Our Friend, Stanley "Stan" R. Lewis (1945 - 2002)
Dear Democrats for Equality,
With a heavy heart, we sadly inform you about the passing this week of Stan Lewis, a longtime member who once served as Vice President of our club.
A longtime LGBTQ+ activist, Stan had served as Co-Chair of San Diego Pride, was a former president of Dignity/San Diego, and a member of the Gay and Lesbian Advisory Board to the San Diego Chief of Police.
Save the date for our next virtual club meeting next week on Thursday, March 17th at 6:30pm.
Our endorsed candidate for State Senate and USMC JAG officer Joseph Rocha will swear-in our newly elected and re-elected executive board, and speak about his campaign to unseat a Trump Republican incumbent.
We will also consider an endorsement for Superior Court Judge Office 35, and Rick Bates from UNITE HERE Local 30 will present an informational item on Sports Betting Ballot Measures and Workers at Tribal Casinos.
Save the date for our next virtual club meeting on Thursday, February 17th at 6:30pm
Our guest speaker will be our Chair of the San Diego County Democratic Party (and Immediate Past President of our club) Will Rodriguez-Kennedy.
As a DNC member, our party chair will update us on campaign conversations happening at the national level -- as well as our state and local levels -- as we inch closer to the 2022 midterms later this year.
Democrats for Equality,
Thank you to our members who attended our last two endorsement meetings this month! We are excited to announce several more endorsements for the 2022 election cycle.
For our final statewide endorsement, club members voted to endorse LGBTQ Los Angeles City Controller Ron Galperin for State Controller. If elected, Ron could become our second LGBTQ statewide elected official after Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara.
As we've been mentioning and prepping for the last couple of weeks, we are going to try out our first endorsement-palooza for a host of friendly incumbent and non-incumbent legislative races and for State Controller this Sunday, January 23rd at 12:00pm.
Happy New Year! I hope everyone has enjoyed the long holiday break with family and friends!
We want to wish a heartfelt congratulations and thank you to Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez.
By now, many of you have heard the exciting (although, legislatively sad) news that she is resigning from the legislature to take on a new role leading the California Labor Federation.
Democrats for Equality,
We are excited to announce several more endorsements for 2022!
At our special December 5th endorsement meeting, our club members have endorsed Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara for re-election. Commissioner Lara became the FIRST member of the LGBTQ+ community elected to statewide office in 2018. Club members also endorsed State Treasurer Fiona Ma for re-election.
For local offices, our club members endorsed Jose Preciado for Chula Vista City Council District 2, and our San Diego Community College District incumbents Maria Nieto Senour for District A, our LGBTQ+ community's Craig Milgrim for District C, and Geysil Arroyo for District E.
Democrats for Equality,
I hope everyone enjoyed the long holiday weekend with family and friends! Can you believe we're about to be in December?
Unfortunately, we aren't hosting a holiday party again this year due to COVID and now the Omicron variant is upon us -- but, there's always next year.
However, we are planning to hold two virtual club meetings in December.
Democrats for Equality,
We are excited to announce several more endorsements for 2022!
At last night's meeting, our club members have endorsed longtime club member, Chula Vista Councilmember, and Chair of the California Coastal Commissioner Steve Padilla for State Senate! Also, our club members have endorsed Zaneta Encarnacion for Chula Vista Mayor!
Democrats for Equality,
Join us for our next virtual meeting on Thursday, November 18th at 6:30pm.
We will focus our endorsement attention onto two significant elections in the South Bay: State Senate and Chula Vista Mayor.
Especially considering the disgusting homophobic and anti-Semitic vandalism that occurred at two South Bay schools, it's important for our club to have a say on who represents a large swath of our border region in the legislature, and who leads the second largest city in our county.