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The Richmond, California 2006 city election decided the mayor, four council members, and one measure submitted to the voters of Richmond, California on November 7, 2007. [1] The election also elected the first Green Party mayor of this city, and made Richmond the largest city in the United States to have a Green mayor. [2] Furthermore, it unseated an incumbent mayor from a major political party by one from a minor third party.
The mayor's race was a three-way contest between incumbent mayor Irma A. Anderson, former council member Gary Bell (both Democrats), and council member Gayle McLaughlin, a Green. In 2004, McLaughlin had become the first member of the Green Party to win a seat on the Richmond city council. This is attributed to her door-to-door campaigning and the fact that ballots for Richmond city offices do not mention political party. McLaughlin won with 37.2 percent of the votes, followed by Anderson with 36.1 and Gary Bell 26.1. [1] [2] becoming the first Green mayor of a major California city (a feat nearly achieved by Matt González in the 2003 San Francisco mayoral election). Those who decided to vote by mail had to pay an additional US$.63 instead of having it mailed for free as is the custom. [3]
McLaughlin was endorsed by councils and local chapters of several labor unions including: the AFSCME, International Union, and SEIU. Organizations such as the Sierra Club, local Green Parties, Richmond Greens, Alameda County Greens, Contra Costa County Greens, and political groups such as the Mexican American Political Association (MAPA), the Richmond Progressive Alliance were among McLaughlin's supporters. [4]
Irma Anderson, the prior mayor of Richmond, was endorsed by Dianne Feinstein, Phil Angelides, Loni Hancock, and John Gioia.
Gary Bell, a banker, had been a council member from 2000 to 2005. He said it was important that residents "feel that their opinion or point of view is heard". [5] His campaign slogan was "No more politics".
2006's election was considered important because it was the last election for a nine-member council. As of the 2007 election, the number of council members decreased to five.
The results for the four-year seats were as follows:
Jim Rogers 9,295 [1] María T. Viramontes 9,033 [1] Ludmyrna "Myrna" López 7,864 [1] (these three were elected)
Courtland "Corky" Boozé 7,382 [1] James "Jim" Jenkins 4,825 [1] Richard Griffin 4,678 [1]
Tony Thurmond was unopposed in running for a short (2-year) term for a vacancy created by a resignation. [1]
There was only one measure on the ballot that year. In the past several elections, the city's voters had been reluctant to pass any measures at the city level.
Measure T was designed to raise funds for city services in Richmond, California. The measure's purpose was to raise $10 million in additional annual revenue for the purpose of hiring fifty additional police officers, expanding community programs and youth crime prevention, and to serve as a general city tax code overhaul. It proposed adding a 1/8% manufacturing tax on raw materials used in manufacturing. More controversially, the taxation of rental units would change from a flat $247 annual fee to a fee of $35–$90 per residential unit and a 3 cents per square foot tax on non-residential units. Measure T would have also increased the business tax by 10% and made small adjustments to other business taxes, such as those for arcade games. It was supported by the Richmond Police Department including Chief Rupf and several neighborhood councils. Chevron, which has a large Chevron Richmond Refinery, opposed the measure. Under the Measure T provisions, Chevron would pay eight of the desired ten million dollars. A few local taxpayer organizations also opposed the measure. It was defeated by a ratio of approximately two to one.
The Green Party of the United States (GPUS) is a federation of Green state political parties in the United States. The party promotes green politics, specifically environmentalism; nonviolence; social justice; participatory democracy; grassroots democracy; anti-war; anti-racism; libertarian socialism and eco-socialism. On the political spectrum, the party is generally seen as left-wing.
Richmond is a city in western Contra Costa County, California, United States. The city was incorporated on August 7, 1905, and has a city council. Located in the San Francisco Bay Area's East Bay region, Richmond borders San Pablo, Albany, El Cerrito and Pinole in addition to the unincorporated communities of North Richmond, Hasford Heights, Kensington, El Sobrante, Bayview-Montalvin Manor, Tara Hills, and East Richmond Heights, and for a short distance San Francisco on Red Rock Island in the San Francisco Bay. Richmond is one of two cities, the other being San Rafael, that sits on the shores of both San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay.
The Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA) is a community/political group in Richmond, western Contra Costa County, California, United States. Its mission is to unite the left regardless of political party and was founded by Gayle McLaughlin and Marilyn Langlois.
Gayle McLaughlin is an American politician from Richmond, California. She was first elected to the Richmond City Council in 2004 when she was a member of the Green Party of California. She won two consecutive four-year terms as the city's mayor in 2006 and 2010. After reaching the mayoral term limit, she was reelected to the City Council in 2014. In June 2017, she announced her candidacy for lieutenant governor of California in the 2018 election.
The Maine Green Independent Party is a state-level political party affiliated with the Green Party of the United States. It is the oldest state green party in the United States. It was founded following an informal meeting of 17 environmental advocates, including Bowdoin College professor John Rensenbrink and others in Augusta, Maine in January 1984. From 1994 to 2006, the party's gubernatorial nominees received between 6% and 10% of the vote.
The Australian Greens Victoria, commonly known as the Victorian Greens or just as The Greens, is the Victorian state member party of the Australian Greens, a green political party in Australia.
The Green Party of California (GPCA) is a California political party. The party is led by a coordinating committee, and decisions are ultimately made by general assemblies. The GPCA is affiliated with the Green Party of the United States (GPUS).
The 2006 United States elections were held on Tuesday, November 7, 2006, in the middle of Republican President George W. Bush's second term. Democrats won control of both houses of Congress, which was the first and only time either party did so since the 1994 elections. These elections were widely categorized as a Democratic wave.
Irma L. Anderson was the elected mayor of the city of Richmond, California serving between 2001 and 2006. She ran for re-election as the incumbent Democrat in the 2006 mayoral race and lost to Green Party challenger councilperson Gayle McLaughlin by 192 votes.
Jim Rogers is an American politician. He served on the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors in the 1990s, and was a city council member for the city of Richmond, California for three terms. He was first elected to the city council in 2002, and his final term expired in January 2015. He is a Democrat, considered a moderate, and has also been referred to as a progressive. He was called the San Francisco Bay Area's most famous lawyer because of television ads in which he dubbed himself as "The People's Lawyer".
The Green Party of the United States originated in 1984 when 62 people from the U.S. gathered in St. Paul, Minnesota and founded the first national Green organization - the Committees of Correspondence. The Green Party of the U.S. has gone through several evolutions, from debating theory and praxis in the 1980s, to starting state parties in the 1990s, to the founding of a national political party in the 2000s.
The Richmond City Council is the governing body for the city of Richmond, California. The council consists of the Mayor of Richmond and six other city council members, one designated Vice Mayor. The council members are all elected from the whole city; no members are elected by district or ward. The council members are elected to four-year terms, as opposed to the previous six-year terms. They are not all elected at once. The council members meet every first and third Tuesday of the month and, if necessary, hold special meetings on the remaining Tuesdays. Presently the entire city council is Democratic.
John E. Márquez is an American politician and activist who has held various positions in Richmond, California city government. For eighteen years, Márquez served as a city councilman. He was the first Latino to serve on the Richmond City Council. Originally he was an appointee to the council in 1985 and won an election to that seat in 1987; he subsequently lost his second bid in 1991. He was elected again in 1993 and twice more in 1997 and 2004. In 1990 and 1998, he served as vice mayor. Márquez was defeated for re-election in 2008, and lost a mayoral bid in 2001 to Gayle McLaughlin. In addition to his elected offices in the city of Richmond, he has held various other positions in Contra Costa County, California on various commissions.
Rosemary Corbin is a longstanding Democratic public figure and former mayor of Richmond, California.
Thomas King Butt is an American politician and architect and the former mayor of Richmond, California. He was vice-mayor in 2002 and 2012 and a member of the Richmond City Council for over 20 years before being elected mayor. He is the longest continuously serving council member in Richmond's history.
Harpreet Singh Sandhu is an Indian American politician and community activist from Richmond, California and one of the most prominent ones of the Sikh religion. He was the first Asian and the first Sikh city councilman in Richmond, and one of only a few Sikhs to hold office in the United States.
The Richmond, California 2014 city election decided the mayor, three council members, and one measure submitted to the voters of Richmond, California on November 4, 2014. The election attracted national attention due to the amount of money spent by Chevron both for and against various candidates. Chevron created two political action committees and contributed $2,933,363.90 to them amounting to a total of about $30 per city resident. The only other source of money for them was $5000 each from the Richmond Police Officers Association and the local Firefighter's union. As of October 10, they spent $1.4 Million supporting Nat Bates for mayor and Donna Powers, Charles Ramsey and Al Martinez for the city council. They spent a further $500,000 on negative campaigning against council candidates Gayle McLaughlin, Jovanka Beckles and Eduardo Martinez. The other major candidate for mayor, Tom Butt, had a campaign budget of just over $22,000.
The 2018 California lieutenant gubernatorial election was held on November 6, 2018, to elect the Lieutenant Governor of California. Incumbent Democratic Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom was ineligible to run for reelection due to term limits and ran for Governor of California instead. Democrats Eleni Kounalakis and Ed Hernandez faced each other in the general election, as no Republican finished in the top two positions of the nonpartisan blanket primary that was held on June 5, 2018.
