RAC-CA

The California Religious Action Center (RAC-CA) brings together the Reform Jewish congregations and communities of California to organize powerfully across lines of race, class, and faith.

Current Campaign

Climate Tzedek: Building our Power to Achieve Just, Science-Based Solutions to the Climate Crisis

As Californians, we know climate change is already here. To create the big shifts that will heal our relationships with the planet and with each other, we need to build a movement. Through RAC-CA's Climate Tzedek Campaign, we will build our power and voice as the statewide network of Reform congregations, working with partners, to achieve equitable, science-based solutions to the climate crisis and strengthen our communities as we do it.

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Join in our May 2023 Actions

Climate Tzedek Action Webinar Recording

Our tradition teaches that we cannot just sit by while extreme weather events and other climate impacts multiply – we must move into action. Climate Tzedek is our statewide campaign to address climate change with Reform Jews and our partners. At our April 26, 2023 action webinar, we:

  • Sent letters to protect funding for Community Resilience Centers in the state budget
  • Heard from Senator Henry Stern, author of a key bill to accelerate California’s climate goals
  • Learned about other bills advancing climate solutions in our legislature
  • Prepared to lobby and raise public awareness on these bills with RAC-CA

Watch the webinar

Our Recent Work

RAC-CA 2021 Legislative Agenda

RAC-CA leaders helped to pass SB 62, the Garment Workers Protection Act, to expand wage theft liability and hold retailers responsible to pay minimum wage and create safe working conditions for garment workers, who are primarily immigrant women.

RAC-CA lobbied our legislators in 2021 to pass SB 731 (Time Done) life-changing legislation to address the hundreds of barriers to reintegration faced by people who have paid their debt to society by creating a mechanism to seal arrest and conviction records after a person has fully completed their sentence, parole and additional time without conviction. This bill faced challenging opposition but has finally passed and been signed into law!

RAC-CA joined the VISION Coalition to press CalGEM, the state oil and gas drilling regulator, to require buffer zones between drilling sites and homes, schools and other places where people are impacted by toxic emissions from drilling. Our Hanukkah action brought us together to contrast the miracle of a small amount of oil symbolizing our freedom with the damaging effects of the long practice of drilling for oil in our own time and place. This campaign has won a proposed buffer zone and is ongoing.

Additional RAC-CA Victories

In 2019, RAC-CA set gun violence prevention and housing as our two top issues. With help from Reform communities across the state, RAC-CA helped triple funding for local gun violence prevention programs in California communities most affected by gun violence. We also backed a package of housing and homeless bills that will help build new affordable housing, protect tenants, and remove barriers for housing production.

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Support the work of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism's RAC-CA.

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Governance of RAC-CA

RAC-CA seeks to build our collective power to create the California of our dreams. Our structure includes professional staff, a statewide leadership team, issue research groups, and congregational social justice teams.

Learn more about RAC-CA's governance structure

Download one-pager on RAC-CA

Issue Research Teams

The RAC-CA Research Team looks into upcoming campaigns, including legislation on climate change, criminal justice, immigration, health care, housing, and gun violence prevention and more. Comprised of leaders from our congregations across California, this team seeks bills and ballot measures to set our legislative agenda and mobilize congregational social justice teams behind our priority campaigns. The RAC-CA Campaign Team guides the work of the statewide campaign, leading trainings and mobilizing congregations to work with our partners to build and advance our campaigns.

Learn more

View webinar recording