SEIU 1021 member leaders participated in the SEIU California State Council’s endorsement meeting for the 2024 United States Senate election in California last weekend. They joined SEIU locals and affiliates across California in a show of worker political power.

Leading the 1021 delegation to the SEIU California State Council’s endorsement meeting was Theresa Rutherford, president of SEIU 1021. “It was a great exercise in union democracy across SEIU locals and affiliates,” said Rutherford. “Union members from across all regions brought different perspectives and insights to the table.”

Incumbent Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, who was first elected in a 1992 special election, will retire in January 2025 at the end of the 118th Congress. Two Democratic U.S. representatives, Katie Porter of Irvine and Adam Schiff of Los Angeles, entered the race before Feinstein announced retirement. A third, Barbara Lee of Oakland, declared her campaign on February 21, 2023. It will be California’s first open race for that particular seat since 1982.

SEIU members heard from the three Democratic candidates hoping to succeed Senator Feinstein. “All three candidates have championed the labor movement while serving in the U.S. House of Representatives,” Rutherford said. “Whoever we decide to endorse for the U.S. Senate, our next senator from California will serve us well and have our back in Washington, D.C.”

“We, the workers of California, were put on the same level playing field as these candidates for one of the highest public offices in the country,” said SEIU 1021 Vice President of Politics Ramsés Teón-Nichols, who was part of the 1021 delegation at the endorsement meeting. “A lot is at stake. We need a robust, pro-worker Democratic majority in Congress to help us pass legislation that will empower us, such as the Protecting the Right to Organize Act or PRO Act.”

“Those in Washington, D.C., need to understand that our country runs on the collective power of workers,” added Rutherford. “One doesn’t need to look far into the past to see that. It was frontline workers who got us through the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is workers who are fighting for a safe and just recovery. Without the labor movement, our country would grind to a halt.

“The senator from California must center working people in all legislation they author. Racial justice, economic justice, environmental justice, climate action, access to unions for all, worker unity and power, and strengthening our democracy. We entrust these candidates to make that happen for us in Washington.”

As a longtime progressive first elected in a 1998 special election, Congressmember Lee is known for being the only member of Congress to vote against the authorization for use of military force of 2001, which led to military deployment in Afghanistan and several other countries.

A Democrat who unseated incumbent Republican James Rogan in 2000, Congressmember Schiff raised his profile significantly during the presidency of Donald Trump. He was a lead impeachment manager in the first impeachment of Donald Trump and served on the select committee to investigate the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Congressmember Porter first won election in 2018, unseating incumbent Republican Mimi Walters. She later gained national fame for her progressive politics and frequently went viral for her pointed questioning of corporate executives in congressional hearings, often using a whiteboard.

The endorsement meeting came days before the sixtieth anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.  “Let’s not forget that on the day that the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated, April 4, 1968, he was in Memphis, Tennessee, supporting striking African American sanitation workers with AFSCME protesting poor working conditions, low wages, and racist management,” Rutherford said. “As we commemorate the anniversary of the March on Washington and Martin Luther King’s speech, let’s reflect on the words Dr. King said about the sanitation workers in 1968: ‘Whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity, and it has worth.’”

Primary elections will occur on March 5, 2024, while the general election will be held on November 5, 2024. California uses a nonpartisan blanket primary, in which all candidates, regardless of political party affiliation, appear on the same primary ballot, and the two highest-placing candidates advance to the general election.