Libby Schaaf’s devastating political fall from grace
Her title wasn’t on the poll, however the 2022 Oakland elections had been a catastrophe for outgoing Mayor Libby Schaaf, the end result of her eight-year fall from grace.
As she departs due to time period limits, Schaaf leaves the mayor’s workplace and 7 of the eight Metropolis Council seats within the fingers of her political opponents, a hard-left, union-driven coalition that swept the desk in final month’s balloting.
Polling confirmed Schaaf was extensively standard in 2015, the yr after her first mayoral election. She simply received reelection in a 10-candidate area in 2018. However by the point this yr’s election season started, the Libby model had plummeted thus far that her endorsement was thought of by some to be a legal responsibility.
To make certain, Schaaf shouldered extra blame than she deserved for the town’s homelessness, rising gun violence and troubled municipal funds. In Oakland’s weak-mayor governance construction, the mayor can suggest a monetary and coverage agenda, however the final energy rests with the eight-member Metropolis Council. The mayor has solely a seldom-used tie-breaking vote.
So the council, which shifted from roughly evenly break up to labor dominance throughout Schaaf’s tenure, has had the ultimate phrase on the town’s finances and the votes to stymie the mayor’s police-staffing objectives. The mayor, alternatively, by no means appeared to search out her political message, vacillating between her progressive objectives and claims of fiscal duty — and unable to articulate a imaginative and prescient that captured each.
Furthermore, she by no means capitalized on her early recognition and the bully pulpit of the mayoral put up to construct an efficient fund-raising and grassroots political operation that might be mobilized in assist of political allies. It was her most-consequential failing.
Naïve considering
Oakland politics don’t divide between Democrats and Republicans, or liberals and conservatives. Fairly they break up between progressives. There are these on the left who additionally respect the monetary realities, equivalent to Schaaf and Loren Taylor, the self-described “pragmatic progressive” councilmember who ran unsuccessfully to succeed her. And there are these on the far-left, equivalent to incoming mayor Sheng Thao, who’re politically underwritten by key metropolis labor unions.
In any large metropolis, the important thing to profitable policymaking begins with efficient politicking. The mayor can not press an agenda with out the votes on the council. However, as Schaaf stood by passively, Oakland labor leaders over the previous eight years constructed a potent marketing campaign group that financially and organizationally dominated the 2022 election.
When elected in 2014, Schaaf benefitted from following Jean Quan and Ron Dellums, two largely ineffectual mayors, stated veteran political advisor Larry Tramutola. “However she didn’t impress that right into a political drive.”
That wasn’t her purpose, Schaaf stated. “I hope folks appreciated that I used to be focusing my consideration on addressing Oakland’s challenges, not constructing a political pipeline.” She and her followers at the moment are paying an enormous value for that naïve considering.
Her political allies on the council when she turned mayor had been all finally ousted or opted to not search reelection. And the brand new candidates Schaaf backed usually entered the races late, lacked adequate funding and had been unprepared, inexperienced and/or poorly vetted.
She is true that the contentious setting on the council discouraged potential candidates. “I used to be stunned by the shortage of willingness or curiosity to run for workplace in Oakland,” Schaaf stated. However the reticence was strengthened by Schaaf’s lack of a political group to assist campaigns.
Failure to unify
When it got here to the mayoral race this yr, Schaaf’s recognition was so tarnished that enterprise leaders who shared her concern a few labor takeover of metropolis authorities didn’t unify behind a candidate, and a few dismissed Taylor’s candidacy as a result of he was endorsed by Schaaf.
Within the enterprise group, “there have been lots of people involved about Loren initially based mostly upon his assist from Libby,” stated Greg McConnell, who spearheaded an unbiased expenditure effort for former Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente. “Libby had upset so many individuals.”
De La Fuente completed a distant third. His candidacy was at all times a longshot, particularly given his troubled two-decade tenure on the council, but it surely sucked up greater than $500,000 of outdoor spending that might have helped Taylor counter greater than $700,000 of unbiased expenditures for Thao. “The amount of cash that was spent on Ignacio was a waste,” stated Tramutola. “I didn’t really feel he had a path to victory, irrespective of how a lot cash was spent.”
De La Fuente’s entry into the marketing campaign, the division within the enterprise group and the shortage of a potent Schaaf-backed political operation value Taylor the race. When the ranked-choice balloting was accomplished, he misplaced to Thao, a union-stalwart, by simply 677 votes.
Political vacuum
As Schaaf exits on Jan. 2, she leaves behind a crime-ridden metropolis with insufficient police staffing, unfunded retirement liabilities which have grown from about $2.4 billion a decade in the past to $3 billion in 2021, and normal fund finances shortfalls projected to achieve greater than $100 million in every of the following two fiscal years. The state auditor’s financial-risk evaluate of California cities ranked Oakland the 11th-worst for 2020-21.
Regardless of new property taxes championed by Schaaf and quickly rising revenues, the town stays plagued with the identical key issues current when Schaaf was elected mayor eight years in the past. In the meantime, homelessness is worse. And the pandemic has undercut the expansion in enterprise migration to Oakland that was so promising just some years in the past.
Since 2015, the primary yr of Schaaf’s mayoral tenure, Oakland residents have grow to be more and more pessimistic concerning the metropolis. That first yr, 24% of possible voters stated the town was on the incorrect monitor and 61% stated it was headed in the fitting course, in accordance with the Chamber of Commerce annual ballot. In October of this yr, these numbers had flipped to 64% incorrect monitor and 18% proper course.
In 2015, 68% of possible voters had a positive impression of Schaaf, in accordance with the chamber ballot. By October, that had plummeted to 35%. The Metropolis Council as we speak is equally unpopular.
Come January, Thao, as the brand new mayor, and her labor allies on the council will not have the ability to use Schaaf as their political foil to cover their very own failures to handle the town’s issues. They are going to now be absolutely in cost and accountable.
In the meantime, with Schaaf gone, extra politically reasonable residents who as soon as backed her and this yr subscribed to Taylor’s pragmatic progressive strategy have nearly no illustration or political group to fall again on. And the enterprise group should resolve whether or not it needs to unify to be a potent drive within the metropolis’s electoral politics or grow to be irrelevant.
Until the 2 teams can in some way coalesce, labor leaders will proceed to fill the political vacuum.
