BUILDING THE SOCIALIST CITY
A Groundwork and Friends Slate for DSA Los Angeles Leadership

Member Power | Street Power | State Power | Strike Power | Slate of LA Leaders

We believe that DSA must lead. We also know that in order to lead, we must organize the working class to win. Only a DSA that prioritizes pushing for real, unapologetically socialist change can build the power of the mass party. We must demonstrate socialist leadership. Deferring to nonprofit/NGO groups, spokespeople, or elected officials - even our own - is not the path forward to build a socialist city. To build towards a socialist city led by a mass party in 2026, DSA-LA must double down on recruitment, expand bottom-up democracy for our members, and build independent working-class power through direct confrontation with establishment Democrats and right-wing conservatism. Socialists must lead!

This year, our members went head-to-head with the right wing, fighting back against masked federal agents engaged in a violent assault on our city. ICE agents descended upon Los Angeles, kidnapping and terrorizing workers and families. In response, DSAers trained members to respond directly to ICE raids via the Rapid Response Network, patrolled Home Depot parking lots every single day for months, and marched in the streets. Our members and communities have shown us that fascism isn’t invincible or inevitable. Street Power!

Next year, DSA-LA will put our electoral program to its most serious test to date. We have a powerful block of four city council members who have pulled LA city politics to the left. We will defend two council seats and win two more, in addition to a citywide race for city attorney (among others!). We will show the status quo coalition that holds our city back that DSA is here to stay as we win a majority of the seats on LA City Council. DSA-LA has built a powerful opposition bloc. Now it's time to win a majority and build the socialist city. State Power!

Trump is already threatening to run for an unconstitutional third term, and his administration continues to consolidate power and attack civil society. Labor unions are mobilizing to fight, and we need to prepare alongside them. LA -- and California broadly-- remains the epicenter of the labor movement, and we will be at the heart of organized labor’s fight against fascism. In 2028, rolling strikes could lead to mass work stoppages across the city and county. We must be ready to disrupt our own workplaces, lead others into action, and drive the fight forward fearlessly within our unions. Strike Power!

Our slate is excited to bring DSA-LA to the next level in this pivotal year! In so many ways, we are beginning to act like a real political party in Los Angeles. We are building independent political power of and for the multiracial working class of LA, and to do so, we are running on the following platform:

MEMBER POWER

  1. We want 8,000 DSA members in LA by 2028. We will chart a path to get there, with benchmarks for every quarter and year, and a regular cycle of outreach to workers who have been engaged in our struggles but have not yet joined DSA. We will also incorporate a clear focus on recruiting and onboarding comrades of color, ensuring that our chapter’s diversity matches that of our diverse city.
  2. Strengthen and systematize the member onboarding process with a routine cycle of DSA 101s, new member welcoming calls through the branches, clear organizing turf assignments for branch organizers, and campaign work that is easy and fun to plug into.
  3. Stronger leadership development. We will develop more DSA cadre through an advanced political education series, such as our Mass Organizations and Parties Intro, that addresses our project of party building, our relationship to other socialist movements across the globe and throughout history, and the successes and pitfalls of other mass political movements.
  4. Deliberative chapter meetings. We are a democratic organization, and members must shape our political direction. Our power comes from our membership, and we will continue to build bottom-up member democracy. We will work to improve internal communication across the chapter to foster cohesion and a democratic, comradely atmosphere.
  5. A brick-and-mortar office! This will enable us to host in-person meetings and foster stronger social connections across our committees, breaking down silos and ensuring we operate with unity and cohesion. This will be a key priority for the 1st quarter of the year.

STREET POWER

  1. We know that our vision for a socialist city won’t be achieved just because there is a majority of socialists on the city council. We must stay the course by combining our external agitation with a cohesive internal strategy. Our strength comes from the organized masses loudly demanding more!
  2. This means, first and foremost, that we build DSA first. We will not liquidate our strategy to anyone, including unions, advocacy nonprofits, or movement organizations. We build DSA first so that we can have a clear, independent political voice that doesn’t compromise on our principles. DSA can be the party of the working class, but only if we protect this political independence.
  3. We must be prepared to organize our own protests, press conferences, and direct actions to move the conversation further to the left.
  4. We need communications that make the socialist city common sense by educating people on our progressive past, spotlighting our rebellious present, and inspiring the working class to fight for a socialist future.

STATE POWER

  1. In 2026, we must re-elect Eunisses and Hugo in the primary, enabling us to throw all our weight behind Faizah and Estuardo in the general election! This is the path towards winning two additional seats this cycle and building a governing majority for a socialist city.
  2. Invest in our own voter outreach software (PDI) so that we can retain all our data from canvassing and phone banking, and spend November and December following the election engaging in direct outreach to voters who supported our slate of candidates and asking them to join DSA. To function as a party, we must have our own independent infrastructure.
  3. We must build our own DSA independent expenditure political action committee so that we can raise and spend funds on candidates, allowing us to more finely tune our political priorities. We’ve demonstrated that we can establish a field operation worth hundreds of thousands of dollars; fundraising is the next frontier for building an independent political organization in LA.
  4. Transformative reforms. We must routinely propose legislative projects to our electeds and commit to seeing them through to the finish. We came close to this with the Rent Stabilization Ordinance, where our support was crucial in its historic passage, but we shouldn’t underestimate our own power. We can generate our own ideas and present them to legislators, rather than following the lead of nonprofit coalitions. We can move legislation to empower local hospitals to bar entry to ICE, develop the City’s own deportation defense agency, and other legislation focused on bolstering the City’s ability to function and address issues of affordability, housing, climate justice, health equity, and public transit.
  5. We must expand the in-district SIO committees, which build the political power of our members in our council districts, to truly double down on the idea of co-governance.

STRIKE POWER

  1. Our chapter must be a strike-ready chapter. 2026 is a crucial year for us to develop the organizing infrastructure and member capacity to quickly organize support for worker actions across the city. We need a deep layer of trained strike captains across all our Branches so all our members have an opportunity to lead important labor work that will set us up to be a powerful force on the ground for potential mass labor actions in 2028.
  2. The socialist movement is filled with inspiring and young organizers who want to dedicate their time and energy to building a militant and democratic labor movement, and fighting multinational corporations and their billionaire owners who don’t want to see the ranks of organized labor grow. We are committed to recruiting, training, and placing our members as rank-and-file organizers in strategic sectors and workplaces where we can deal the most significant blows against corporations and billionaires.
  3. DSA-LA has a large number of members who are union members, union organizers, and union leaders! We must be more intentional, coordinated, and strategic in how we utilize our DSA member power in unions. We need to develop industry, sector, and union-specific plans with our members in unions to shape the organizing strategies, priorities, and political programs of the LA Labor Movement, working hand-in-hand with DSA-LA to build a socialist city that serves working people.
  4. The LA Labor Movement has a deep history of taking bold political action in support of immigrants and against war and genocide. We can play a big role in empowering workers to take up that powerful history of political action and channel it to fight for the political struggles of today, like ending the genocide in Palestine by unionists taking action for an arms embargo.

SLATE OF LA LEADERS

🌻 = Groundwork member
✊ = Friend of Groundwork

STEERING COMMITTEE

At-Large:
🌻 Alejandra Q
🌻 Gabriel O

Communications Director:
🌻 Anna

Treasurer:
🌻 Laura A

Campaigns Coordinator:
🌻 Mark G

Recording Secretary:
🌻 David A

LABOR COMMITTEE

Co-Chairs:
🌻 Marc K
✊ Parker S

Coordinators:
🌻 Claire P
✊ Zack P

ELECTORAL COMMITTEE
✊ Jessica P
🌻 Marissa A
✊ Yaquelin P

CLIMATE JUSTICE COMMITTEE

Co-Chair:
🌻 Sam Z