Plus: Democratic Party to vote on recall—and on Lurie’s upzoning plan. That’s The Agenda for August 24-31

By TIM REDMOND

AUGUST 24, 2025 (48hills.org)

The state Legislature barely had time to put a redistricting measure on the ballot when the first two mailers arrived at my house denouncing the plan as “unconstitutional gerrymandering” and a “politician power grab” that is “weakening our democratic process.”

Among the people quoted as appearing to reject the measure: Alex Lee, an assemblymember and chair of the Progressive Caucus, who told Politico in July that “trying to save democracy by destroying democracy is dangerous.” But Lee, along with nearly every Democrat, voted in favor of the new lines.

There’s no question this is a race to the bottom, a blatantly partisan move to elect more Democrats to Congress from California. It’s also one of the few ways opponents of Donald Trump (talk about destroying democracy …) can counter a blatantly partisan move by Trump’s allies to gerrymander districts in Texas to get more Republicans elected.

Here’s the interesting thing: The mailers appear to be funded by Charles Munger Jr, the son of a billionaire investor who portrays himself as a supporter of fair elections. He was a leading proponent of the 2010 law that created an independent commission to draw legislative and congressional districts in California.

The Hold Politicians Accountable committee, which paid for one of the mailers, hasn’t filed yet with the Fair Political Practices Commission. But Politico reports that Munger Jr. has already put up $10 million.

He will no doubt donate more.

Charles Munger Sr. was a partner with Warren Buffett in Berkshire Hathaway and a philanthropist. The younger Munger has donated millions to political candidates and causes—and most of his donations have gone to Republicans.

According to records on file with the Federal Elections Commission, he put $150,000 into Kevin McCarthy’s GOP Senate victory fund, $650,000 to the GOP Congressional victory fund, and is one of the biggest supporters of the Santa Clara County Republican Party. He has given millions to the “Spirit of Democracy” PAC which supports Republican candidate for local and federal offices.

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So we aren’t exactly talking about a nonpartisan good-government activist.

The Democrats have figured out that Munger’s nonprofit has given $158,000 to groups that oppose abortion rights and LGBTQ+ rights.

So I expect  to see another mailer soon saying that the person paying for the “protect democracy” ads is on the side of those who are helping Trump destroy democracy.

It’s going to be a wild and crazy fall.

The Democratic County Central Committee will vote Wednesday/27 on its endorsement in the recall of Sup. Joel Engardio. It will also consider a resolution opposing Mayor Daniel Lurie’s “Family Zoning Plan” unless it’s amended to protect existing vulnerable small businesses.

The recall vote has been delayed over the summer, apparently because the No side didn’t have the votes. Now, I am told, Todd David, the political consultant and director of Abundant SF, has been working behind the scenes to try to bring around members who are concerned that the recall is popular not just on the West Side but in the Chinese community.

Ballots have already arrived in mailboxes, and many have already been returned. So the party, by waiting until the last minute to take a vote, may have rendered its endorsement fairly meaningless. But if the DCCC votes No on the recall, Engardio’s campaign, which has essentially limitless money, will flood every registered Democrat’s mailbox and phone with the news.

On the other hand, West Side voters helped elect a billionaire-backed slate for the DCCC—and they may be a bit angry if that slate delivers a victory to Engardio.

The Lurie zoning plan will be a huge test for the DCCC, particularly (once again) for West Side voters. Upzoning neighborhoods is not popular in the single-family districts of the Richmond and the Sunset. The Small Business Commission has voted against the plan, which threatens community merchants. There’s growing opposition: The mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, is now against SB 79.

The Yimby grip on the local Democratic Party is strong; the billionaire slate was a Yimby slate. But a lot of the more conservative Democrats who supported these candidates don’t want to see bulldozers tearing down lowrise buildings occupied by neighborhood-serving merchants in the name of taller luxury housing.

The resolution, by former Sup. Gordon Mar, states that nearly one third of small businesses in neighborhood corridors (anbd as many as half along Geary) could face displacement under the plan. Mar is asking the the plan be amended to include “strong, enforceable protections” for small businesses.

The problem: The state won’t allow those protections. Wiener isn’t interested in including, say, commercial rent control or a right to return at the old rent if a building is demolished and rebuilt.

The meeting starts as 6:30pm at the Ruth Williams Bayview Opera House and will be streamed live (info here). Members of the public can show up for comments.

48 Hills welcomes comments in the form of letters to the editor, which you can submit here. We also invite you to join the conversation on our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. 

Tim Redmond

Tim Redmond has been a political and investigative reporter in San Francisco for more than 30 years. He spent much of that time as executive editor of the Bay Guardian. He is the founder of 48hills.

A demonstrator is seen at a “Hands Off!” protest against the Trump administration on April 5, 2025 in Riverside, California.

 (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

DOGE officials have been responsible for “serious data security lapses” that risk the safety “of over 300 million Americans’ Social Security data,” the whistleblower complaint said.

BRAD REED

Aug 26, 2025 (CommonDreams.org)

A new whistleblower complaint is alleging that employees of the Department of Government Efficiency put Americans’ Social Security data at risk by uploading it to a cloud server that was vulnerable to hacking.

The whistleblower complaint, which was filed by the Government Accountability Project on behalf of Social Security Administration (SSA) chief data officer Charles Borges, alleges that Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) officials have been responsible for “serious data security lapses” that “risk the security of over 300 million Americans’ Social Security data.”

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The report contends that Borges has evidence of a wide array of wrongdoing by DOGE employees, including “apparent systemic data security violations, uninhibited administrative access to highly sensitive production environments, and potential violations of internal SSA security protocols and federal privacy laws by DOGE personnel.”

At the heart of Borges’s complaint is an effort by DOGE employees to make “a live copy of the country’s Social Security information in a cloud environment” that “apparently lacks any security oversight from SSA or tracking to determine who is accessing or has accessed the copy of this data.”

Should hackers gain access to this copy of Social Security data, the report warns, it could result in identity theft on an unprecedented scale and lead to the loss of crucial food and healthcare benefits for millions of Americans. The report states that the government may also have to give every American a new Social Security number “at great cost.”

As noted by The New York Times, Borges did not document any confirmed breaches of the cloud system set up by the DOGE employees, but he did say that there have been “no verified audit or oversight mechanisms” to monitor DOGE’s use of the data.

Andrea Meza, director of campaigns for Government Accountability Project and attorney for Borges, said that her client felt he could not remain silent given the risk to Americans’ personal information.

“Mr. Borges raised concerns to his supervisors about his discovery of a disturbing pattern of questionable and risky security access and administrative misconduct that impacts some of the public’s most sensitive data,” she said. “Out of a sense of urgency and duty to the American public, he is now raising the alarm to Congress and the Office of Special Counsel, urging them to engage in immediate oversight to address these serious concerns.”

While DOGE was established with the stated goal of protecting Americans from waste and fraud in the US government—including at the SSA, which President Donald Trump has baselessly claimed wrongly sent benefits to hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants—former Labor Secretary Robert Reich said DOGE is “potentially exposing Americans to more” fraud.

Alex Lawson, executive director of the advocacy organization Social Security Works, blasted DOGE and its former leader, Tesla and SpaceX owner Elon Musk, for what he described as blatant theft.

“Elon Musk and his DOGE minions stole the American people’s private Social Security data,” said Lawson. “This was no accident. They come from Silicon Valley, where tech bros are furiously competing to see whose AI can gobble up the most data. Musk’s nearly $300 million in contributions to Trump’s campaign, along with buying Twitter and making it a de facto Trump campaign apparatus, were an investment—and now all of us are paying the price.”

The official Social Security Works account on X delivered a terse three-word response to the whistleblower report: “This is criminal.”

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BRAD REED

Brad Reed is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

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Protesters rally for overturning the US Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling in Washington, DC on the decision’s fifth anniversary. 

(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

“Corporate money has been a disaster for progressive nominees,” said Our Revolution board member Larry Cohen.

BRETT WILKINS

Aug 26, 2025 (CommonDreams.org)

Following years of pressure from progressive advocates, the Democratic National Committee’s resolutions panel on Tuesday unanimously approved a measure aimed at limiting dark money—undisclosed independent campaign contributions—in presidential primary elections.

The resolution, which was introduced by Chair Ken Martin, was approved during the DNC’s summer meeting in Minneapolis. The measure calls for creating a panel tasked with pursuing “real, enforceable steps the DNC can take to eliminate unlimited corporate and dark money in its 2028 presidential primary process.”

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Tuesday’s move stands in stark contrast with the DNC resolutions committee’s past refusals to allow a vote on a dark money ban.

Larry Cohen, a leading campaigner against dark money and board member of Our Revolution, an offshoot of Sen. Bernie Sanders‘ (I-Vt.) 2016 presidential campaign, told Common Dreams Tuesday that “corporate money has been a disaster for progressive nominees.”

“Crypto money and AIPAC knocked out at least three or four people we were all supporting,” Cohen noted, referring to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which along with its United Democracy Project (UDP) super PAC spent more than $100 million during the 2024 election cycle. AIPAC’s largesse played a key role in helping pro-Israel Democrats defeat former progressive Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) and Cori Bush (D-Mo.)—two of Congress’ most vocal critics of Israel’s genocide in Gaza—in Democratic primary contests.

“If this party blocks corporate money in the nominating process and blocks dark money, those are two great steps,” Cohen said, noting that the measure which passed Tuesday is “just a resolution of intent,” not an actual change to the party’s platform or a policy shift.

“The next step is [that] there will be a committee named that will talk about how we implement this for the 2028 presidential election, and that committee has to report back by the [DNC] meeting a year from now with specific implementation points,” Cohen explained.

“That could mean that every potential Democratic candidate for president must sign the People’s Pledge,” he said, referring to the agreement between then-US Sen. Scott Brown (D-Mass.) and challenger Elizabeth Warren in 2012 requiring candidates to offset spending by outside groups on their behalf.

“So if a candidate says, ‘well I had nothing to do with this, but the money got spent,’ in the People’s Pledge, the candidate who benefited, Scott Brown, had to make a charitable donation of the same amount of money,” Cohen said. “That would be an example of an implementation point.”

https://x.com/daveweigel/status/1960344056409506062?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1960344056409506062%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fdnc-dark-money-resolution

As for possible legislative solutions like the DISCLOSE Act—a campaign finance reform bill repeatedly torpedoed in Congress—Cohen said that he “wouldn’t give that too much weight because you have to change Congress.”

“We came close,” he said, but then-Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Az.) “blocked a rules change that would have put that bill on the floor with 50 supporters instead of 60… and now you have to imagine getting back to a time when [Democrats] will have 50 again.”

“So that’s in the resolution, there should be legislative change,” Cohen added, “but also in the resolution is that all elected Democratic officials should look at what they can do,” including at the state, county, and municipal levels.

“They can adopt rules to limit or eliminate the effectiveness of corporate, dark, and other independent expenditures, like Elon Musk money,” Cohen said in a nod of infamy to the world’s richest person, who spent upward of $290 million supporting President Donald Trump and other Republicans in 2024.

The US Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling, which allowed unlimited independent financial contributions to support political campaigns, unleashed a tsunami of dark money that has been used by billionaires and corporate interests to sideline progressive candidates and buy elections.

Since Citizens United, nearly $20 billion has been spent on US presidential elections and more than $53 billion on congressional races, according to data compiled by OpenSecrets. Spending on 2024 congressional races was double 2010 levels, while presidential campaign contributions were more than 50% higher in 2024 than in 2008, the last election before Citizens United.

The DNC’s action on dark money was overshadowed by its rejection of another resolution calling for a suspension of US military aid to Israel.

“This party keeps digging its own grave,” said attorney and organizer Asma Nizami. “And it’s owned by AIPAC.”

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Brett Wilkins is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

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Protesters gather to demand no abductions, no deportations, and arms embargo on Israel on April 12, 2025 in Chicago, USA.

 (Photo by Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“It’s another sign of just how out of touch Democratic Party leadership is today,” said one supporter of the resolution.

BRAD REED

Aug 26, 2025 (CommonDreams.org)

The Democratic National Committee on Tuesday voted down a resolution calling for a suspension of military aid to Israel in the midst of a famine in Gaza that is a direct result of Israel’s near-total blockade on humanitarian aid.

The resolution in question would have urged elected members to call for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza conflict, as well as an arms embargo on Israel. It also would have urged the recognition of Palestine as a state, following the examples of countries such as France and Australia, which have announced intentions to formally recognize Palestine next month.

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The resolution was rejected in a voice vote, with the “nays” strong enough to see it struck down. Five abstentions were recorded.

NOTUS reports that, in the wake of the resolution’s failure, DNC Chairman Ken Martin announced that he “was forming a task force to continue discussion of the issue, indicating that the committee planned to consider a new resolution about the issue at a later date.”

But following the declaration of famine in Gaza, and with US support for Israel clearly violating the country’s own laws—including Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act, which bars the US from providing military aid to countries that are blocking humanitarian aid—the rejection of the resolution incensed its supporters.

Sophia Danenberg, a delegate from Washington state who spoke in favor of the Israeli arms embargo resolution, said she believes Democratic voters “want to hear a louder, stronger statement, and this isn’t the time for subtlety.”

She acknowledged the atrocities committed by terrorist organization Hamas in its attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, but she said that this “does not justify the actions of this right-wing [Israeli] regime—massacring and starving and slaughtering the Palestinian people.”

Danenberg added that the DNC could be “losing the future of the Democratic Party by not being courageous” on the issue of Israel’s assault on Gaza, which has killed at least 62,819 Palestinians, orphaned tens of thousands of children, and created the world’s largest population of child amputees.

Margaret DeReus, the executive director of IMEU Policy Project, was even more scathing in her denunciation of the DNC for voting down the resolution and directly called out the influence of pro-Israel groups that have spent millions to defeat progressives like former Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), one of the first Democratic lawmakers to demand a ceasefire after Israel began its assault on Gaza in 2023.

“It’s another sign of just how out of touch Democratic Party leadership is today that dark money groups like [Democratic Majority for Israel]—that have spent millions in Democratic primaries to unseat progressives who stand for human rights for all people—were consulted ahead of DNC Chair Ken Martin’s decision to introduce his bland resolution, while advocates for Palestinian rights who represent most Democrats were once again shut out and ignored,” she said. “Sadly, this has been standard practice for a historically unpopular Democratic leadership that will not win elections until it decides to become a political party that actually listens to its voters.”

Organizer Asra Nizami noted that “members acknowledged getting hundreds of calls and emails” about supporting the resolution, but voted it down nonetheless.

“This party keeps digging its own grave. And it’s owned by AIPAC,” said Nizami, referring to the pro-Israel American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which donated more than $24 million to Democratic candidates in 2024.

As Common Dreams reported last month, public support for Israel’s US-backed bombardment of Gaza has plummeted in recent months, with just 8% of Democratic voters supporting the action.

Josh Ruebner, IMEU Policy Project’s policy director, accused Democrats of being “wildly out of touch with their base who overwhelmingly want to block bombs to Israel and end US complicity in its genocide of Palestinians as shown by poll after poll.”

James Zogby, founder and president of the Arab American Institute (AAI) and former member of the DNC executive committee, told Common Dreams that even though he had lobbied in favor of the resolution calling for the arms embargo, he was still pleased with the outcome of Tuesday’s meeting.

The DNC, Zogby said, had a discussion about the issue of Israel-Palestine that he said never heard before. He said that what Ken Martin did by withdrawing his resolution and instead creating a task force to discuss the issue further “remarkable” given the party’s historic position.

Zogby credited the heroic efforts by Allison Minnerly, the 26-year-old new DNC member from Florida who introduced the arms embargo, for her “incredible work” in bringing people together on the issue, generating many thousands of direct emails and calls to members of the resolution committee. The outcome was not what she and others hoped for, said Zogby, but Martin’s decision on the weaker of the two resolutions and the creation of the task force should be seen as a “big deal” and “incredible” progress in the fight for Palestinian rights inside the party.

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by JUNYAO YANG August 26, 2025 (MissionLocal.org)

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In the far northwest of San Francisco, it’s rare to find support for the city’s plan to increase density and height limits in the less-developed, yet “well-resourced” neighborhoods that dominate the west side of the city. 

But some 20 people at a Richmond District community meeting on Monday evening indicated YIMBYs may have a small toehold of support here. 

Yvonne Perez, a homeowner in the Richmond since 2017, said at the meeting that she understands her neighbors who are concerned about views being obstructed, or fear change. She used to be one of them. 

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“I wasn’t sure what to make of the upzoning plan. I didn’t want the Richmond to become downtown with all the high-rises,” she said. “But once I understood what it actually meant, more families, more younger generations, it changed my perspective.”

Now, she wants others to have a change of heart, too.

The Richmond is known for single-family homes and duplexes, and has seen limited development in the past decade: Only some 400 units were completed in the Richmond, while the Mission contributed more than 4,000 units. The city is mandated to build 82,000 housing units by 2031. 

In the past, at hourslong City Hall hearings, the majority of the hundreds of public speakers have opposed the upzoning plan. YIMBYs hope to change that.

The meeting, sponsored by the local YIMBY chapter Grow the Richmond, invited planning department staffers to present the city’s zoning plan and answer questions. The attendees asked: What’s the protection for tenants and small businesses? How much more population growth is expected? Is the infrastructure ready? 

Chuong Vu, a tenant in the Richmond, moved there from the Panhandle just three weeks ago with his wife and 8-month-old baby. They wanted to live in the Inner Richmond initially, but as the apartment search went on, he found himself going “west and west and west.” At an open house in the Inner Richmond, there were 20 other people in competition for a unit. 

“It was really hard to find housing,” Vu said, explaining why he attended the YIMBY meeting: He wants more density in the Richmond. “I don’t want to do this again the next time I look for housing.” 

That sentiment was echoed by others in the meeting. 

Lisa Chen, principal planner from the Planning Department, walked through the new zoning plan, cautioning the audience that the additional housing units won’t all immediately get built. Listening to Chen, Vu was concerned. 

“It’s not gonna do enough,” Vu said. On a zoning map handed out to the audience, only parcels along transit corridors would see increased height limits. “Why is it only directly on the transit lines? What about the adjacent lots?” 

“We are stuck in the 1950s,” one attendee said, cracking a joke about the one- or two-story buildings on Geary Boulevard. The crowd chuckled.

“Why isn’t the whole Richmond more orange?” another attendee asked, referring to the parts of the zoning map allowing for 85 feet, or eight stories. Only parcels along Geary Boulevard, Fulton Street and part of California Street were marked orange.

The height limit in the Richmond tops out at the corner of Geary and Arguello, at 140 feet or about 14 stories. But other parcels, like the ones that stretch along Balboa and Clement streets, are capped at just 65 feet, or six stories. 

“It’s been challenging,” Chen said to the audience, which was not her usual crowd in this part of town. “Every neighborhood we go to, there’s a lot of resistance to that idea of adding height. So we’ve been trying to just make sure that there’s no area that’s targeted more than another.” 

The Richmond has not been fertile ground for urbanism and the YIMBY movement. Residents by and large like its single-family homes, and they like to drive. 

In 2022, only 35 percent citywide voters supported Prop. I to bring cars back to John F. Kennedy Drive in Golden Gate Park, but 43 percent of District 1 voters supported it. Last year, though 54.7 percent of citywide voters favored closing the Upper Great Highway to cars, only 36 percent of District 1 voters did.

But Steven Shoemaker, the YIMBY volunteer organizer of the Monday meeting, is optimistic. 

“There may be more support for denser housing than people expected,” Shoemaker said. And even though it’s nice to hold events with people who agree with each other, he said, the next step is to leave the echo chamber. 

“What we want to do is create as many opportunities as we can to get the kind of pro-housing voice out there and create a different forum for those conversations,” he said.  

The neighborhood actually has a lot of renters: According to the 2023 American Community Survey, Inner Richmond is 58 percent renter-occupied, and Outer Richmond 53 percent.

“Our population is stagnant, and it is getting older,” she said. “I would love to see younger people being able to afford to live here and also to be more vibrant. We have so much potential here.” 

“Most people live in the Richmond, Sunset because they love the neighborhood character, and most people don’t want it to change,” said Steven Huang, who came to the meeting from his Sunset home. “But even if we do nothing, change still happens. So, how can we proactively make it continue to be a nice place to live?”

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The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy

Stephanie Kelton

A New York Times Bestseller
The leading thinker and most visible public advocate of modern monetary theory — the freshest and most important idea about economics in decades — delivers a radically different, bold, new understanding for how to build a just and prosperous society.

Stephanie Kelton’s brilliant exploration of modern monetary theory (MMT) dramatically changes our understanding of how we can best deal with crucial issues ranging from poverty and inequality to creating jobs, expanding health care coverage, climate change, and building resilient infrastructure. Any ambitious proposal, however, inevitably runs into the buzz saw of how to find the money to pay for it, rooted in myths about deficits that are hobbling us as a country.

Kelton busts through the myths that prevent us from taking action: that the federal government should budget like a household, that deficits will harm the next generation, crowd out private investment, and undermine long-term growth, and that entitlements are propelling us toward a grave fiscal crisis.

MMT, as Kelton shows, shifts the terrain from narrow budgetary questions to one of broader economic and social benefits. With its important new ways of understanding money, taxes, and the critical role of deficit spending, MMT redefines how to responsibly use our resources so that we can maximize our potential as a society. MMT gives us the power to imagine a new politics and a new economy and move from a narrative of scarcity to one of opportunity.

About the author

Stephanie Kelton

Stephanie Kelton is an American economist and academic. She is currently a professor at Stony Brook University and was formerly a professor University of Missouri–Kansas City.

Chair of billionaire-backed DCCC slate tries to sideline a measure opposing the sharing of license plate data with ICE

By TIM REDMOND

AUGUST 24, 2025 (48hills.org)

The chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party tried to sideline a resolution this weekend putting the state party on record urging California officials not to share license plate data with ICE.

Chair Nancy Tung was the only person at the state party’s executive committee meeting who asked that the resolution be taken off the consent calendar—a very unusual move.

In the end, she only got nine votes out of almost 300 members in attendance, and the resolution passed.

But David Campos, former SF supervisor and a party vice chair, told me her move sent a message: “The San Francisco Democratic Party is now the right wing of the state Democratic Party.”

The resolution came before the Executive Board of the state party Saturday. The Eboard is made up of ranking members of local county committees (along with a few top party officials).

The resolution was sponsored by Michelle Krug, who is the vice president of political action of San Diego Democrats for Equality. It wasn’t that controversial: It stated that automated license plate readers can collect a lot of data, and “present significant privacy and civil rights concerns, with data potentially accessible to federal immigration agencies, putting immigrant and marginalized communities at risk” and said that “The California Democratic Party opposes sharing automated license plate reader data with ICE and other federal agencies.”

These party resolutions, which don’t create enforceable legislation but do make clear where the party stands on key issues (and where the grassroots leaders think elected officials should stand) typically go through committees on the first day of the three-day meetings, and the ones that survive (many don’t) get to the full Eboard the final day.

They’ve already been vetted by party leaders, and anything that is out of the mainstream of party politics typically dies in committee. (I have seen this happy many times). Those that remain are on a consent calendar. It’s rare for anyone to pull one out and demand a roll call vote.

But that’s exactly what Tung did, saying, according to Campos, that sometimes cooperating with federal agencies around issues like human trafficking is helpful.

“But we have seen with this administration that sharing data with one federal agency means sharing it with ICE,” Campos told me.

Nobody would second her move except another San Francisco DCCC member, Josh Arce.

Under party rules, three people can speak against the resolution, and three for it. Nobody but Tung was willing to take her side.

So she lost, overwhelmingly. The resolution passed.

“But it’s sad to see where San Francisco is,” Campos said. After a billionaire-backed takeover of the local party, a city that used to be the heart of progressive politics in the state is now represented by a party chair who is willing to work with Donald Trump’s administration on law enforcement.

“It shows,” Campos said, “how out of step the San Francisco party has become.”

48 Hills welcomes comments in the form of letters to the editor, which you can submit here. We also invite you to join the conversation on our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. 

Tim Redmond

Tim Redmond has been a political and investigative reporter in San Francisco for more than 30 years. He spent much of that time as executive editor of the Bay Guardian. He is the founder of 48hills.

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Lee appeared in Minneapolis on Monday at the kickoff meeting for the Democratic National Committee, which is gearing up for battle with the Trump administration

by Eli WolfeAug. 25, 2025 .(Oaklandside.org)

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Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee joined heavyweights from the Democratic Party for a gathering in Minneapolis on Monday, where officials are mapping their next steps for fighting President Donald Trump.

On Monday, Lee gave a brief speech to Democratic officials who flocked to the Midwestern city for the first official meeting of the Democratic National Committee, which is the executive body that leads the Democratic Party and supports candidates throughout the country. Lee shared the room with major political figures, including Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar, and Minnesota State Senator John Hoffman, who, earlier this summer, was wounded by a gunman who had set out to assassinate dozens of Democratic elected officials. 

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The party, which is struggling with infighting and fundraising concerns, faces significant challenges, including an effort by Texas Republicans to redistrict Congressional maps to marginalize Democrats. The Democratic Party is also viewed as weak and ineffective by many Democratic-registered voters, according to a recent poll.

Democratic officials are trying to coalesce around a strategy to confront Trump, who in recent weeks has deployed the National Guard in D.C. and threatened to send troops to other Democratic strongholds to crack down on crime and support immigration raids.

Trump’s verbal attacks on cities run by Democrats — including Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and Oakland — have put mayors on the frontlines of this political battle, which may explain why Lee was brought in to address the party. 

Lee, who served nearly 30 years in the House of Representatives before running for mayor of Oakland, has become increasingly vocal in her criticism of Trump since the president claimed that Oakland and other cities are “so far gone” because of crime problems.

“Now Donald Trump, you know he trashed Oakland, he lied about us, but Oakland is not afraid,” Lee said in her speech on Monday. 

Lee said Oakland embraces its immigrant communities and that the city’s police department does not cooperate with ICE. Trump has threatened to withhold federal funding from cities that offer sanctuary to undocumented immigrants, and deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles to support ICE raids.

“We are resilient, we are diverse, and we’re unstoppable,” Lee said.

Noting that she’s been a member of the Democratic Party for a long time, Lee emphasized that the party “must win” its upcoming electoral fights.

“We must win for working families, for low-income families, for the poor, for poor families, for our youth, for the unsheltered, those who are struggling to pay for groceries, housing, healthcare, education, and yes, those under attack by Trump,” Lee said. “And yes, we have to fight for our reproductive freedom and protect our trans community and our LGBTQ+ community, and all those who are under attack by Trump.”

Lee spent part of her speech defending the progress of her administration, which is closing in on its first 100 days later this week. She shared recent statistics that show several categories of crime appear to be declining in Oakland. And she cited her administration’s success in securing millions of dollars from Alameda County to support unhoused people and affordable homes. 

Lee also bragged that Oakland is the “number one food city in America” and touted the city’s cultural outputs, from filmmaker Ryan Coogler to Tower of Power. She raised a fist when she said Oakland is the birthplace of the Black Panther Party, a group she once organized with.

Quoting Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress, Lee said, “You don’t make progress by standing on the sidelines… You make progress by implementing ideas.” 

ELI WOLFE

eli@oaklandside.org

Eli Wolfe reports on City Hall for The Oaklandside. He was previously a senior reporter for San José Spotlight, where he had a beat covering Santa Clara County’s government and transportation. He also worked as an investigative reporter for the Pasadena-based newsroom FairWarning, where he covered labor, consumer protection and transportation issues. He started his journalism career as a freelancer based out of Berkeley. Eli’s stories have appeared in The Atlantic, NBCNews.com, Salon, the San Francisco Chronicle, and elsewhere. Eli graduated from UC Santa Cruz and grew up in San Francisco.More by Eli Wolfe