The race for Mayor of Sacramento is set, but the direction of the city is unsettled | Opinion
Sacramento has chosen its two top candidates for mayor in activist Flojaune Cofer and state Assemblyman Kevin McCarty. But in this election, what were voters trying to say?
The outgoing mayor, Darrell Steinberg, had some thoughts.
“The vote reveals a city where a strong majority of voters are increasingly center-left,” Steinberg said the other day. “Our economy and our politics are rapidly changing in the new Sacramento.”
Neither Cofer nor McCarty was backed or significantly funded by the traditional land and business interests in Greater Sacramento, nor by law enforcement unions.
They helped to fuel the campaigns of the two other top candidates, former state Senator Richard Pan and former councilman Steve Hansen. Both came up just short in a close and spirited race.
Now some traditionally influential political blocs in town now don’t have a favorite candidate in the November runoff for mayor. This is some unfamiliar territory.
Cofer and McCarty face a fundamental choice. They can try to modestly build upon their respective political bases that got them to the runoff with a degree of new alliances. Or they can build a very new and different coalition that tries to bridge Sacramento’s great and widening political divide.
This is arguably what Steinberg tried to do when he became mayor some eight years ago. Today’s world is simply much more complicated and divisive.
The outgoing mayor had plenty to say about city politics to the thousand or so influential locals who gathered last week at a breakfast held by the Downtown Partnership.
“The power and politics in the city have traditionally been centered on organized labor, especially public employees, and the development community,” he said. “The developers have been the visionaries here, they still have a strong say as they should, but…younger people especially are demanding that their voices also be heard, especially around quality of life and equity.”
The players and interests inside Sacramento politics have expanded right along with this evolving city. Steinberg was not-so-subtly encouraging the business community, and perhaps two mayoral candidates who were not in the room, to evolve right along with it.
“The new political reality provides a positive roadmap if we choose to follow it,” Steinberg said.
In short, end the wars.
“The old political framework that pits development against neighborhoods is old and tired,” he said.
A progressive movement advancing social justice and economic equity has gained a foothold in urban California. The movement had overall a good night in in the mayor’s race, with Cofer solidly leading in the latest tally. Progressives suffered some setbacks in San Francisco and are holding their own in Los Angeles.
Progressive calls for greater renters rights and affordable housing requirements on developers, as one example, run counter to land interests’ desire for market-driven solutions. At times there can seen little common ground.
But to date the movement that has claimed the progressive label has demonstrated little in common with a very different movement that started two centuries ago to advance an array of human rights across the board. That movement became strongly bipartisan. Steinberg, a master coalition builder as a legislator, has found himself frequently in the lonely middle of Sacramento’s swirling politics. And now he wants some company in the form of the next mayor.
“The voters of Sacramento want growth, but they also want the growth to be consistent with addressing our climate crisis,” he said. “The voters want growth, they also don’t want to be priced out of the housing and the other good things that the city is providing. They want downtown to be the center, but they also want all of the neighborhoods of the city to get the attention they need and deserve. They want a strong police and fire department, but they also want more than bandaids for our social problems.”
The kind of coalition building that Steinberg appears to have in mind may be a difficult mission in the short term. The election revealed some deep, bitter and even personal political divisions in Sacramento. There can be great comfort in maintaining the purity of one’s conviction rather than entertaining that messy search for common ground.
But Steinberg basically is right. A united Sacramento of common and positive purpose is stronger than the one that is fighting right now. There is a treacherous, yet enticing path for the next mayor to reinvent and modernize local politics if he or she dares to do so.
This story was originally published April 3, 2024 at 5:00 AM.