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The latest additions to the campaign website:

Coming Up

Upcoming campaign events:

11 February 2007 to 7 March 2007
deadline for potential candidates to register out of other parties to run in 3 June 2008 P&F primary
13 November 2007 to 8 December 2007
deadline for potential candidates to be registered as Peace & Freedom to run in 3 June 2008 P&F primary

  

The June 6th Primary Election

The June 6, 2006, primary election featured unopposed Peace and Freedom Party candidates for the Party's nominations for Governor, U.S. Senator, and other statewide offices, as well as for the Board of Equalization, U.S. Representative, California Assemblymember, and California State Senator. The members of our party's State and County Central Committees were also elected in the June 2006 primary.

The Peace and Freedom Party State Central Committee endorsed a slate of candidates for the statewide partisan offices. They are listed, with their primary election vote totals, below:

The Peace and Freedom Party also recommended a vote for Sarah Knopp for Superintendent of Public Instruction. She is a teacher and a socialist, though not a P&F member, who came in second of five candidates with 695,372 votes (17.3%) for this nominally non-partisan position.

Other Peace and Freedom Party candidates who ran with the support of the party organization for partisan public offices are:

In addition to those listed above, there are also a number of people who ran for Peace and Freedom Party Central Committees but not for any partisan public office, and for non-partisan offices with the support of the party. For information on these candidates, see the pages for the counties in which they ran.

There were two propositions on the statewide ballot June 6th, assigned proposition numbers 81 and 82. At its April 1st-2nd State Central Committee meeting, the Peace and Freedom Party took a position on one of measures.

  • Proposition 81 (the voter pamphlet's summary, analysis, arguments for and rebuttal, arguments against and rebuttal, and the full text are available as PDFs): "California Reading and Literacy Improvement and Public Library Construction and Renovation Bond Act of 2006." This measure would have issued $600 million of bonds to renovate existing library buildings and build new libraries. Because we are generally opposed to bond measures, but in favor of building more libraries, the Peace and Freedom Party neither supported nor opposed Proposition 81. The bonds were defeated by a statewide vote of 2,326,305 (47.3%) to 2,590,954 (52.7%).
  • Proposition 82 (the voter pamphlet's summary, analysis, arguments for and rebuttal, arguments against and rebuttal, and the full text are available as PDFs): "Preschool Education. Tax on Incomes Over $400,000 for Individuals; $800,000 for Couples. Initiative Constitutional Amendment and Statute." This measure would have raised the income tax on the rich by 1.7% and used the money raised to fund universal preschool programs for four-year olds. The Peace and Freedom Party urged that you vote YES on 82. The measure was defeated by a statewide vote of 1,958,200 (39.2%) to 3,036,217 (60.8%).

Vote Peace and Freedom Party, for peace, freedom and justice!

On January 24, 2006, a letter from Peace and Freedom Party State Chairperson Kevin Akin was delivered to Secretary of State Bruce McPherson's office, requesting that he place an internal referendum on the party's June primary ballot in accordance with a longstanding provision of the Peace and Freedom Party's bylaws. This is the text of the referendum question:

We call for an immediate end to the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. forces from those countries; and

We further call on all California members of congress to vote against all appropriations that include funding for the continued occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan; and

We further call for the withdrawal of the California National Guard from combat-related operations outside the United States.

This position of the Peace and Freedom Party shall be adopted by our nominated candidates in their campaigns, and in office if they are elected.

Secretary of State McPherson's response was to claim a week later that Peace and Freedom was no longer a ballot-qualified party eligible to participate in the June primary, then reverse his decision under pressure three days later. Since his initial decision was contrary to the plain language of the law and to five earlier decisions in comparable situations by previous Secretaries of State (most recently by fellow Republican Bill Jones in 1998 and 2002), he must have had some other reason than "just following the law". If his motive wasn't to prevent Peace and Freedom Party registrants from voting against the war, what was it?

In any case, while P&F registrants weren't able to vote explicitly against the war in June, all California voters will be able to vote against the war in November by voting for Peace and Freedom Party candidates.

  

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