Category: 2020

LOS ANGELES—Having witnessed first-hand the tenacity and passion Elen Asatryan possesses for civic engagement and the Democratic Party, Los Angeles Councilmembers Paul Krekorian and David Ryu, Burbank Councilmembers Bob Frutos and Jess Talamantes, Burbank City Clerk Zizette Mullins, and former Glendale City Mayor and current City Treasurer Rafi Manoukian, announced their respective endorsements for Elen’s momentous grassroots campaign to secure a seat on the Democratic County Central Committee.

The city officials have worked closely alongside Elen during her two-decade-long political activism and advocacy career.

“I have known Elen for over 20 years, since she was just 16-years-old. Not only is Elen a champion for the Democratic Party, but she has also led one of the largest advocacy organizations in our community. Elen is an honest and resilient activist who fights for Democratic values, proper representation, and civil and human rights. She has also led many successful campaigns and community initiatives, and she will be a valued addition to the County Central Committee,” stated Los Angeles City Councilmember Paul Krekorian.

“I’m grateful for the overwhelming support received by organizations and community leaders with whom I have a shared vision for governing that includes an emphasis on encouraging public participation in the civic process, government transparency, and ensuring that underrepresented communities have a seat at the table,” said Asatryan. “Volunteering, and then eventually working, on both Councilmember Krekorian and former Glendale Mayor Manoukian’s campaigns sparked my passion for politics and public service early on. These endorsements are both humbling and a reminder of the values I hope to bring to LACDP,” she added.

As a first-generation immigrant, Elen, with her family, moved from Armenia to Glendale at the age of 10, where she then attended Columbus Elementary School, Toll Middle School, and Hoover High School. Elen was a 15-year-old when she volunteered on her first political campaign, and she never stopped championing for causes or candidates from that point forward. Elen went on to graduate from the University of California Los Angeles, where she studied Political Science with concentrations in American Politics and International Relations then serving as Executive Director of advocacy organizations overseeing 19 western U.S. states. In 2017, she founded The Stark Group—a consulting firm specializing in public affairs, nonprofits, and political campaigns.

Dedicated to empowering youth, Elen founded and led internship and mentorship programs for high school and college students, the first Armenian-American Sacramento based Walter and Laurel Karabian public policy fellowship program for recent college graduates. She also spearheaded the Path to College Program to help non-English speaking parents navigate the school system and provide a pipeline of support for students to graduate high school and complete the college admissions process successfully.

“I am excited for Elen Asatryan’s candidacy for the County Central Committee, and I am proud to endorse her. Throughout her career, Elen has invested her time and energy into empowering the community, with great results. When she is elected to the Central Committee, I am confident that Elen will continue to be a champion for social justice,” commented David Ryu, Los Angeles Councilmember District 4.

“While working for the City of Glendale and in my current role as the elected Burbank City Clerk, I have had the pleasure of working with Elen on many community projects. I found her to be very committed, dedicated, highly energetic, and always willing to go the extra mile to get the job done. I am honored to support and endorse Elen for the Democratic County Central Committee,” commented Burbank City Clerk Zizette Mullins.

In her mission to ensure that all voters, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, and economic background have equal access to the democratic process, Elen developed and implemented voter registration and ‘Get Out the Vote’ initiatives resulting in over 50,000 newly registered voters in two years’ time in L.A. county alone and record-breaking voter turnout in some of the most heated local, state, and federal elections. Elen continues her service to voter inclusivity by serving on both the Los Angeles Voter Outreach Committee and Los Angeles City Votes Voter Outreach and Education Committee.

“Elen was fifteen 15-years-old when her dad used to drop her off at our campaign office. She worked for hours and hours almost every day and when her dad came, he would have to sit and wait outside for her to be ready to leave. She would not leave voluntarily, she had to be forced to leave so her dad could go home,” remarked former Glendale City Mayor and current City Treasurer Rafi Manoukian at a recent campaign event.

“Elen has been involved in political campaigns and the fight for minority rights, human rights, and recognition from the first day that I remember her and I believe that she will continue that. When you look at candidates and talk about elections, don’t vote for a person who makes a promise, vote for the individual based on their character. Elen is the most hardworking and dedicated individual to the Democratic ideals, and she has my confidence and support,” continued former Glendale City Mayor and current City Treasurer Rafi Manoukian.

These endorsements follow endorsements from Senator Anthony Portantino, former CA Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, the East Area Progressive Democrats, the Armenian National Committee of America – Western Region and its local chapters Glendale, Burbank, Crescenta Valley, and Hollywood, the Southern California Armenian Democrats, the Armenian Rights Council of America, Los Angeles City College Board of Trustees President Andra Hoffman, Vice President Steve Veres, and Trustee Mike Fong, Glendale Unified School District Board of Education President Jennifer Freemon and members Shant Sahakian and Nayiri Nahabedian, Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education Member Scott Schmerelson, Glendale Community College Board Trustee Ann Ransford and Former GCC Board of Trustees President Anita Gabrielian, Burbank Board of Education President Armond Aghakhanian and member Steve Ferguson, Burbank Teachers Association President Diana Abasta, and others. The full list of endorsements is available online. www.electelen.com/endorsements

The election for the Democratic County Central Committee will take place between February 22 and March 3 at 1,000 vote centers across L.A. County. Registered Democrats residing in State Assembly District 43, and those who have declined to state a political party but have requested a Democratic ballot, will see Asatryan’s name on their ballot.

For voters who have selected the option to vote by mail, ballots started arriving in mailboxes as of February 4. Elen Asatryan’s name may be found on page 3, 4 or 5 of the ballot.

For those not yet registered to vote, same-day voter registration is available in person at any vote center between February 22 and March 3. To register to vote, update voter information and political party preference, request a vote by mail ballot or find your nearest vote center. lavote.net

The DCCC is the official governing body of the Democratic Party in Los Angeles County. It is also the largest local Democratic Party entity in the United States, representing nearly 2.7 million Democrats in the 88 cities and the unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County – a population larger than 42 individual states.

The 43rd State Assembly District encompasses the cities of Burbank, Glendale, La Cañada Flintridge, La Crescenta-Montrose, and parts of Los Angeles including Hollywood Hills, East Hollywood, Little Armenia, Franklin Hills, Los Feliz, Silver Lake, and Atwater Village (90027, 90029, 90068 and most of 90039).

To learn more about, get involved in, and contribute to Asatryan’s campaign, visit www.electelen.com. For up to the minute updates, follow the campaign’s social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @ElectElen.

BY GAREN YEGPARIAN

For many months, there has been chatter in the Republic of Armenia (RoA) regarding amending its constitution. And, come to think of it, that chatter extended all the way back to when it was last reworked four-five years ago. There have been concerns all along about having a prime minister with too much power, a product of the shenanigans of the previous regime.

Things began to crystallize after Prime Minister Pashinyan’s announcement on December 30. A committee of experts was to be established. But soon, another policy target of the current regime converged – the struggle to take control of the Constitutional Court. By early February, seven of the nine member court had clearly been named as the targets of an April 5th referendum featuring only one amendment to the country’s constitution. It would force the seven out of office.

Immediately the demonization of the court, already underway, started to get louder. It was accused of putting “limits on the people’s power” and being a “terrible and direct threat to democracy”… plus, anyone opposing this process was accused of being “anti-state”! This crusade against the court has been adeptly packaged as part of the ongoing (oft-abused term) “revolution” that began in Spring, 2018 and anyone opposed to the changes became, by extension, anti-revolutionary. All of this demagoguery somehow evokes George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” for me.

This run at the Constitutional Court is also reminiscent of U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s (FDR) attempt to increase the size of the U.S. Supreme Court from 9 to 16 judges and pack it with supportive appointees. He was well intentioned in that the court was obstructing efforts to lift the country out of the Great Depression. But, that would have set a bad precedent, politicizing the judicial system. He was thwarted and that helped restore the country to a course of increasingly solid rule of law.

Pashinyan and his My Step bloc had been deriding the seven, and especially the court’s current president, as corrupt. In fact, a pro-government news outlet recently reported that an investigation of that judge and his godson had been completed and made it seem like charges against them were in the making. Pursuing this kind of investigative and legal path to removing one or more corrupt judges from the Constitutional Court would have been completely reasonable, appropriate, and an enhancement of the rule of law in the RoA.

Instead, Pashinyan has opted for a route that actually undermines the rule of law. At the most obvious level, the process is unconstitutional based simply on the fact that the constitution calls for a review by the Constitutional Court of constitutional amendments prior to their being placed before the voters in a referendum. Pashinyan and the parliament, with its My Step majority, have decided to bypass this requirement. This requirement, found in Article 169 Section 2 of the RoA Constitution struck me as strange, but it is the law of the land. By circumventing it in order to consolidate power, Pashinyan and My Step are behaving much like their corrupt predecessors and others in history, worldwide, who have come to power riding a wave of popular support based on promises of a better life who are then faced with the very real and large challenge of delivering on their promises.

In this light, you can see the irony of their assertions about the seven targeted judges being holdovers from the previous regime of the Republican Party who still do the latter’s bidding! Even if this is true, and I would not be at all surprised if it is, the way to correct the problem is NOT the one chosen by Pashinyan. After all, he is just as much a holdover of a previous regime as any of the judges. Remember, he is Levon Ter Petrosian’s protégé and has some dark chapters in his civic/political/public life, too. But, he seems to have come around to a better path. Why take a step backward into the corrupt, fast-and-loose-with-the-law approach of his predecessors.

Is it not possible that even the seven judges appointed by previous regimes will now behave properly (if they weren’t before) since they are free of the pressure that those formerly in power could apply?

Is there not supposed to be a system of checks and balances among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government? Doesn’t this look like a power grab by the executive and legislative branches at the expense of the judicial?

Isn’t the judicial branch supposed to be the defender of the rule of law, the staid and plodding guardian of a country’s constitution and laws, even at times when citizens may be worked up over various, legitimate, issues and problems leading them to want to circumvent law and procedure to more rapidly achieve their desired goals, thus undermining the very rule of law?

Do not My Step and Pashinyan realize that using tactics which vilify one sector of society ultimately serves to divide it and runs counter to their message of national unity?

Should Pashinyan and My Step, as proponents of democracy, not WANT an opposing pole of power in government to serve as a check on them should they fall into the trap of abusing power? That can happen and has happened to even the most well intentioned of public servants.

Besides, who’s to say the judges who will replace the seven will be any better? An opposition news source reported last week that one of the two Constitutional Court judges appointed since Pashinyan/My Step came to power has not completed his duties because of travel in pursuit of personal business. As a result, the court has not delivered verdicts in a number of cases.

It is a time of peril for the RoA. If this route is taken and followed to its conclusion, the country could easily fall into the same downward spiral that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union and the country’s re-independence when the corrupt system was established under its first president’s watch. There is no doubt in my mind that given the popularity still enjoyed Pashinyan and My Step, they will succeed on April 5, setting them on a path of unchecked rule.

Let’s raise our voices in defense of the very process of positive change initiated two years ago by Pashinyan and our compatriots who took to the streets to reclaim their rights and dignity as citizens. Let’s remind the current regime of its responsibility and help it step back from the brink. Let’s make Pashinyan the Armenian FDR!