An interview with Richmond Progressive Alliance stalwart Gayle McLaughlin.
In 2006 Richmond, California became the largest city in the U.S. to elect a Green Party member as its mayor (a record it still holds). The successful candidate, who served eight years in that office, was Gayle McLaughlin, a leading critic of Chevron Corporation, the city’s largest employer and biggest polluter. McLaughlin co-founded the Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA) and is now an East Bay DSA member as well.
In 2004, she was the sole RPA representative on the council, long dominated by friends of Big Oil. In January 2025, that seven-member body will have a progressive-majority of four, including DSA-backed Vice-Mayor Claudia Jimenez, who was re-elected to the council this fall. Richmond’s current mayor is Eduardo Martinez, one of just seven city hall leaders in the country who belong to DSA.
In January, McLaughlin is stepping down from the Richmond City Council after winning every one of her five city-wide or council district races during the past two decades. California Red thought this would be a good occasion to ask her about the policy impact and political lessons of RPA-led municipal reform efforts in a majority-minority city of 115,000.
Here’s what Gayle had to say in a pre-election interview with fellow EBDSA member Steve Early.
California Red: Prior to your move to northern California from Chicago, what led to your involvement in progressive politics?
McLaughlin: I have long been and remain someone who feels a strong need to operate outside the Democratic Party. My parents (my dad, a union carpenter, and my mom, a former factory worker) generally voted Democrat but they were very disappointed in the results (or rather lack thereof). It basically caused them to not put much faith in politics. I, on the other hand, was drawn to independent politics during the Vietnam War era. Later, I learned a lot from Green Party candidates like Peter Camejo and Ralph Nader about how both major parties stand for corporate interests, not the people.
California Red: RPA candidates have won twice as many elections for city council or mayor as they have lost in the last 20 years. What has contributed to this electoral success?
My message for activists taking the plunge into municipal electoral work is this: you are capable of doing much more than you think! But it helps, as a candidate and office holder, to follow three rules:
1) Run with no corporate funding;
2) Identify root cause innovative solutions to the problems in your city and stick to your campaign promises, once elected;
3) Put power into the hands of the people by working side by side with the community to build a local movement for change.
For more specific information on what has worked in Richmond, California Red readers can check out this video, featuring the first-person stories of RPA candidates and campaign organizers.
California Red: Big Oil, Big Soda, Big Landlords, and other business interests have spent heavily on campaigns against progressive causes and candidates in Richmond. What is the antidote to their big money in politics?
McLaughlin: There is a growing disconnect between most elected officials and the majority of people they represent. A large part of the blame lies with a campaign finance system that unfairly stacks the deck in favor of corporations. Citizens United and other court rulings allowed corporations to rule the electoral field. Now a handful of wealthy special interests dominate political funding, often through super PACs and shadowy nonprofits that shield donors’ identities.
I would like to see more of a level playing field for candidates with corporate funding completely banned. I think public financing of campaigns is essential to counter big business influence.
Until that happens, public matching funds—a system that Richmond had in place for a number of years—can be helpful, as a way of incentivizing candidate reliance on small donors, rather than depending on larger, wealthier ones.
California Red: In Richmond, you’ve had to navigate a switch from city-wide at-large election of council members, when you first ran, to the district election system that exists now.
McLaughlin: Running a district campaign has both advantages and disadvantages. The advantages are that there are fewer voters to reach, so you connect with more of them, in an in-depth way, during your campaign. And that of course provides more opportunities for long-term relationship building.
However, once elected, you are expected to serve the whole city while also still advocating for your own district. While focusing on the needs of your own constituents, you sometimes need to remind them that there are five other districts that have neighborhood issues or problems too. Often, there are not enough public resources to address or solve all of them at once.
I have found that most Richmond residents understand this and, as long as their concerns are being heard and acted upon and their relationship with their councilmember is solid, they are willing to be patient.
California Red: This fall, Richmond had two ballot measures which sought to change its method of electing city council members and the mayor. Both received majority support among by the voters, but Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) got fewer votes (as of 11/15/24) than a proposed new system of run-off elections, favored by longtime foes of the RPA.
McLaughlin: I supported Ranked Choice Voting over holding run-off elections—when no single candidate gets a simple majority vote—for several reasons.
One is that run-offs are more expensive for both the city and candidates, because if the first-round winner in a crowded field only gets a plurality of the vote, another election is required. Second, many low-income residents do not vote in primaries.
Their lives are challenging and busy, due to their often holding two or three jobs, while raising a family. They will vote in November, but are often less engaged in any primary voting held earlier in the same year.
I think RCV is a better system. Voters simply rank their choices in one — the general election— so even if their first choice doesn’t get a majority of votes, their 2nd or 3rd choice, etc. can count and then emerge as the winner. This is the more democratic approach.
California Red: One of the challenges you’ve faced in Richmond is getting an infamous polluter to clean up its act and pay its fair share of taxes. What has that struggle been like over the years?
McLaughlin: Prior to my getting elected in 2004, previous members of the city council were under the thumb of Chevron who paid for their campaigns. Since then, we have organized many rallies, protests, meetings and other activities challenging the behavior of Richmond’s largest employer (although only about five to fifteen per cent of their workforce are Richmond residents), biggest business tax payer, and worst polluter.
This has led to a series of victories, which began with a $28 million settlement, in 2009. after a city audit of the refinery on its utility usage. Then, we rallied Richmond voters to pass a ballot measure, taxing large manufacturers in our city; this Measure T would have mainly impacted Chevron.
Per usual, the company sued the city, to avoid compliance, and won on a technicality. This forced us to gear up to pass a new ballot measure. In response to that, Chevron ultimately felt compelled to agree to a $114 million settlement in 2010. This helped fund many city services, including youth recreation programs and summer jobs.
For years Chevron also appealed its property tax rate, decided, in California, by the county. We held various rallies and packed the hearing room with community members outraged by this attempt to reduce its tax payments.
In 2012, a state appeals board ruled against Chevron and they ended up having to pay $27 million more in property taxes rather than get the refund they were seeking. Two years later, after another grassroots mobilization, we won a $90 million community benefits package as the price of city approval for a refinery modernization project.
In the current election cycle, a “Make Polluters Pay” campaign paved the way for Richmond’s latest financial settlement with Chevron—a $550 million payout over 10 years. This involved putting another tax measure on that ballot that, if adopted over strong company opposition, would have brought in more money over a longer period of time.
Based on our experience with Measure T, we knew that Chevron would tie the city up in a long and costly post-election court battle. But the threat of passage gave us the leverage to bring the company to the bargaining table again. It took years to get to this point. It took public education and mobilizing of the community, organized by progressives over the years, to keep this issue of Chevron paying its fair share of taxes, front and center.
California Red: How can other cities and towns make other polluters pay?
McLaughlin: Local Progress, a national network of progressive elected officials is now promoting similar taxation efforts elsewhere. Municipal leaders in other cities with heavily polluting industries should work with environmental justice groups, like we did, to build similar campaigns targeting other major corporations.
California Red: Public safety is one major area of improvement during the two decades you’ve been involved in Richmond politics. What policies and programs have had the most positive impact on reducing crime and violence?
McLaughlin: Last year, Richmond had its lowest homicide rate in more than 50 years. I attribute this to root cause solutions such as the Office of Neighborhood Safety (ONS). This is a now nationally admired and much copied program I introduced during my first year as mayor. ONS provides outreach teams that can go into neighborhoods and reduce violence before it happens, and becomes a police department matter. ONS provides young people with access to job training and placement, education programs, conflict mediation, and mentoring by previously incarcerated men and women who have turned their lives around and are giving back to the community.
We also put significant funding into employment and counseling services that steer our youth toward healthier lifestyles. More and more police is not the solution. Our whole goal has been to address root causes of violence by providing better social and economic opportunities for a diverse, low-income population..
California Red: Richmond has a council-appointed Community Police Review Commission (CPRC), which is empowered to investigate complaints about police misconduct. Do you have any advice about similar oversight boards in other cities?
McLaughlin: We made several changes to the CPRC over the years, including funding an independent investigator and requiring that he or she begin an immediate probe of any police-involved shootings that resulted in death or serious injury, without waiting for a citizen complaint to be filed.
Community groups are in the process of bringing additional recommendations to the Council for strengthening the CPRC. My advice to other cities is to build a grassroots coalition and start raising your voices for greater police accountability. In today’s world of more and more militarization, including of local police forces, we need stronger police oversight than ever.
California Red: Last Fall, Richmond council members quickly passed a unanimous resolution condemning the on-going military assault on Gaza. Why you think it’s important for local elected officials to address sometimes controversial “non-local” issues?
McLaughlin: We spend the bulk of our time and energy on local issues. But cities do not operate in a vacuum. We are all citizens of the world and are impacted by world affairs. We also live in the U.S. and are impacted by its foreign and military policies, when they divert critical resources from cities and communities, like ours, that are struggling.
So when some of our constituents’ hard-earned federal tax dollars are being spent on war and genocide, we, as local elected leaders, have a responsibility to take a stand. As Dr. King pointed out during the US military bombardment of Vietnam more than half a century ago, those bombs also “explode at home because they destroy the dream and possibility for a decent America.”
California Red: In 2018, you gave up your council seat for two years, to run for statewide office as a progressive independent. What was that campaign like?
McLaughlin: Running for Lt. Governor was an amazing experience. My campaign, in an open primary, involved grassroots out-reach to over a hundred groups throughout California.
As I traveled up and down the state, I championed single payer healthcare, free education, affordable housing and rent control, stopping pollution and oil drilling, and fair taxation of big business. My two major opponents–both Democrats—had millions of dollars in spending from corporations and big developers behind them.
While I didn’t end up on the general election ballot, we did get progressive activists and organizations, including DSA members, further energized and connected to one another throughout the state—which was our main goal.
After the primary, we formed a statewide network called the California Progressive Alliance (CPA). The CPA just held its annual convention in LA this year and still brings together local coalitions and alliances to run corporate-free candidates for local office, as we have done in Richmond.
California Red: Any final advice for California Red readers on electoral politics?
McLaughlin: People working together for a more sustainable and just world will not accomplish every goal in a single campaign season. This is a marathon, not a sprint.
Originally published in California Red.
To read more about how a working-class company town harnessed the power of local politics to reclaim their community, click here to purchase Refinery Town.
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