SURPRISE GREEN PARTY WRITE-IN CANDIDATE LAURA WELLS EMERGES AS ONE OF THREE GREENS NOW CONTESTING CALIFORNIA HOUSE SEATS

GREEN PARTY OF CALIFORNIA

PO Box 485, San Francisco, CA 94104

For Immediate Release: July 10, 2018

Contact: Laura Wells, 510-504-4254 http://www.cagreens.org

Erik Rydberg, 530-781-2903

SURPRISE GREEN PARTY WRITE-IN CANDIDATE LAURA WELLS EMERGES AS ONE OF THREE GREENS NOW CONTESTING CALIFORNIA HOUSE SEATS:

WILL CHALLENGE REPRESENTATIVE BARBARA LEE

Oakland, CA - The Green Party of California announced today that due to a successful write-in campaign it now has three November election candidates to contest U.S. House seats currently held by Democrats.

Winning over 75% of the write-in vote in the June primary, former Green candidate for Governor Laura Wells will now challenge Democrat Barbara Lee in House District 13 in Alameda County (San Francisco Bay Area). Wells joins Green Party House candidates Kenneth Mejia in District 34, and Rodolfo Cortes Barragan in District 40 (both in Los Angeles County).

The three candidates said that they are running to end a failed Democratic and Republican political party dynasty through which billionaires and their corporations are running the U.S. government.

“The Democratic Party is considered ‘liberal’ yet it is actually more conservative than the conservative parties of Europe,” said Wells. “Barbara Lee is considered a ‘progressive’ yet she is actually a team player for the Democratic Party. In 2008, Lee voted for a 700 billion dollar bailout of private banks, choosing Wall Street over Main Street. In 2009, Lee backed off the critically important demand for a public option in Obamacare. And in the 2016 presidential primary, while Lee's progressive district constituents supported Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton, Lee sat on the fence and did not endorse him.”

Mejia said, “In my district, rising housing and health care costs are forcing more and more people into bankruptcy, and even out onto the streets. There is no low or middle class worker today who can feel secure living paycheck to paycheck. People live in daily fear of a health care crisis, rent increase, or another unexpected large expense, making them destitute, evicted, and homeless. The Democrats and Republicans have been in power for decades during a growing, huge wealth division crisis, and have not only failed to do anything about it, they are responsible for it.”

Barragan added, “How many more decades will the Democrats and Republicans block universal health care? How long do we have to wait for the Democrats and Republicans to stop endless skyrocketing health care and housing costs? The Green Party takes no corporate donations, and will never bow to the will of the banking, insurance, medical, real estate and fossil fuel industries that are destroying this planet and its people.”

All three candidates said that from day one as representatives they would follow the Green Party platform and support full immediate universal health care, through expanding Medicare to all U.S. residents. They also stated their emphatic support of California Proposition 10, the “Local Rent Control Initiative”, which will be on the November 6 ballot and will repeal the “Costa Hawkins” loopholes that the real estate industry passed in the 1990s to undermine rent control in California.

Candidate Information:

Laura Wells Kenneth Mejia Rodolfo Cortes Barragan

https://laurawells.org http://mejia4congress.com http://rodolfoforcongress.com