We have to decide if we are a party that represents consultants and billionaires, or if we are a party who stands up and fights without apology for the working people of our state. I will never hesitate to stand up for the latter.
EM: How do you intend to get rid of the big money from big tobacco, big oil and big pharma, and what will you replace that big money with?
K. Ellis: Corporate money is an addiction. It pollutes our message and it disillusions our voters. Last year, Bernie Sanders showed that a different kind of fundraising – powered by the grass roots – is possible. Of course I don’t believe the CDP should “unilaterally disarm,” but I will work to responsibly phase out donations from interests that do not reflect our party’s values, and devote many more resources to organizing on a local level.
Through better organizing, I believe we can build the kind of energy throughout our state that generates the small-donor support to revitalize our politics.
EM: Who were the two ladies that took you to lunch in Los Angeles and told that said running against Eric Bauman for Chair of California’s Democratic Party would be political suicide?
K. Ellis: While I understand your interest as a journalist, I feel that publicly naming these people only perpetuates the type of intimidation and exclusion which was directed at me. My experience wasn’t about who said it – but rather, that it was said at all.
EM: What are your thoughts on privatized prisons?
K. Ellis: Privatized prisons are corporations built to make money from human suffering. They cut expenses by underpaying their staff, and by refusing to invest in adequate security, officer training, nutrition, education, and even medical care. They are immoral, inefficient and unaccountable to our communities. It’s time, as a state and as a nation, to outlaw them.
When I talk about eliminating donations to our party and our representatives from corporate interests that do not reflect our values, money from private prisons is at the top of the list.
Photo Credit, Kimberly Ellis For CA Democratic Chair
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