How money corrupts Oakland politics without anyone breaking the law

Four years ago, Oakland’s political watchdog, the Public Ethics Commission, released a report that helps shed light on a small part of the chaotic past few weeks in the municipal life of the city.

The PEC’s report, “Race for Power: How Money in Oakland Politics Creates and Perpetuates Disparities Across Income and Race,” wasn’t about “straw donors” or pay-for-play or any of the other sins being whispered about in the wake of the June 20 FBI raids on Mayor Sheng Thao’s home and the residences of the influential Duong family, owners of California Waste Solutions. It was about something that’s done a lot more to shape power in the city: a political system so reliant on “big money” that it produces unfair outcomes even when everyone is following the rules.

The PEC never used the word, but what the report was describing was corruption: the manipulation of local government to privilege private interests. This sort of corruption is routine, legal, unremarkable. But it is as much a part of the story of how money finds a foothold in Oakland politics as anything the FBI might be looking for.

The Oaklandside spoke with ethics experts, political consultants, and academics about how money warps the political process in Oakland’s politics and what could be done about it. What they described for us wasn’t a healthy political system occasionally threatened by bad actors. What they described was a system that, in a way, is built to be exploited by bad actors.

Oakland’s political system has always favored the elite

The standard story of Oakland politics is that it has been a long, slow march out of the corrupt machine politics of yesterday into the light of good government of today. A more cynical version is supported to some extent by the PEC report, not to mention by histories such as Fordham University Professor of Sociology Chris Rhomberg's account of how the Ku Klux Klan shaped Oakland reform movements in the first half of the 20th century: Good government crusaders never really got rid of political patronage and logrolling; they just changed who benefited.

The ward bosses of the 19th century, who doled out jobs to the immigrants working on the waterfront in exchange for their votes, gave way to the business elites of the 20th century, who ran Oakland through the city manager's office and through a citywide voting system, to the exclusion of immigrants, Black people, middle class homeowners, and small businesses. Opposition to district elections was supported by the Oakland Tribune, which likened district elections to communism.

Growing Black political power finally forced a change in 1980, when the city moved to district elections for City Council and school board. Part of the reason was that it would enfranchise the significant Black population in Oakland. Black people made up nearly half of Oakland residents and had outright majorities in parts of the city, but thanks to the at-large system, their candidates were often outvoted in citywide elections. District elections changed the complexion of Oakland politics. By 1992, four of the city’s eight councilmembers were Black, and Latino and Asian representation soon followed.

Black Panthers Bobby Seale and Elaine Brown announcing their campaigns for mayor and city council in 1972. Credit: The Black Panther newspaper, courtesy of Marxist.org

While district elections brought more diversity to the council, a system that reflects everyone’s interests has yet to emerge. Dr. Robert Stanley Oden, a professor of political science at CSU Sacramento and the author of From Blacks to Brown and Beyond: The Struggle for Progressive Politics in Oakland, California, 1966-2011, points to the rising influence of money: Political donations seem to have a bigger influence on who gets elected. In turn, winning candidates are more responsive to those voters who gave to them, freezing out some of the very people the new system was designed to help. If the elections were no longer at large, the big money was.

To win a campaign, you have to get your name out there

It costs a lot of money to run for