In a display of political hypocrisy spectacular even by the standards of Oakland’s septic politics, mayoral candidate Loren Taylor is being falsely accused of supporting police defunding by the same people who championed that cause a few years ago.
Oaklanders will vote Tuesday to elect a replacement for former Mayor Sheng Thao, who was recalled last year and indicted on criminal charges in January. Taylor’s opponent, former Congresswoman Barbara Lee, is heavily supported by unions representing Oakland city workers. For the unions, the election is critical. Whoever becomes mayor will be forced to make hard decisions about the city’s budget as Oakland faces the prospect of bankruptcy.
“Loren Taylor was for defunding the police,” screams one prominent mailer sent by outside groups that support Lee’s candidacy. “Now he claims he was always against It?” The mailer was paid for by the California Nurses Association, IFTPE Local 21, and SEIU 1021; the latter two represent city workers with contracts that expire this summer.
The truth is that Taylor, a moderate former city councilmember who represented high-crime neighborhoods in East Oakland, has consistently opposed cutting the Oakland Police Department’s budget, even when that was politically unpopular. And the politicians who fought zealously to cut OPD’s budget were close allies of the same unions that are now lambasting Taylor.
If elected, Taylor would likely balance the needs of city workers against the dire threat of fiscal insolvency. By contrast, Lee, backed by millions in union campaign support, would be under immense pressure to protect city jobs and salaries — potentially at the expense of essential services for residents further down the road. The stakes couldn’t be higher for Oaklanders. The next mayor will decide whether their tax dollars go toward maintaining city jobs and benefits or addressing the city’s spiraling crime rate and crumbling infrastructure. The sad reality of the fiscal situation is that, in many cases, Oaklanders will not be able to have both.
Thus, the unions backing Lee are doing everything possible to demonize Taylor, including accusing him of what they themselves are guilty of.
Five years ago, Oakland politicians were tripping over one another to prove their commitment to reducing the police presence in U.S. cities. Nikki Fortunato Bas, a city councilmember at the time, proposed cutting the OPD budget in half. The recalled mayor Thao, before she reconstructed herself as a law-and-order candidate in time for the 2022 race, voted as a councilmember in 2021 to cut the OPD budget by $18.4 million.
Then crime soared, and past support for gutting the already understaffed OPD became a political liability. Now, the same groups that rallied behind Thao, Bas, and others who wanted to cut the OPD budget are lining up behind Lee; hence, the ferocity of their false attacks against Taylor.
The campaign mailer accuses Taylor of cochairing a City Council task force that aimed to cut the OPD budget by 50%, and of voting for a city budget that cut $14.3 million. This is factually true but omits crucial context. In July 2020, Taylor joined the progressive Bas on the Reimagining Public Safety Task Force in an attempt to moderate the $50 million Bas wanted to hack from the police budget. Taylor actually protected Oakland by reducing these cuts to “only” $14.3 million, far less than 50% of the budget.
The same unions now attacking Taylor on Lee’s behalf were enthusiastic supporters of Thao and the actual ringleader of the defund movement, Bas. The California Nurses Association, IFTPE Local 21, and SEIU 1021 backed Bas’ City Council run in 2018 and her campaign for Alameda County supervisor last year. They also backed Thao’s mayoral run and fought her recall — which didn’t stop them from releasing another dishonest mailer that tries to associate Taylor with the disgraced former mayor.
The political operatives behind these attacks must know that Taylor has long fought efforts to cut the Oakland police budget. Indeed, his opposition inspired defund supporters to protest outside his family’s house in 2020. Even better known than his opposition to defunding the police is his long and bitter enmity with Thao, who, with massive support from the unions that are now backing Lee, defeated him for mayor in 2022 by fewer than 700 votes.
None of this dishonesty should necessarily reflect on Lee herself. The labor effort on her behalf is an independent expenditure campaign; these can raise unlimited money but are legally barred from coordinating with the candidates they support. Thus, Lee has no input on the tactics being deployed on her behalf. They’re just being done in her name.
Oakland’s next mayor will have to make some consequential decisions on how to keep the city solvent. In many cases, the interests of city workers and regular Oakland residents are in direct conflict, and the mayor will have to choose between them.
This is the moment when those stakeholders can put their thumbs on the scale. Whoever becomes Oakland’s next mayor will owe special consideration to the groups that helped secure that election. The most important question for Oaklanders isn’t who the next mayor will be but to whom that mayor is beholden.
Leighton Woodhouse is an independent journalist and documentary filmmaker in Oakland. He writes the Substack newsletter Social Studies.