Mission Statement
The Long Beach Reform Coalition is a local, non-partisan umbrella organization and political action committee that promotes and supports public policies, laws, and candidates toward the goal of a transparent, accountable, and inclusive government.
2020 City Council "Reform Ticket" Campaigns
For the Long Beach City Council primary election on March 3rd, 2020, two of our board members ran in their respective council districts as grassroots reformers. We showed City Hall that the grassroots still have muscle, nearly unseating the incumbent in the 8th District and narrowly placing first in the 2nd District, despite being heavily outspent. The corrupt machine's orders of magnitude more campaign cash, all quid pro quo trades in exchange for taxpayer wealth, was still just barely enough to save it, combined with the cataclysmic effects of the pandemic on grassroots campaigning during the run off period. For more on the 2020 "Reform Ticket" click here.
2018 NO on Measure BBB Campaign
Our first project was our unity coalition-based NO on Measure BBB campaign to defeat the deceptive amendment to expand term limits put on the ballot by the Long Beach City Council for the November 6, 2018 election. Affiliates of our coalition authored and filed the official sample ballot argument in opposition to Measure BBB, and in short order LBRC put together a major citywide campaign. While the mayor-backed Yes side, with its massive war chest in the hundreds of thousands, paid for with huge special interest checks (as large as $20,000 each) from energy, developer, city employee union, and other special interests, ultimately won, our campaign sent a powerful message of grassroots opposition and raised massive awareness to the burgeoning reform movement in Long Beach. In a matter of weeks LBRC's No campaign raised nearly $50,000 in small-dollar donations from ordinary residents, put out a major citywide mailer, and spread nearly 1,200 "No on BBB" yard signs to supportive lawns all across Long Beach. Had it not been for, courtesy of City Hall, misleading wording on the ballot description for BBB, falsely giving voters the impression that the charter amendment actually strengthened, rather than eviscerated, term limits, the outcome would likely have been different. Yet BBB did lead to an important milestone in our city — it began the process of opening residents' eyes to the corruption which lies at the heart of daily business in their city's political power structure.
The Coalition
Our broad-based, non-partisan coalition unifies under one umbrella many diverse organizations and leaders who have served as City Hall watchdogs, defenders of neighborhoods, and champions of transparency and good government. The culmination of many years of grassroots advocacy, LBRC seeks to move community involvement in policymaking to the next level. By pooling our resources, not just in terms of fundraising but also people power and decades of local political and policy expertise, we intend to exert a coordinated impact on the Long Beach political landscape—one which the big money, narrow-focused special interest power centers, currently wielding outsized influence, cannot ignore. It is about time we began to even the playing field for the interests of average residents. That is our fundamental aim.
The following neighborhood and advocacy organizations (in alphabetical order) have joined as integral members of the Long Beach Reform Coalition:
- CARP (Citizens About Responsible Planning)
- CONO (Council of Neighborhood Organizations)
- Eastside Voice
- LACAN (Los Altos Center Adjacent Neighborhoods)
- LBHUSH2
- Long Beach Neighborhoods First
- People of Long Beach
Our Formation
Read about our formation in the Long Beach Press-Telegram: