition 2: Vote NO—Against $10 billion for bond financing

This proposition would authorize the state to borrow $8.5 billion for K‑12 schools and $1.5 billion for community colleges for building and other capital improvements. It does not pay salaries or provide books and other program needs.

The Peace and Freedom Party generally opposes bond financing because bonds benefit wealthy investors at the expense of working-class people. Vote NO on Proposition 2.

•  Proposition 3: Vote YES—Affirm Marriage Equality

The California Constitution continues to have language stating that marriage is between a man and a woman. But marriage equality has been the law in California since June 28, 2013.

On November 5, 2008, voters in California passed Proposition 8, a state constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriages. In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Hollingsworth v. Perry restored the effect of a federal district court ruling that overturned Prop 8 as unconstitutional. Californians have woken up since that time, and now have a chance to show it.

The Peace and Freedom Party has always supported full rights for the LGBTQ community. But we have seen that we cannot rely on the courts to consistently defend our rights. Vote YES on Proposition 3 and stay vigilant.

•  Proposition 4: Vote NO—Against $10 billion bond for

Note: Most of this article is adapted from the Alameda County Green Party voter guide. Unlike the Green Party, the Peace and Freedom Party opposes all bond-related measures on the November 2024 ballot. The fact that the Greens oppose this “environmental” ballot prop is telling.

California and the rest of the world is running out of time to meaningfully and effectively respond to the climate crisis. The chief action required is a rapid, orderly, and equity-centered phase-out of fossil fuels with a just transition for the oil and gas industry workforce, their families, and communities. Prop 4 does little to nothing to advance this core need.

Prop 4 is the result of the California Legislature’s state budget negotiations that resulted in the enactment of Senate Bill 638, The Climate Resiliency and Flood Protection Bond Act of 2024.

The Legislature is turning to the general public to make up for the nearly $10 billion in climate funding that was cut or deferred to future years in the current state budget deficit environment. It is important to note that there is no guarantee that funding deferred to future years will ever be restored. It is more appropriate to view those deferrals as budget cuts. Prop 4 will not make up all of the funding that was cut, and in fact, it fails to allocate funding at all for some key climate actions—for example, substantial cuts were made to the clean transportation budget, and Prop 4 includes nothing for transportation, which accounts for roughly half of all California’s greenhouse gas emissions.

The clean energy component of Prop 4 prioritizes large-scale electricity generation technologies and transmission that benefits big for-profit utilities like PG&E that rake in billions in profits every year. Prop 4 includes nothing to support the evolution toward a democratized energy system—community-owned or -controlled, decentralized, clean energy resources.

Carbon dioxide sequestration is a critically important tool to remove legacy climate pollution from the atmosphere. Doing so is necessary to keep global temperatures in check. Although Prop 4 includes funding for natural and working lands, resilience and adaptation is prioritized over carbon dioxide sequestration.

Even if all of the allocations in Prop 4 were precisely what is needed for climate action, they should not be funded by issuing bonds. Saddling all California taxpayers, regardless of income, with the $6 to $9 billion in financing that will include precisely $0.00 for climate action is an outrage that should be roundly rejected. Consider that billions in interest and financing charges will go to the very bankers and other financial institutions that are complicit along with the polluting corporations in creating the problem in the first place.

The measures in Prop 4 should be paid for by the companies that are responsible for the lion’s share of the climate pollution—the oil and gas industry. That industry consistently rakes in billions in dollars in profits each year and uses millions of those dollars to warp the Legislature away from common sense climate legislation.

Placing a general obligation bond on the ballot to make up for budget cuts is not a good way to manage a state budget. Consistent and adequate funding will be required every year for decades to come to effectively mitigate the climate problem. The Legislature should go back to the drawing board and look in places where the money actually is: excessive corporate polluter profits and California’s wealthy people. The state should enact “Polluter Pays” legislation to create a climate superfund that can help pay for impacts of oil and gas pollution and support the transition to a clean energy economy. Vote NO on Proposition 4.

A number of propositions are on the ballot in California’s general election of November 5. The Peace & Freedom Party endorses a YES vote on Propositions 6, 32 and 35 and NO votes on Propositions 5 and 36. Our reasoning is as follows.

• Proposition 5: Vote NO—Against excessive taxation on affordable housing

The California State Legislature voted last fall to put a measure on the ballot that would lower the threshold for passing local taxes and bonds for affordable housing and infrastructure from 2/3 to 55% of the vote.

This spring, lawmakers passed a second measure to remove the 55% threshold for taxes. Under pressure from the real estate lobby, it added a ban on local governments from using the money to buy existing single-family homes, and buildings of four units or fewer, to convert them into affordable units. This compromise eliminated a readily available and cost-effective way of providing housing.

If Proposition 5 passes, it would apply not only to future bonds but to any bonds that are on the ballot this November as well.

As with most bonds, homeowners and other property owners—and indirectly, renters, by way of higher rents—must pay back the principal plus interest to the investors. The investors in most local bonds do not pay taxes on the interest income from the bond payoff.

Meanwhile, average homeowners face increasing property taxes. The funds could be used to build housing that ranges from the most deeply affordable for people on the verge of homelessness, to moderate-income households, which includes those making more than $150,000 a year. If a near consensus of a 2/3 vote makes any sense, it is when a government is committed to repayment via increased property taxes over many years into the future. Prop 5 makes such commitments through the passage of bonds more likely in the future. Vote NO on Proposition 5.

• Proposition 6: Vote YES—To prohibit slavery in California

Proposition 6 would amend the California Constitution to prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude, including in prisons. In some states, criminal laws have been used to collect large numbers of prisoners to provide free or very cheap labor not just for the prison authorities, but for corporations that contract with the prisons to use this slave labor. Chain gangs (which still exist!) are an example of this forced labor. And of course, this almost always has a strong racist tinge, with members of racial minorities strongly targeted. But fewer people understand that, despite occasional reforms, such practices have not entirely been eliminated in California.

We strongly support this proposition and intend to press for following it up with additional changes in state law to wipe out the last vestiges of forced labor. There is no reason why prisoners can’t work, so long as it is for their own benefit, at the same wages they would make if free, and so long as no one is forced to do work to which they object. But there is every reason to forbid forced labor, in prison or out.

California should become a solid base for the national movement to outlaw involuntary servitude in any form, and complete the work of emancipation marked by the 13^th Amendment of 1865. That amendment outlawed slavery except as punishment for a criminal conviction. The next step, which California should take in the November election, is to outlaw slavery for everyone, including for those convicted. Vote YES on Proposition 6.

• Proposition 32: Vote YES—To increase the minimum wage

Proposition 32 would increase the minimum wage in stages until it reaches $18 an hour, and then adjust it annually for inflation. Many California workers are already covered by higher minimum wages, in many cities and counties, and by special laws and ordinances covering fast-food workers, hospitality workers, and so on. But still, this proposition will result in pay raises for roughly two million workers, the worst-paid workers in California.

Of course, opponents—all financing their opposition with money extracted from super-exploited low-wage workers—tell the usual lies to discourage the people from raising their own wages. They falsely claim that minimum wage raises cause inflation. In fact, the raises are needed because of inflation that has already happened, and truthful economists—the ones that don’t work for corporations—recognize that minimum wage raises always benefit the whole working class by increasing general prosperity. Every raise in the minimum wage that has already happened was accompanied by predictions of economic disaster, and every single time those predictions have proven wrong.

Shopkeepers, restaurateurs, and other small businesses benefit from minimum wage increases, and pay raises in general. Sure, they have to pay their workers a little more, but this effect is entirely overcome by the fact that their customers, who are almost all workers, have more money to spend.

The minimum wage needs be far higher than $18, and we strongly support the efforts of workers and their unions to gain still higher wages. In the meantime, Proposition 32 should be passed because any increase is better than no increase, and a higher minimum provides a basis for further increases later. Please vote YES on Proposition 32.

• Proposition 35: Vote YES—To preserve the Medi-Cal system

Some recent history must be studied to understand why we need to pass Proposition 35. The “tax” referred to in the ballot description is part of the very complicated financing system that had to be put together to operate California’s Medi-Cal system, that provides medical care to many Californians. This financing system certainly should be replaced someday with straightforward single-payer or socialized medicine. But at this point, in order to keep the system going, we need to continue to collect money from one part of the system to finance another part of the system. Failure to pass this proposition would mean that this financing system would collapse in two more years, and do serious damage to health care in California.

The need for this proposition is recognized by health care workers and their unions, by organizations representing patients, and even by the corporations and other organizations that pay the tax. When someone says “Please tax me,” it is wise to listen, because there is probably a good reason. The good reason this time is that this proposition is needed to stave off a disastrous collapse of the Medi-Cal system, and the broader healthcare system in California. Change in our health care system is needed, but let us please make sure the changes are improvements. Please vote YES on Proposition 35.

• Proposition 36: Vote NO—Against longer prison sentences, forced “treatment”

“Fight crime with higher prison sentences.” A simple policy, and one that Californians have fallen for over several decades, ratcheting up penalties without doing a thing to reduce crime. In fact, longer sentences seemed to have many undesirable effects on society, and the people of California passed Proposition 47 in 2014 by an overwhelming vote, cutting most sentences and making rehabilitation efforts more effective. Prosecutors and right-wingers have been complaining ever since, and they have told countless false stories about the effects of Proposition 47.

For example, they claim over and over again that “theft is going unpunished,” and they keep saying this every time there is a spectacular theft. When the thieves receive prison sentences a year later, they don’t say a thing, they just keep repeating that theft is going unpunished. In actual fact, there has been a drop over the past few years in most kinds of crime in California. To respond to this by hiking sentences makes no sense. But it makes sense if you derive financial benefit from mass imprisonment, and clearly some of the proponents of Proposition 36 do. Others are politicians who have no personal concern about crime, but hope to fool the public into supporting them by whipping up public panic over crime. (Both Democrats and Republicans may be found among the sponsors.)

Nothing Proposition 36 would do would benefit the public in any way. Every good thing mentioned in it is already done under current law, and the increases in sentences and forced “treatment” for what are really medical problems would do more damage to our society. We do need improvements in our criminal laws, and we need real rehabilitation efforts. But the provisions in this proposition are not what we need. Please vote NO on Proposition 36.

The use of government bonds for any purpose, no matter how important or necessary, is essentially a transfer of wealth from working taxpayers to the already wealthy.

“What are government bonds?”
Government bonds are essentially loans taken out to pay for things we need right now but don’t have enough money to buy. The bonds are issued by state and local governments and purchased by investors who are paid back over time. Government bonds pay a low rate of return, i.e. a low interest rate. This is done to make it appear that we will not be paying a lot of interest as the bonds are paid off. But investors want a high rate of return, so in order to make the bonds more appealing to investors, the interest the investors get is tax-free. The only group that can benefit from these tax-free, low-interest-rate payments is the very wealthy. The tax-free income they receive from these bonds more than makes up for the low rate of return. It lowers their tax payments.

“But if we citizens can borrow money from the wealthy at low interest rates, why not?”
Paying for what we need by issuing bonds is a bad deal for working taxpayers because we are really paying for something three times.

First, we have to pay back the loan (the principal). This is reasonable and to be expected.

Second, we must pay the interest on the loan. This can be almost as much as the loan itself, even at the low interest rates of government bonds.

Finally – and this is the really bad part – we are not getting tax payments on the income that the rich investors receive when we pay them interest. All interest income they receive is untaxed, meaning that  there is a lot of potential tax money the government is not receiving. This results in a budget deficit for the government, and that means either higher taxes for the rest of the taxpayers (you and me) or cutbacks in government services: one reason why we can’t fully fund schools, patch potholes, or fix river levees.

PFP believes this is the wrong way to pay for needed public programs
Current needs should be funded by a more fair tax structure with higher taxes on the wealthy (the top 1-2%) and by closing tax loopholes used by large corporation to avoid paying their fair share. If we need to borrow money for capital improvements (schools, parks, etc.), we should do it in a way that does not benefit the already rich at the expense of working taxpayers.