Despite the election of 10 Latinas in Bay Area cities in 2018 and 2019, Latinx residents remain largely underrepresented in local politics.

With many businesses across the Bay Area forced to shutter due to the coronavirus pandemic, we are reminded of how disasters and public health emergencies, rather than impacting everyone equally, exacerbate preexisting inequities. San Francisco reports that Latinx residents make up 24 percent of confirmed COVID-19 cases but are only 15 percent of the county’s population. The health and economic inequities experienced by Latinx people in the region are matched by political exclusion. Latinx people represent one of the Bay Area’s fastest-growing racial/ethnic groups but remain severely underrepresented in local elected offices, according to our recent analysis of new data on the diversity of elected officials from 2018 and 2019.

Latinx people make up 24 percent of residents in the nine-county Bay Area — including 33 percent of Napa County— but just 10 percent of top local elected officials identify as Latinx. With 170 seats up for grabs in the 2018 and 2019 elections, the total number of Latinx local electeds in the region increased by 10— and all were Latinas. Despite this slight uptick, it was not enough to considerably improve Latinx political representation.

Some Bay Area cities, however, did improve on the representativeness of their top electeds, while others fell behind. This post shares key findings from our analysis of how the region’s 101 cities are doing on this measure, which is calculated based on difference between the share of Latinxs among top elected officials and the share of Latinxs in the total population. Note that the city electeds include both city council and county elected officials (supervisors and DAs) because county electeds also represent city residents. This means that the typical city/town has 11 electeds included in the analysis (five council members, five county supervisors, and one county district attorney).

Little Improvement Among the Cities with the Greatest Latinx Underrepresentation

The cities with the starkest Latinx underrepresentation are largely the same as they were two years ago, with a few exceptions. East Palo Alto, Colma, Oakley, and South San Francisco saw no changes and remain among the top five most underrepresented cities for Latinxs. East Palo Alto, where Latinx people make up 63 percent of the population, remains number one as just 18 percent of local elected officials identify as Latinx. The city of Colma, which is 45 percent Latinx, moved into number two as just one local elected identifies as Latinx. People who are Latinx similarly make up 35 percent of Oakley but lack any Latinx representation at the city or county level. In South San Francisco, 34 percent of the population is Latinx but there are no top elected Latinx officials.

Importantly, three cities among the top 20 with the least Latinx political representation — San Pablo, Cloverdale, and Gilroy — elected at least one Latinx local elected official and improved their Latinx representation. The city of Richmond, on the other hand jumped from number 16 to the fourth most underrepresented city for Latinx people as discussed in more detail below.

 

San Pablo and Cloverdale See Biggest Gains Followed by Gilroy

San Pablo dropped out of the top 3 most underrepresented cities with the election of vice-mayor Elizabeth Pabon-Alvarado, who unseated a sixteen-year incumbent. But the city still ranks eighth in underrepresentation, however, as Latinxs make up 61 percent of the city’s population but are just 27 percent of local electeds.

In the North Bay, the city of Cloverdale also dropped out of the top 10 cities where Latinos were most underrepresented down to number 19 as the city, which is 31 percent Latino, elected a Latina to the city council in 2018. In fact, Council Member Marta Cruz cited the fact that Cloverdale had no Latinx representation on the city council or school board as a reason for her running.

In 2019, Gilroy became the Bay Area city with the second-highest number of local elected Latinx officials with five Latinx representatives (after San Jose which has 6 and is well represented). Yet Gilroy remained in the rankings of the top 20 most underrepresented cities for Latinxs because those five representatives make up just 38 percent of all top local elected officials in a city that is 61 percent Latinx.

Richmond was One of Four Cities in the Region that Lost a Latinx Elected Official

Richmond jumped to the fourth most underrepresented for Latinx people as one young Latina council member did not win reelection leaving just one Latinx elected official on the seven-person council in 2019. Latinxs make up 42 percent of the city’s population but are now only 8 percent of city and county elected officials.

Only three other cities lost a Latinx local elected official from 2018 to 2020: Oakland, San Francisco, and Alameda. Among these cities, only Oakland retains at least one Latinx councilmember. Both San Francisco and the city of Alameda lack any Latinx representatives at the city or county level.

47 Cities in the Region Lack Any Latinx Representation 

The cities bolded in the chart above are notable because they do not have any Latinx elected officials at the municipal or county level despite having relatively large Latinx populations. Oakley, South San Francisco, Healdsburg, and Antioch are all 33 percent to 35 percent Latinx but lack Latinx representation entirely. Similarly, the cities of Concord and San Rafael, both roughly 30 percent Latinx, also lack any Latinx representation.

A Clear Need for Action

While representation does not ensure the passage of more equitable policies, it matters for political power. Local officials hold considerable power over the everyday lives of Bay Area residents, and they ought to reflect the diversity of the communities they serve. Improving on this indicator involves directly addressing the multiple barriers that hold Latinx residents back from running for political office whether they are economic, linguistic, institutional, or historic.

Even before the coronavirus epidemic, working-class people in the region were struggling to make rent, find affordable childcare, and secure living-wage jobs. The historic spike in layoffs and unemployment brought about by COVID-19 has only heightened economic insecurity. Many families are struggling to make ends meet and are focused on finding work and paying bills rather than increasing political involvement.

But political inclusion is a critical part of building a more equitable region and we, along with our partners at Bay Rising, lift up the following recommendations to move us toward just and fair inclusion into a region where all can participate and prosper:

• Local governments (cities, towns, and counties) should pass structural reforms including public campaign financing, like Berkeley’s program that provides candidates a 6-to-1 match on qualifying contributions of up to $50, and campaign finance reform to curtail corporate contributions, secret Super PACs, and “pay-to-play” politics.
• Local and national philanthropies and corporations should fund equity-oriented leadership development programs, like Urban Habitat’s Boards and Commissions Leadership Institute, that prepare people from underrepresented communities of color to effectively engage in public policy.
• Policymakers and funders should support voting reforms and civic engagement efforts that increase voter registration and turnout among underrepresented communities, especially in local elections.

Diversity of electeds data shows Asian and Pacific Islanders are 26% of Bay Area residents, but just 10% of local electeds.

The spike in discrimination and harassment toward Asian Americans amid the coronavirus pandemic is a painful reminder of continued racism and xenophobia in our region. Although Asian Americans, as a broad group, perform well on many indicators of socioeconomic success, other indicators signal continued exclusion and inequity, such as the diversity of local electeds, a unique dataset maintained by the Bay Area Equity Atlas.

Asian or Pacific Islanders (APIs) remain vastly underrepresented in the highest echelons of local politics, according to our recent analysis of new data on the diversity of elected officials from 2018 and 2019. While APIs make up 26 percent of residents in the nine-county Bay Area — and are the single largest racial/ethnic group in Santa Clara and Alameda counties — they hold just 10 percent of top local elected positions. At the regional level, this unequal representation has not improved over the past two years: 170 seats were up for grabs in Bay Area cities and counties in the 2018 and 2019 elections, but the overall share of API electeds did not change.

Beneath the regional level, however, some Bay Area cities did improve on the representativeness of their top electeds, while others fell behind. This post shares key findings from our analysis of how the region’s 101 cities are doing on this measure, which is calculated based on difference between the share of APIs among top elected officials and the share of APIs in the total population. Note that the city electeds include both city council and county elected officials (supervisors and DAs) because county electeds also represent city residents. This means that the typical city/town has 11 electeds included in the analysis (five council members, five county supervisors, and one county district attorney).

Little Improvement Among the Worst Performing Cities

The cities with the starkest API underrepresentation are largely the same as they were two years ago, with a few exceptions. The top three most underrepresented cities in 2018 — Foster City, San Ramon, and Santa Clara — each gained one API elected official, but they remain continue to lag on API representation because their populations are between 42 to 48 percent API.

Five cities in the top 20 most underrepresented cities for APIs actually lost an API elected, worsening their performance. Among these cities, and now the least representative of APIs, are Milpitas and Cupertino.

 

Among the cities with the least API representation, Fremont Sees Biggest Gains in API Electeds, followed by Foster City, San Ramon, and Santa Clara

Four of the least representative cities in 2018 elected at least one API and saw their rankings improve. Fremont dropped most significantly from the ninth most underrepresented city down to number 27. In 2018, the Fremont City Council expanded from five to seven members and had their first ever district elections. The number of API city council members doubled from two to four, including two men and two women. Fremont now has the most API council members of any Bay Area city and is evenly represented as the total population is 58 percent API.

Foster City, San Ramon, and Santa Clara each elected one API representative and dropped from the top three to numbers five, eight, and nine, respectively. In the South Bay, Foster City, which is 48 percent API, elected Sanjay Gehani and the city of Santa Clara, which is 42 percent API, elected Raj Chahal. Across the Bay in San Ramon, where 45 percent of residents are API, voters elected Sabina Zafar.

Hercules Loses the Most Ground, Followed by San Jose and Hayward

Milpitas and Cupertino, where two in three residents are API, have the largest share of API residents of any of the 101 cities in the Bay Area, but just 18 percent of local electeds (city and county) are API. Both cities are now represented by just two API elected officials. In 2018, one API councilmember in Milpitas lost his 2018 reelection bid to two Latinas. And in Cupertino, one South Asian councilwoman lost her 2018 reelection bid to a White man by just 45 votes.

The city of Hercules, where half of the population is API, rose up eight places in the rankings to the fourth most underrepresented city for APIs in the Bay Area in 2020. Hercules Mayor Roland Esquivias, who is up for reelection later this year, is now the only API elected official in the city as the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors lacks any API representation. In San Jose, District 7 Council Member Tam Nguyen lost his reelection bid in 2018, with early reports at the time saying just 13 votes separated him from current Council Member Maya Esparza.

57 Bay Area Cities Have No API Representation

The cities bolded in the chart above are notable because they do not have any API elected officials at the city or county level despite having relatively large API populations. American Canyon, located in Napa County, is 36 percent API but does not have any API local elected officials. San Bruno similarly lacks API representation but is 30 percent API. Three of the cities on the list of the top 20 most underrepresented cities for APIs — Brisbane, Burlingame, and San Mateo — are all located in San Mateo County. Roughly one in four residents in each of these cities are API, but they lack representation at both the city and county level.

A Clear Need for Action

While representation does not ensure the passage of more equitable policies, it matters for political power. Local officials hold considerable power over the everyday lives of Bay Area residents, and they ought to reflect the diversity of the communities they serve. Improving on this indicator involves directly addressing the multiple barriers that hold API residents back from running for political office whether they are economic, linguistic, institutional, or historic.

Even before the coronavirus epidemic, working-class people in the region were struggling to make rent, find affordable childcare, and secure living-wage jobs. The historic spike in layoffs and unemployment brought about by COVID-19 has only exacerbated economic insecurity. Many families are struggling to make ends meet and are focused on finding work and paying bills rather than increasing political involvement.

But political inclusion is a critical part of building a more equitable region and we, along with our partners at Bay Rising, lift up the following recommendations to move us toward just and fair inclusion into a region where all can participate and prosper:

• Local governments (cities, towns, and counties) should pass structural reforms including public campaign financing, like Berkeley’s program that provides candidates a 6-to-1 match on qualifying contributions of up to $50, and campaign finance reform to curtail corporate contributions, secret Super PACs, and “pay-to-play” politics.
• Local and national philanthropies and corporations should fund equity-oriented leadership development programs, like Urban Habitat’s Boards and Commissions Leadership Institute, that prepare people from underrepresented communities of color to effectively engage in public policy.
• Policymakers and funders should support voting reforms and civic engagement efforts that increase voter registration and turnout among underrepresented communities, especially in local elections.

 

With so much attention focused on the 2020 presidential elections, it is easy to forget the importance of local elections to the everyday lives of Bay Area residents. Local governments are the closest and most responsive to the people. They also make critical decisions around issues like housing, policing, and transportation that can have significant equity implications – for example, the racist and unconstitutional “stop and frisk” policing policies of the recent past.

Given the power instilled in local electeds, it is crucial that these leaders reflect the diversity of the communities they represent. Although race or gender do not alone determine whether an elected official will advance racial or gender justice, and having more people of color and women in office does not automatically translate to more equitable policies – representation matters. Leaders who come from communities that experience discrimination and structural racism firsthand bring that knowledge into governing and can be important advocates for policies that dismantle barriers and improve conditions. And when marginalized communities gain representation in the halls of power, they can feel less neglected, gain trust in government, and have a stronger sense of belonging.

This is why the Bay Area Equity Atlas includes the diversity of electeds as a key metric for tracking equity in the region. To examine how well the Bay Area’s top elected officials represent the diversity of the region’s population, we assembled a unique dataset on the race,  ethnicity, and gender of the mayors and council members of the region’s 101 municipalities, and the county supervisors and district attorneys for the region’s nine counties.(1) Our dataset captures the composition of elected officials at three points in time to cover the results of 2017-2019 elections.

This analysis presents new data from two election cycles: November 2018, when 160 local elected positions were up for grabs, and November 2019, when 10 positions were open. The longitudinal data allows us to update previous data from May 2018 to examine whether we are making progress on this important indicator.

Our key findings include:

• While the region is 60 percent people of color, whites hold 71 percent of local elected offices.
   
• There are dozens of cities without any Black, Latinx, or Asian and Pacific Islander (API) representatives at all: among the 101 municipalities within the Bay Area region, 80 have zero Black elected officials, 42 have zero Latinx or API elected officials, and 33 have all White elected officials.
   
• The share of women holding office in top municipal and county level positions is now 44 percent — up from 40 percent in May 2018; however among Latinx electeds only 40 percent are women.
   
• APIs and Latinx people continue to be sorely underrepresented among local electeds, especially at the county level. Latinx and APIs make up half of the region’s population but are just 13 percent of top county-level elected officials. Most strikingly, Santa Clara County has the largest share of API residents of all the nine counties that make up the Bay Area (35 percent), but there are no API electeds in top county positions. Similarly, in Sonoma County, which is 26 percent Latinx, there are no Latinx in top county elected positions.
   
• The most substantial changes in representation since the 2018 elections were at the city level, including several shifts in the rankings of the cities with the largest White overrepresentation and Latinx, API, and Black underrepresentation. Five cities that were formerly represented by all-White city councils elected at least one person of color in 2018: Benicia, Brisbane, Cloverdale, San Ramon, and Santa Clara.

Despite notable wins for candidates of color in the last couple years, the region continues to underperform on this equity metric. Campaign finance and election reforms and investments in programs that support people of color in running for elected office as well as increased voter engagement efforts are all needed to ensure that the region’s diversity is truly reflected in local elected offices.

Regionwide, Whites Remain Overrepresented with Some Progress After 2018 Elections

In early 2018, 74 percent of elected officials were White. But by 2020, the share of White elected officials in the region decreased to 71 percent. Whites are still overrepresented among local elected officials as just 40 percent of the region’s population is White, but the 2018 and 2019 elections made some progress toward reducing this overrepresentation. The slight uptick among people of color was due to increases in Latinx, Black, and multiracial elected officials.

Despite comprising 26 percent of the region’s population, only 10 percent of local elected officials identify as API. Similarly, 24 percent of residents are Latinx, but only 10 percent of local elected officials. As of early 2020, there is still not a single top city or county elected official in the Bay Area who identifies only as Native American. Across the region, there are 65 cities that do not have a single Latinx councilmember and 63 cities without any API representation.

Number of Women in Local Elected Office Increased by 31, But White Men Still Overrepresented

Reports of a record-breaking number of women running for office in 2018 led many to dub it the “Year of the Woman.” White men are particularly overrepresented among local elected officials, but there were significant changes in gender disparities after the November 2018 elections. In the Bay Area, the number of women in top local elected positions increased by 31 from 236 to 267. In early 2018, 60 percent of White electeds were male. But that share declined to 56 percent after the 2018 elections.

But not all racial/ethnic groups saw progress toward greater gender representativeness. The most gender parity is among API electeds, 49 percent of whom are women. The gender disparity remains largest among the Latinx population: just 40 percent of the region’s Latinx elected officials are women. And whereas Black elected officials were previously the only group of electeds in which women outnumbered men, that changed with the 2018 election. Before the election, 18 of the region’s 33 Black elected officials were women (55 percent). Today, just 17 of the region’s 39 Black elected officials are women (44 percent).

By 2020, four Bay Area cities were represented entirely by men: Woodside, Dixon, Corte Madera, and Richmond. The councils of Woodside and Corte Madera are the only ones made up entirely of White men. Los Altos, on the other hand, is the only city in the region represented by an all-female city council.

Underrepresentation of Asian and Latinx Residents Especially Pronounced at the County Level

Underrepresentation of API and Latinx residents is especially pronounced among county-level officials: just four of the region’s 60 county-level officials are API and four are Latinx. Put another way, Latinxs and APIs together make up half of the region’s population but are only 13 percent of top county-level elected officials. Among the region’s nine district attorneys (DAs), all except for one are White, and none are API or Latinx.

Most strikingly, Santa Clara County, which has the largest share of API residents among the nine Bay Area counties (35 percent of residents are API), has no API electeds in top county positions. Alameda County has one API supervisor (out of five) but 30 percent of the county’s population is API. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has three API members, but APIs are still underrepresented as these three electeds make up just a quarter of top elected officials in a county that is 34 percent API.

Only Napa, Santa Clara, and Solano Counties have any Latinx supervisors. Latinxs in Napa County are most evenly represented: the county has two Latinx supervisors (making up 33 percent of top county elected officials) in a county that is 34 percent Latinx. Santa Clara and Solano counties each have one Latinx county supervisor (out of five) even though Latinxs make up just over a quarter of the population of both counties. In Sonoma County, which is also a quarter Latinx, there are no Latinxs in top county elected positions.

Whites, on the other hand, are severely overrepresented in county-level elected positions. In three counties (San Mateo, Sonoma, and Marin), the entire Board of Supervisors (plus the DA) are White even though White people make up 40 percent of San Mateo County, 64 percent of Sonoma County, and 71 percent of Marin County. In Santa Clara and Solano counties, where more than 60 percent of the population are people of color, all but one of the top county officials are White. The only non-White DA in the whole region is Diana Becton in Contra Costa County.

Despite Notable Victories for Candidates of Color, Whites Still Overrepresented in City Councils

The most substantial changes in political representation were at the city level, including several shifts in the cities with the largest White overrepresentation and the greatest Latinx, API, and Black underrepresentation.

As of February 2020, 33 Bay Area cities are represented by all-White city councils — down from 36 before the 2018 elections. Five cities that were formerly represented by all-White city councils elected at least one person of color in 2018 or 2019: Benicia, Brisbane, Cloverdale, San Ramon, and Santa Clara. But three city councils turned all White, losing one elected of color: Moraga, Rohnert Park, and Larkspur. This means that, in a region of 7.8 million people, nearly 330,000 people of color live in cities or towns that lack elected officials of color to represent their interests. Most notably, Albany is one of those 33 cities even though its population is majority people of color. Campbell, Napa, Pacifica, Pleasanton, and Vacaville are also less than 55 percent White, but as of this year, are represented by all-White city councils.

The cities most overrepresented by White electeds are largely the same group of South Bay cities from before the 2018 elections. Notably, the cities of Santa Clara and Sunnyvale each elected one API council member in the 2018 election. Santa Clara elected a South Asian (immigrant) city council member (Raj Chahal in District 2) and Sunnyvale elected a Chinese American city council member (Mason Fong in Seat 3 who is believed to be the youngest person ever elected to the council at 27 years old), but Whites are still severely overrepresented on both councils (accounting for six out of seven members) in cities that are only 33 percent White. Across the Bay, the city of San Ramon also elected a woman of color to the council in 2018. The city is only 39 percent White, but four out of five city council members are White. Only three cities in the entire region (East Palo Alto, Milpitas, and Pittsburg) do not have any White representation on their city councils.

The city of Fremont made progress on increasing political representation for its API population. In 2018, the Fremont City Council expanded from five to seven members and had their first ever district elections. The number of API city council members doubled from two to four, including two men and two women. In fact, Fremont now has the most API council members of any Bay Area city and is evenly represented as APIs make up 58 percent of Fremont’s population.

As API representation among elected officials did not shift considerably regionwide, a few cities remain severely underrepresented. In Western Contra Costa, for example, the city of Hercules is nearly majority (48 percent) API but only the mayor is API. Similarly, the city of Pinole is 25 percent API but not a single city council member is API.

The North Bay city of Cloverdale improved its representativeness for its Latinx population, which is 31 percent of the total city population, by electing a Latinx to the city council in 2018. In fact, Council Member Marta Cruz cited the fact that Cloverdale had no Latinx representation on the city council or school board as a reason for her running.

In 2020, there were still six cities across four counties (Oakley, South San Francisco, Healdsburg, Antioch, Concord, and San Rafael) with populations between 30 to 35 percent Latinx without a single Latinx local elected official (at either the city or county level).

Of all 101 cities in the Bay Area, just 21 have at least one Black city council member or mayor (up from 19 cities before the 2018 elections). The Eastern Contra Costa County city of Pittsburg has more Black representation than any other Bay Area city. Four out of the five council members are Black, two of whom are Black women. Richmond also has four Black city council members (out of 7 overall), all of whom are Black men.

Richmond contrasts with the city of Vallejo. Both cities are 20 percent Black, but before 2018, there were no Black city councilors in Vallejo. During the 2018 election, Hakeem Brown received the most votes out of any of the five candidates in the race. But with just one Black member out of seven total seats, Black residents in Vallejo remain underrepresented.

Eighty cities and towns across the Bay Area do not have a single Black city council member, including Emeryville (which is 15 percent Black), San Pablo, and San Leandro. Notably, both San Pablo and San Leandro each lost a Black city council member after the 2018 elections.

Looking Forward: Toward A More Inclusive Bay Area Politics

Despite notable improvement since 2018, the Bay Area still lags behind when it comes to political representation – hindering the inclusive, multiracial, community-driven political coalition needed to solve our region’s challenges. As the Bay Area continues to grow in diversity and APIs and Latinxs comprise a growing majority of the population, greater inclusion in local government is critical to responsive and democratic governance. Continuing to cultivate the region’s Black leadership at the city and county levels will also be essential to realizing a more just region – including as a strategy to counter the trend of Black displacement.

Improving on this measure will require addressing the multitude of barriers that prevent more people of color from running for office. With so few people of color in elected positions, young people of color have little legacy of electoral leadership, or elders teaching them why it matters and how to do it. For some immigrants who came to this country after living in military dictatorships and other oppressive government regimes, there is trauma associated with elections and rampant corruption. Language access continues to present a barrier, and many immigrant families are focusing intensively on work and education, leaving little time for political involvement. Working class people in the region are already stretched to make rent, find affordable childcare, and secure living-wage jobs.

Myriad institutional barriers hinder people of color from getting involved in government elections. Over the last few years, wealthy donors have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into local races, making it very difficult for someone without private wealth to successfully run a campaign. Lack of adequate translation or interpretation for non-English speakers makes it difficult to fully comprehend what is on the ballot or what is being proposed. Black and Brown people have been the target of the criminal justice system, with over policing and high rates of incarceration, which also pushes their communities away from political engagement. The displacement crisis in the region also deters involvement: people who are housing insecure or who are new to an area are not inclined to run for office. Lack of access to childcare makes it harder for mothers to find time to run. Childcare as a campaign expense is a new concept and was just recently approved as an allowable expense. In addition, lifelong politicians and political parties serve as gatekeepers and often choose their successors rather than supporting grassroots leaders connected to community organizations.

Bay Area funders and policymakers must address these barriers and advance policy changes and programs that result in more candidates from underrepresented communities getting elected to city and county elected offices, especially in communities where people of color are severely underrepresented. The Bay Area Equity Atlas and Bay Rising offer the following recommendations:

• Local city and county governments should pass structural reforms including public campaign financing and campaign finance reform to curtail corporate contributions, secret Super PACs, and “pay-to-play” politics — and should consider shifting from at-large to district-based elections. There has been some adoption of these strategies in the region: San Francisco, Richmond, and Berkeley have public campaign financing, and Oakland has some limited public funding available, but more localities need to adopt public financing and make reforms to ensure that the resources these programs offer are enough to make a difference. San Jose is considering a 2020 ballot measure to increase disclosures of large campaign donations and limit contributions from people and companies with land-use decisions before the city, and San Francisco passed such a measure in 2019. Additionally, more than a half-dozen Bay Area cities have recently moved to district-based elections. This shift may support the election of people from underrepresented backgrounds, as the case of Fremont shows, but more time is needed to determine their effectiveness.
   
• Local and national philanthropies and corporations should fund equity-oriented leadership development programs that prepare people from underrepresented communities of color to effectively engage in public policy. Urban Habitat’s Boards and Commissions Leadership Institute — which has been replicated in several cities — and Bay Rising’s leadership trainings exemplify the type of programs that funders should support.
   
• Funders, political leaders, and donors should invest in training and support systems for candidates from underrepresented communities to run electoral campaigns as well as community-based programs that support new elected officials from underrepresented communities once they are in office. People active in conventional political parties should work in partnership with community organizations to recruit, train, and support candidates from underrepresented communities to run successfully at all levels of government.
   
• Policymakers and funders should support voting reforms and civic engagement efforts that increase voter registration and turnout among underrepresented communities, especially in local elections. Reforms, including efforts to increase language access, allow noncitizens to vote in local elections, and lower the voting age to 16, are gaining attention in the Bay Area. San Francisco now allows non-citizen parents to vote in school board elections, and in November 2020, voters in the city will also have the chance to decide whether to lower the voting age to 16 for local elections. What’s more, San Jose is considering a move to align their mayoral elections to presidential election years to increase turnout, especially among underrepresented communities.

 

* Kimi Lee, director of Bay Rising, serves on the Equity Campaign Leaders Advisory Committee of the Bay Area Equity Atlas. Bay Rising is the only regional civic engagement organization that organizes with working-class people and people of color as voters in the Bay Area year-round. Bay Rising is the umbrella network for San Francisco Rising, Oakland Rising, and Silicon Valley Rising, and represents over thirty grassroots organizations in the Bay Area.