Democrats: Your ADEM Page – UPDATED for voting in person Jan. 7 & 8!

(This comes up every two years, when registered Democratic voters get to choose a gender-balanced group of 14 representatives from their Assembly District, to help choose the direction, policies, and endorsements of our local and state Party. Got it?)

Missed the Dec 31 deadline to register to vote by mail?

You can still vote in person.

REGISTER NOW, HERE, or you can register in person when you go to vote.

VERN HERE: ALMOST ALL OF OC is voting on Saturday Jan 21 or Sunday Jan 22…

EXCEPT for Cottie’s AD 73 (Irvine, CM, Tustin) THIS SATURDAY the 7th, and the northeast/bi-county AD 71 (MV, RSM) this Sunday the 8th.

Let’s start with AD 73, you’ll see why:

VOTING IN PERSON, AD 73, this Saturday Jan. 7!

Voting in Cottie Petrie-Norris’ Assembly District 73 (Irvine, Tustin, Costa Mesa) will take place Saturday Jan. 7 from 10 to 2 at University Community Park, on Beech Tree Lane in Irvine. The top 7 men and top 7 women are elected, so it’s hard to make the case that you should bother voting in districts where there aren’t many more than 14 people running. But AD 73 is not like that – there are 27 candidates – 17 men and 10 women, and some of them are certainly better than others, but I’m not gonna say who.

These candidates include friends of the blog Doug Elliot, John Stephens, Ryan Dack, Kev Abazajian, Ron Varasteh, Luis Huang, Kathleen Treseder, and Lauren Johnson-Norris… but who knows, maybe some of the folks we never heard of could be even better ADEM reps? You can see the whole list HERE … and HERE IS THE LINK TO THEIR CANDIDATE STATEMENTS.

These 27 HAVE coalesced themselves into two “slates,” and the area’s Bigfoot politicians Congresswoman Katie Porter and Senator Dave Min have chosen their 14 most favoritest candidates as well. I wish electeds wouldn’t do that, this should be a grassroots thing! But they’re all doing it, and of course they expect to be surrounded by lotsa loyal folks who owe them favors. (Especially, now I think of it, Senator Min, who will be facing a Democratic challenge next year from Senator Josh Newman.) So anyway… here ya go:

But please use your own brain and judgment!

GREG SAYS: It’s darling that Vern thinks I’m not going to comment in a race where so many fine people are spread out over two competing slates. Here’s how I’d put it together:

WOMEN: Anne Mohr, Lauren Johnson Norris, Kathleen Treseder, Shayanne Wright — Mohr or LJN would both be good choices for E-Board, but I prefer Mohr as more of a disruptor. I don’t know enough about Murphy, Sorey, and Wu, but it looks like there’s room for everyone.

MEN/OTHER: Abazajian, Crane, Dack, Elliott, Gomez, Stephens, Varasteh. No slam on Gamboa; just ran out of room. Go ahead and argue with me in comments; just say who you think should be left out!

Note that — except for leaving out Kev — I think that the Porter/Min choices are quite good!

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VOTING IN PERSON, AD 71, this Sunday Jan. 8!

AD 71 is a district mostly located in Riverside County but it includes Mission Viejo, RSM, and surrounding parts of OC. Democrats are a small minority there, and one Kate Sanchez won the R vs. R Assembly race there in November. Democrats of the OC part of the district are getting together this Sunday, from 1 to 5 pm, at Mission Viejo’s Norman P. Murray Center (where I remember playing piano once, with Larry Gilbert.)

Here are the candidates from that district, and here are their statements – there are only 14 candidates, 8 women and 6 men (the only one I know is the worthy Kephart), so the only suspense is which one woman won’t make it. And it’s hard for me to manufacture much urgency for you to get out and vote on which woman has to leave the island.

But here’s a district where the Party is in its infancy, and AD 71 Democrats SHOULD participate in such events together, get to know one another, start growing the Party, and maybe not be stuck with Congresswoman Young Kim forever! VERN OUT.

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Back to Greg, late December…

Who Deserves Your Vote?

If you registered to vote by mail, your ballot will be mailed out Jan 7, and you’ll get it soon after that – it’ll be due BY JAN 31 – no shilly-shallying, a postmark won’t help you! But whether you vote by mail or in person, you’ll have to figure out who deserves your vote!

If you have an ADEM slate — or are a slateless ADEM candidate — feel welcome to link to it here (or mail a graphic to me on Facebook or Vern at his email address found on this site. If you are found worthy, you will have your slate (or self) listed here. I’ll include some of the ones I’ve already encountered. I may not do full ADEM endorsements here for at least a while. Who knows what 2023 will bring?

SOME SLATES/CANDIDATES WE HAVE ENCOUNTERED

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This strikes me as a very nice mix of candidates, geographically as well as otherwise. I think that Jim Gallagher is the only one to have held office, but I doubt he’ll be the last!

VERN SAYS: Looks like a fine slate as far as I can tell; I can vouch for Ery, Hari, Mili, and Lourdes.

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Some individual candidates we can vouch for: Fred Sigala Jr., Tahir Farukhi, Dr. Vicky Calhoun.

VERN SAYS: the Quirk-Silvas (actually Jesus) put together a “SQS Unity Slate,” and some of them are good, and they’ll probably all win anyway with Sharon’s star-power behind them, but they left out Fred & Tahir because they didn’t know them, and they didn’t realize their friend Dr. VC was running… so personally I say bullet-vote for those three and let the best of the others win.

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Who is that handsome man running under the name “Steve White”?
That must be Steve White Jr., right?

This is Vern’s district, and it is Vern’s favored slate, and Greg is happy to concur! While there’s room for one more male and four female candidates, only vote for other candidates if they are not on a competing slate!

VERN SAYS: In this case ALL the other candidates are on the competing slate except Valeria Rendon, so only vote for these nine PLUS VALERIA RENDON, who IS on this slate, but hadn’t gotten in her “head shot” in time for this flyer.

The “competing slate,” without saying too much, is the conservative, establishment part of the central OC Democratic Party, aligned with Congressman Correa, the Building Trades, the OC Business Council, and having been supportive of projects like Poseidon. With a sense of irony they’ve named themselves “The Progressive-Labor Alliance.” I really hope all of you vote for the “People Over Profits” slate, we’re up against the establishment and need every vote we can get.

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I forget who posted this, but it seems like a good collection of people from this coastal district. Mayor Richard Hurt seems to be the leading officeholder here, so we’ll call this “the Hurt slate.” We won’t object to the Katie endorsement.

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No slate yet, but we have this message from candidate David Dodson!

IMPORTANT Register Now to receive a mail in ballot to vote in the ADEM delegate election. I am running to be an ADEM delegate. Please register to vote by mail in the ADEM delegate election by 12pm MIDNIGHT 12/31. Vote Dodson AD74 and Share!

This district also features Lauren Johnson-Norris, who deserves election! to a new term We’re putting these two on our slate.

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OK, this one isn’t quite OC, but it is literally “OC Adjacent” in Whittier (neighbor of La Habra), and it includes dearly departed Henry Huenta’s widow Martha, so we’re including it!

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1. Here’s where we started, preserved here for historical purposes only:

IF YOU ARE A REGISTERED DEMOCRAT, GO TO THIS SITE:

https://ademelections.com/register/mail

AND FILL OUT THE FORM TO GET YOUR ADEM BALLOT MAILED TO YOU SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO GO TO ONE OF THE IN-PERSON MEETINGS IN LATE JANUARY IN ORDER TO VOTE.

Note: As this screenshot from around 7:45 a.m. today shows, the countdown clock is still ticking!

Not at all well-drafted. There’s this thing called 11:59 PM that might have come in handy!

Vern says: REGISTERING IS EASY AS PIE AND WON’T TAKE MORE THAN TWO MINUTES OFF YOUR NEW YEAR’S EVE!

Greg says: WE HAZ PIE?

DEMOCRATS, DON’T SLEEP OR PARTY THROUGH TONIGHT’S DEADLINE!!

About Admin

"Admin" is just editors Vern Nelson, Greg Diamond, or Ryan Cantor sharing something that they mostly didn't write themselves, but think you should see. Before December 2010, "Admin" may have been former blog owner Art Pedroza.