On June 3, tens of thousands of people in Los Angeles went to the polls and declared that they were done with politics as usual, and wanted a new County Board of Supervisors that puts people’s needs over corporate profits. With less than a shoestring budget and no paid campaign workers, Party for Socialism and Liberation candidates Marylou Cabral and Stephen Hinze garnered over 53,000 votes in the race for the L.A. County’s Board of Supervisors, Districts 4 and 5.
Both candidates ran as socialists, and their dynamic campaigns were covered by the Los Angeles Times, the Long Beach Press-Telegram, the Pasadena Star News, the Santa Clarita Signal and other media outlets. More importantly, their campaigns addressed the issues that affect all workers, championing people’s needs over capitalist profits. This truly grassroots effort sparked the interest of many new and longtime voters and activists.
The Board of Supervisors is a body that controls the county’s purse strings. L.A. County is the 17th largest economy in the world. Although officially elected positions, the Board members control their districts like political fiefdoms—often running with little opposition and with no challenge from within the two-party system. The PSL candidates—one a college anti-war activist and the other a warehouse worker—offered a different vision for Los Angeles County, and a different look for the Board of Supervisors.
Although their campaigns are now officially over, Cabral and Hinze will remain in the streets as activists dedicated to the struggle for affordable housing, immigrant rights and against police brutality. Through their campaigns, they helped popularize these issues and met many new organizers.
“We ran in the elections openly as socialists because we knew that the people of this county were ready for a type of politics that put people’s needs first and challenged entrenched corporate authority. We knew that people wanted to see struggle-oriented campaigns,” Cabral and Hinze said in a joint statement released on June 4. “We view the electoral results as a confirmation of our perspective. Now, we must carry the struggle forward, to make sure the protest vote becomes a protest movement.”
Marylou Cabral, a Cal State Long Beach student and anti-war activist, finished second out of three candidates in her race against right-wing incumbent Don Knabe. Cabral won 23,703 votes—about 18 percent—in the 4th District with a campaign that focused on fighting racist police brutality. The 4th District includes Long Beach, Cerritos, Whittier, San Pedro and many other communities.
At a May 27 County Supervisors meeting that was broadcast on public television throughout the county, Cabral spoke from the floor to condemn the Long Beach Police Department’s recent killing of Roketi Su’e, a terminally ill and mentally disabled man. Su’e was on his way home from a birthday party when he was brutality beaten by the LBPD, shot fatally six times in the head while face-down on the ground, and then denied medical treatment. Su’e had committed no crime and was unarmed.
Cabral put Knabe on the spot and asked, “What have you done, Mr. Knabe, for these communities that are in the most need of funds and attention, other than sending racist cops who so casually shoot unarmed people of color?”
In the 5th District, Stephen Hinze, a warehouse worker, garnered 21 percent of the vote—29,875 votes—against 28-year incumbent Mike Antonovich. The 5th District includes Claremont, Burbank, Glendale, Lancaster, Palmdale, Chatsworth and many other cities and towns.
Antonovich refused to debate Hinze, who campaigned on the basis of fighting the county’s growing number of gang injunctions. Referring to the planned injunction in the town of Sylmar, Hinze told the Board of Supervisors, “This would the 37th gang injunction in the county. … I stand with the community of Sylmar in saying no to this racist attempt to criminalize the Latino youth.” The Board refused to respond to Hinze’s challenge to go on record against the injunction.
Both Cabral and Hinze routinely called out the misplaced priorities of the longstanding political incumbents. Hinze asked at the May 27 Board of Supervisors meeting, “L.A. County is one of the richest counties in the United States, even the world, so, why is it that the people lack free healthcare, free education, job programs and affordable housing?” Both candidates campaigned to raise the county’s minimum wage to $15 per hour, and to make the county a legal sanctuary for undocumented immigrants.
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