John C. Packard

Packard entered politics as a Socialist; he was the party's candidate for State Assembly in the 67th district in 1914, coming in fourth place with 8.5% of the vote.^[9] In 1924, he was an unsuccessful candidate for presidential elector, pledged to Senator Robert M. La Follette.^[10] He was a delegate to the 17th National Convention of the Socialist Party in 1932,^[11] during which he was elected to its National Executive Committee.^[12] He was a member of the Party's Old Guard faction.^[13]

Packard was acquainted with Upton Sinclair as early as 1916, when the latter spoke at a Intercollegiate Socialist Society symposium hosted at the Packard home.^[14] The next year, the two men co-founded the Workers' Co-operative Association of Pasadena, with Packard as president and Sinclair as vice president.^[15] When Sinclair was arrested for reciting the Bill of Rights during the 1923 San Pedro maritime strike, Packard acted as one of his attorneys.^[16]

In 1933, Packard was approached by Sinclair to help him draft a political program for the 1934 gubernatorial election that would become the End Poverty in California plan.^[17] After Sinclair won the Democratic primary, Packard resigned from the National Executive Committee and left the Socialist Party to become a New Dealer.^[18] During the campaign, Packard secured a writ of prohibition from the California Supreme Court preventing the disenfranchisement of thousands of new Democratic voters.^[2]

Although Sinclair ultimately lost the election, Packard remained active in the Democratic Party. He was a candidate for Congress in 1936, but lost the Democratic primary to incumbent John S. McGroarty by a margin of 58% to 29%.^[19] Packard was later a delegate to the 1936 and 1940 Democratic National Conventions,^[2] and during the 1940 presidential election was chairman of the Roosevelt/Wallace campaign in Southern California.^[20]

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