Professor Emeritus (Biology); Volunteer Progressive Grassroots Activist;
71st AD CDP delegate; (just re-elected) Orange County Central Committee
and E board member; PDA activist at national, state and county levels; OC
DFA steering committee; OC chapter Co-coordinator, CA Clean Money
Campaign; So Cal Grassroots Coordinating Committee member.
1183 Navarro Pl, Orange, CA 92869
drsonneb@uci.edu; home#: 714 2889 9325; cell: 714 390 4329
What have you done to promote the progressive agenda on the following
issues.
a) Ending the US occupation of Iraq: Activities include: signing many
petitions and letters from many groups to my federal elected officials
and forwarding action alerts to groups that I work with; participating in
large rallies, rallies outside my House member’s office , and occasional
local weekly vigils (with Code Pink and MFSO); working with the PDA Out
of Iraq issue organizing team, which itself has a working relationship
with the House Out of Iraq Caucus. I am an activist with the PDA “Health
Care not Warfare” program at national, state and local levels.
b) Eliminating Poverty: As chair, and often sole member, of Legislative
Action and Advocacy Committees (e.g., DPOC, OC-DFA, SoCal Grassroots) and
as participating member of the PDA Out of Poverty issue orienting team, I
recommend and bring action alert motions to these groups about key
legislative bills (federal, state and local). The PDA team has close
contact with the House Out of Poverty Caucus and its rapidly emerging
legislative agenda.. I actively participate and collect signatures for
petitions to resist poverty cuts in state and federal budget
considerations. I make financially significant annual contributions to
Poverty Matters, the Children’ s Defense Fund and the Southern Poverty
Institute, and make smaller contributions at intervals throughout the year
to Oxfam, Mercy Corps, UNICEF, CARE and other non-profit organizations. I
am participating in, and advocating for, the recently organized “Half in
Ten” program, originated by John Edwards.
C) Universal Single-Payer Healthcare: I have continued to work hard with
all the groups I belong to, including CDP, on both SB 840 and HR 676. At
the grassroots level, I have cooperated with individuals in several
groups to distribute SB 840 “Sicko “ cards. I am doing the same for the
“Health Care not Warfare” campaign. I have been involved in helping to
produce positive messaging for both bills, including with the CDP platform
committee and with the PDA issue organizing team. I am currently
particularly involved in helping to get simple budget savings
calculations to businesses, chambers of commerce, city, county and state
governments , hospitals, labor unions, etc. This is obviously an item that
cries out for cooperation and coalition building among separate
organizations. I work on effecting such cooperation.
D) Election Integrity (protecting each vote to ensure it is counted as
cast): I have continued to be deeply involved in analyzing legislation, in
keeping abreast of evidence compiled, and testimony provided, by experts
. I send out action alerts to contact legislators about the key
legislative bills, and work with other colleagues with expertise to
support their efforts to produce resolutions. I send out action alerts
about holding election agencies accountable t (EACs, FECs, SOSs, County
Boards, ROVs). In addition to the obvious problems with DREs and poll
procedures, there are legislative bills about deceptive practices and
voter intimidation, as well as caging, that I continue to bring to the
attention of different groups. I am an active participant in the PDA
Election Protection issue organizing team. I have participated in
grassroots precinct walking, voter registration , GOTV and poll working
efforts, and have participated in one recount procedure.
E) Preventing a US attack on Iran: This is extraordinarily critical, not
only for this country but for the entire world community. I continue to
try very hard to impress this upon my elected officials and candidates
for office, as well as upon the organizations that I belong to. The
devastating maneuvers of the administration in the Middle East must not
happen anew.
F) Preserving a free and open Internet: I continue to bring take action
motions on each of the key bills to several groups, as well as to sign
and circulate key petitions from the leading media groups, such as Free
Press..
:
G) Impeaching or indicting Bush and Cheney: I have brought motions to
several groups to support the Kucinich and Feingold bills. I have joined,
contributed to and circulated membership alerts concerning Congressmen
Wexler’s efforts. The urgency here goes very far beyond mere partisan
politics,
H) Redirecting California's resources to support education, not
incarceration:
I try again and again to communicate with my Assembly and State Senate
members about this item. However, this is not effort well spent, since
they are both pro-incarceration Republicans. I follow and support Marcy
Winograd’s leads on this issue.
I) Protecting LGBT Rights and Promoting Marriage Equality: I support this.
J) Promoting public financing of elections: This, and election integrity,
are sine qua non issues for breaking the corporate big money stranglehold.
It is also the key to energizing the grassroots, as Arizona and Maine have
amply demonstrated. As a regional coordinator for the state campaign, I
continue to work very hard on this item at many venues - local grassroots
group events, fairs, Great American Write In events, OC Democratic Party,
DFA, PDA, SoCal Grassroots, CDP resolutions and platform committees. I am
an active participant with the PDA issue organizing team. I am an active
advocate for the US Senate Clean Money and Fair Elections bill. This is
clearly an item which needs much closer and wider collaboration among many
high visibility organizations, at federal, state and local levels. I work
hard to effect these collaborations.
K) Abolishing the death penalty: I support this.
L) Promoting alternative energy/energy independence: I analyze and report
on the key bills, as well as on government regulatory agency actions, at
both federal, state and local levels. I respond to and circulate key
action alerts from the Union of Concerned Scientists, Apollo Alliance,
Environmental Defense, NRDC, Earth Justice, Environmental California, LCV,
Step It Up and the Sierra Club. I respond to and circulate action alerts
from Sen. Boxer. I am an active participant in the CDP Environmental
Caucus and also send alerts/petitions of interest to the rural caucus. I
am an active participant in the PDA Global Warming/Environmental
Protection issue organizing team. It is absolutely essential to support
legislation and programs that will create “Green Jobs”.
General overview: Our country and our government are entrenched in a deep
crisis. Corporate big money has a stranglehold over government of, for,
and by the people. The stranglehold extends to every item on the
progressive agenda. Progressive activists must lead the way to breaking
this stranglehold. Energizing the grassroots must be a key focus of
progressive activists, individually and collectively. The Democratic Party
must be restored to the party of the people.
If you had been in Congress, how would you have voted for the most recent
178-billion dollar war package? Nay
How have you used your activism or Party involvement to challenge the
leadership's support for war funding? Being from staunchly Republican
districts house districts, I have rather cast my efforts with PDA,, its
interactions with the Out of Iraq Caucus, as well as its candidate
endorsement questionnaire stance on this item. As mentioned, above, I
also participate in events with code pink and MFSO.
Have you ever supported an insurgent primary candidate or someone who is
challenging an incumbent on the issues? Explain. Yes, through SoCal
Grassroots Endorsements and Blue House Committees and CDP Red to Blue
Committee. This year, PDA has endorsed 6 such California congressional
candidates. So far, I am financially supporting three OC congressional
candidates, and one northern CA candidate, each of whom is running against
an incumbent. I pick and choose several candidates running against
incumbents from Emily’s List and from the Progressive Patriot Fund. PDA is
also very active in supporting some 14 additional congressional candidate
challengers from elsewhere in the country. PDA was key to Donna Edwards’
victory in MD. I financially supported her campaign.
What qualifies you, in terms of your organizing work, to represent
progressive values on the E-Board? or Why should progressives on the
CDP E-Board vote for you as a DNC delegate? While I am a relatively recent
newcomer to California, after 39 years at the University of Wisconsin-
Madison, that ‘former life” provided valuable experience with progressive
organizational efforts. I fully recognize and appreciate that there are
several outstanding, much more highly visible CA progressive leaders than
myself. I often try to work with many of these acknowledged leaders. I
believe that I am an exceptionally good and thoughtful listener, as well
as an advocate for the progressive agenda. I do not feel the need, or
desire, to vie for dominant leadership status. I do feel the need to help
organize “factions” to work together on the progressive agenda. I do feel
the need to help organize grassroots participation. I feel that I can
contribute in these ways to both the CDP and the DNC. Whether elected or
not, I will continue to urge that progressive activists maintain working,
information sharing relationships with our elected DNC, and E board,
representatives.
Do you think we should have super delegates? Why or why not? I am not
yet ready to take a definitive position on this matter. I want to hear and
incorporate additional evaluations after the heat of the primary season
settles down and after the convention is over.
Are you running on a slate with other candidates? If so, who are the other
candidates running on your slate and what was the process for choosing
these candidates to run with you? I was not privy to the organization of
the three progressive slates that I have since learned about, but if I
had been aware, I would have had a difficult time choosing among the
slates. There are individuals within each of the slates that I will
enthusiastically support. I thank you for providing the questionnaire. I
have learned a lot of compelling information about several of the
candidates.
What experience has prepared you to run as a DNC member? The most valuable
experience has b en to listen to, evaluate and exchange advocacy stances
with progressive activists, together with helping to forge working
collaborations with such activists.
On which committee(s) would you like to serve and what are your personal
goals for each committee? During interim years prior to the election
year, I would like to serve on the Resolutions Committee, and on the
Platform Committee during the presidential campaign year. My personal goal
would be to help move the Democratic Party and its candidates for office
towards ever firmer commitments to the progressive agenda.
