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Proposal Details

Proposal ID12
ProposalEndorsement: Shannel Pittman, US House of Represenatives, D-34
PresenterCounty Council
Floor ManagerMike Feinstein
PhaseClosed
Discussion12/05/2019 - 12/06/2019
Voting12/07/2019 - 12/09/2019
ResultAdopted
Presens Quorum6 0.5001
Consens Quorum0 0.6666 of Yes and No Votes

Background

This proposal is to consider endorsement of Green Party member Shannel Pittman, US House of Represenatives District 34

GPLAC Bylaws 5-2.9(c)http://losangeles.cagreens.org/bylaws/2016-07-02#section5-2.9 state that among the responsibilities of the County Council are to "Endorse Green Party members who are candidates for public office and make a statement of support for candidates for public office who are not Green Party members." GPLAC Bylaws 9-4.2(c) require 2/3 for approval for candidate endorsements and statements of support, and a 3/5 quorum of county councilmembers.

At its November 10 teleconference, the GPLAC authorized an email blast to all Greens who have successfully filed for public office in March 2020 elections notifying them that the GPLAC will conduct an endorsement vote and that Greens may be considered for such endorsement by filing out a questionnaire similiar to https://losangeles.cagreens.org/elections/green-endorsement-questionnaire; that the GPLAC will conduct a vote by the end of 2019 on said endorsement and that the GPLAC will email out said endorsements to the Greens in the district or jurisdiction in which the endorsed candidate is running.

Shannel Pittman sent answers to the questionnaire on December 5.

In order to be printed in the official voter information guide that goes out to all registered voters, the GPLAC's endorsement needs to be reported to the LA County Registrar of Voter by Wednesday, December 11 by the Green Party of California (GPCA) Liaison to the Secretary of State. This discussion and voting is designed to conclude on Monday, December 9, in order to effectuate that communication.

Proposal

That the GPLAC endorse Shannel Pittman, US House of Represenatives District 34

Resources

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1. Campaign Information:
Office Sought: US House of Representatives, California's 34th Congressional
Number of candidates/Number of seats: 7 Candidates/ 1 Seat
Number of incumbents running: 1 Incumbent
Link to the race: https://www.lavote.net/Apps/CandidateList/Index?id=4085

  Campaign Contact Information
  Name of candidate: Shannel Pittman
  Campaign Email: Electshannelpittman@gmail.com
  Campaign-controlled website: Electshannel.com
  Campaign social media links: Shannel Pittman for Congress (Facebook), @ElectShannel (Twitter)
  Name of campaign committee and treasurer: Shannel Pittman for Congress, Treasurer Shannel Pittman
  Link to campaign committee: https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00712240/?cycle=2020

  Candidate Information
  To provide a sense of who you are as a candidate, answer any/all of the following questions:

  - How long have you been registered Green? Why did you join the Green Party? I have been registered Green since October of 2016, because my identity card had expired and I wasn't able to electronically sign my voter registration change. I joined the Green Party because I didn't want to remain in a party that disregarded the will and needs of the people the way the Democratic party had just done in the 2016 primary. I had always that the platform was amazing but doubted the Party's viability due to the lack of presence in state and federal legislators, I didn't know about the ballot access laws that were stacked against the Green Party and other alternative parties until after the 2016 Democratic primaries. Once I learned of this injustice I became solidly committed to seeing this underdog party where my values felt at home become known and successful in one of way or another.

  - Have you ever sought office before? Have you ever held elected office? If yes, when, what office(s) and what party(ies) were you registered with; and what were the results? This is my first time seeking a publicly elected office.

  - What are you qualifications for this office? Have you ever served on a governmental or non-profit board, commission or task force? I reflect the struggle that marginalized in our district exist in a many ways, I am not shy about speak on that now. My family has been unhoused, my father remained unhoused until I was about twenty, I am victim of police brutality, I am disabled and as such must live below the poverty line, I have been governed by people who have never had to live under the consequence of the laws they have imposed on us my whole life. I believe that the government should be a reflection of the communities it serves, and the incumbents are not serving the will of the community. I am came to political activism seeking answers to the why's of government not serving the needs of the people, and learned how to research money. I was statewide organizer for WolfPAC a group primarily responsible for getting California Prop 59 on the 2016 ballots. This spurn my interest in understanding how to follow the money and seek out fiscal conflict of interest within our incumbents in all levels of government, there was clarity in this correlative relationship I discovered. I can easily connect the suffering of our district to the choices and votes the establishment Democrats and those too pragmatic to push for what needs to be done to save lives. Not for nothing, I study and analyze legislation and now that I am running for office I have taken time to draft some legislation on all levels of government so as to help make it clear to the voters what they are getting if they elect Shannel. I know that I have to lead my example in order to make the strongest case for myself, I am committed to justice and work with the goal of ensuring people will not die on my watch
  - Describe how you decided to run for the office you are seeking. Are you an incumbent? To be completely honest, I have a better understanding of the process of passing and funding federal legislative task than I do things at the state and local level. If I was going do the work of running for office, I was going to where I already had a functional knowledge based to work from, so I could ensure success post-election.

  - Describe your major accomplishments as a Green, and how they relate to the office you are seeking. I have assisted heavily in many a Green Campaign even before I was one of our state's campaigns and candidates cochairs. I have an eye for understanding legislation on every level and because I can break most things down into easily understandable pieces for people who aren't policy wonks already, speaking to voters on the issues comes as naturally as speaking my full name, now that all that time as canvasser for other candidates and SB562 and Prop 10 helped me perfect my strategies for interacting with potential constituents. My laser focus on bills from CCWG places allowed me to bring to the forefront many important pieces of legislation which lined up with our platform and create space where the public can began to see how a Green delegation would legislate so that people can start picturing Greens as policy makers. Earning a national co-chair position in our Youth Caucus allowed the opportunity to improve my understanding of the interconnected issues facing our country and planet as it provided me a new well of first hand experience to learn from. As an outreach co-chair I focused in on building relationships with other activist organizers and improving our relationship with them as a party so that they would find the idea of the Green Party more tangible and could stop seeing us in abstract terms. I know that this created the conditions for some of the endorsements and support that I have earned.

  Campaign Strategy
  To provide a vision and overview of your campaign, answer any/all of the following questions:
  - What are the goals of this campaign? How does the campaign plan to achieve them? My campaign is centered around justice and uplifting the activist in my community and district, I need to amplify the voices of the grassroots organizers with my campaign so that no matter what happens, the people's struggle benefits from the campaign I have ran. I am the candidate actively speaking on current pieces of legislation and able to reference them and tie them to state and local ordinances, I live to educate and politicize our electorate so that we are able to create a community full of activist who have the political understanding to recognize what they are fighting against. If we can empower people who now have the right political foundations to run for elected office and increase our officeholder ship in a tangible way, the communities will see actual effects of Green policy in action and that will change the whole state of the city and state.

I have been focused on building my relationships with various social justice and activist groups course of my time as an active and public member of the Green Party. All of the active Greens in our neighborhood and district are active members of the Los Angeles Tenants Union as I am. Of course I also organize and provide support to Extinction Rebellion Los Angeles, The LA Community Action Network via the Stop Los Angeles Police Department Spying Collation, the Services Not Sweeps Collation, Nolympics LA, the LA Alternatives to Incarceration Justice System Reform Working Group, and The Sex Worker's Outreach Project Los Angeles. It has been through my work organizing with SWOPLA that I have been able to form relationships with the Los Angeles Department of Public health where I have been requested and included fully as member of the Green Party of Los Angeles to engage with various levels of city health and law enforcement policymaker.

  My largest goal is to stymie my incumbent's run for Lt Governor an undeserved position he feels entitled to. While I would like to win, I feel as though with technically difficulties my campaign started off with and now six opponents instead of three, making outright taking second place will prove difficult for THIS congressional run which started late, however my primary function is to improve the numbers of my slate-mate running in AD51 since he's the only person on the ballot against the incumbent in his race, and I know that combine presence of myself and Rodolfo in CD40 can almost certain ensures a victory Victor Juan as Rodolfo's presents should for Cesar in SD33 and Margaret in AD58.

  - What has to happen for you to be elected? If victory in your campaign is defined by something other than being elected, what is it? My long term goal is to activate the 1,818 Green party members currently registered inside of my district so that we can get them active in building this party to it's naturally stronger space so that the base will exist and be ready trained an enthusiastic for the 2022 campaign for Congress (CD34, maybe CD44), State Senate (SSD24, we already have a candidate), Assembly (AD51-Defending Incumbent Probably, AD53) we'll start building now to come at the entire district in 2022. This goal is going to take a bit of coordination and outreach I believe it can be done. As to getting elected, we would not able to engage in the correct level of coordination to get ME elected but the rest of the slate should be fine.

  - What are the major issues in the race? On what issues is the campaign centered? What strategies will the campaign use to get your message out? What's not a major issue, we have a crisis of unsheltered people and a massive air pollution problem from the freeways crossing our district, and the water contamination from Exide and lead contamination hasn't been cleaned up. This worsens the health problems, much of the district is uninsured or under-insured thanks to the Democrat controlled state legislator blocking SB562. Additionally we desperately need to do something to eliminate the abuses of the Ellis act being used to evict tenants under rent control. [This is a state issues that a federal legislator ignored the opportunity to stand up for the people, since his influence would have carried some weight.] I understand why the incumbent didn't act, he's funded by the real estate lobbyist, big pharmaceutical companies, and pollution heavy military industrial complex manufactures. I have studied my incumbents campaign contributions and legislative history and intended to highlight this relationship in exactly how he is not serving district. Additionally I intend to highlight the general history of the Democratic party not serving the people at all.

  - What is the fundraising goal of the campaign? How much progress has been made towards that goal?
  The fundraising goal for this campaign is around seventy thousand dollars, but progress has been extremely slow due to website related issues and blockages.

  - Will you have a candidate statement in the official voter information guide? If so, how many words? If it already has been submitted and/or is published, provide a link or attach the statement.
  I don't believe we will have enough time to raise the money to place a substantial statement on to the voter guide but I will try to get our website on there. Also this campaign will make use of alternative voter guide locations, online voter guides, mailers possibly, we are going to get creative.

  - What endorsements do you have/expect to receive?I have received the endorsement of the Peace and Freedom Party, the California Progressive Alliance, and the one that was the most unexpected to date, the civil rights organization The Desiree Alliance.

  - Please comment further on any of these campaign strategies your campaign may utilize – fundraising, volunteers, staff, literature, direct mail, door-to-door, phone banking, endorsements, robo-calling, debate participation, other.

  Owning to that fact that my slate-mate and I using the exact same outreach strategies, I am going quote Victor Juan to save me some time:

  Fundraising: My fundraising team will focus on raising money through targeted social media ads, local media markets, and small dollar donations from the community through community speaking events and forums. Fundraising brainstorms are ongoing.

  Volunteers: Tabling events will be used to gather volunteers. The campaign website will also direct supporters to a volunteer sign up sheet. Direct canvassing is expected to garner volunteers as well.

  Staff: Staff will be compiled of local Greens and community members.

  Literature: Literature, being printed in black and white, and containing the most important points of my platform, will be disseminated through canvassing, forums and speaking events, email blasts, direct mailers, and social media posts.

  Direct mail: The campaign intends to raise money with which to send out direct mailers containing information on me, my campaign, my platform and any pertinent election information.

  Door-to-door: This campaign will actively knock on doors, train volunteers to gather door to door support for our campaign, and disseminate campaign literature.

  Phone banking: Phone banking will be assigned primarily to out of state supporters tho not exclusively.

  Endorsements: I am not yet sure how the endorsements I have will benefit the campaigns but I am trying fill out as many questionnaires as we can.

  Robocalls: Feels unethical to me, can't afford it.

  Debate Participation: I have been fortunate enough to be apart of one debate so far, I didn't have access to my notes, but the host of the debate said that I won. Here is the link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1s7srzccxswWGI3cHTkfvZ1aZdjMOlrmY/view

  Campaign and the Green Party
  - What is the campaign's relationship to the Green Party? How can the Green Party support the campaign? How can this campaign increase the visibility of the Green Party and it's platform? How would this campaign help grow the Green Party? I feel like this congressional campaign is a practical example of what the Green Party platform looks like in practice, while I haven't been running a campaign this whole time I have been trying to go about the business of doing outreach in my existance. I know for a fact that this campaign and my general civic activities have increased the parties' visibility and I know that we are now being respected among the local activist in the county. I continue to improve GPCA other organization relations by always offering space on my outreach table and incorporating the issues of the organizations who support my work and my extension Green Party life into my talking points. This helps people see that Greens work with bigger goal and aren't isolationist. For more on how this campaign plans to grow the party, please refer to Section 4.

  - Does the campaign have any substantial disagreement with the positions and platforms of the Green Party of Los Angeles County and/or the Green Party of California; if so where and why? This campaign would like to see the full decriminalization of sex work, I am actively writing local ordinance to do just that knowing that for Los Angeles county. Why, because there is a difference between agreements between fully consenting adults, aka work, and trafficking which is already a crime. I would also like to see the party adopt the Portuguese model of full decriminalization of drugs because addiction is a medical condition not a moral failure. The autonomy of adults is an important issue for my and my slate-mate.

  - Would the campaign be willing to write a post-election report for internal campaign analysis by the GPLAC, or make an oral presentation to the GPLAC County Council on the same? Of course.
  - Would the campaign be willing to write a post-election campaign report for public use by the GPLAC, GPCA and/or the GPUS for their newsletters, websites and social media? Yes, we are already working on it.

References

GPLAC Rules and Procedures Article 7: Endorsed Candidates http://losangeles.cagreens.org/rules/2016-11-13#ARTICLE_7 states:

Any endorsed candidate shall be expected to campaign in a manner that

- accurately represents the decisions of the Green Party of Los Angeles County, the Green Party of California and the Green Party of the United States, including endorsement of other candidates;
- generally supports the principles and policies of the Green Party of California platform and any additional issue and policy positions taken by the Green Party of Los Angeles; and where there is a disagreement between the positions of the endorsed candidate and those of the Green Party of California and/or the Green Party of Los Angeles County, be willing to state how this is so and why;
- does not misrepresent the candidate's own record nor that of others and makes a good faith effort to be factually correct;
- does not use prejudicial, biased, or offensive language, images or graphics with respect to race, gender, ethnicity, physical ability, spirituality, sexuality, or age;
- is in compliance with all applicable laws regarding being a candidate for public office

GPLAC Rules and Procedures 5-4.3 Use in Support of Endorsed Candidates http://losangeles.cagreens.org/rules/2016-11-13#ARTICLE_5 state:

Candidates endorsed by the GPLAC County Council shall have an email announcing their endorsement sent by the GPLAC to all registered Greens in their district for whom the GPLAC has email addresses. Endorsed candidates shall have a minimum of at least one additional email sent on their behalf in both the primary election and the general election (where there are both). The County Council shall retain the option to send to send additional emails at its discretion.



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