Winograd for Congress 2010

Background:

A founder of Progressive Democrats of America's LA chapter, Marcy Winograd worked both inside and outside the California Democratic Party, authoring successful resolutions, providing official testimony, and organizing large community forums to bring our troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan, support single-payer health care, protect the California coast from offshore oil and natural gas projects, diversify our media, implement parole and sentencing reform, end unfair trade agreements, and protect the accuracy of our vote.

Winograd was voted Democrat of the Year for her work organizing the 2004 Democratic Club headquarters on the west side of Los Angeles and more recently in 2009 received a California Democratic Party award for Volunteer of the Year.

Her work, as a founding member of the California Election Protection Network, was instrumental in banning new touchscreen machines from California's voting booths and in mobilizing suppport for courageous CA Secretary of State Debra Bowen, who clamped down on electronic voting systems.

A high school English teacher in South Los Angeles, Marcy Winograd works to promote college culture and inspire young poets. During her almost 20-year career in education, Marcy Winograd has focused on the importance of developing critical thinking, delivering presentations on engaging curriculum to Chinese educators in Beijing, developing curriculum on the history and devastating impact of nuclear weapons, and organizing the Coalition Against Militarism in our Schools.

In 2006, jumping into the race only three months before the June Democratic Party primary, Marcy Winograd won almost 40% of the vote against Blue Dog pro-war incumbent Jane Harman. Winograd ran as an anti-war and constitutional rights candidate, receiving endorsements from Gore Vidal, Jim Hightower, Delores Huerta, the United Auto Workers, the United Farm Workers, and United Teachers of Los Angeles.

Announcing early this time, Winograd is in it to win it and has recruited an outstanding campaign director, Daniel Tamm, who worked as a campaign manager and field director on winning campaigns for now President Obama and State Senator Fran Pavley, author of landmark legislation to curb greenhouse gas emissions and end global warming.

Goals:

I am running to unseat Jane Harman, a Blue Dog who once described herself as "the best Republican in the Democratic Party" and pressured the New York Times on the eve of Bush's re-election to suppress a story about the administration's massive illegal warrantless wiretapping program.

My goal in Congress is to lead the Progressive Caucus, making sure that caucus convenes before each and every decisive vote on issues of great importance to progressives: war and peace; Employee Free Choice Act & labor rights; election protection; media diversification and net neutrality; environmental protection; creation of a new educational policy; restoration of constitutional rights, and more.

As a leader in the congressional Progressive Caucus, I want to work to form relationships with progressive caucuses in each state, so that together, forming concentric circles -- a Progressive Caucus in Congress branching out to touch progressive caucuses in each state -- we can advance an agenda that takes this country in a new direction, one that embraces a sustainable Green economy with career path jobs for our youth who want to live in a sustainable world and inherit the beauty of clean air and seas and open space.

Issues:

My top issues are: bring the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan and redirect the trillions in government waste on war to address human needs for quality health care, education, and jobs that can sustain a working family. To make this a reality, we must work together to promote a diversified media and protect the free and open Internet.

Grassroots Support:

If you visit my web site, winograd4congress.com or my Facebook page - Marcy Winograd for Congress - you will see photos of grassroots activists and yard signs emerging from the grass. These are symbolic of the importance of our grassroots efforts because only through our organizing, either via fundraising or precinct walking and voter contact, can we triumph. I need grassroots Democrats nationwide to help me fund raise, as Harman is the richest member of congress, with an estimated net worth of almost $400-million (She reportedly lost $100 million in the economic meltdown.) I need grassroots activists around the country to blog for me and go on radio talk shows, as guests or listeners, to talk up the excitement of this campaign, a David and Goliath struggle, where the power of the people can make a difference. By winning this congressional race we can send a message to Blue Dogs everywhere that America belongs, not to the corporations, but to the people.

DFA Values:

I am socially progressive because I support progress, which means preparing for a sustainable future. I am socially progressive because I support marriage equality and a woman's right to choose. I am fiscally responsible because I will work to cut government waste on war and trillion-dollar bank bailouts that only serve to create more global insecurity and enrich the already rich. I am fiscally conservative because I advocate for accountability on every front and believe we need an audit of the Federal Reserve and a full investigation, and prosecution if need be, of the financial institutions that are responsible for the sub-prime crisis. I am fiscally conservative because I believe in real oversight and regulation to ensure that the American people are always protected.