Here are my current thoughts on candidates on the November 2020 ballot in Berkeley, in ballot order.
You can also read my thoughts on propositions, or see a cheat sheet summary.
President and Vice President: KAMALA HARRIS AND TIM WALZ
The purpose of this website is not to explain why to vote for Democrats when there are Republicans on the ballot.
Do I have some differences of opinion with Kamala Harris? Are there people I’d rather see as President than her? Sure. But this is the ninth time she’s shown up on my ballot (following once for SF DA, four times for CA AG, twice for Senate, and once for VP), and just like the last 8 times,she’s by far the best choice there.
Senator (full term and partial term): Adam Schiff twice
I didn’t vote for him in the primary, but see first paragraph of previous section.
US Representative, District 13: LATEEFAH SIMON
I did vote for her in the primary as well as for BART Director twice, and am happy to do so again. Her opponent, Jennifer Tran, recently did a 180 and declared opposition to gender-affirming care for youth, losing one of the few endorsement she had (from an LGBTQ PAC). No thanks.
State Senate, District 7: JOVANKA BECKLES
I’ve voted for Beckles many times before: for Assembly in 2018 (primary and general, for AC Transit Director in 2020, and (I think) in this primary (though I might have voted for Lybarger in the end). I have found her to be a good AC Transit director supportive of the needs of riders and drivers, and kind of wish she would continue serving there as I don’t know if I’ll like her replacement as much, but she is not running for re-election. (That said, due to redistricting I would not be in her district again anyway.)
I have generally not been impressed by my mayor, Jesse Arreguin. I voted for him for re-election largely because his most credible challenger seemed actively dangerous. He has presided over an ineffective City Council and government: during this term, multiple Council members quit (Rigel Robinson blaming harassment from residents which I regret, and Kate Harrison about which more below), and most the Transportation department (tasked with, among other things, making streets safer) was harassed into quitting. I don’t see what about this qualifies him for higher office. If elected, I’m sure he’ll do some things I like, but I fail to be excited about him and am happy to vote for Beckles again.
State Assembly, District 15: Buffy Wicks
I wasn’t enthusiastic about Wicks carpetbagging her way into this seat in 2018, but she’s been OK-to-great. Her opponent, Margot Smith, is one of the few recognizable names endorsing Berkeley’s Prop EE, the anti-street-safety poison pill measure. No thanks.
Alameda County Supervisor, District 5: Nikki Fortunato Bas?
This is a tough one for me. I voted for John Bauters in the primary, but as I said then, Nikki Fortunato Bas also seemed great. When I saw that they both won, I was partially relieved that this meant a candidate I liked would be elected… and partially pessimistic that this might lead to a nasty fight where two candidates I respect drag each other through the mud over their differences… or worse, leads Bauters to actually move in a more conservative direction to capitalize on his position slightly to her right.
And that’s what we’ve gotten. See this anti-Bauters site from the Bas campaign itself, or this anti-Bas site from a pro-Bauters PAC.
I still think they’d both be pretty good. From a self-centered perspective, Bauters is one of the most pro-bike/walking/transit elected officials in the Bay Area, and I’d love to see him in a bigger position. On the other hand, the supervisors have oversight over the county sheriffs and jails, and while Bauters has avoided actively taking endorsements or directed donations from police unions and the like, the Oakland police union has backed a pro-Bauters PAC. I’m also struggling to understand the accusations around Emeryville’s minimum wage laws: it looks like in 2019 he was instrumental in rolling back a minimum wage hike, though since then hikes have happened and Emeryville in fact has a very high minimum wage (and I can’t really tell to what degree he’s supported it, but he does state Emeryville has a high minimum wage on his campaign site… though he also doesn’t take credit for it!).
At the moment I’m very slightly leaning towards Bas. (I may also be trying to do a bit of a “split ballot” where I vote for some candidates that are a bit more on the YIMBY/bikey side and some that are a bit more on the social-justice/anti-displacement side… if I’m voting for Bartlett for council, maybe I vote for Bas here.)
District Attorney Recall: NO
We saw this pattern already in San Francisco: a DA is elected on a platform of reform and not letting the police get away with literal murder, and the opposition flips out and starts recall efforts immediately. Strangely, everyone I know who complained about the state of San Francisco and seemed certain that it was 100% Chesa Boudin’s fault still seems to have the same opinion of that city two years into Jenkins’ candidacy.
I voted for Pamela Price for DA in 2018 when she lost and in 2022 when she won. I don’t think she is the country’s greatest example of a reform-minded DA, but the vast majority of the accusations against her are fabrications. Recalls are a sneaky approach where partisans who can’t find a candidate who can actually win a head-to-head race and instead channel people’s general sense of discontent about the world into a contest where the choice is between “are you happy or sad” rather than an actual constructive solution. This recall started within weeks of Price taking office. This isn’t a case of gross misdeeds by an elected official who isn’t fit to serve out her term: it’s just people who couldn’t win an election trying again on easier ground. (Speaking of those people, I’m embarrassed to say that the number one funder of this campaign (and I believe the Oakland mayor recall) is a guy I went to high school with. Pretty sure the values we were taught in Quaker school did not include buying elections.)
A vote for the recall is a vote to have no power over who is the DA. Vote no on this recall.
Berkeley Rent Board: Alfred Twu, Dominique Walker, Xavier Johnson, Avery Arbaugh
I typically vote for the tenant slate for the rent board, and I typically vote for Alfred Twu for whatever. So I’ll do that again.
Berkeley School Directors: Ana Vasudeo and Jen Corn
I’m a bit confused by this race.
Vasudeo seems to be generally endorsed by everyone. Harrison and Sikder are not serious candidates. We get to vote for two. So the choice seems to be between Babitt (the incumbent) and Corn (former principal and teacher). There seems to be some real differences between Babitt and Corn… but I’m finding it hard to parse them out! As much as I’m bemoaning the mud-slinging of the Supervisor campaign, I kind of wish that these candidates or their supporters would ever actually compare them to each other? I get the vague impression that Babitt is a bit more focused on “parents/kids” than on teachers… notably, the teachers union endorsed her in her first election but is endorsing Corn instead this time. But as a parent myself I’m pretty supportive of our teachers being treated well!
The Berkeleyside op-eds for Babitt and Corn are a lot of what I’m relying on here. I do see a lot more concreteness in the Babitt endorsements… but perhaps that’s natural as an incumbent with specific accomplishments to point to. (And my favorite part of that op-ed is Terry Taplin talking about how she found a way to avoid building an expensive and unnecessary garage for Berkeley High… but Taplin also endorses Corn!)
One other notable fact: when the BUSD superintendent was being grilled by right-wingers Congress over supposed antisemitism in the school district, four of the five school board members wrote a letter backing her up and supporting teachers in the district. Laura Babitt did not. (As somebody whose journey towards questioning the Zionism I was raised with started when my high school fired two teachers for supporting a student group who wanted to invite a local Palestinian professor to give a talk, this is somewhat dear to my heart.) This appears to be one of the actual differences between Babitt and Corn.
I lean towards Corn (and Vasudeo) based on this, though the garage story is tempting too. (And I certainly recognize that some of my friends and family may take Babitt’s action as a reason to vote for her rather than for her opponent.)
BART Director, District 7: Victor Flores
Despite caring a lot about BART, I haven’t researched this race in depth. My impression is that neither candidate is bad, but Flores seems to be more passionate and dedicated to transit; friends who are more tapped into this right now than me all seem to endorse him. Dana Lang seems very competent and I like some of her ideas and priorities.
From reading their sites, the most concrete difference between them is that Flores says he will “use his campaign experience and region relationships to fight for a regional funding measure”, whereas Lang will “identify and secure regional, state, and federal funding that doesn’t add strain to our local taxpayers”. That is, while they both want to find sources of funding for BART other than taxes and fares (and perhaps Lang has deeper skills doing so), Flores also supports shifting more of the funding towards new taxes, and Lang doesn’t. BART has the highest farebox recovery ratio of any subway system in the US: far more of its costs are paid directly by fares instead of being treated as a public good funded by taxes (like how we pay for roads). I’m in favor of making BART more like other public transit systems that are more funded by property taxes, so this helps tip the balance towards Flores for me.
Berkeley Mayor: Adena Ishii #1, Kate Harrison (distant) #2
The nice thing about living in Berkeley is that most of the candidates for most offices share generally similar values about most things… so it’s more reasonable to dig in deep and become essentially a single-issue voter on the issues where candidates differ.
For me, one of the most important issues is street safety. My family primarily gets around via walking and biking. Even my kindergartener chooses to ride his own bike to school almost every day! And there is a huge difference between the candidates for Mayor as to where they stand on street safety.
I met Adena Ishii when she was campaigning outside our elementary school’s back to school night. In addition to her own flyers, she was actively distributing flyers for the safe-streets proposition FF. While she has less direct government experience than the other two major candidates, I haven’t been particular impressed by their time on (and off) the Council, and I have a lot of respect for the League of Women Voters. I found our conversation refreshing and inspiring. I was already planning to vote for her due to concerns about the other candidates, but talking to her moved me from “everyone else sucks” to “I’m excited”.
Sophie Hahn is one of only two sitting City Council members to not endorse Prop FF. She was the main actor behind the cancellation of the Hopkins Street bike lanes, and while this is only hearsay, I have heard she actively took part in harassing Transportation Department staffers who quit. A vote for Sophie Hahn is a vote for valuing motorist convenience over my children’s lives.
Kate Harrison rage-quit her City Council seat at the beginning of the year in the middle of a meeting, claiming that the city’s processes were broken. Unlike Rigel Robinson (who resigned a few weeks earlier citing harassment and left politics entirely), Harrison continued to run for Mayor. Now, Berkeley isn’t like Oakland or San Francisco, where the Mayor is part of a separate executive branch from City Council. We have an appointed City Manager that plays that sort of role. Berkeley’s Mayor is essentially an at-large City Council member with extra ceremonial duties. The main way they influence policy is exactly like City Council members: they get one vote at Council, they get one appointment to each committee, etc. If Harrison can’t deal with Council as a district member, it’s unclear how she can deal with Council as an at-large member. This bizarre choice alone would completely disqualify her for me… but she’s at least marginally more supportive of street safety than Hahn, so I’ll rank her #2. (In general, while I am not as YIMBY-leaning as I was a decade ago, Harrison is quite far on the NIMBY side for me. But I still like her more than Hahn!)
Berkeley City Council, District 3: Ben Bartlett, I guess
I am tired of choosing between Ben Bartlett and Deborah Matthews for the third time, though between the two, I do still slightly prefer Bartlett over Matthews for similar reasons as in 2020.
I did seriously consider Chip Moore as “not Bartlett or Matthews”. From what I’ve learned about him, he does strike me as an honest and passionate person, who I agree with about many things. I respect his work on the Police Accountability Board (appointed by Bartlett!). He’s part of Friends of Adeline, whose position is essentially that Ashby BART should be 100% affordable housing, which in practice is likely to mean a lot of obstruction of any project that actually will happen there. I was considering voting for him anyway despite my hope for lots of housing at Ashby (and maybe voting for some other more YIMBY-ish candidates like Bauters). Then I learned from watching this candidate forum that despite being listed as an endorser on the FF website, he apparently has changed his mind and is currently endorsing EE now, and is repeating some of the standard misinformation about how bike lanes are impossible for garbage trucks. If he were only anti-Ashby-housing or only anti-bike-lanes I might manage to vote for him, but both seems like a lot.
So I guess I’m voting for Bartlett again. Honestly, watching the forum above got me a tiny bit excited about him — he is a charismatic and compelling speaker who makes a pretty good argument for his tenure. I just find it hard to trust him. Not sure who to put #2, if any.
AC Transit Director, Ward 2: JEAN WALSH (except she’s not on the ballot)
AC Transit is going through a redistricting where they no longer have two at-large Directors and instead have two more districts. This means I’m no longer in the district Jovanka Beckles is retiring from, and instead I’m in Jean Walsh’s district! Jean Walsh is a friend: we spent a week biking from DC to Pittsburgh together a few years ago. I was really excited to get the chance to vote for her… but turns out that if only one candidate files adequate signatures for this position, they win by default. So congratulations Jean! Keep up the good work getting those buses running.