Candi CdeBaca
Candi CdeBaca is a Denver Colorado activist. She is a (Nonpartisan) District 9 member-elect of the Denver City Council in Colorado. CdeBaca won the general runoff election on June 4, 2019, after advancing from the general election on May 7, 2019.
Okinawa letter
October 31, 2022 more than 40 US elected officials, apparently all members of Democratic Socialists of America signed a letter to Jack Reed, Chairman, Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate/
- We, the undersigned civil society groups, write to make urgent requests regarding the Japanese and U.S. governments' plan to construct a U.S. military base at Henoko-Oura Bay in Okinawa, promoted as a replacement facility for the U.S. Marine Corps Futenma Air Station located in the middle of Ginowan City on Okinawa Island (FRF project)...We ask the U.S. Congress to review the FRF construction plan with the same integrity and determination that it has shown in protecting the coastal and ocean environments of the United States.
Signatories included Candi CdeBaca, Denver City Council Member (CO), as well as Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, World BEYOND War, The Red Nation, Nodutdol, Center for Biological Diversity, Worker Communist Party of Iraq, CODEPINK, New York Peace Council, Democratic Socialists of America International Committee. and many others.[1]
DSA endorsement
Democratic Socialists of America - Denver endorsed Candi CdeBaca in 2022.
Rent waiver plan
Denver DSA April 2 2020.
A group in Denver is petitioning Mayor Michael Hancock to enact a 90-day waiver to cancel and forgive all rental, mortgage and utility payments amid the COVID-19 outbreak.
“Mariah Wood, co-chair of Denver Democratic Socialists of America, is organizing the push. ‘People are choosing whether to pay rent or to save that little bit of money to buy medication,’ said Wood.” #CancelRent
Denver City Council members Candi CdeBaca and Chris Hinds both spoke in the press conference.
“We need a lot of help in fighting for this rental freeze,” said CdeBaca. “This stimulus package, stimulus check doesn’t even cover this area’s median rent.”
“You can look around the country and see that cities are already starting to take action,” said Wood, referring to Aurora, which passed a similar resolution a week prior.
“We kind of already knew where this was headed, even when the coasts were beginning to feel the brunt of it. We knew this was going to impact the service industry workers and hospitality workers,” said Juan Marcano, an Aurora City Council member.
Wood says the idea temporarily postponing rental payments or offering payment plans would not help tenants in the long run.[2]
People's Charter endorser
The People's Charter was released by the Working Families Party shortly before the 2020 election.
Endorsers included Candi CdeBaca.
Workers be put at forefront of COVID-19 recovery
At least five of Colorado’s elected democratic socialists have signed on to a letter laying out demands for local government responses to the coronavirus crisis.
Aurora City Council members Alison Coombs and Juan Marcano, Boulder City Councilwoman Junie Joseph, Denver City Councilwoman Candi CdeBaca and Jefferson County Surveyor Bryan Douglass joined about two dozen other democratic socialist officials calling for a “just response” to the pandemic, one that is focused on “centering” working people.
“We’re fighting for a world in which human life is valued above profit,” the group wrote in a letter published on In These Times, a progressive political magazine based in Chicago. “As the Covid-19 crisis has spread, at home and abroad, we’ve seen governments slow to invest in healthcare and hospitals, but quick to open up their wallets to bail out large corporations—just as before the pandemic.”[3]
Communist
At a candidate forum April 7 Candi CdeBaca openly stated:
- I don’t believe that our current economic system actually works. Capitalism, by design, is extractive, and in order to generate profit in a capitalist system, something has to be exploited…I believe in community ownership of land, labor, resources, and distribution of those resources. And so, whatever that morphs into, I think is what will serve community the best, and I’m excited to usher it in by any means necessary.[4]
"Beyond Bernie"
Beyond Bernie: DSA Electeds on Building Power with Rep. Ocasio-Cortez Tuesday, May 5th, 2020.
How can democratic socialists use elected office to organize around COVID-19 and chart a path forward for the Bernie movement? DSA has helped win elections for over 100 elected officials since Bernie’s 2016 campaign, and the work is far from over even after Bernie suspended his campaign in 2020.
On our first “DSA in Office” mass call, we’ll hear DSA’s elected officials discuss organizing for a just response to the pandemic and the path forward for the left after Bernie’s historic campaign. The call will feature DSA members at all levels of office, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14), Councilwoman Candi CdeBaca (Denver, CO), Councilman Khalid Kamau (South Fulton, GA), and State Representative Brian Cina (Burlington, VT). Join us to hear how democratic socialists can meet these challenges and fight to put #PeopleOverProfit from the grassroots to the halls of Congress.
Jacobin interview
You’re a DSA member. What was DSA’s involvement in your race?
Yes. I announced eighteen months before my election. Initially, I thought it was a mistake to have announced so early, but ultimately I think it was really smart to have done that, because I had a longer time to get on people’s radar. But it took us over a year to get a team assembled. It took until the January before my May election to even raise enough money to hire a campaign manager. And it was mostly a process of convincing people what I had spent four years convincing myself of, which was that we can actually win this.
DSA was one of the early adopters of my platform and my vision, and they were barely getting started here in Denver. We were kind of growing our organizations together. I had announced before AOC had announced her race, but having this parallel race on another side of the country inspire DSA to go harder and organize more quickly and effectively, I think that propelled people to pay attention to what DSA was doing, even as they were barely getting started here. The brand of DSA, from what was happening in New York, really translated here in Denver, even without the same level of organization, and it catalyzed other people to jump on our team.
I also had very deep relationships in the nonprofit community and the organizing community. And so people knew my work and were simply trying to find the funding to participate in a municipal election. Most of the organizations that endorsed and helped us do not typically participate in municipal elections.[5]
DSA endorsement
Democratic Socialists of America - Denver June 5 2019.
We don't have a final count yet, but we feel comfortable reporting that DSA member Candi CdeBaca will be the new city councillor for District 9! This is an amazing night for democratic socialism and the broad left in Denver. Image may contain: 1 person, text
Colorado Working Families June 4 at 10:51 PM · With her lead continuing to grow, we're ready to say: the incredible, inimitable community advocate Candi CdeBaca will be the next member of the Denver City Council from District 9.
Team Candi
City Councilwoman-elect Candi CdeBaca May 18 209·
- TeamCandi is ready to #PaintTheCityPink! Join us—sign up here: https://form.jotform.com/90424782613154 — with Tyler McDermott, Vanessa Quintana, Candi CdeBaca, Meg DesCombes, Alexis Menocal Harrigan, Brea Zeise, Stephani Meyers and Kylie Dennis.
Dave Russell October 8, 2018
Lisa Calderon hugging Olivia. — with Candi CdeBaca, Halisi Vinson and Kristin Mallory.
“Central 70” protest
February 2017 a raucous meeting hosted Thursday by the Colorado Department of Transportation and hijacked by angry residents of the Elyria-Swansea neighborhoods in central Denver, the presence of three members of the Legislature made a splash.
There was state Speaker of the House Crisanta Duran in the front row mostly watching and listening to the angry residents, who are all her District 5 constituents. And there standing at the back were reliably outspoken members of the House chamber Reps. Joe Salazar, D-Thornton, and Dan Pabon, D-Denver. They stood just watching, too, their lips sealed, their heads turning this way and that way as speakers made points and audience members shouted in response.
The lawmakers didn’t have to say anything. It was the fact that they came to the meeting that mattered to the protesters.
CDOT Director Shailen Bhatt hosted the event, intending to lay out next-step plans on the $1.2 billion “Central 70” interstate project, which is set to begin early next year.
“This is a state project, and they are the only ones who can help us now,” said protest organizer Candi CdeBaca, head of the Cross Community Coalition, whose family has lived in the neighborhood for generations. “If they will not represent us, we will elect others who will.”
“We’re here to listen tonight. We have to figure out how to bring people together,” said Duran, when she was asked to speak. “I think it’s a shame I-70 was placed where it was. I know you’re angry, and I’m sorry.”[6]