Don Perata: Message to City Council: Instant Runoff Voting: Protect Our Civil Rights

This guest post was written by Don Perata, who was the President pro Tem of the California State Senate from 2004-08. He chaired the Senate Elections and Redistricting Committee in 2001 charged with protecting the Voting Rights Act when drawing congressional and legislative districts following the 2000 census. There were no allegations of minority voting [...]

Rules for running for Mayor of Oakland – Rule #3

A couple weeks ago, I started a new series about rules for running for Mayor of Oakland. Today I’ll share the third rule and will continue with this series in the coming weeks and months.
Rule #3: Do not do anything that is or appears to be illegal or unethical

Sounds pretty obvious, right? I thought so [...]

November 9-15 Oakland Political & Community Events

Monday, November 9th – Town Hall with Mayor Dellums and Police Chief Batts

Come hear Mayor Dellums and Chief Batts share their vision of public safety. Topics include:

Mayor Dellums — public safety strategy: PIES (Prevention, Intervention, Enforcement, Sustainability)
Chief Batts — vision for the Oakland Police Department
Crime statistics: crime is down double digits citywide,but more must be [...]

What’s going on with instant runoff voting? Registrar Dave MacDonald explains… sort of

Last night, Alameda County Registrar of Voters Dave MacDonald came to the Alameda County Democratic Central Committee meeting to discuss instant runoff voting (IRV), which is a hot topic in Oakland right now.
MacDonald started off by making it very clear that he wasn’t taking sides on IRV, but that the Registrar was just implementing what [...]

Rules for running for Mayor of Oakland – Rules #1 & #2

I know I announced a few weeks ago that I was taking a break from blogging, but I expected to be back in the full swing of things this week. Little did I know how difficult it was to start blogging once you’ve stopped! I have a couple posts I’m working on, but they involve [...]

Scott Haggerty, Democrat?!

Yesterday, I was speaking to a colleague about the resignation of the District Attorney and the appointment process when he mentioned Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty switching parties to become a Democrat.
“What?!,” I responded, sure that I must have misheard him
But I had not. At the annual Labor Day picnic that the Alameda Labor Council [...]

August 10-16 Oakland Political & Community Events

Monday, August 10th – East Bay Young Dems Confab & Endorsement Meeting

Join East Bay Young Dems to review the U.S. Congressional District 10 candidates’ questionnaire responses, engage in lively debate (we always do!), and vote to back one lucky political player with our club endorsement. A 60% threshold among voting, current dues-paying members is [...]

Oakland Updates: Election, Budget, OAC, Parking, and ACT

Though a ton has been happening in Oakland this week, I’ve unfortunately been mostly unable to write about it, since I flew to LA after the MTC meeting and have been absurdly busy ever since. Luckily, others have covered the important stuff, so I thought I’d take a few moments to highlight what’s been going [...]

July Parties Part 1: Political Mixers

Though I post a list of Oakland events nearly every Sunday, I know that they’re sometimes a bit overwhelming and important events can get lost in the mix. So I wanted to highlight a few events in the next couple days. Today, I’ll be covering two parties that are political in nature but should also [...]

Oakland Blogger Showdown: Living in the O vs. A Better Oakland

OK, so the title of this post might be a bit misleading. V Smoothe and I won’t be duking it out in the Thunderdome or anything like that. But we are two of the three finalists for the Best of the East Bay best blogger award.
I hadn’t realized this previously, but East Bay Express is [...]