A Tale of Two DSAs: Conversations between Chapter and Statewide Organizing from the Perspective of a Silicon Valley Delegate to California DSA (’25 – ’26)
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) recently passed 100,000 members across the country, reaching levels of socialist organizing not seen in a century and closing in on the largest socialist organization in United States history. (N.B. Since this article was drafted, DSA surpassed the peak of the Socialist Party of America by reaching more than 120,000 members, although we still need to grow by three to four times to reach the proportion of the US population organized by SPA). California DSA (CA-DSA) is a unique entity within our organization. Most members know DSA through their local chapter, and most of our on the ground organizing is housed within them. Despite being the lifeblood of our organization, chapters also develop unevenly and interchapter coordination is sporadic (some have called DSA two hundred chapters in a trench coat). CA-DSA is an effort to build connective tissue and increased coordination among chapters in the most populous state in the nation, a necessity if we are ever to take power. I am excited about the potential for CA-DSA to accelerate socialist organizing in our state, but we must overhaul structure and practice if we are to succeed.
CA-DSA operates as a vehicle for chapters to share with and learn from each other rather than primarily doing organizing on its own. It consists of delegates who represent their chapter in meetings every other month, so it lacks the mass membership base that powers the engine of chapter organizing. Delegates share organizing experiences, report back from campaigns, and introduce resolutions for deliberation by the body. If any chapters have organizing work they want to expand beyond their territory, their delegates can bring a resolution for CA-DSA to adopt in support of the efforts. In turn, members inspired by resolutions from CA-DSA can bring a version back to their own chapter for deliberation. I served as a delegate from Silicon Valley DSA (SV-DSA) last term (’25 - ’26). An issue with the previous year's voter guide put out by CA-DSA motivated my decision to run. The body recommended a candidate for State Assembly that our chapter had a fractious relationship with after they worked against a chapter priority to outlaw caste-based discrimination and co-sponsored a bill to legalize facial recognition technology. In this piece I share reflections on the interplay between CA-DSA and SV-DSA. In some cases the statewide organization has been a model and inspiration for chapter organizing, whereas in other cases our local conditions could help improve statewide efforts.
Communications
A place where CA-DSA shines is in the bimonthly statewide newsletter, California Red. This publication is a venue where comrades across the state can share stories of chapter development or ongoing campaigns. By contrast, in SV-DSA our newsletters were sporadic until the newly revamped Communications Committee took over and made them a structured monthly endeavor. Even as our internal newsletter has become a strength of the chapter, it fills a different role than California Red. Updates on our organizing over the past month and upcoming events support local work rather than raise class consciousness across the state. California Red is helped by economies of scale—with so many comrades organizing across the state, there are consistently relevant stories to share, and the administrative burden of editing and publishing the work is streamlined by having a single statewide newsletter. We can rapidly report on local conditions as we develop ties with and help organize workers throughout the state. Similar arguments were made by Lenin in What is to be Done?extolling the value of an integrated press organ rather than myriad individual efforts.
On the other hand, SV-DSA has a much more robust internal communication structure. In our chapter, we have a Slack digital workspace where we communicate in between meetings. That is our main space for sharing updates, reminders about meetings, and member-to-member communication. CA-DSA lacked such a platform for delegate-to-delegate communication until halfway through our term last year. Noting the barriers to organizing and statewide coordination the absence of such a platform raised, I wrote a resolution mandating the body create such a space. After initially trying to dissuade me from bringing the resolution forward, the Steering Committee adopted it and eventually rolled out a Discord open to all DSA members in California. Unfortunately, there has been limited uptake—Steering rarely posts meeting reminders in the shared digital communication space. As CA-DSA moves forward, delegates can improve its functioning by regularly engaging with the statewide Discord and inviting comrades from their chapter to share perspectives of rank-and-file members across the state.
Meeting Logistics
Scheduling Meetings
Scheduling meetings is another area where CA-DSA can look to SV-DSA for improved practice. For planning our 2026 Chapter Convention, an active chapter member introduced a resolution at our January Membership Meeting to create a Planning Committee and set the date for our Convention as March 28. Shortly after membership approved that timeline, No Kings 3 was announced as targeting the same date. Our chapter had previously passed a resolution endorsing mobilization to those events, which have been good opportunities to meet people where they are and have organizing conversations. Recognizing the conflict between membership desire to attend the mass protest and a Convention date set by resolution, we introduced a new resolution in February to allow the Convention Planning Committee discretion in setting a new date. Members approved the change from the previously adopted timeline.
In contrast, meeting scheduling from CA-DSA lacked robust engagement with delegates. Our last meeting of 2025 was suddenly moved from December 6 to December 13 to accommodate an external event that had never been discussed by delegates as CA-DSA. A few of the largest California chapters, disproportionately represented on Steering, had endorsed the external action and decided to move our meeting with one week’s notice. Despite having received a suggestion to poll delegates to determine our desire to move the meeting, Steering unilaterally moved the date with only limited delegate engagement. At least that meeting still occurred, however.
More egregious was the decision to cancel the final meeting of the 2025-2026 State Council. First the date was shifted from April to May for not having hit noticing deadlines within our bylaws. Then, Steering canceled the meeting with 24 hours notice, claiming the ongoing election of delegates for the next term raised confusion about who would have authority within the meeting. This action removed the lame duck session of last year’s body, undemocratically disempowering the duly elected representatives from participating chapters. Moving forward, CA-DSA must have a robust process of delegate engagement and a democratic means to determine meeting timing. Participating in the body becomes unnecessarily difficult if previously scheduled meetings are changed on short notice at the whim of Steering.
Tech Tools
One area of meeting logistics where CA-DSA is an effective model for chapters statewide is in the utilization of tech tools to run our meetings. CA-DSA utilizes OpenSlides, a tool created and maintained by comrades in the National Tech Committee. Steering deserves recognition for their ability in showcasing OpenSlides and effectively using it to coordinate our meetings. While we have an active Tech Committee in SV-DSA, we have not yet brought OpenSlides to our monthly meetings. CA-DSA shows how our meetings can be effectively facilitated leveraging homespun tools. Seeing OpenSlides in action makes it easier to see the utility in bringing it back to our home chapters as attendees of the 2023 National Convention can attest, venue-specific internet difficulties in 2025 notwithstanding.
Bringing Resolutions Forward
Introducing resolutions for democratic consideration is another area where CA-DSA could improve practice. In SV-DSA, anyone can bring a resolution forward if five members in good standing sign in support and authors share the resolution with general membership in line with noticing requirements outlined in our bylaws. For the 2025-2026 CA-DSA State Council, standing meeting rules required at least ten delegate signatures and had no requirement for representation of multiple chapters. Only two chapters are allocated ten or more delegates - LA and East Bay get 49% of delegates - with the majority having far fewer. Fully half of chapters (10) have a single delegate.
In practice, this meant that a single chapter could dominate what was introduced for consideration, while the barrier for smaller chapters was insurmountable. For the coming year’s term, the threshold has been lowered to five delegates but with no requirement for collaboration across chapters. For CA-DSA to effectively fill the role of statewide coordination of efforts, it would be best served to structurally bake that cross-chapter coordination into bringing resolutions forward by requiring delegates representing multiple chapters signal support for a resolution to be considered. Ideally those resolutions would reflect local organizing already occurring in two or more chapters that would benefit from statewide collaboration.
Supporting New Organizing and Increased Coordination
A major purpose of CA-DSA is to enhance coordination of chapters across the state. Beyond coordination in electoral campaigns (more on that below), CA-DSA has made strides in building cross-chapter ties and organizational capacity statewide. One particular strength is in helping new organizing committees and chapters form. Steering members occasionally provided brief updates of outreach and organizing support at our bimonthly meetings. For At Large DSA members without a home chapter, it can be difficult to know how to start organizing and contributing to our mass movement. CA-DSA meetings are a place where fresh organizers can connect with comrades and get ideas for organizing projects to kickstart work in their local area. In the past year we have seen new Organizing Committees form and existing OCs move towards chapterhood. The only way to build power statewide is if we have a presence everywhere, and Steering deserves commendation for its work in fostering new organizing. California Red helped elevate the story of Sonoma County as it developed into a political force, and socialist organizing is blooming in Shasta County DSA and Humboldt County DSA. Any contribution towards those developments are valuable. And delegates and rank-and-file members can now talk across chapters on the CA-DSA Discord.
Another positive development in CA-DSA is the creation of a monthly housing organizers call introduced by resolution at what turned out to be our final meeting of the previous term. The purpose of the call is to convene comrades organizing around housing from chapters across the state. The calls are open to all DSA members in California working on housing issues, expanding capacity by not needing to rely on the limited pool of delegates to the body. The first call had high participation, with even DSA members in chapters that did not elect delegates to CA-DSA joining. The promise of sharing with and learning from each other is attractive and capacity building; SV-DSA members are excited to learn from our comrades as we seek to build up the Silicon Valley Tenants Union.
The housing calls are a model for building the connective tissue between chapters doing local organizing through formal and informal ties that we will need to be a serious political force statewide. Similarly in SV-DSA, we are working to build better connections across our various issue-based working groups for more coordinated collective action as part of this year’s Chapter Strategic Plan. At the first delegate meeting for the CA-DSA ‘26-’27 term, delegates approved endorsing a CalSTRS divestment campaign to amplify East Bay organizing and connect comrades across the state fighting against the genocide in Gaza. This is a marked improvement from an earlier CA-DSA delegation that rejected an anti-Zionist resolution in 2024. Connecting organizing around the same topic statewide is the major potential of CA-DSA.
Electoral endorsements
Although DSA organizes to build working class power in myriad ways, including organizing workers as a class through the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee or renters as a class with the Emergency Tenant Organizing Committee, we are perhaps best known for our electoral work as we march down the democratic road to socialism. The DSA Difference comes from our ability to mobilize dedicated members in force to support our democratically decided campaign priorities. Whether it is rightwing fear mongering or progressives trying to “find the next Zohran”, there is no denying the popularity of our mass movement for socialism. DSA members can competitively fight and win anywhere and at any level, from Mayor of DC to Atlanta City Council to statewide races in Georgia, Kentucky, Oregon, or New York to Congressional seats in New York or Pennsylvania or Colorado to fighting for Governor of Wisconsin. Meaningful differences exist in the local chapter-level and California statewide approaches to electoral organizing as detailed below with a description of our different endorsement processes and specific case studies.
Endorsement Process
At the chapter level in SV-DSA, we have a very high three-quarters threshold for a ballot endorsement (including individual candidates for office). This threshold is in recognition that an endorsement from our chapter involves significant mobilization of resources and member energy. We abstain from paper endorsements where our main intervention is adding our logo along with a sea of other organizations on candidate campaign literature. This approach is part of our strategy adopted at our recent Chapter Convention to lay the foundation for a strong electoral program where we can run and win with cadre candidates. We will turn out members for deep neighborhood canvassing and phonebanks of voters. Such actions also represent membership development opportunities as newly involved members can build organizing skills and begin to step into leadership roles like shift lead as the campaign continues. If membership does not think the chapter has capacity to dedicate the necessary attention to a campaign, we will refrain from endorsing.
For measures that membership supports but does not have capacity for a full fledged endorsement, we can approve a recommendation by simple majority at a chapter meeting. A recommended measure can go into a voter guide created by the electoral working group and approved by general membership but cannot receive allocation of chapter resources beyond that.
In contrast, CA-DSA has a more convoluted framework for ballot endorsements given that it lacks the mass membership base that drives turnout for the DSA Difference. There are multiple tiers of endorsement, from a Priority Campaign to No Recommendation. A Tier 2 Endorsement is most akin to a traditional chapter endorsement—something that is voted on and approved by delegates to the CA-DSA State Council by simple majority vote. Ballot measure campaigns are supposed to adhere to the body’s electoral vision by building class consciousness and organization, rooting socialists in the multiracial working class, strengthening DSA, and having winnable and transformative objectives. Beneath that are simple recommendations or analyses without recommendations to be included in the voter guide. The next step above, a Priority Campaign, is adopted when at least two independent chapters also endorse a measure that has reached Tier 2 approval by CA-DSA.
In other words, the most impactful intervention, coordination of turnout across chapters, is not something that is within the control of CA-DSA itself. Without the mass membership base of chapters, a simple Tier 2 endorsement can have only limited impact from the involvement of CA-DSA in a race. When multiple chapters get on board, we can support each other to amplify impact beyond what we’d be able to achieve individually. Specific case studies from the past year are analyzed below.
Prop 50 Redistricting
CA-DSA passed a resolution endorsing Prop 50, the California redistricting measure, in August 2025. That meeting was the second gathering of the term's State Council and the first after delegates were seated in June and elected a new Steering Committee. The endorsement decision was not without controversy, as members penned articles in California Red forand against the decision. The open debate is a good sign of organizational health as members argue for their position within the big tent of DSA. On its own, the resolution was rather modest: it called for CA-DSA to host a webinar with union partners and empowered the body to make campaign literature chapters could utilize. CA-DSA cannot do much by itself even if it passes a Tier 2 Endorsement. It is only upon uptake of resolutions by multiple chapters that a statewide campaign can see success.
In SV-DSA, we had already endorsed a local Measure A designed to support the Santa Clara County hospital system, including the only burn unit in the Bay Area. One reason members passed the endorsement was due to its alignment with a goal in our chapter’s Strategic Plan to develop closer ties with local labor unions. We endorsed Measure A and started canvassing and turning out for phone banks organized by the South Bay Labor Council, which had endorsed the measure. Labor was also canvassing for Prop 50, and the decision by CA-DSA gave enough impetus for a chapter member to introduce an endorsement resolution to SV-DSA, which also passed.
Suddenly we could canvass for both Measure A and Prop 50, which increased trust between our members and local labor unions. We could also use the Prop 50 canvassing to talk to people about Ranked Choice Voting, a previously existing chapter priority. Members did not make any efforts to endorse a candidate for a local special election despite labor canvassing for them, showing our decision was strategic rather than opportunistic. In the last weekend before the election, we carried campaign literature provided by CA-DSA. Our labor allies respected us bringing our own Prop 50 literature, something we would not have had the capacity to do on our own in SV-DSA without the support of CA-DSA.
Once the celebrations of victory died down after election night, we learned that our chapter of fewer than 1,000 members had the second most volunteers canvassing and phone banking during election season, second only to the lead union behind the campaign that has more than 10,000 members. We punched above our weight and gained the respect of our labor allies, and part of that was due to CA-DSA. Our ties to local labor have grown from that seed, with the South Bay Labor Council endorsing and inviting members to attend our Labor Movie Night in June where we showed Pride (2014) in honor of Pride month.
Billionaire Tax Proposal
At our end of year meeting in 2025, CA-DSA voted to endorse the California Billionaire Tax initiative, resolving to create materials chapters could use canvassing or tabling and to host a webinar with labor partners. Once again, the body on its own is not really able to have the impact associated with DSA involvement in a race unless multiple chapters opt in and campaign themselves. During debate, at least one delegate raised concerns about the limited list of coalition partners involved in the effort to date. Nonetheless, the resolution passed even as proponents acknowledged the challenges with limited buy-in from many labor unions at the start of the year. It is an easy political argument that billionaires need to give back to the common good after they’ve spent decades robbing us blind, most recently with HR1.
In SV-DSA, the debate surrounding the Billionaire Tax took a much different tone. When an endorsement resolution was introduced at our February chapter meeting, members voted to extend debate to continue hearing respective arguments. Everyone agreed with the politics of taxing billionaires, but many of our most active members rose to speak against endorsing. The reasoning was simple: a question of chapter capacity to meaningfully intervene in the race. The Electoral Working Group was already supporting a local Rent Control measure in Redwood City.
Seeing that membership may not hit the high threshold for endorsement, one experienced member moved to postpone the resolution until the next meeting so questions of capacity and campaign leadership could be addressed. That same member also wrote a resolution to put in place endorsement expectations including identifying campaign leads and volunteers to address capacity concerns. With that model, a new member stepped up to be a campaign lead and the endorsement measure sailed through when it was certain there were comrades who could bottom line the work. Our chapter was also strengthened by building in expectations that members will address capacity concerns when bringing an endorsement forward.
With comrades and allies across the state participating, the Billionaire Tax got nearly twice the number of signatures required to make it on the ballot in November. With billionaires using their limitless cash to oppose the measure, supporters will need to use our people power to reach voters and perform political education to counter oligarchs’ talking points. CA-DSA also endorsed a separate ballot measure to permanently extend an existing tax on high earners as part of a unified Tax the Rich campaign that can support our different organizing threads if successful. Part of the goal of that campaign is to bridge the gap between different arms of labor each supporting one but not the other measure for a coordinated effort.
This campaign is a good structure test for our ability to unite Labor and the Left as we gear up towards a planned presidential run in 2028. Unfortunately we are a few months behind where we could be if the final meeting of the previous term was not cancelled. Process issues negatively impact our organizing.
Oliver Ma for Lt. Governor
For the June primary, CA-DSA made its first endorsement of a statewide candidate in choosing to support Oliver Ma. Oliver is a DSA member who ran for Lt. Governor as a democratic socialist with an endorsement from his home chapter in DSA Kern County announced in January. Days later when delegates received notice of our standard bimonthly meeting at the end of February, there was also an announcement of an endorsement forum followed by online vote for CA-DSA to consider endorsing Oliver in just eight days. (Incidentally, it was at this same off-cycle meeting and online vote where the second measure in the Tax the Rich Campaign mentioned above was unanimously endorsed). CA-DSA endorsed with 61% of voting delegates supporting, recording votes in a way that chapter representation required for quorum calculations was unknowable. Oliver also picked up endorsements from Inland Empire DSA, DSA Ventura County, and the YDSA chapters of UC Davis, UC San Diego, and UCLA, showing a real base of support across multiple DSA chapters.
In SV-DSA, Oliver Ma for Lt. Governor was one of several endorsement petitions for statewide office members brought forward at our Chapter Convention. The other potential endorsements introduced by members were for Peace & Freedom Party candidates Ramsey Robinson for Governor and Lalo Vargas for Insurance Commissioner, socialist candidates supported by PSL. Each of these endorsements were brought forward by members tired of being told to vote for the lesser of two evils and who wanted to canvas our neighbors to talk about socialism.
However, none of the petitioners introduced a campaign plan identifying leads and volunteers in line with the resolution mentioned above that we had passed the previous month. Added to concerns about capacity and project ownership were members' questions about the viability of any of the candidates and the impact SV-DSA would be able to have so late in the race, with about six weeks until the election. Although each candidate was considered in turn, the result was the same: members at our largest meeting of the year overwhelmingly voted against endorsing any statewide candidates. Unlike the PSL candidates, Oliver Ma did get a recommendation in our voter guide.
The outcome of the Lt. Governor race holds some lessons. Before the June 2 primary, Oliver was not counted among the five “major” candidates according to CalMatters. In the end, he broke that barrier with a distant fifth place finish, the first candidate with fewer than one million votes. Although Oliver overperformed relative to pre-election expectations, there were missed opportunities: he did not include a statement in the voter guide that every California voter receives. The campaign did help strengthen OC DSA, including by spurring them to create new guidelines and expectations for their endorsement process.
National DSA lets members request trainings on many topics, and the National Electoral Committee has many resources for comrades to learn from successful efforts across the country. One piece of advice from the trainings is that endorsements should be happening months in advance of an election date; the next time CA-DSA considers getting involved in statewide campaigns we should start the process much earlier. With a March primary in the 2028 presidential election year, the issue of timing is even more salient.
Primary Voter Guide
One activity taken on by the Electoral Working Group in SV-DSA is to research and assemble a voter guide for upcoming elections pending approval by general membership at a monthly meeting. There are local working class people that make up our base but are currently politically disengaged who look to our voter guide and share with their friends and family when deciding how to vote. For the June primary, comrades researched local elections and analyzed candidates based on the limited available information. The working meetings were regularly advertised on the chapter Slack, posted on our calendar, and discussed at monthly meetings with brief reports back so interested members could help shape our collective analysis.
During our Chapter Convention, the voter guide became a source of raucous but comradely debate. Members rose to amend recommendations for individual seats based on their personal knowledge and politics. One normally reserved member gave a fiery speech that I did not know they had within them. Ultimately, the only change membership approved was to modify the Governor’s race from no recommended candidate to an anti-recommendation opposing San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, the Tech Bro billionaire puppet that wanted to extend his reign of mayhem from the South Bay to the whole state.
After the voter guide was published, some members noticed we did not include a recommendation for a race that had minor overlap with our chapter territory. Since one candidate was endorsed by a neighboring DSA chapter and there was a membership base that wanted to include a recommendation in that race, members introduced an amendment to the voter guide at the next chapter meeting, following our standard democratic practice.
In contrast to the democratically approved and robustly debated SV-DSA voter guide, the CA-DSA voter guide was rife with issues. Although the Electoral Committee posted its biweekly meetings on the CA-DSA calendar, it never advertised its meetings nor provided reports back on the statewide Discord in contrast to past practice where the full State Council got updates during a synchronous meeting. At a meeting with only four members in attendance, the Steering Committee broached but ultimately rejected the idea of getting the full CA-DSA delegate body to approve, amend, or reject the voter guide.
The lack of widespread engagement and democratic oversight led to an analysis of the race for Governor that all but recommended a billionaire. Despite an official “no recommendation” stance, the plain text of the guide calling Tom Steyer the most progressive viable candidate led to reports tying DSA to supporting billionaires, a confused stance contrary to our shared politics. The betrayal of our values led to no material gain since the top two candidates ended up being a corporate stooge Democrat with support from the Chamber of Commerce and a MAGA Republican. Moving forward, CA-DSA must reserve the ability to approve the voter guide for the full body of delegates and not allow it to go out with only Steering Committee approval.
Organizational structure
Like chapters across the country, SV-DSA is in the midst of an organizational overhaul in response to the Democracy Commission reforms approved at the 2025 National Convention. Although the chapter already utilizes many of the best practices required in the Democracy Commission reform package, we are undergoing a structured and deliberate review of our governing documents and internal democracy. Membership adopted a resolution to create a Bylaws Committee open to all members tasked with introducing any necessary changes for debate and voting at a monthly chapter meeting.
Although we could move faster if one or two Steering Committee members introduced the changes by resolution, we would miss important opportunities for membership development. By inviting general membership to participate, we can synthesize multiple viewpoints in the final resolution(s) and help socialize the baseline standards of democracy that all DSA members should expect regardless of their home chapter. We can also address structural topics that are not required by Democracy Commission reforms, like simplifying our quorum requirement which is currently unwieldy and non-trivial to calculate.
By contrast, CA-DSA has not taken a measured approach to organizational reform that generates buy-in and consensus from members statewide. With multiple chapters not participating in CA-DSA for various reasons, reaching quorum on any individual decision faced difficulty in our term. In order to speak with authority on statewide organizing, the body must have a minimum level of buy-in from chapters across the state. If there are fewer chapters participating, a higher degree of consensus within the body is required to move forward. At the same time, it is prima facie ridiculous to include chapters that no longer exist in quorum calculation requirements. The balance between a functioning body and a proper democratic mandate to act was a consistent topic of discussion in the previous CA-DSA term.
To address the possibility of non-extant chapters needlessly raising the threshold for action by CA-DSA, a fellow delegate from SV-DSA wrote a bylaws amendment that would allow for excluding dormant chapters from quorum calculations. Shortly afterwards, Steering Committee wrote their own bylaws amendment that did not incorporate any of the ideas from my comrade’s resolution. When I pointed out that the text as written could theoretically allow a single chapter to claim to speak with statewide authority, one of the authors conceded that it was a well-made point and the language could be changed to provide a minimum threshold of chapters before voting.
Unfortunately, those changes never materialized. The unmodified language from the Steering Committee was introduced, but the February meeting failed to reach quorum under any interpretation of the bylaws. Perhaps the low attendance was due to the off-cycle candidate endorsement forum earlier in the month. Steering then decided to hold an online vote to change the bylaws in contravention to the process laid out for changes in the bylaws themselves. Despite the process being out of order, CA-DSA is now operating as if that vote was valid.
Given that chapters across the country are undergoing reforms to improve our internal deliberations in response to the Convention-approved Democracy Commission reforms, this term of CA-DSA is an ideal time to reconsider its structure. The National Democracy Commission is still seated to help chapters adopt required reforms and could be a resource for statewide delegates. Delegates from last term who expressed interest in a Bylaws Committee for structured reform were not engaged, a state of affairs that current delegates could alter. Having a few years experience, CA-DSA could decide what has worked and what needs to change.
Many chapters require a two-thirds threshold for endorsements rather than a simple majority, which CA-DSA may want to consider. Quorum and allocation of delegates is another area for possible change. It is hard to claim to speak for DSA statewide when a limited number of chapters participate in decision making, but we also don’t want to recreate the undemocratic Senate by over-counting sparsely populated areas. At the same time, capping the body size at 85 delegates risks recapitulating the Permanent Apportionment Act that limits the size of the House and fails to account for chapter growth. SV-DSA increased from 473 to 745 members between our 2025 and 2026 Chapter Conventions, a 58% increase, but we were allocated one fewer delegate to CA-DSA. Artificially capping total delegate number limits the full spectrum of member views from being represented, collapsing entire chapters to their single delegate. Delegates should be elected by membership using STV for proportional representation similar to the requirement for delegates to the National Convention rather than allowing for appointment by chapter steering committees. Thoughtful deliberation from as many viewpoints as possible under the big tent serves our movement far better than rushing through changes that align with one approach within DSA.
Conclusions and Future Directions
If you've read this far, you are as invested in the success of our collective political project as I am. If we want a better offering of national politicians and policies from California than Gavin Newsom or Xavier Becerra, DSA will need to expand our power and reach. We can't do that without statewide coordination among chapters. CA-DSA is a first of its kind experiment for statewide cross-chapter collaboration, differing from single state chapters like Maine or Connecticut. Comrades across the country can learn from our story in California. The three New Jersey chapters have made their own decision to remain separate rather than merging or forming a statewide body like CA-DSA. Since its founding, there has been a consistent practice of critical analysis to determine successes, failures, and next steps for the CA-DSA. This article is meant to carry on that tradition.
CA-DSA currently only has limited capacity. Some argue that problem would be solved if only the organization got a share of dues and could hire staff. My alternative analysis is that we could expand capacity by connecting existing organizing across chapters rather than trying to create new projects for chapters to take on. The organic energy within each chapter can bloom through cross-pollination of ideas and tactics, strengthening our project. That would work better than creating projects from scratch and trying to herd cats to make chapters collaborate on topics that aren't already priorities.
We can't take power in California without being able to coordinate to take collective action everywhere, including within smaller chapters and in areas that don't yet have chapters. Unfortunately, CA-DSA has alienated some chapters with its current approach, despite some successes. Although the participation by DSA-LA in the Healthy California Now Coalition led to the mass exodus of its Healthcare Justice Committee due to perceived tactics delaying single payer health care in California, CA-DSA also decided to join the coalition. Several chapters reported on the National Forum that the CA-DSA voter guide all but recommending a billionaire for the 2026 Governor primary harmed their local organizing. We won't always agree under the big tent, but we do need to substantively engage with each other to navigate those differences. We can’t win without a means to coordinate statewide in California, but the current instantiation of CA-DSA needs to change to effectively fill that role.