Monday, November 3, union members gathered at the IBEW Local 6 union hall to hear from Governor Gavin Newsom, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelsoi, and Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren—the architect of California Proposition 50—before heading out to do a final push to get out the vote around San Francisco. 

SEIU 1021 San Francisco Vice President Kristin Hardy was one of the opening speakers at the press conference. “This Prop 50 is a fight against the Big Ugly Bill that this current administration put out here. They’re tearing down our community. It’s going to affect our seniors, people we represent and love. This is a destruction of working class communities and of public services. And without public services, there is no community.”

Legendary labor icon Dolores Huerta followed, saying, ”We’re showing them the golden pathway to democracy. We’re going to make sure we have a Congress that puts the working people first, not the billionaires. We don’t need a golden ballroom. The gold standard is democracy! We’re going to make sure we have a Congress that is going to use our tax dollars the way they should be spent, for services for housing, medical care, education, the things we need. There is only way it’s going to happen, and that’s because of the power of the people!”

After hearing from Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, and his wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom, Governor Newsom spoke in support of Prop 50. “People are on edge. Communities of color are on edge. Folks scared to death to go out trick or treating, scared to walk their dogs, go to a playground, go to a park, go to a loved one’s funeral, because they might be disappeared on the basis of what they look like, where they congregate, the language they speak, in the United States of America today. You’ve heard, a private police force that appears to have taken an oath of office to the President of the United States, not to the United States Constitution. They’re going to reinforce the private police force by 10,000, the largest private police force in the world. Today, the military are on American soil. 4000 National Guard federalized here in the state of California.

“To those that have been bullied, demeaned, to those that feel powerless, to those concerned not only about themselves but each other, our community, our nation, what we represent to the rest of the world, Prop 50 represents the ability not just to be against all that but to assert ourselves and affirm the best of who we are. The best of Roman republic, Greek democracy, separation of co-equal branches of governor, popular sovereignty, the rule of law—all of that on the line today. Prop 50 is not about drawing lines on a map. It’s about holding the line to what makes us who we are.”

Following the press conference, union members lined up to get assignments for canvassing San Francisco’s neighborhoods to remind voters who hadn’t returned their ballots yet to get them in.

Have you returned your ballot yet? Find your polling place or the nearest official drop box here.