OAKLAND'S POLITICAL DOMINOES

If it’s your belief that political officeholders ought not to get comfortable in any particular political office for too long a time, you’re probably ecstatic about what term limits is doing to Oakland. But if you were hoping that term limits might open up the process to a whole group of new faces, you may have to wait a while.

Here’s a short look up road ahead, all my own speculation, with no inside information:

Term limits will be forcing Jerry Brown out of the Oakland Mayor’s office at the end of 2006, unless Oakland voters vote to renew the strong mayor law and vote to take out the provision that a mayor can only serve for two terms. What Brown will do after that is still anybody’s guess. Maybe run against U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer in 2004, not in the Democratic primary (he’s not a Democrat), and not as a Republican (who have been posting nasty things about him on their websites, George Will notwithstanding), but as an independent in the November general elections, hoping that the Republicans will pull enough votes so that Brown can slip in between the cracks and win a plurality. Unbelievable? It’s just a guess.

Don Perata has to leave the State Senate, since his position in 9th District seat comes to a mandatory end in 2004. This one is so obvious, but I’ll say it anyway: Perata has his sights on the 2006-vacant Oakland Mayor’s position, regardless of whether Brown makes room for him.

Wilma Chan still has a couple of possible terms left in the 16th District Assembly seat, but she’s already announced that she’s running for the 9th District Senate seat (against termed-out 14th District Assemblymember Dion Aroner) in 2004. So that opens up the 16th District Assembly seat. (Do you need a chart, or something? This is getting complicated.)

7th District City Councilmember Larry Reid (who is not term-limited) is already making noises that with Chan out, he’s considering running for the 16th District Assembly seat in 2004. (There is some talk that Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley is also considering the 16th Assembly, though he says he’s not, and that Reid has his "blessing" for the Assembly seat.) In any event, if Reid runs for the 16th, that opens up the 7th City Council, and guess who that leaves as most likely next in the line of succession? Why, 7th District School Board member Jason Hodge, of course. Young, but no fresh face.

If Reid does vacate the 7th District City Council seat, it coincidentally gives Oakland a once-in-a-generation chance to correct what might be called a…ummm…minor peculiarity in our council district lines.

When Oakland first set up single-member Council seats, East Oakland southeast of High Street was divided into two districts, the 6th and the 7th, along a line roughly between 66th and 82nd Avenues, with both districts including both the flatlands and the hills. Of course, both districts didn’t have to include both the flatlands and the hills. But like Jessica Rabbit, they were just drawn that way. In fact, when most people think of the major neighborhood distinction in Oakland, they don’t think first of race, but of the dividing line between the flatlands and the hills. The issues and concerns of each…the flatlands and the hills…are very often vastly different. And one might argue that each community out on the eastern end of the city…the flatlands and the hills…deserves its own Councilmember to advance its own special concerns. That, after all, was the whole purpose of setting up single-member City Council Districts.

The chance to do that is coming up, as the City Council must redistrict itself based upon the new 2000 census figures. Normally, drawing district lines first starts with protecting the incumbent officeholders. But if Larry Reid runs for the Assembly, that might allow for the redrawing of the 6th and the 7th Council Districts into a hills district and a flatlands district, divided, say, at Bancroft…? Which might give us a chance to actually put in some new faces.

Or is that thinking a little too much out of the box?


Originally Published July 3, 2002 in URBANVIEW Newspaper, Oakland, CA