CSUEB Students for Bernie Sanders

A new political organization on campus
By Vina Nguyen, CONTRIBUTOR
Hear ye, hear ye! The CSUEB Students for Bernie Sanders 2020 is a new political organization on campus and they are here to stay. They are a new political organization on campus who strongly support presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
The organization first made its debut at the beginning of September in front of the New Union and gained nearly 100 signatures and interest members on the first day of tabling. The number of interested members has gone up to 300 since then. There are currently 42 active members and 6 officers.
There are two separate but also interconnected organizations that the club members are a part of. The first organization is CSUEB Students for Bernie Sanders 2020, which is a political organization that is recognized on campus. This organization endorses Bernie Sanders and wants to highlight the messages and demands that he is fighting for in his campaigns, such as Medicare for All, Housing for All, Education for All, The Green New Deal, and many more.
They have been partnering with other student organizations on campus and are trying to be the political group that unites everyone together. Being an organization that is officially recognized on campus means they are able to receive funds from the school unlike the second part of the organization.
The other organization is Youth Democratic Socialists of America (YSDA), a national political organization that is campus-based but isn’t officially recognized on the California State University, East Bay campuses. There are a little over 80 campus chapters across the nation. There are campaigns currently active through each YDSA nationally, such as Medicare for All and College for All.
It is important to note that YDSA is running an independent expenditure, which means that they are not supposed to working directly with the Sanders campaign. When working with YDSA, club members can’t work directly with the campaign per Federal Election Commission regulations. When working with the campaign, the members are working as members of CSUEB Students for Bernie Sanders 2020.
“We are trying to get as many students that are interested in Bernie’s vision for this country to get involved in the struggle and get involved in the process of talking to friends, family, co-workers about how Bernie Sanders can effectively lead this country and unite this country,”
Terry Roe, the organization’s facilitator said in an interview.
You can find the CSUEB Students for Bernie Sanders 2020 tabling in the walkway by the University Union. They have held events before such as their Halloween Social where they encouraged students to register to vote and sign up for email notifications from the group. If they did, they were able to throw pumpkins or “Trump-kins” and destroy them by throwing it at photographs of Donald Trump.
“What we are trying to do on this campus is trying to get people to register to vote,” Andrea Martinez, a co-facilitator of the organization, said during an interview. “The youth is what is going to make this election and people don’t understand that.”
The group held an event called the Primary Watch Party, and they hope to host The Barn Storm sometime this month. The event will have Jane Kim, the Director of the Bernie Sanders campaign office in the Bay Area, come to campus to give an empowering speech to our students, staff, and faculty. Another big plan involves trying to have Bernie Sanders come to the Hayward campus to give a speech on the issue of the student debt crisis.
The CSUEB Students for Bernie Sanders 2020 organization is trying to get other students on campus to understand the demands that Sanders is fighting for and also to register to vote for the upcoming presidential election. All of the group members are very passionate and encourage other students on campus to join their political group as well.