Sen. Bernie Sanders is scheduled to speak at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena tonight at a rally in support of his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Sanders plans to discuss getting “big money out of politics”; dealing “with obscene wealth and income inequality”; combating climate change; and making college education affordable, according to the campaign.
Doors will open at 6 p.m., with the program beginning at 7 p.m. Garage parking is available for $25. The campaign is encouraging people to take the Metro Expo Line to the Expo Park/USC Station, one-third of a mile from the Sports Arena.
Sanders, I-Vermont, has introduced a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which held that the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting political spending by corporations, associations or labor unions. He has promised that his nominees to the Supreme Court would commit to overturning the Citizens United decision.
Sanders has voted in favor of the DISCLOSE Act, which would prohibit government contractors from spending money on federal campaigns and would create stronger disclosure requirements.
He also has introduced legislation to tax carbon and methane emissions, opposed the Keystone XL pipeline, and inserted a provision in the economic stimulus package for grants to fund energy upgrades for more than 86,000 buildings and the installation of more than 9,500 solar energy systems.
Tonight’s rally concludes a three-day West Coast swing for the 73-year- old Sanders, who would be the nation’s first Jewish president, as well as the first president to be an avowed socialist. He is scheduled to begin his day in Oakland at a news conference organized by National Nurses United, the nation’s largest nurses union.
A rally Sunday night at the Moda Center in Portland, Oregon, drew 28,000, including those listening to Sanders’ nearly hourlong speech on loudspeakers outside the arena, which is the home court for the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers, according to Michael Lewellen, the team’s vice president of corporate communications & public engagement.
More than 15,000 people heard Sanders speak Saturday night at the Hec Edmonson Pavilion in Seattle in what had been the biggest crowd for any presidential candidate in the 2016 campaign before Sunday, according to the campaign.
“All across this country, people are sick and tired of establishment politics, establishment economics and they want real change,” Sanders said.
Sanders was blocked by two Black Lives Matters activists from speaking at an event organized by a group supporting Social Security and Medicare Saturday afternoon in a Seattle park.
Sanders is the first of two presidential candidates scheduled to be in the Los Angeles area in a two-day span. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is scheduled Tuesday to conduct a fundraiser in Long Beach on behalf of his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
