RICHMOND, Calif. — The United States Chemical Safety Board is a federal watchdog with more bark than bite. It has five board members, a tiny staff of less than 50 and a budget of some $11 million a year. Its mission is to investigate fires and explosions in oil refineries and chemical plants…
Ada Recinos is the RPA!
Who is the RPA? It’s made up of volunteers with passion, progressive values, and who love Richmond. In this series, we get to know the new faces on the RPA Steering Committee. This month, we had the pleasure of speaking with Ada Recinos. In her day job, she is the Advancement Manager for Prospera, which partners with low-income Latina women so they can achieve economic prosperity through cooperative business ownership.
TA: Tell us about your background in progressive activism.
AR: I am a commissioner on the Human Rights and Human Relations commission. I have about 4 years of experience organizing and campaigning for progressive community issues in Oakland and my hometown of Torrance regarding rent control, immigrant reform, women's rights and have supported local campaigns.
TA: What are your ideas about how change and progress occur?
AR: Change and progress occurs through education. Folks need to educate themselves on how to make progressive values accessible and in turn use education to support folks to claim progressive identities. In my experience, movements are by the people and for the people. Folks are accepted at every level of 'wokeness' with an understanding that compromise is not defeat if we keep pushing forward. I do not expect folks I approach to accept what I am teaching and sharing the first time. I anticipate hard discussions and disagreements. Change and progress occurs after gaining the trust of folks who then become ambassadors for the movement. When people become educate about the issue and feel included in the movement, it becomes theirs and a deep part of their identity.
TA: What are you interested in bringing to the RPA?
AR: I am interested in bringing a challenging perspective, a commitment to bring more diversity in Richmond's leadership and passion for issues that affect folks of color. I also hope to bring a voice and support to Richmond during a Trump presidency.
TA: What are some of the issues you’re most passionate about in Richmond?
AR: I am particularly interested in supporting the enforcement of measure L, and to keep the police and sheriffs accountable to not cooperating with ICE. I hope the RPA is headed towards making Richmond residents more proactive about their rights and introducing legislation that is proactive about residents needs.
East Bay Express: Gayle Force
Yes, even more good reads: hot off the presses is an excellent article on Gayle McLaughlin’s Lt. Governor campaign, in this week’s East Bay Express:
It was a bad year all around for Richmond. That May, the police department violently arrested two dozen people, nearly all of them Latino, who were celebrating Cinco de Mayo. Officers clubbed people with flashlights and batons and paraded them before the rest of the community in handcuffs.
To make matters worse, the city’s finances were falling apart. People were talking about municipal bankruptcy.
For McLaughlin, it was all a wake-up call. Appeals to reason and compassion fell on deaf ears. Other interests — raw, powerful “corporate” interests — prevailed. It convinced her that it wasn’t enough to just protest. At some point, you had to take power.
“We realized we needed to be the leaders we were waiting for,” McLaughlin explained.
For McLaughlin, it was all a wake-up call. Appeals to reason and compassion fell on deaf ears. Other interests — raw, powerful “corporate” interests — prevailed. It convinced her that it wasn’t enough to just protest. At some point, you had to take power.
“We realized we needed to be the leaders we were waiting for,” McLaughlin explained.
Read the entire article, “Lieutenant Governor Hopeful Gayle McLaughlin Wants to Take the East Bay’s Progressive Revolution to Sacramento”
Trump Budget Would Eliminate Chemical Safety Board
Check out this new Opinion-Editorial in the New York Times, “A Dangerous Idea: Eliminating the Chemical Safety Board.” Steve Early points out one of the many ways in which Trump’s budget would be harmful for people and the planet.
Under President Trump’s 2018 fiscal year budget proposal, the agency, which opened in 1998, would be eliminated because its role is “largely duplicative” of efforts by other agencies, presumably the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and Environmental Protection Agency. Both of those agencies would also experience cuts to reduce “over-regulation” of industry.
If the board is abolished, hundreds of thousands of people who live near chemical factories and refineries will be at greater risk. I came to appreciate the board five years ago, when its experts came here to my hometown to investigate a huge fire at the Chevron refinery at the end of my street.
To read the entire OpEd, click here.
Act Now to Protect Prison Reforms
In 2016, about two-thirds of California voters supported Proposition 57, which helps California reduce its costly overreliance on prisons through parole and sentencing reforms and incentives for rehabilitation. But now the CA Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is proposing regulations that threaten to undercut Prop 57.
The faith community, led by PICO, a network for faith based organizations, is urging Californians to write to the CDCR to amend their regulations before they become final. According to PICO, the three main problems with the proposed regs are:
- They do not apply new programming credits to people who have been dedicated to rehabilitation for years, or decades. There is no reason why benefits of Prop. 57 should not apply retroactively to cover genuine rehabilitation programming in the past.
- They exclude young offenders eligible for parole under SB 260 and 261, two laws aimed at creating special parole hearings for young offenders. At its core, Prop. 57 promised to correct over incarceration of young offenders and encourage positive rehabilitative programming—there is no justifiable reason to undermine the positive reforms of SB 260 and 261.
- They exclude people who are serving life sentences under the Three Strikes law for nonviolent crimes. Prop. 57 promised to apply to all nonviolent prisoners.
The RPA Spreads the Progressive Revolution
In the last few months, the RPA Outreach Team has been busy, making presentations up and down California, and to states as far flung as Texas, Connecticut and New York. Most of these meetings are with volunteers who are inspired by the RPA story and interested starting their own progressive organizations.
In addition, the RPA is making connections with organizations such as “The Incorruptibles,” a newly-formed group dedicated to supporting corporate-free candidates running for local office. The Incorruptibles are assisting the RPA in the production of a video describing the RPA model and message, which will be used to further our outreach efforts. In turn, the RPA has provided input into The Incorruptibles’ excellent new Guide to running corporate-free political campaigns.
The Outreach Team is also gearing up for the Soil Not Oil conference in Richmond on September 7-9, and for the California Berniecrats Convention this fall. Also stay tuned for details about a visit with David Zuckermann, Lt. Governnor of Vermont and member of the Vermont Progressive Party, which will be coming up soon.
The RPA Featured in The Nation
Check out a new article from The Nation, “These Cities Are Putting Our Fractious Federal Government to Shame,” with a great section about the RPA:
THINKING LOCALLY, ACTING STATEWIDE
Gayle McLaughlin led something of a revolution in the small, Bay Area city of Richmond, California. First elected to the mayor’s office there in 2006, McLaughlin and her leftist political organization the Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA) transformed the city from a de facto company town dominated by the local Chevron refinery into a leading example of the power of progressive municipal politics. Over the last decade, the RPA defeated Chevron-backed candidates at the ballot box, implemented a $15 dollar minimum wage, fought foreclosures during the financial crisis, and, most recently, in 2016, passed the first rent-control law in California in years, among other achievements. The story of this grassroots political movement is one of the gems of the progressive urban renaissance.
Now McLaughlin wants to take RPA’s model and message statewide by becoming California’s next lieutenant governor. On July 18, she stepped down from her seat on the Richmond City Council and embarked on a multi-week tour of Southern California, visiting local progressive groups and rallying them behind her. Unaffiliated with any political party and vociferously supportive of single-payer health care, sanctuary-city policies, and free public college, among other issues, McLaughlin’s campaign hopes to draw on the Sanders-inspired enthusiasm for social democracy that has electrified leftists across the country. The election will take place in 2018.
“This campaign will give me a larger stage and a louder megaphone to get out the message about building local political power,” says McLaughlin. “That is the core message of my campaign: Build local political power in your cities and communities, like the RPA did in Richmond. If we could do it there, if we could get Chevron off our back, we can do it anywhere.”
Read the whole article here.
RPA Backs United of Teachers on Charter Issue
A few weeks ago, as demonstrators in Denver protested Education Secretary Betsy DeVos (in town for a meeting of the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council), the RPA endorsed a recent resolution adopted by the United Teachers of Richmond on charter schools. The RPA Schools Action Team has noted that if the West Contra Costa Unified School District approves all its pending charter petitions, the subsidy to charter franchises will soon amount to $151 million, or half the total budget for the WCCUSD.
The UTR resolution reads, in part:
Whereas offering parents the "choice" of charter schools removes attention from the real problems facing our educational system – Poverty and inequitable funding.
Whereas charter schools do no better and often worse academically than traditional public schools.
Whereas charter schools take away funding from traditional public schools creating a wasteful parallel school system…
Whereas charter school choice is supported by special interests who seek to privatize and profit from our schools.
Be it resolved that the United Teachers of Richmond CTA/NEA opposes charter school expansion in the West Contra Costa Unified School District and the nation.
The UTR statement follows a similar resolution that the NAACP adopted in the wake of the 2016 election. It stated, in part, that the NAACP “supports a moratorium on the proliferation of privately managed charter schools.” Conditions for lifting the moratorium include: (1) Charter schools are subject to the same transparency and accountability standards as public schools, (2) Public funds are not diverted to charter schools at the expense of the public school system, (3) Charter schools cease expelling students that public schools have a duty to educate and (4) Charter schools cease to perpetuate de facto segregation of the highest performing children from those whose aspirations may be high but whose talents are not yet as obvious.
Keep Up the Pressure for Single Payer
On June 23rd Speaker Anthony Rendon chose to stall SB 562, the Healthy California Act, putting it on hold in the Assembly Rules Committee instead of moving it forward to a committee for a hearing, vote, and where amendments could be made. Friday, July 14th was the last day Speaker Rendon could move the bill forward under the regular Assembly timeline rules…and he didn’t. But we are far from done. Speaker Rendon still has the power to move the bill forward until mid-September by suspending the regular rules.
This means SB 562 is still alive and well but needs your help to make sure Speaker Rendon and our Assemblymembers choose guaranteeing healthcare and ending the suffering so many Californians experience from crushing medical debt and lack of access to healthcare. Our incredible grassroots movement has the power to move this bill by moving our elected leaders.
Here are 2 ways you can help SB 562 move forward!
1. Call your Assemblymember Until They Join the Fight for SB 562!
Dial 1-855-271-8515 and enter your zip code to be connected directly to your Assemblymember. Here’s what you can say: "Insurance companies continue to be a middleman profiting off healthcare as Californians suffer. The Healthy California Act (SB 562) would remove the insurance middleman and save $37 billion a year while guaranteeing medical, dental, vision and more. Do you support taking insurance companies out of healthcare? Will you co-author SB 562 and support moving the Healthy California Act forward this year so we can?”
2. Get involved!
Contact your local regional coordinator to find out how to get active locally (find them at healthycaliforniaact.org/find-regional-coordinator), and get social on our Facebook and Twitter pages.
Endorsement Requests Due August 15
Are you interested in filling Gayle McLaughlin’s vacant seat on the Richmond City Council? If so, August 15th is the deadline to complete the City Clerk’s process for candidates. It is also the deadline to request a Richmond Progressive Alliance endorsement. See below for details.
Richmond City Council members will vote to appoint Gayle’s replacement at their September 12th meeting. The City Council will consider only those candidates who complete the City Clerk’s process by August 15th at 5 pm (see link below). The RPA plans to endorse one or more candidates for the appointment and notify City Council members of the endorsement. Our endorsement is separate and independent of any action taken by the Richmond City Council, and Council Members who are also members of RPA are not part of the endorsement process.
To be considered for an RPA endorsement, you must complete these three steps by 5 pm on Tuesday, August 15, 2017.
- Use this form to write a 250 word statement and file it with the City Clerk’s office. In addition, statements must be e-mailed to [email protected] prior to filing with the City Clerk. Additional instructions can be read on the form itself.
- Write your answers to the RPA Endorsement Questions and email those answers to RPA Co-chair Marcos Bañales at [email protected]. RPA Endorsement Questions PDF Version. RPA Endorsement Questions Word Version.
- Sign up for and attend a 1 hour interview with RPA Steering Committee Members. Sign up here. Interviews will take place between August 16th and 21st at the Bobby Bowens Progressive Center (2540 Macdonald Ave, Richmond, CA 94801) unless otherwise noted.
If you have any questions, please email RPA Co-chair Marcos Bañales at [email protected].
Nurses Fight On for Single Payer
The single payer health care bill, the Healthy California Act (SB 562), successfully made it through the State Senate but Speaker Anthony Rendon has prevented it from going to a floor vote in the Assembly. Rendon has called the bill “woefully inadequate,” even though here has not been one hearing on it in the Assembly, nor a chance to offer amendments. Redon’s move to scuttle the bill has been a blow, but the bill’s backers, particularly the California Nurses Association, have vowed to keep fighting, and are calling for the bill before the end of the legislative session in mid-September.
In a July 14 blog, National Nurses United Executive Director, RoseAnn DeMoro, wrote:
Despite efforts by the political establishment to shut it down, the quest for a state based, Medicare for all type system in California, based on patient need, not corporate profits, rolls on.
DeMoro cited an economic study led by Robert Pollin, which concluded that the Act "could deliver decent health care to all 39 million California residents while also lowering overall costs of health care by about 8 percent relative to the existing system." Under Pollin’s recommended approach virtually every California household and business would spend less on health care than they do today.
She also highlighted a point that Lydia O’Neil and David Sirota made: that "donors from the health services sector and major health insurers gave more than $16 million to Democratic candidates and the California Democratic Party in the 2014 election cycle." To read DeMoro’s full blog, see the NNU website.