Candidates for at-large Steering Committee seats

Anand B.
Bol B.
Amy F.
Roslyn G.
John G.
Mara K.
Paul K-D
Brad M.
Javier M.
Nicholas R.
Luna Z.

Anand B.
If elected, what experience, both from DSA and previous leadership and organizing, would you bring to the organization?
My previous organizing experience has been electoral either through direct election efforts or through attempts to add electoral pressure to sitting incumbents. I have had organizing experience within TCDSA for about two years now from multiple branches. My best experience came from working with TCDSA members as we tried to expand membership during the Bernie campaign. I think even though the campaign didn’t achieve electoral success, we managed to recruit a significant amount of members that were able to bring their passion and interests into the chapter. From that, I think the leadership and organizing experience I would bring to the chapter stems from outreach and also, in some cases, inreach. This will be super helpful during the next few years when DSA increases membership as more and more people begin to radicalize as they bear witness the shortcomings of capital to solve the major problems of our time that are already getting precipitated big-time during the COVID-19 Pandemic and eventual failure of the local/statewide DFL to adequately address these problems.

Please write a short statement about why members should vote for you. Feel free to discuss here: what values inform your socialist politics, what direction you would like to see TCDSA take in the next two years, what you’re excited about doing as a member rep.
I would like to be considered for member representative by the members of TCDSA because I think throughout history there are major moments in which we encounter massive problems that capital, of course, cannot solve and we are in one of those many moments. The likelihood of a population to radicalize is tenfold as they witness the inadequacies of capital and the absolute lack of care by the majority of those currently in any position of power. I think now is the absolute best time to further our outreach as we grow membership and our inreach as we try to maintain membership. As we demonstrate the power of our community networks and our already blossoming influence on politics in the Twin Cities in the coming years, it’ll be important to maintain a sense of urgency. This is because we are approaching the mass normalization of moderate/incremental approaches to solving devastating crises that are literally dictating people’s ability to live or die. My values of socialist politics are informed by the deepest levels of grassroots organizing to combat capitalist oppression, white supremacy, patriarchy, imperialism, and all other forms of social inequality and exploitation upheld by the ruling class. I’m most excited to bring to this role my experience in doing outreach during the Bernie 2020 primary election. Learning how to get people on board with electoral organizing and bringing new people into the fold has helped inform me in how we can best make sure we utilize this major failure in capitalism we’ve witnessed every single day since March, to continue reaching out to the people within our chapter and outside of it that want to do all that they can in any way that the can, to tackle capitalism head on. I appreciate your consideration and look forward to working with everyone to build a better world.

Bol B.
If elected, what experience, both from DSA and previous leadership and organizing, would you bring to the organization?
I’d bring in leadership experience from within some chapter work, and extensive experience from outside. Like labor organizing, electoral politics and in the streets with the community. I’d bring in wide ranging organizing experience, and a deep understanding of the local organizing world.

Amy F.
If elected, what experience, both from DSA and previous leadership and organizing, would you bring to the organization?
I have been a member of DSA for about 6 months and have been involved in SocFem and election prep work, specifically in helping to organize the pre-Election Day event at Powderhorn Park. I have a lot of experience in project management on cross-functional teams and event planning from my professional career, as well as involvement in community service efforts. Under the leadership of DSA, I am hoping to build my organizational and communication skills to build a stronger, more agile, and more connected organization to better serve the Twin Cities communities.

Roslyn G. – withdrew

John G.
If elected, what experience, both from DSA and previous leadership and organizing, would you bring to the organization?
I have years of organizing experience with Metro DC DSA where have done extensive administrative organizing for the chapter including serving as Member Mobilization Coordinator and administering leadership elections and events. I have run or been a core organizer on multiple electoral campaigns including our DSA for Bernie campaign where our canvasses routinely drew over 70 volunteers, as well as multiple DSA campaigns on behalf of endorsed candidates for local office (5 of whom won). I have also been a core organizer in other DSA campaigns including a campaign to pressure the DC government to divest from Wells Fargo and instead create a District-controlled Public Bank. I am currently working to build a new endorsement process for TCDSA to maximize the chapter’s ability to drive Socialist policy and hold accountable local elected leadership.

Please write a short statement about why members should vote for you. Feel free to discuss here: what values inform your socialist politics, what direction you would like to see TCDSA take in the next two years, what you’re excited about doing as a member rep.
DSA is one of the best vehicles for working class power and racial justice in America today. I want to help make TCDSA stronger, bigger, and more active.
I want to relieve the burden on core organizers and engage new & paper members. We do this first by concentrating our efforts on focused and mapped-out campaigns that have clear objectives and built-in onramps for newly involved members to get involved. We also must continue to deepen our neighborhood & locality-based socialist community-building.
The 2021 Minneapolis city elections are a huge opportunity to build towards a socialist Minneapolis. If we want to defund the police, guarantee homes for all, and accomplish other DSA goals, we can’t abandon this of class struggle, we must organize a strategic & DSA-controlled campaign to win. I want to implement the formula that has worked so well for NYC DSA and other chapters who have leveraged electoral victories and non-electoral organizing to win major policy victories for the working class.
TCDSA should be an organization of the multiracial working class, not just of activists. This means actively recruiting, especially in communities underrepresented in our organization. It also means building the kind of organization that working people see as doing serious work that improves their lives and that feels like home.
I prioritize chapter democracy. This means a Steering that ensures that members have the structures they need to participate in and the information they need to decide on the issues facing the Chapter. It means a Steering that faithfully implements democratic decisions of the membership. It also means being up-front and truthful about political questions rather than occluding political decisions underneath “mere” administration.

Mara K.
If elected, what experience, both from DSA and previous leadership and organizing, would you bring to the organization?
I joined DSA in 2019 and began in SocFems and Health Justice. Some of the first things I contributed to were the Halloween karaoke fundraiser in 2019, DSA for Bernie + M4A canvassing, and the Jenny Brown event at Moon Palace. When covid began, I was an active member in the Health Justice “reboot” where we built a campaign around healthcare workers’ experiences in the pandemic, such as insufficient PPE and workplace retaliation. I learned a lot about organizing during that time and became more confident in my own abilities to lead work in the chapter. Through the summer and fall my focus has shifted towards growing capacity in the chapter and understanding what building power means, and this led me to the regional organizing work where we are training members in one-to-one organizing conversations and building relationships with each other. Outside of DSA, I work as an administrative assistant at a college.

Feel free to discuss here: what values inform your socialist politics, what direction you would like to see TCDSA take in the next two years, what you’re excited about doing as a member rep.
I believe that power lies in the rank and file of a mass organization. We are not building power or building our organization when all the work is done by a small number of people, with hundreds of members who are inactive or yet-to-be-activated. There is enormous potential in the number of new members joining DSA – almost 150 people joined our chapter in November alone. This is what drives my work in TCDSA and it is why I am excited to see these new at-large member positions on the Steering Committee. I want our chapter to have a clear, dedicated structure for bringing in new members that includes one-to-one conversations and organizing skills training so that we continue to build out the structure. With these new at-large member positions on the Steering Committee, we have the opportunity to carry out the responsibility of welcoming new members, as well as activating existing members who have felt unsure of where to plug in. I know from talking to newer members this year that joining DSA can be confusing. I hear members say that it’s not clear where to go or how to contribute. I want DSA to be welcoming and participatory. It is possible to build an organization that has many different levels of participation, that retains people and builds capacity. I want to represent the full membership on the Steering Committee because I feel strongly that building such an organization means not relying on already-activated members alone. I am committed to challenging that dynamic, and I feel that is the responsibility of the at-large member representatives.

Paul K-D
If elected, what experience, both from DSA and previous leadership and organizing, would you bring to the organization?
I have been a member of DSA since the spring of 2017 when, frustrated by the overwhelmingly poor response of the liberal activist scene at our small private college to the election of Trump, a group of friends and I started a YDSA chapter. Since then, I have been immersing myself in the labor movement, first with a minimum wage campaign on campus, and then with two (unsuccessful) organizing drives at workplaces in Minnesota.
Since arriving to the Twin Cities at the dawn of the pandemic, I’ve spent much of my time working with DSA nationally to build the Restaurant Organizing Project, a national campaign of the Democratic Socialist Labor Commission. For the past few months, I’ve been regularly talking to groups of service workers, DSA members and otherwise, and helping to create a national network of organizers dedicated to transforming the industry. Much of the work that I do centers around making spaces for worker-activists to share their stories and learn from each other, and I’ve picked up a passion for facilitating from that. I’ve expanded this into Twin Cities DSA a bit, helping to put together a social in Powderhorn Park that went pretty well, and recruiting new members as part of the DSA 100K drive. I have also participated in the chapter’s response to the George Floyd uprising, working in the Political Strategy working group to create the Hi-Lake Organizing Committee. Currently taking a pause from my career in the service industry, I am a grocery store worker and newly-minted union member with UFCW Local 1189.

Please write a short statement about why members should vote for you. Feel free to discuss here: what values inform your socialist politics, what direction you would like to see TCDSA take in the next two years, what you’re excited about doing as a member rep.
At the heart of my politics is the belief that there is nothing more powerful on Earth than the united strength of the working class. We saw this before our eyes this summer, when a bunch of youth from South Minneapolis sparked a global uprising for Black lives. However, in my experience, these moments of unity can be fleeting, and capitalism cannot be defeated in one blow. In order to sustain our power for the long run, we need strong, organized movements of everyday people. I believe that we have an incredible opportunity with DSA to build one of these movements that is strong enough to confront the powers that be, nationally and locally.
How do we turn Twin Cities DSA into a sustainable organization? I believe that we should start by empowering members with the tools and knowledge needed to give them the confidence of seasoned organizers. We can be an incredibly welcoming place. But, it can also be pretty hard to get involved, especially if you do not have any connections to other members. I am really excited to help make our organization more open and accessible. DSA right now is a great space for organizers that are already educated and experienced, I want to make sure that it’s a place where everyone can go and feel welcome.

Brad M.
If elected, what experience, both from DSA and previous leadership and organizing, would you bring to the organization?
I have been a member since 2017 of DSA and have attended National Convention, including running for NPC, and have previously served on the SC. I ran for Shakopee City Council and have renewed efforts to organize likeminded folks in the Shakopee Area.

Feel free to discuss here: what values inform your socialist politics, what direction you would like to see TCDSA take in the next two years, what you’re excited about doing as a member rep.
My socialist politics are informed through academic study, spirituality and personal life experiences. Since becoming active in DSA I have begun to more firmly embrace my social-anarchist leanings, especially after being introduced to the works of Kropotkin. I am always an advocate for more member engagement, more ways for members to participate and be heard, and more ways to flatten the model away from a core group of activists to a larger community.
I would like to see the DSA take more of a public community role, working both in electoral and non-electoral spaces, and work harder at organizing and educating suburban and rural allies. I firmly believe that the issues facing people in rural communities are not as different from urban centers as some would like us to believe, but it requires people being willing to listen and reach out to suburban and rural communities as partners and equals, not as betters. In the next two years, DSA needs to work on member engagement: empowering membership and flattening the model as much as possible; work on educating people on how to do things like run for local elected office; and work on building cohesive hyper-local networks of people in our communities. Hyperlocal organizing is something I had been advocating for within TCDSA for several years now, and it’s nice to see that it actually beginning to happen, but it’s a process that must be continued and followed through with greater emphasis.
What I want to bring to the table of the TCDSA steering committee is a voice that can bridge the divide between urban and rural communities that can allow us to appeal to a wider audience outside of the core urban area. TCDSA has much to offer to our allies further out of the urban core, but we have to know how to reach out to them and bring them in to the table.
I also want to help develop both our organizational operational security as well as our capacity for information exchange to enhance the movements and our members safety and security.

Javier M.
If elected, what experience, both from DSA and previous leadership and organizing, would you bring to the organization?
Secretary, Heart of Iowa DSA
Action Chair, Iowa State University YDSA
Strategy lead, Students Against Racism (Iowa State University)
Co-chair, Ames Tenants Union (Ames, Iowa)

Feel free to discuss here: what values inform your socialist politics, what direction you would like to see TCDSA take in the next two years, what you’re excited about doing as a member rep.
In my experience running a YDSA chapter, one of the most important assets a socialist organization can have is a good onboarding process. New members need to know how to connect with their comrades – and they want to! As member representative, I will work with new and experienced members to refine our methods of reaching out to new members, catching them up to speed, and making them feel connected within DSA. This is the work I am most passionate about, and if I am not elected, I still see this as crucial work for our chapter to do.
In two years, our chapter can and should double in size. Our membership should reflect the demographics of the Twin Cities, in ethnicity, gender, and age. We can do this by identifying the authentic connections we already have and strengthening them. If we are firmly rooted in the working class, through our neighborhoods and our day-to-day lives, we will be a successful socialist organization.
The second most important asset after onboarding is a running dialogue between rank-and-file members and the activist core of the organization. Every member needs to feel like they have ownership over our organization. We also do not want to concentrate power or logistics onto too few people. After all, DSA’s strength is our collective power. That’s what sets us apart from the political parties of the capitalists.
I am so excited that we even have these positions! It’s a sign of a healthy chapter that we are prioritizing representation of general membership on our steering committee. I would be grateful for the opportunity to be a direct line from members to the steering committee, and I would be honored to take on this role.

Nicholas R.
If elected, what experience, both from DSA and previous leadership and organizing, would you bring to the organization?
I was a co-chair of Twin Cities DSA from 2017 to 2019, a time when our chapter grew exponentially in membership size. I am currently a union representative for over 1,000 workers in the Twin Cities metro and suburbs.

Please write a short statement about why members should vote for you. Feel free to discuss here: what values inform your socialist politics, what direction you would like to see TCDSA take in the next two years, what you’re excited about doing as a member rep.
Twin Cities DSA is at a critical moment in its history and must prepare for what we have coming in 2021. The Floyd uprisings, their global effects, and the Minneapolis elections next year mean that, ready or not, our chapter is going to be in the limelight of the international socialist movement. We need to greet this opportunity with a plan to build the power of the working class, grow our organization, and win campaigns. Fortunately, we’ve already made the road in 2020. The election of our chapter member Omar Fateh to the state senate, unseating a long-time Democratic power player, means that democratic socialism has a voice at the Capitol. Our chapter’s incredibly effective mobilizing around eviction moratoriums statewide means that we’ve already demonstrated our power to the status quo. And our instrumental role in several successful union drives alongside UNITE-HERE 17 means that we’ve built a reputation as an organization that can get bosses to the bargaining table.
Heading into 2021, we need to secure further victories while defending what we’ve won for workers. As the saying goes, you gain power by exercising it. Campaigns- public pushes with clear goals, a timeline, and a decent possibility of victory- introduce more people to democratic socialism, grow our organization, and build power for the working class. We should not be afraid to make Twin Cities DSA twice as large next year as it is today and should actively recruit people to membership- especially Twin Cities communities under-represented in our chapter. DSA should be the home for the working class, where people can learn how to start a union at their job, can support and recruit socialists running for public office, and get organizing at the neighborhood level.
It would be an honor to return to the Steering Committee after serving as co-chair, and it would be an honor to have your vote.

Luna Z.
If elected, what experience, both from DSA and previous leadership and organizing, would you bring to the organization?
I have been involved in DSA for the past year in a number of ways, including organizing with the Eco-socialist Branch and our new Electoral Group. I also served as the Outreach Director for the DSA-endorsed Omar Fateh campaign, where I organized a campaign that connected thousands of South Minneapolis neighbors through the COVID pandemic and George Floyd Uprising. I have also worked with communities in North Minneapolis on Urban Ag and Food Sovereignty organizing, and was involved in a feminist-LGBTQ issues campaign at the UMN campus. I hope to bring my connections with communities across Minneapolis into DSA to broaden our base and work together to build lasting socialist movement infrastructure.

Please write a short statement about why members should vote for you. Feel free to discuss here: what values inform your socialist politics, what direction you would like to see TCDSA take in the next two years, what you’re excited about doing as a member rep.
From a young age I always hated that people suffer from a denial of basic rights and resources because of who they are or where they come from. I became a socialist as a teenager, while coming to terms with my identity. My guiding principle is that the struggle against capitalism belongs to us all, and that we must work to lift each other out of this broken system. It is important to me that we build a movement that creates an organizing culture which people are better off for.
To be successful, we need to have a multi-tendency approach to our movement. Electoral politics, while flawed, is how many people think about politics in the US, and can be a valuable entry point into the “mainstream” for us as the 2021 city elections approaching. We can build power not only be electing socialists to our government, but by also engaging in the kind of grassroots work necessary to run a good campaign. At the same time, we know that our neighbors are struggling to make ends meet. Mutual Aid programs excel at providing much needed resources to our community, while also fostering relationships of trust that can politically engage the working class. A big problem with both of these organizing projects is they can cause burnout, so focusing on movement resiliency will be important as well. My solution to this is making sure we put the “social” in socialist. I want people to be able to turn to TCDSA as a place for social well-being. I’ve seen the left focus a lot on the importance of “self care” these past few years, but I think what we’ve really needed all along is “community care”. I’ve learned that this work can be very rewarding, but that doesn’t mean the climb isn’t difficult. I want to help foster an organizational culture here where everyone feels like they can share the work with comrades, and we can see our movement grow and build a better future together!