Election Day: November 6, 2018 1 reen voter guide Election Day: November 6, 2018 Federal Offices .............................................. 1, 3 State Offices .............................................. 1, 3, 4 State Propositions .................................. 1, 16, 17 State Judges ....................................................... 4 Peralta Colleges ............................................ 5, 6 City of Alameda ............................................... 6 City of Albany .................................................. 7 City of Berkeley ................................... 1, 7, 8, 9 City of Emeryville........................................... 10 City of Hayward ....................................... 10, 11 City of Oakland ...............................1, 11, 12, 13 City of Union City ..........................................14 Special Districts.................,,..................... 14, 15 Voter Card ................................... 19, Back page U.S. Representative, Berkeley City Council, Oakland Mayor District 13 District 7 #1: Saied Karamooz, Laura Wells #1: Aidan Hill, #2: Rigel Sharing #2 & #3: Robinson, #3: No endorsement, Cat Brooks* and Pamela Price* With no Republican in the race, Laura Wells and (*ranked, but not endorsed) Barbara Lee are the only two candidates on the ballot for leave blank Congress District 13. We endorsed Laura Wells this past District 7 is an open seat with the retirement of long- The dynamics in this year’s Oakland mayoral race, June as a write-in candidate and she received three times time Council member Kriss Worthington. Redistricting sev- which features ten candidates, are dramatically different more votes than the other four official write-in candidates eral years ago created this super-majority student district. from what they were in 2014. Admittedly, once more, we combined. Now we are endorsing Laura Wells for the No- The Green Party endorses Aidan Hill, a former UCB Green have an incumbent running for re-election who could again vember election. This race represents your one chance to and current member of the Alameda Green Party County lose given the calculus of rank-choice voting. However, this vote for a no-corporate-money Green candidate in a partisan Council. We recommend that Aidan be ranked first and time around, in view of the current local political climate race at the state and federal level this November. that Rigel Robinson (also a progressive) be ranked second. and the long-standing and neglected problems plaguing the When it comes to Congress, polls show an odd fact: Candidate questionnaires can be found at https://acgreens. city, a progressive challenger with the qualifications to be Congress as a whole has a very low approval rating, and wordpress.com/candidate-questionnaires. an effective mayor will have an excellent chance to win. yet people across the country approve of their own repre- Aidan Hill is “running to be the first openly and legally Specifically, if incumbent Mayor Libby Schaaf -- who has sentative. This creates a huge incumbent advantage. How non-binary public office holder in US history.” Their top become insufferably out-of-touch by congratulating herself can we explain that odd fact of hating Congress but loving priorities are “Gender Equity, People’s Park, Houseless- on her humanely impoverished steps taken to solve home- your congressperson? The problem is “the system.” It is ness, Food Insecurity and Police Reform” with specific lessness -- does not win in the initial tally, it is likely that a system in which even the “good ones” like Barbara Lee tasks/policies of “will support labor union goals and efforts she will not be on any other candidate’s second, or third, or take money from the corporations and the billionaires who specifically with worker co-ops, raising the minimum wage, even fourth or fifth choice, because there are no viable chal- back them. Green Party candidates do not take that money. establishing a maximum wage, and ensuring that non- lengers who are running to the right of her. In 2014 Libby Significantly, unlike the majority of her constituents, Lee binary and trans persons are respected by law.” Hill has an Schaaf captured only 272 votes (0.5 percent gain) during did not support Bernie Sanders’ no-corporate-money run AA degree in communications studies and is an activist in the first ten rounds of elimination. Her eventual victory was for president in 2016. Black Lives Matter and #metoo. Their most important land a function of elimination of two conservative candidates, In the seventeen years since Barbara Lee became a hero use issues are “saving the Oxford Tract as well as People’s namely, Bryan Parker and Joe Tuman, who both held similar continued on page 7 agendas to those she held, namely, “public-security-first” continued on page 3 and “get-businesses growing-jobs” proposals, without any comparable commitments to putting resources to equity and Boycott the Statewide Proposition 10 social justice. Except for Cedric Anthony Troupe, all the other eight Partisan Races to Protest YES, YES, YES! viable mayoral candidates filled out our questionnaire. One the Top Two Primary Local Authority to Enact Rent continued on page 10 Control - Affordable Housing The June primary has come and gone, with predictable Act Proposition 11 results desired by the establishment. Because of Prop. 14 (the Top-Two Primary), first used in 2012, no candidates of The 1995 Costa-Hawkins Act was the culmination of a NO, NO, NO! the small parties will be on the ballot for statewide office decades-long battle between tenant advocates and the rental Emergency Ambulance in the November general election, and only a handful will housing industry that took significant powers away from compete for local partisan offices anywhere in the state. local governments by stopping them from fully regulating Employees So much for the lies of the “Top Two” proponents about rents and preventing evictions. Proposition 10, the Afford- The formal title of this initiative is “Requires Private- increased choices. “Top Two” even took away the possibil- able Housing Act, would repeal Costa-Hawkins and thus Sector Emergency Ambulance Employees to Remain on ity of the write-in option, so the sham democracy that now allow local governments to extend protection to millions Call During Work Breaks. Changes Other Conditions of exists should be obvious to anyone. of vulnerable tenants. Employment Initiative Statute”. Given this shameful situation, we thought much about The Costa-Hawkins Act was a great bipartisan gift to The name is both a direct description and an avoidance what our position should be regarding the statewide partisan the landlords of California. When the bill was enacted by of underlying workplace/labor issues. The background races for the November election. We recommend that people the legislature, Jim Costa was a Democratic State Senator to this matter is a 2016 California Supreme Court ruling BOYCOTT these contests. Specifically, the following eight from the Fresno area; he is now a member of Congress. Phil (Augustus v. ABM Security) that upheld Federal labor law statewide offices: Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary Hawkins was a Republican Assemblyman from Bellflower regarding rest breaks being uninterrupted. The California of State, Controller, Treasurer, Attorney General, Insurance in Southern California. The bill was stalled in committee for legislative analyst ruled that EMTs and paramedics were in a Commissioner, and U..S. Senator. And also State Board of years, but ultimately was allowed out of committee to hit the similar circumstance to security guards. There have already Equalization, of which there are only four districts in the floor of the legislature for a vote-- by East Bay Democratic been several lawsuits relating to ambulance coverage. continued on page 3 Senator Nick Petris. He was retiring, so he no longer needed While the essence of the proposition is to further under- to worry about the political price he would surely pay. It was mine labor protections, it includes added language on train- signed into law by Republican Governor Pete Wilson. The ing and paid mental health services for EMTs/paramedics. ** GO PAPERLESS ** current Democratically-controlled legislature and governor The front group backing this measure is totally funded by A PDF version of this Voter Guide is online at: had the ability to repeal this law without a vote of the people. American Medical Response, the country’s largest medical The most recent effort, AB1506, was killed in the Housing transportation firm. http://acgreens.wordpress.com/voter-guides. Committee in January when Democratic Assemblymembers This measure not only weakens workers’ legal rights, Would you like to save some trees and print- Jim Woods of Healdsburg and Ed Chau of Acadia abstained. but implies that any lacking of ambulance service is due to ing/postage costs? PLEASE LET US KNOW Proposition 10 is a citizens’ initiative, the result of a massive ‘greedy’ employees wanting real breaks. It is obvious that at paperless@greenpartyofalamedacounty. grassroots signature gathering campaign. the mental stress for which the employer shows ‘concern’ org that you prefer to receive email (with our Costa-Hawkins preempts specific protections for ten- would only be made much worse with this item (even if ants that cities like Berkeley and Santa Monica had enacted, paid leave is provided for drivers). GreenVoter Card plus a link to the full Voter and limits the extension of