It is easy to feel hopeless. It is hard to watch the news. We ask ourselves what is the best way to resist the fascist Trump regime. There is no one silver bullet, but many essential activities—mass protests, banner drops, disruption of ICE raids, independent journalism and even the dreamt General Strike.
The Central Valley Progressive PAC (CVPPAC), an organization not affiliated with any political party, offers an important and powerful way to marshal community grassroots wisdom and energy by forging a local initiative to elect progressive candidates at the municipal, state and Congressional levels with an emphasis on the local.
“Local government is one of the best opportunities to make sure that our friends, families and neighbors have their needs met and their rights respected,” said Heather Evans, CVPPAC vice president. “The CVPPAC helps us find and support politicians who understand that we all belong.”
We need this elected bulwark to help us defend democracy and fight for a better world.
On Aug. 9, in a dance studio on North Blackstone Avenue, CVPPAC members, a group that includes community leaders, activists, elected officials and candidates, gathered to endorse local candidates.
This multiethnic group represents many decades of experience in electoral, union and community organizing. They endorsed a stellar slate of candidates for the 2026 election:
- Randy Villegas for Congressional District 22. This district covers parts of Tulare, Kings and Kern counties. Villegas is running against David Valadao, a Republican who recently voted to end Medicaid coverage for hundreds of thousands of low-income residents and give billions of dollars of tax breaks to billionaires and large corporations. Villegas is fighting to restore Medicaid and make the rich pay their fair share of taxes.
- Sandra Celedon for State Assembly District 31. Celedon led the campaign for Measure P in the city of Fresno. This measure provides funds for our parks and to support the arts. One example of what these funds make possible is the recent groundbreaking for the Dolores Huerta Park in west Fresno.
Celedon is currently working on making the new transportation measure more equitable by including more funds for rural and urban public transportation. She has built a strong grassroots movement that opposes the efforts of developers to use these funds for more freeways that enable leapfrog development and sprawl.
- Rey Leon for Fresno County Board of Supervisors District 4. The district covers southern Fresno County and part of the westside, extending from Orange Cove to Coalinga and including many small farmworker towns. Leon is currently the mayor of Huron, one of many resource-starved rural towns.
He has worked tirelessly to bring in funds to improve the living conditions such as building affordable housing, providing free transportation for medical appointments, and expanding parks and recreational opportunities. He also continues to fight to build a high school in Huron.
- Naindeep Singh for Fresno City Council District 1. Singh currently serves on the Central Unified School Board. He supports affordable housing initiatives and free and low-cost public transportation, and he opposes sprawl. He also supports more effective mental health outreach and opposes the over-policing of marginalized groups such as the homeless.
- Joaquin Arambula for Fresno City Council District 3. Arambula is termed out of his position in the State Assembly next year. In that position, he won some important policy battles for workers.
He was able to win legislation that provides Medi-Cal coverage for all Californians regardless of immigration status. He also supported the historic expansion of overtime pay for workers in the agricultural industry, as well as securing funding for a medical school at UC Merced and the San Joaquin River Parkway.
- Ariana Martinez-Lott for Fresno City Council District 7. Martinez-Lott is currently working with the Measure C Moving Forward Together Initiative for the continuation and expansion of free bus fare access, street improvements and bike lanes, and planting new trees. She opposes sprawl and advocates for street vendors.
This moment in history is part of a long effort by the CVPPAC to work in collaboration with many labor and community groups to achieve representation in government that reflects the will and dreams of the working-class majority in Fresno and the Central Valley.
Highlights of this effort include the defeat of Measure G, which would have privatized the sanitation department in the City of Fresno and destroyed the union for those workers. Subsequently, non-right supermajorities in both the Fresno Unified School District and the Fresno City Council were achieved as well as positive outcomes in the areas of transportation and parks.
No group working alone could have done this. But by building and strengthening a broad coalition of progressive organizations and working together, community and labor groups have made significant progress.
Now more than ever, we need to flex our organizational muscles and skills to take on the fight of our lives. In the electoral arena, we must unite, mobilize and elect these progressive candidates. The CVPPAC’s next important event is a fundraiser on Oct. 11 (see page 11).
The endorsed candidates will speak, as well as renowned public figures Michael Tubbs, the former mayor of Stockton and candidate for lieutenant governor; Yonatan Shapira, pro-Palestinian advocate and formerly in the Israel Defense Forces; and Layla Darwish, president of the Palestinian Freedom Project.
“The Central Valley Progressive PAC has played a critical role in grassroots organizing at the local level for the past several decades,” said Simone Cranston-Rhodes, CVPPAC president. “The mission of the CVPPAC is to provide a counterweight to the super PACs and billionaires’ interest that we so often see in politics.
“Membership in the CVPPAC means that you can participate in a democratic process to endorse candidates and that the money collected by the PAC will go toward these locally endorsed candidates. You can join this fight by becoming a member of the CVPPAC at cvppac.org/join-us.”
