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      From homeless to city hall: the Hmong American mayor making history in Oakland

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      From homeless to city hall: the Hmong American mayor making history in OaklandSheng Thao says her experiences will help her lead the city through its severe housing crisis At the steps of city hall, surrounded by supporters and a gaggle of press, Oakland’s new mayor-elect Sheng Thao exhaled.“It’s been a long journey,” she began. “We’ve been through a lot to get to this moment right here.”Just 15 years ago, Thao was living in her car with her infant son. She had just escaped an abusive relationship and had nowhere to go. This week Thao, 37, became the first Hmong American woman to lead a major US city, the youngest Oakland mayor in 75 years and the first renter to hold the position.“There have been so many people in this beautiful city that have held our hands and lifted us up,” she said on Wednesday, in her first press conference since her history-making victory.The daughter of of refugees who fled Laos during a genocide, Thao was born and raised in Stockton, California, the seventh of 10 children. She left home at 17, and in her early 20s fled an abusive partner while pregnant with her son Ben. She spent months sleeping in her car or on stranger’s couches before she was able to secure a shelter.Now, as she steps into the role of mayor, Thao said her experiences with poverty and homelessness will help her lead the city through its own severe housing and homelessness crisis, and increasing gun violence. Over the past five years, Oakland saw a steeper rise in homelessness than any other city in the Bay Area.While many other Democratic midterm candidates across the state and country have responded to voters’ worries about homelessness and community violence with harsh, tough-on-crime rhetoric, Thao has promised policies that will treat unhoused people with dignity and investment in public health and violence prevention programs.Thao’s victory is a sign that voters “don’t want to vilify and punish poor people”, said Aimee Allison, founder of She the People, a national network elevating the political power of women of color.Allison, who lives in Oakland, said she has known Thao since she was an intern for Oakland vice-mayor Rebeecca Kaplan. Thao eventually became Kaplan’s chief of staff, before successfully running for city council herself. “Her values are clear,” said Allison. “It makes her very popular amongst lots of different people, because they feel seen and heard with her.”And Thao has built a long reputation of community involvement and action. At UC Berkeley, she organized the Bear Pantry – named after the university’s mascot – which collected food donations from local restaurants and grocers to help feed students in need. While working for Kaplan, she created a food delivery program for seniors and homebound residents. And amid the pandemic, she helped establish a mutual aid collective to distribute masks, hand sanitizer and public health information to underserved communities.“Sheng is a down to earth candidate who actually knows what it’s like for people who are marginalized in this city,” said Pamela Drake, a local activist who advised Thao’s campaign. “She’s not as progressive as I am,” Drake said. “I won’t always agree with her. But I do think what she’ll do is listen. And she won’t just ignore the people that are really in need.”Thao has hopes to see at least 30,000 new housing units built over the next eight years, provide safe RV parking sites for those who live in their vehicles and trash and sanitation services for encampments. Ultimately, Thao said, she wants the city to offer “adequate housing and shelter to all 3,300 unhoused residents in Oakland” over two four-year terms. She has also suggested stronger protections for renters, including rent controls, to keep people from ending up unhoused in the first place.The proposals had earned her the support of social justice group Oakland Rising, as well as a coalition of unhoused Oaklanders and homelessness advocates.To address public safety issues, Thao said she would like to fill vacancies in Oakland’s police force, which has been under federal oversight for nearly two decades following a corruption scandal. But she said she would also like to see more investment in education and violence prevention programs.In a ranked-choice election, she narrowly secured a victory by just 682 votes over the more moderate Democratic frontrunner Loren Taylor after nearly two weeks of ballot counting. Thao’s victory is considered something of an upset; while she had the backing of the local Democratic party, labor unions and progressive figures including California congressman Ro Khanna, her opponent Taylor was endorsed by key figures in Bay Area politics including Oakland’s outgoing mayor Libby Schaaf and San Francisco mayor London Breed.She is one of several newly elected progressive officials in Oakland, which will have a progressive majority in city council starting next year. And progressive civil rights attorney Pamela Price became the first Black district attorney of Alameda county, with encompasses Oakland.“We finally have the opportunity for progressive policies and changes to actually happen for the city,” Allison said.TopicsOaklandCaliforniaUS politicsUS midterm elections 2022DemocratsfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Los Angeles mayor hopefuls Karen Bass and Rick Caruso locked in tight race

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      Los Angeles mayor hopefuls Karen Bass and Rick Caruso locked in tight raceThe margin of votes between the Democratic congresswoman and billionaire developer remains too close to call A billionaire real estate developer and a Democratic congresswoman are still locked in a tight race to become the next mayor of Los Angeles, in a record-breaking campaign where political spending topped $120m.US midterm elections 2022: Senate remains tight as ‘red wave’ fails to materialize – liveRead moreOn Wednesday morning, the margin of votes between Rick Caruso and Karen Bass was still too close to call, with the candidates virtually tied, the Associated Press reported.Caruso was ahead by 12,000 votes on Wednesday morning local time, with nearly 80% of expected votes remaining to be counted.Bass told supporters at her election party that the vote counting could take days, but added: “We will win, because we are going to build a new Los Angeles.” Caruso told his crowd: “We don’t know the outcome yet, but I’m happy to say that we’re starting out strong.”In another closely watched LA race, the incumbent county sheriff, Alex Villanueva, was trailing his opponent, the former police chief of the city of Long Beach Robert Luna. Villanueva, a Democrat who took a hard turn to the right since his election in 2018, has been derided by some as the “Donald Trump of LA” due to a steady stream of controversies surrounding obstruction, abuse and misconduct cases.Both nominally Democrats, Bass and Caruso come from starkly different backgrounds, and their down-to-the-wire contest comes at a particularly fraught time for Los Angeles.The region’s homelessness crisis has become a humanitarian catastrophe, with LA county recording 69,000 unhoused people in this year’s annual estimate, considered an undercount, including more than 48,000 living outside.During the campaign, Caruso made it clear he would like to roll back some criminal justice reforms in order to impose tougher penalties for theft, and suggested he would be willing to arrest unhoused people who were unwilling to move into shelters.City government is also in crisis. Recordings leaked last month captured three councilmembers, including the council president, making bigoted and racist remarks about Black, Indigenous, Jewish, Armenian and gay people while discussing redistricting. The closed-door remarks of the three Latino councilmembers included derogatory statements about the Black toddler of another councilmember and offensive stereotypes about Oaxacans in Los Angeles.The scandal sparked international outrage and exposed longstanding racial tensions and anti-Black racism of some lawmakers in a city that is roughly 50% Latino and 9% Black. The leaks captured the three moderate Democrats deriding progressives and crudely discussing their efforts to reduce the power of renters and their Black colleagues in the redistricting process, prompting a state investigation.If she wins, Bass, who rose to a position of influence in Congress after decades as a community organizer in Black and Latino neighborhoods, would be Los Angeles’ first female mayor and its second Black mayor.While Bass has a long track record of building multiracial coalitions, including in times of political crisis, she is also the candidate of the city’s Democratic establishment, and was backed by some of the Latino politicians whose leaked comments portrayed them as primarily interested in preserving their own personal power.With an estimated net worth of $5.3bn, Caruso, who developed some of Los Angeles’ most beloved luxury malls, presented himself as an outsider businessman with the skills to clean up corruption in city government and disorder in the city streets. He outspent Bass by more than 10 to one, pouring more than $100m of his own money into an election that shattered previous campaign finance records in the city.Los Angeles’ rising Latina leader on the fallout from leaked racist tapes: ‘They took us back decades’Read moreCaruso’s campaign ran “the best-funded and -focused Latino get-out-the-vote effort in the history of Los Angeles”, implementing a strategy that more leftwing Latino activists and academics had been urging candidates to deploy for years, political scientist Fernando Guerra said.During the general election, Caruso’s campaign poured millions into on-the-ground paid canvassing efforts in Latino neighborhoods, Guerra said, with young Latino and Latina canvassers presenting Caruso as a champion of small businesses and as the product of an immigrant success story, whose Italian American family had roots in Boyle Heights, now a predominantly Latino neighborhood.Caruso generated mockery and criticism during a campaign debate when he disputed a description of himself as a white man by calling himself “Italian”, and said, “That’s Latin.”TopicsCaliforniaLos AngelesDemocratsUS politicsUS midterm elections 2022newsReuse this content More

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      US states vote to protect reproductive rights in rebuke to anti-abortion push

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      US states vote to protect reproductive rights in rebuke to anti-abortion pushVermont, Michigan and California deliver blows to Republican agenda bent on dismantling the right to choose

      US midterm election results 2022: live
      US midterm elections 2022 – latest live news updates
      Voters in multiple states passed measures to enshrine the right to abortion during Tuesday’s midterm elections, delivering a rebuke to the crackdown on reproductive freedoms taking place across the US.In Michigan, abortion rights campaigners declared victory on a ballot initiative looking to secure a constitutional right to abortion, meaning the state will now escape the imposition of a 1931 abortion ban that was on the books.JD Vance wins Ohio Senate race by wider margin than predictedRead moreThe state is the first in the US to fight off a pre-existing abortion ban with a ballot proposal, called Proposal 3, in a move that campaigners across the country see as a possible road map for other states.“Proposal 3’s passage marks an historic victory for abortion access in our state and in our country – and Michigan has paved the way for future efforts to restore the rights and protections of Roe v Wade nationwide,” Darci McConnell, the communication director for Reproductive Freedom For All, wrote in a statement, announcing the news after it was called by ABC and NBC.The news broke as other US states too saw victories for abortion rights initiatives.Vermont became the first state in America to protect abortion rights in its state constitution just before Michigan, calling their result on Tuesday after its voters resoundingly backed a ballot initiative by a huge margin. And in California, voters were on track to overwhelmingly pass a measure to enshrine into the state’s constitution the right to an abortion and contraception.“Vermont voters made history tonight,” said the Vermont for Reproductive Liberty Ballot Committee, which campaigned for the amendment, according to local news. All votes had not yet been counted at 11pm ET, but the yes campaign was leading by 77% to 22%.“Vermonters support reproductive freedom in all four corners of the state … and they believe that our reproductive decisions are ours to make without interference from politicians,” the committee said in a statement.In Vermont, the outcome was always expected, in a New England state so pro-choice that even the Republican governor backed Proposal 5. The proposal, brought by pro-choice advocates, means the constitution now determines that an “individual’s right to personal reproductive autonomy is central to the liberty and dignity to determine one’s own life course”.California’s Proposition 1, meanwhile, was positioned as a direct response to the US supreme court’s decision that overturned decades of established access and thrust the country into turmoil. Voter’s decisive support for Prop 1 will further enhance the state’s reputation as a haven for reproductive care just as restrictions – and political divisions – deepen across the country.The state’s governor, Gavin Newsom – who won re-election on Tuesday with a large majority – joined in the celebrations at a Prop 1 rally.Gavin Newsom speaking now at Proposition 1 rally, which is poised to pass by a huge margin to enshrine right to abortion in California constitution: “We affirmed we are a true freedom state.”— Ashley Zavala (@ZavalaA) November 9, 2022
      “Governor Newsom made it clear that he wants California to be visible as a haven for people seeking reproductive healthcare and Proposition 1 is part of that,” said constitutional law professor Cary Franklin, who also serves as Faculty Director of the Center on Reproductive Health, Law, and Policy at the University of California Los Angeles. “It will get media attention and people will be made more aware that California is a place they can go.”The measure had been expected to easily pass, and analysts said support for reproductive rights could draw even more women and young people to the polls, which could play positively for Democrats in California’s conservative pockets.These wins deliver more blows for Republicans who are increasingly finding that, when put to a vote, Americans frequently do not agree with a sweeping agenda to dismantle abortion rights.So far, the anti-abortion movement has relied on judges, state houses and Republican lawmakers to curtail reproductive rights.But since the supreme court dismantled the constitutional right to abortion on 24 June, pro-choice advocates are increasingly looking to ballot initiatives as a way of shoring up rights. The anti-abortion movement suffered a huge blow over the summer when Kansas – a usually reliably red state – slammed down a proposal brought by the Republicans, looking to confirm there was no right to abortion in the state constitution.In Michigan the mood was already jubilant at the yes campaign’s watch party before they called the result, with voters screaming loudly, banging on tables and whooping in support of local voters, doctors and speakers from the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood.“My name is Nicholas, and I live in Ingham county,” one campaigner took to the stage to say. Speaking about him and his girlfriend, he added: “We knocked on over 1,500 doors and walked over a hundred miles, talking to neighbors who – like the rest of us here – agree this is a fundamental right,” to screams and cheers.Nicole Wells Stallworth, executive director at Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan later added: “We are living in a time like no other. The US supreme court did something they have never done: They reversed Roe. They tried it. And as such, we needed a campaign like none other. This campaign turned out to be just that.”TopicsAbortionUS midterm elections 2022US politicsVermontRoe v WadeCalifornianewsReuse this content More