Jim Cooper is running to succeed Scott Jones as Sacramento sheriff. Could he make history?
Elk Grove Assemblyman Jim Cooper will announce Thursday that he is running for sheriff of Sacramento County, an expected move that instantly makes the sheriff’s race one of the marquee contests on a crowded 2022 election calendar.
Cooper will make his announcement at 10 a.m. at 520 Capitol Mall.
If elected, he would be the first Black sheriff in county history. In this high-profile run, which he admits his own family opposes, Cooper would give up the final four years of a safe Assembly upon which he has built a reputation as a moderate Democrat often at odds with his progressive colleagues. Cooper intends to hold onto his Assembly seat for now but is not running for re-election.
In 2010, Cooper ran for sheriff and lost to current incumbent Scott Jones by 3,660 votes. In the ensuing decade, those who know Cooper expected the 58-year-old former sheriff’s captain to eventually run for a position that Jones, a Republican now running for Congress, has politicized beyond recognition.
“I’ve been disheartened at some of the things you see (related to the Sheriff’s Office) like lawsuits, losses of tens of millions of dollars,“ Cooper said in an interview. “The sheriff’s department is the community. The community is the sheriff’s department. It really starts at the top. You’ve got to be engaged with the community no matter who they are.”
When Jones first ran he was not an outright partisan Republican but he became one in 2016 when he ran and lost in a bid for Congress. After that Jones tended to frame every issue through a partisan lens. He traveled to the White House in 2018 to pander to former President Donald Trump about immigration.
Consequently, it is expected that Cooper will draw strong support from Democrats and local leaders who either don’t like Jones or have viewed him as an unneeded distraction. If Cooper’s run is to be successful he will need the city of Sacramento to come strong for him to counteract more conservative suburbs that vote Republican even though the sheriff’s race is supposed to be non-partisan.
Capt. Jim Barnes, a 22-year veteran of the Sheriff’s Office and a close Jones ally, has already announced he will run and, if past county voting trends hold, Barnes would be supported by more conservative communities north and east of the city.
As proof of the highly partisan split in county voting, the Sacramento County Deputy Sheriff’s Association didn’t wait for Cooper to announce he was running for sheriff. Typically one of the biggest financial contributors in the county, the DSA announced in December that it was endorsing Barnes.
This could mean a bruising race between Barnes and Cooper just as 2010 was a bruising race between Cooper and Jones.
With few exceptions, Sacramento has typically had Republican sheriffs. Barnes is a protege of Jones who was a protege of former Sheriff John McGinness. So if Cooper prevails over Barnes, he breaks a line of succession going back more than 15 years.
“We don’t need Scott Jones 2.0 coming in,” Cooper said, “You need a leader who is strong. Who is going to manage the day-to-day operations.”
“People have asked me if I’m crazy for doing (running for sheriff). My daughters were adamant they didn’t want me to run. Being an assemblyman is not as stressful as being the sheriff.”
Cooper said he’s running because his professional love of the Sheriff’s Office supersedes any other professional ambition he has. He was a student at Cordova High School, working at a drive-in theater when he says he was encouraged to apply for the department by two deputies who befriended him.
“I had never thought about a career in law enforcement but I did 30 years in the department and it was a good career. ... I love the department. I love Sacramento County. As a man of color, I have a different view of things.”
Cooper said he’ll focus on homelessness and mental health. He said he wants homeless campers on the American River parkway to have a place to go. He said the downtown jail needs to be a “better neighbor” to downtown businesses impacted by released inmates suffering mental illness.
“I can work with anybody,” Cooper said, “When you’re the sheriff you don’t just represent the county. You represent all the cities, all 1.5 million people.”
Although progressives found fault in Cooper’s opposition to police reform and other progressive causes when he was an assemblyman, he could find broad-based support from people who were fed up after more than a decade of Scott Jones.
This story was originally published February 9, 2022 at 5:30 PM.
