You'll get no pushback from me there. I've got lots of problems with the Democratic party and its coupling with big business and NIMBYs. That said, below is a non-exhaustive list of bills passed by the CA legislature in the recent past. I know some of the descriptions are vague, but each is its own bill. If you only read this board, you'd honestly think the Dems are only good at singing kumbaya and crying about Trump. The problem, as I see it, is that the Dems here are trying to shoehorn social-democratic policies into a economic and political framework that is anathema to those principles. Round peg in a square whole, and what not.
✅ Increase pay for health care workers
✅ Clear the way for more housing
✅ Make involuntary treatment easier
✅ Ease college transfers, for some
Increase stipend to diversify juries (Newsome did not sign)
✅ Sort out water rights
✅ Strengthen renters’ rights
✅ Reduce retaliation against workers
Ban caste discrimination (Newsome did not sign)
✅ Ban toxic chemicals in food
Decriminalize psychedelic drugs (Newsome did not sign)
✅ Let legislative staff unionize
✅ Boost clean energy
✅ Add paid sick days
✅ Limit hand vote counts in elections
Give jobless benefits to striking workers (Newsome did not sign)
✅ Give raises to fast food workers
✅ Strengthen abortion access
✅ Tax guns and ammo
✅ Revise concealed-carry laws
✅ Ban book bans
✅ Increase penalties for child trafficking
Consider gender identity in custody cases (Newsome did not sign)
✅ Support LGBTQ students
Regulate driverless trucks (Newsome did not sign)
✅Stop legacy admissions at private colleges
✅Ban book bans in public libraries
✅Stop local voter ID requirements
✅Require state prisons to provide menstrual products
Make undocumented immigrants eligible for homebuyer and jobless aid (Newsome did not sign)
✅Allow tribes to sue cardrooms
Restrict private equity in healthcare (Newsome did not sign)
Regulate middlemen in pharma industry (Newsome did not sign)
✅Protect maternity wards from closures
✅✅Allow more outdoor alcohol and cannabis sales
Expedite gender-affirming care licenses (Newsome did not sign)
✅Shine a light on teen treatment
✅Advance reparations proposals
✅Give doxxing victims the right to sue
✅Exclude medical debt from credit reports
✅Give tenants more time to respond before eviction
Let undocumented students work on campus (Newsome did not sign)
✅Ban more plastic bags
✅Make key changes in campaign laws
✅End single-family zoning, redux
✅Speed up ‘tiny homes’ for homeless people
✅Protect voters from AI
✅ Boosting paid family leave
✅ Limit enforcement of jaywalking
✅ Disciplinary action for COVID disinformation
✅ Introducing rap lyrics at trial
✅ Fewer remedial courses at community colleges
✅ Protecting transgender youth
✅ Clearing criminal records
✅ Cell fee to fund 988 crisis hotline
Water bill help for low-income Californians (Newsome did not sign)
✅ Easier farmworker unionization
✅Build housing on strip malls: Two ways
✅Student housing versus CEQA
✅ Abortion: Protection from prosecution
✅ Funding abortion access
✅ Abortion digital privacy
✅ 'Pink tax:' Gender-based price discrimination
✅ Nursing home licensing reform
✅ Burial option: Human composting
✅ Tackling greenhouse gases
✅ Keeping Diablo Canyon nuclear plant open
✅ Setbacks for oil and gas wells
✅ Interim goals for 100% clean energy
✅ Strategies for carbon removal and capture
✅ Kids’ privacy online
✅ Courts compelling mentally ill people into treatment
✅ Regulating fast food workers’ wages
The implicit point of my post, which I'll now break down for you, was that the Dems ARE effective at passing legislation and furthering the interests of the common man and securing individual rights. The argument that the party doesn't know how to effectively message or govern operates under the assumption that the messaging from the Democratic party is very effective on a state and local level, but somehow fails when you try to stretch it over arbitrarily drawn state borders. Is that a problem with the party? When they amplify the dangers of Trumpism non-stop on the news, Instagram, Facebook, tik-tok? When they have 3 straight prime-time slots on every TV channel in America breaking down what MAGA and P2025 will do, and laying out specific legislation they will advance to help the working and middle class? At some point you have to just accept that many Americans will never, ever pull the blue lever even when they are actively suffering at the hands of the party they put in power.