Sacramento City Council sees big turnover. Can the new group work together at a critical time?
For the past decade, a seat on the Sacramento City Council came with a whole lot of job security. That all changed in 2020.
Councilmen Steve Hansen and Allen Warren lost re-election bids to represent the central city and North Sacramento, respectively – the first time since 2010 that an incumbent City Council member lost their seat. They will be replaced by Katie Valenzuela and Sean Loloee, both first-time elected officials.
The stunning upsets could be a sign that Sacramento’s long-held playbook on how to get elected to the City Council – start with smaller elected offices and wait for a seat to open – is out the window.
“When I ran in 2010, I was certainly told many times that in Sacramento, people wait their turn,” said Councilwoman Angelique Ashby, the last person to defeat an incumbent. “Obviously I did not follow that rule and I challenged an incumbent. Ten years later, there are people challenging incumbents under the same premise.”
Despite Ashby’s 2010 win over longtime Councilman Ray Tretheway for the Natomas seat, the “wait your turn” mindset remained present in the Sacramento political scene, said Daniel Conway, a local political consultant.
“First you run for school board, then council, then Assembly. That’s the way it works around here,” said Conway, who served as chief of staff for former Mayor Kevin Johnson. “I think you see that rule no longer applies.”
Hansen and Warren were both elected to the council in 2012. Hansen’s district includes downtown, midtown and affluent Land Park, while Warren’s is comprised of mostly under served neighborhoods in North Sacramento, including Del Paso Heights.
Valenzuela, a Democratic socialist who’s been working as an activist for years, is politically progressive. Loloee, a grocery store owner, is more moderate. But both knocked on thousands of doors and heard the same thing over and over – residents wanted change.
“Definitely they wanted to see changes,” Loloee said. “That was on the top of the list. And then to have better connections between the residents and City Hall.”
Valenzuela heard the same.
“They felt like they had been neglected and were frustrated that they didn’t have access to the person that was representing them,” Valenzuela said. “What we’re learning this election more than anything is how important it is to stay connected.”
Upsets on Sacramento City Council
Hansen said he worked hard to listen to residents but struggled to keep up with the many demands of the high-profile seat – given no additional staff or budget than other districts – while also raising his toddler son he and his husband adopted in 2018.
“With a young child and two jobs and a very busy council life, I didn’t have the time to campaign like when I was single without a family,” Hansen said. “I wasn’t going to sacrifice my family in the ways that would’ve been necessary.”
So will Sacramento go another decade before an incumbent is unseated?
It’s hard to say. Councilman Eric Guerra in south Sacramento was able to easily fend of a challenger and cruise to re-election in the March primary. So was Mayor Darrell Steinberg, who won with more than 70% of the vote, though he didn’t have a competitive challenger.
With Steinberg not planning to seek re-election in 2024, the next mayoral race will be extremely influential to determine the future of the city, Conway said.
Hansen has filed paperwork to fundraise for a mayoral run, but has not announced whether he will decide to run.
“It’s just a toe in the door,” Hansen said.
Although Steinberg endorsed Hansen and Warren for their council seats, he said he’s hopeful the new council members will help him with his top goal as mayor: uplifting disadvantaged neighborhoods and improving the city’s housing and homelessness crisis.
“Yesterday’s opposition may be tomorrow’s allies,” Steinberg said. “If you don’t embrace that in politics, you’ll never get anything done.”
Conway said he’s optimistic the council will band together to move the city forward, but could also see a scenario in which the opposite occurs. The group doesn’t have a long history of working together and will need to learn how to do so during a pandemic when council members are governing from their homes, not City Hall.
“There’s not a lot of experience or muscle memory among the nine people being on the same team and playing together,” Conway said.
In addition to Valenzuela and Loloee, there will be a third new council member. Either outgoing Sacramento City Unified School Board Member Mai Vang or Pastor Les Simmons will replace retiring Councilman Larry Carr in District 8 representing south Sacramento. That means three of the nine seats will be held by new council members starting Dec. 15, a significant amount of upheaval at City Hall.
“Either we’re going to pick ourselves back up as a community and have an amazing story to tell 10 years from now or we’re going to have a depressing story to tell in 10 years,” Conway said. “It’s up to those nine people which one it’s going to be.”
