Meet the other recall candidates: David Moore

What experience has prepared you to take over leadership of the world’s-fifth largest economy?
I am running in this election as a member of the Socialist Equality Party. The SEP is fighting daily in working class struggles, mobilizing opposition to both the Democratic and Republican parties on the basis of a socialist and internationalist program.

For an internationalist and socialist strategy to eradicate COVID-19! For social equality and a massive redistribution of wealth! Oppose fascism and dictatorship! Defend the rights of immigrants! No to imperialist war! For the political independence of the working class! Fight for socialism!

It is on the basis of this program that Californians should vote for me.

Do you believe Joe Biden was lawfully elected president?
Yes

Should an ethnic studies course be required for high-school graduation?
No

Defund police?
Yes

Should government make any vaccine mandatory, including for polio and smallpox?
Yes

Under California law, low-income women are eligible for taxpayer-funded abortions. Do you support this?
Yes

Should the governor’s emergency powers be altered, and if so, how?
It is not a question of altering the governor’s emergency powers, but of transferring power from the capitalist class to the working class. Socialism means taking the world economy out of private hands and bringing it under the democratic control of the working class. In relation to the pandemic, we fight to mobilize workers, independently of the pro-corporate unions, to demand the shutdown of nonessential production, with full income to all workers affected.

If you had $25 billion to spend on homelessness, what would you do with it?
The working class has inalienable rights including safe and secure housing. Realizing this right requires a frontal assault on the wealth of corporations and the rich. There are currently five times as many vacant homes in the state as there are homeless people. The richest 0.1% in this country own more wealth than the poorest 90%, while countless families are facing eviction. Tackling homelessness means putting the social needs of workers above private profits.

As governor, would you direct the state to do more to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement?
Absolutely not. The brutality of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection against immigrants constitute crimes against humanity. Workers have the right to live and work where they choose with full citizenship rights, and the bipartisan attacks on immigrants — including denying the right to asylum, mass deportations, and detention in concentration camps — are abominable. I fight for the socialist reorganization of society worldwide bound up with a fight for open borders.

What would you do to decrease the chance of destructive wildfires?
Wildfires in California, and worldwide, are being exacerbated by climate change and the diversion of social wealth into the private fortunes of billionaires. PG&E has poured billions of dollars into dividends for investors that should have gone into maintaining and modernizing the electrical system. To combat global warming and prevent wildfires, we must take these utilities out of private hands and place them under the control of the working class.

What emergency steps would you take during a drought to allocate water usage among Californians?
It is impossible to effectively deal with drought without scientifically planning the economy. Nearly 80% of water extraction in the state is for agriculture. Meeting the recurring drought conditions caused by climate change will require a significant modernization of irrigation equipment and a large-scale shift to less water-intensive crops.

Do you support California’s climate change initiatives. If no, what would you change?
Climate change, like the pandemic, cannot be solved under capitalism or by any one country, let alone one state. There is no way to reconcile the private wealth of billionaires like Bezos, Zuckerberg and Musk with the massive economic shifts necessary to tackle carbon emissions. Halting climate change requires the revolutionary mobilization of the international working class against capitalism, not a delicate tiptoeing around the profits of ExxonMobil, BP and other major fossil fuel corporations.