Watch our video on how to use our online phone banking tool for the upcoming Special Elections in SD 32, SD 16 and AD 80.

GOP gubernatorial wannabe Abel Maldonado claims realignment has increased crime in our state but can provide no numbers to support his claim.

For many Californians, Kern County is one of those places they’ve been to and through many times thanks to road trips up, down and across this state. But Kern deserves more than just a glance because there is more than meets the eye in this county. As Kern County Democratic Central Committee Chair (DCC), Candi Easter puts it, “Kern County is California’s swing county and that makes us an important county to watch.”

Kern County DCC has 40 members and Chair Candi Easter has been at the helm since 2005. “I was hesitant to be chair at first, but no one else wanted to do it so I decided I had to step up and take on the role. I haven’t been able to stop since,” Said Candi.

The Kern County DCC doesn’t get the kind of attention neighboring DCC’s get but it’s about time it does. Especially considering how much work local Democrats do to increase Democratic voter registration in the area and how much effort they put into holding onto seats that lean Democratic by a hair. In 2012 alone the Kern County DCC registered 10,000 new voters.

This year Kern DCC hopes to repeat that registration number. As Candi explains, “we want to register 10,000 new voters again because it’s what inevitably puts us over the top in close elections down here, so it’s vital for us to keep going strong with our voter registration efforts.”

Voter registration in not the only thing happening in Kern County, there is also a special election in SD16 (which also includes parts of San Bernardino County and Tulare County) and Democrat Leticia Perez is running in a hotly contested race. “We are working very hard to make sure Leticia Perez is elected. She’s an all around great person who grew up in the area and knows the issues of the area better than anyone else,” said Candi.  SD16 is one of those seats that leans Democratic but only slightly, making the outcome of this race very important to the Kern DCC. “If we lose this seat, we lose it to a very conservative tea partier and we lose it for years, so we are volunteering and pulling all of our resources together to make sure that doesn’t happen,” explained Candi.

Click here to call Democratic voters in SD16 and urge them to vote for Leticia Perez.

So what does the future hold for Kern County? Well as Candi says, “we’ve got a lot of  swing seats in Kern County and that makes almost all of our races very important, because our opponents are usually fringe right-wing candidates. We can’t afford to lose to those kinds of candidates in this day and age. We’ve got a lot of work to do but it’s the kind of work worth doing!”

We’re happy to shed some light on how hard Kern County works to keep key seats blue! Now you can help them by calling for Leticia Perez in SD16. Click here to start calling now.

Watch this video featuring three of Southern California’s Assemblymembers, Al Muratsuchi, Ian Calderon and Das Williams explaining why it’s important that we safeguard California’s 1,100 miles of coastline.

To the unassuming eye Plumas may look like any another rural California County with a small population and very conservative leanings.  But if you take a closer look you’ll find the heart, passion and unwavering hope of people working together to make a change. As Plumas County Democratic Central Committee (DCC) chair Martha Goodart said, “we have a lot of enthusiasm in Plumas!”

For many years, the Plumas County DCC was in a defunct state. That all changed ten years ago. As Goodart explained, “in 2002 Lori Simpson, who is now on the Plumas County Board of Supervisors, brought the Plumas DCC back to life with a lot of effort and care, and since then we have been growing stronger with each passing year!”

With a reinvigorated Central Committee, new projects and challenges present themselves to the Plumas DCC. After years of not being active they had to fundraise from scratch in order to keep a campaign office open during election years. This year the Plumas DCC is taking a proactive role to prepare for 2014.   They are becoming acquainted with potential democratic candidates for local, state and federal office. “We’re meeting with Democrats that have expressed interest in running. That way we can get well acquainted and learn how we can help them,” explained Goodart.

Voter registration drives are something Plumas DCC has always done and will continue to push for, but this year they would like to broaden their horizon and get more young people involved. Goodart explains, “I would really like to start a Young Democrats club at the local community college in the county this year. I believe that once you get young people involved you can keep them involved for the rest of their lives and they will keep moving Plumas forward.”

Plumas Democrats have their work cut out for them but they have a lot of heart and a long term vision that will keep them going and growing for years to come.

We’re excited to see what the future holds for Plumas!

Click here to sign up to volunteer at the 2013 California Democrats State Convention

The San Luis Obispo County Democratic Central Committee (DCC) is a small rural county that packs a lot of punch!  And at the helm of the energetic bunch is Pat Harris.  The SLO DCC has been active for about the 30 years and has blossomed into a County that shines, but getting there was no easy feat.

In 2010, with Pat Harris as the new Chair, the SLO DCC eagerly participated in the coordinated campaign and they experienced some hiccups, as Pat says, “we participated but we weren’t that great. However, we learned a lot from the experience and resolved to be more effective the next time.”

And boy were they!  With 2012 came Battleground California and the SLO DCC jumped on board to help re-elect the President and Senator Feinstein, and to protect a coveted house seat in the county from big Republican interests. “We learned how to better use MOE (Mobilize Organize Elect), we recruited many volunteers, we canvassed and called constantly, and that’s how we became better partners this time around,” explained Harris.

The results speak for themselves, San Luis Obispo didn’t just hold the line they made great strides for the future of Democrats and Democratic causes in the area.

With the election behind us, the SLO DCC plans to have a better and more efficient infrastructure in place to benefit the DCC for years to come. As Harris explains, “with the help of Learn-to-Fish we have learned how to be better fundraisers, which allows us to run better programs during election cycles. We also plan to better utilize our database of volunteers and keep them in the loop so they can still be involved at the local level even though there isn’t an election right now.”

San Luis Obispo can only get better and we’re excited to see what the future holds for such a wonderful partner.

Governor Brown thanks supporters for all of their hard work and talks about California bright future.

President Bill Clinton addresses the crowd at UC Irvine and endorses Battleground California Congressional candidates Julia Brownley (CA-26), Dr. Raul Ruiz (CA-36), Mark Takano (CA-41), Alan Lowenthal (CA-47), Scott Peters (CA-52).