LA Teachers Union: No Endorsements for Genocide Enablers |
Los Angeles teachers have drawn a line in the electoral sand to send a message to congress members tethered to the Israel lobby. On Dec. 17, the governing body of United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA), a union representing 35,000 California educators, passed a motion that the union should refrain from endorsing any candidate for public office, who as a member of the U.S. Congress voted to send weapons to Israel. The rationale before school site leaders in UTLA’s House of Representatives read, “Politicians should not be rewarded for enabling a genocide nor in perpetuating Israel's periodic bombing attacks on Palestinians.”
As the largest local in the 310-thousand member California Teachers Association, UTLA can wield significant power within the more conservative CTA to influence political endorsements in a safe blue state, where in 2024 Kamala Harris beat Donald Trump statewide 58.5 % to 38.3%, and in LA County 70% to 26.5%.
Moreover, UTLA’s rejection of congressional genociders could encourage the country’s largest labor union, the three-million member National Education Association (NEA), to support candidates who recognize Harris’ failure to break with Biden on Gaza may have cost the Democrats the election in seven swing states.
Scholasticide
The motion to condition political endorsements passed UTLA’s House of Reps, 56% to 44%, after winning support from the union’s Human Rights Committee and Raza Educators Committee. Marc Wutschke, a former UTLA board member, and Kathleen Hernandez, a retired teacher and longtime antiwar activist, authored the successful motion to condition endorsements. Said Wutschke, “Our motion will encourage other teachers unions and the labor movement as a whole to reject candidates who vote for genocide and scholasticide, the annihilation of an educational system through the bombardment of schools, colleges and libraries. As teachers, we are mobilizing our power to stop this ongoing genocide in Gaza, where Israel continues to violate the ceasefire, bombing civilians, blocking aid trucks and barring paper and pencils for Gaza’s school children.”
Who voted for genocide in Gaza?
Although the UTLA motion to condition endorsements leaves wiggle room with the words “should refrain from endorsing” and does not include a time frame for evaluating congressional votes, it might be instructive to look at a few highly publicized “ayes” to send additional weapons to Israel in the months and years following October 7th, when Israel’s carpet bombing of schools, hospitals and refugee tents shocked the conscience of the world.
On April, 20, 2024, only seven California House representatives, two in the Los Angeles area, Judy Chu (D-Pasadena) and Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), voted against the Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act that allocated another $17 billion in military assistance for Israel. Chu and Waters are also co-sponsors of H.R. 3565, the Block the Bombs Act, which would prohibit the sale or transfer of weapons–bunker busting bombs, tank ammunition– to Israel unless Israel complied with international law.
In contrast, several Los Angeles area congress members running for re-election voted for the Israel supplemental, including Nanette Barragan (D-San Pedro), Ken Calvert (R-Diamond Bar), Robert Garcia (Long Beach), Jimmy Gomez (D-Los Angeles), Ted Lieu (D-Torrance), and Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks). Garcia–who boycotted Netanyahu’s July 2024 address to Congress– is among the 59 co-sponsors of the Block the Bombs Act, but the other LA-area lawmakers who voted for the supplemental are not listed as co-sponsors with Garcia, Chu and Waters.
Primary challengers
Educators behind the recent UTLA motion are not collectively campaigning for primary challengers and belong to diverse political parties, but the potential impact of their motion on the 2026 primaries merits analysis with the caveat that redistricting under Proposition 50 could alter the landscape.
Gomez vs. Gonzales-Torres
Jimmy Gomez represents Central, East and Northeast Los Angeles County in a congressional district that spans such diverse neighborhoods as Koreatown, Little Tokyo, Boyle Heights and Mount Washington. Gomez, first elected in 2017, won re-election as recently as 2024 with a ten percent margin over challenger David Kim, an attorney who ran on a pro-Palestine anti-war platform.
With Gomez once again facing a progressive opponent in 2026, the UTLA motion could help send challenger Angeles Gonzales-Torres to Congress to replace Gomez in a solidly blue district. Gonzales-Torres, former president of the Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council and daughter of a deportee, is endorsed by the political action committee Justice Democrats that catapulted AOC to Congress in 2018 upon defeating 10-term incumbent Joe Crowley in New York City.
Gonzales-Torres participated in the UCLA encampment to protest Israel’s slaughter in Gaza and could build a mighty grassroots........