• Vision for LA - Candidate Question Survey

  • We are reaching out to ask LA based sex workers to share comments, thoughts, and questions for us to take to the candidates at the forum. The SWOPLA team planning the forum will review the responses to this survey in order to decide what to ask the candidates who come to the forum. First, this survey will ask you a couple of open ended questions so you can share whatever is on your mind. Then it will ask if you have any specific questions for the candidates running for each office. Finally, it will ask you a couple of last questions to help us build out some themes for the conversation. We will use these responses to compose the questions we ask from candidates, and to set those questions up by providing some context.

  • At the forum, no discussion of policies of criminalization will be allowed! SWOPLA is strongly anti-criminalization, and we often talk about all the harms that policing causes. However, we're mostly going to be hearing from candidates at this event, and won't be able to say whether we agree or disagree, due to the IRS regulations that govern whether a candidate's forum is considered an "endorsement." We decided that in the end, we don't care what they think about criminalization, surveillance, incarceration or policing -- we know they're bad. So we're going to ask candidates questions about everything else!
  • Do you plan to attend Vision for LA, on Saturday, May 28th at 6:30pm? For more info or to RSVP, please visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/344439195907
  • Are you a sex worker or former sex worker in the LA area? (For this survey, a "sex worker" includes anyone who has exchanged any kind of erotic act or service for any kind of resource.)

  • Questions for each Office

    We are going to be hosting candidates for Los Angeles City Council, Los Angeles Mayor, and U.S. Congressional Representative at the forum. Below is a little bit of information about what each office is responsible for, and space for you to submit questions that specifically apply to each office.

  • Los Angeles City Council

    • The LA City Council is the legislative branch of the City of Los Angeles. They’re responsible for putting in place the rules and policies that govern city business, especially by deciding the City’s budget and passing city Ordinances.
      • They have the power to determine rules about who gets City contracts, how work is done by the City–like roadwork, street cleaning, tree-trimming, garbage collection, and providing utilities.
      • The City also has different departments and agencies to provide services to the public, to regulate different activities (like requiring licenses for certain business & enforcing building codes), and to make decisions on how land is used in the city.
      • The City Council can make rules determining how all of the above is carried out (Ordinances), subject to some limits by state and federal law.
      • The City Council does not actually oversee staff in any of these operations - actually directing the people who work for the city is the job of the Mayor.
        • In practice, however, the Mayor and city staff do give a lot of deference to the City Council Member in making decisions that affect that Council Member's district.

  • Mayor of Los Angeles

    • The Mayor of LA oversees the execution and implementation of the policies and budget put into place by the City Council.
      • They are bound by the rules voted into place by the City Council, and generally need to follow the City Council’s budget, but have a lot of discretion in how to actually do the job of managing the city, such as by making hiring and firing decisions and by directing that work be carried out in a certain way.
      • Some parts of the City government are independent of the Mayor, to a major extent - for example, the City Attorney is elected directly, so the City Attorney and the Mayor usually work together, but the City Attorney can make their own decisions about prosecutions brought by the City.
      • The Mayor is often very powerful because every employee of the City of LA is impacted by the Mayor's decisions.  In anything relating to approvals, permits, inspections--even when it comes to the street sweepers, meter attendants, and tree trimmers employed by the city--the Mayor can literally tell folks what to do, or at least make people's lives miserable if they don't do what the Mayor's office wants.
    • A lot of important government functions in LA are not handled by the City, so the Mayor does not have much direct power over those functions. For example, many are handled by LA County, including most social services, like healthcare, housing, and CalFresh. Likewise, the LA Unified School District is in charge of schools in the LA area.
      • The Mayor is still responsible for ensuring that the City of LA is properly served by the County and the School District - the Mayor can provide services to LA residents that make County services easier to access, or ask the City Attorney to sue the County for not upholding its obligations to the city, for example.  However, overall the Mayor has much less power over anything that is done by government bodies that report to the County Board of Supervisors or other elected officials that aren't the Mayor.

  • U.S. Congressional Representative

    • The United States Congress is the federal legislative body in Washington, D.C. that makes the federal laws which govern the country. Representatives in Congress have the power to pass legislation and make laws, to determine the budget of the federal government, and to investigate anything which is helpful to those purposes.
      • They make important policy on all federal issues, like foriegn policy, immigration, healthcare, education, labor relations, and more.
        • They pass laws like the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"), the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the "Trump Tax Cuts"), and FOSTA/SESTA (BOO!!!!), which have sweeping consequences to our whole country.
      • A huge part of their job is deciding where to direct the country’s tax dollars. 
        • This includes directly funding federal benefits like Medicare, Section 8 housing, and Social Security.
        • This also includes funding granted by the federal government for states to run speciffic programs, like Medicaid, SNAP (aka "food stamps"/"CalFresh,") or highway funding.
        • This includes creating, monitoring, and changing the rules that govern federal agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, Fair Trade Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

  • Two Last Questions!

    We want to know what themes / topics you are most interested in, to help us inform which questions we choose.
  • Which of these themes are most interesting to you? (Please pick 3-5)

  • We really appreciate your feedback and hope to see you at our forum!

    Please RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/344439195907 if you're planning to attend.

    THANK YOU!

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