I hope this email finds everyone doing well!
It appears that while the results of our presidential election look pretty set in stone, the drama over our current president’s antics are going to keep the election in the news cycle for some time to come. However, on a local level, there is a lot more certainty about what happened last Tuesday:
LA County elected a new DA, George Gascon, who has promised to reform the DA office’s priorities (Our church researchers all endorsed Gascon)
LA County passed Measure J, which will invest a significant amount of resources into various community initiatives, including affordable housing, job training, and efforts to divert non-violent offenders away from jail and prison. (Our church researchers all endorsed this measure)
California’s ballot measures met a mixed fate. For example, Prop 20, which would have rolled back many of the sentencing reforms California has made in the last decade, failed by a large margin. Our church researchers strongly advised against prop 20, so we were happy to see this. Meanwhile, Prop 15, which would have made a significant reform to California's property taxes, failed by a very narrow margin. Our church researchers were strongly for prop 15, so we were sad to see it fail.
As we move past the election and into the legislating season, we will have to see where these issues go next! I plan on doing a more thorough write-up on my personal blog in the coming weeks!
Outside of the election, I have a couple of quick things to note this week:
1) Tenant Stories: Now that lawmakers’ attention is shifting away from the election and back to policy-making, there is a high likelihood that local elected officials will pick back up the issue of housing insecurity during the pandemic. We are still trying to document the stories of folks who COVID has made housing insecure and relay them to our councilmember so that he can understand what people are going through on the ground. Please, fill out this short form, and pass it along to friends and family (we will not use your real name). Even if you have not experienced housing insecurity directly at this time, having participation shows that this issue matters.
2) Metro Public Safety Committee: Metro is looking to recruit a public safety advisory committee made up of folks who regularly use public transit and give input on creating a safe atmosphere on public transit. You can sign up here if you are interested in being a part of this process.
We will be back next week with some new action items. Thanks for reading, and have a great rest of your day!