Official Report of the UPTE 2020 Presidential Endorsement Committee

UPTE has undertaken a democratic and deliberative process to encourage our members to consider endorsing a 2020 Presidential candidate they believe will be the strongest to further the goals of our union over the next four years.

This process was approved by our Statewide Executive Board in December of 2019 and carried out by a committee of fourteen UPTE activists, selected by open invitation across all of our locals and chapters.

The committee and executive board voted unanimously to focus our process on candidates with pro-union records who oppose so-called “right to work” laws, and those most likely to make an impact on the race based on months of polling.

We began by asking members to prioritize the issues they cared most about and the candidates they were most interested in hearing more from on those issues.

We also assessed how the candidates’ platforms aligned with positions taken by votes of the UPTE Convention and Executive Board over the years, such as their positions on Single Payer/Medicare for All, the CA Master Plan for Higher Education, and the Green New Deal (GND).

We reached out for interviews with the five candidates who received the vast majority of votes in our initial poll, asking them questions about the four top issues: income inequality, labor, healthcare, and climate change.

You can listen to recordings of the interviews with the four candidates who responded to our requests below. On January 7th and 8th, we heard via teleconference from Senator Bernie Sanders and from representatives and surrogates of the Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, and Andrew Yang campaigns. Listen to the interviews and read more.

Our policy sub-committee has performed an extensive issues analysis of the four respondents who participated in our interviews, which you can read here.

Now, we are asking you to choose which of the four candidates we should endorse. Click here to request your ballot.

Voting begins today and will run until 5PM on Friday, January 17th. We will announce the results on January 21st. Please talk to your co-workers and make sure that they participate as well.

We also encourage you and all other UPTE members to make sure that you are registered to vote by clicking here.

In Solidarity,

The 2020 Presidential Endorsement Committee:

Erin Brightwell (UCSF), Harpreet Chima (UCD, Lisa Kermish (Retirees/UCSC), Tom Yau (UCLA), Dan Russell (UCB), Holly McNeill (UCD), Frank Pinto (Retirees/UCD), Ursula Quinn (UCLA), Scott Robinson (UCR), Lucy Joseph (UCD), Erich Wise (UCI), Max Belasco (UCLA), Mike Schuchbauer (UCD), Joaquin Chavez (UCD, Chair)