For 17 years, Oakland City Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan has provided a lesbian voice on the East Bay city's governing body. First as its elected at-large member, Kaplan has continued to do so this year as the appointed District 2 council representative.
Opting not to seek reelection last year to her citywide seat, Kaplan was tapped in January to fill the district-based seat on an interim basis by the councilmembers after the departure of Nikki Fortunato Bas due to her election last November to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors. A special election is being held April 15 to decide who will serve out the remainder of Bas' term through 2026.
Among the six candidates running is Charlene Wang, a lesbian currently on administrative leave from her job advising the federal Environmental Protection Agency on civil rights and environmental justice matters. She ran unsuccessfully last year for Kaplan's at-large council seat.
Should she now win the District 2 seat, Wang would serve alongside the winner of that race, queer at-large City Councilmember Rowena Brown, and queer District 4 City Councilmember Janani Ramachandran. Wang, who also identifies as queer and whose family is of Chinese descent, would join Ramachandran in being one of only a handful of LGBTQ female Asian American and Pacific Islander elected officials in the Bay Area.
"I will be one of the very few Asian lesbians in office. It would just be an honor to have that recognition amid the need to uplift rare voices in politics," noted Wang, 34, in a recent interview with the Bay Area Reporter. "Also, just beyond that, Oakland is just in some dire straits. I have experience working with and reforming government at the local, state, and federal levels."
Ramachandran this month endorsed Wang. Former District 2 council member Abel Guillen, who identifies as Two Spirit, also is supporting Wang in the race.
In recent weeks, Wang also picked up sole endorsements from statewide LGBTQ civil rights organization Equality California and the LGBTQ Victory Fund. The national political action committee that works to elect LGBTQ office seekers named her one of its 2025 "Essential Voice for Equality" candidates.
"Electing an AAPI member of the LGBTQ community, and one who is female, is important. But not only that, it's not about empty tokenism, we are excited about her viability and passion and what she will bring to public service," said newly hired Victory Fund CEO and President Evan Low, a gay former state Assemblymember from the South Bay.
Others seeking the District 2 seat include chef Kanitha Matoury, who also lost her bid in November for the at-large council seat, and director of Terner Lab's Housing Venture Lab Kara Murray-Badal, who is endorsed by Bas. Williams Chapel Baptist Church senior pastor the Reverend Kenneth Anderson, consultant Harold Lowe III, and commercial property manager Paula Thomas also are on the ballot next month.
As voters in the district will be able to rank their choices on their ballots, the candidate who ends up with more than 50% of the vote will be declared the winner. Wang told the B.A.R. most people aren't aware there is an election for the seat that covers Oakland's Jack London District, the LGBTQ cultural district based around Lakeshore Avenue by Lake Merritt, and the neighborhoods of Crocker Highlands, Trestle Glen, Cleveland Heights, Bella Vista, Highland Terrace, San Antonio, Clinton Square, Eastlake, and Chinatown.
"If you look at the people who vote in special elections, the Asian American community is not well represented. One of my challenges is to mobilize people," said Wang.
Already difficult enough to gain voters' attention for a special election, the council race has been overshadowed by the special election for Oakland mayor between top candidates former congressmember Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) and second-time contender Loren Taylor. In 2022, Taylor had lost to Sheng Thao, who was recalled as mayor on last year's November ballot amid a wide-ranging federal corruption probe into Alameda County politics that saw FBI agents raid her home last summer.
"I am not endorsing in the mayor's race. I am staying neutral, as I can work with whoever wins," Wang told the B.A.R.
Born in Austin, Texas, Wang moved to the Bay Area with her family at age 4 and lived in various cities in the East Bay. They moved into a dilapidated, foreclosed house in Lafayette when she was 7 years old, and Wang would go on to graduate from Campolindo High School in Moraga.
"From a class and race perspective, I did not fit in. My maternal grandparents lived in Oakland, and I felt a lot more connected and a sense of belonging in Oakland, especially in Chinatown and its working-class Asian community," recalled Wang, who played the violin with the Oakland Youth Orchestra based at Laney College.
Both her parents were born in China and came to the U.S. for college as biology students. Her father, with whom she is estranged, was abusive to her mother and sexually abused Wang as a child; her maternal grandparents, now both deceased, offered her respite from the abuse and a chaotic home life.
"In many ways those weekends here in Oakland provided me a sense of safety, some stability and also a sense of belonging," recalled Wang, who would go on to be a board member for the Oakland nonprofit Family Violence Law Center.
She graduated with honors from Columbia University with a degree in environmental engineering and earned her master's in public policy from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. She worked to reform the state of Massachusetts's response to homelessness, particularly for unhoused youth, advised Boston's mayor, and later was a Biden administration appointee at the U.S. Department of Transportation, working on a $4 billion national program to reconnect communities segregated by highways, such as Oakland's neighborhoods divided by Interstate 980.
Single, Wang lives with her 10-year-old mixed breed rescue dog, Galvi, in the Eastlake/San Antonio district, having relocated from Washington, D.C. in 2023 for her EPA job. As many of the same issues that propelled her to enter the at-large council race are paramount in District 2, from housing costs and public safety to support for local businesses, Wang told the B.A.R. it made "total sense" for her to enter the special election.
She wants to help bring about a more vibrant Chinatown, particularly in the evenings. Wang also would like to see more LGBTQ-owned stores open in the Lakeshore area, in particular a bar or nightlife venue.
"I see opportunity with the vacancies to fill in those spots with things that serve the LGBTQ community," said Wang. "This is the LGBTQ district; gosh darn we need to have some more things owned by LGBTQ people."
With not having to be at her federal job at the moment, Wang has been able to devote most of her time to canvassing the district and talking to voters. She is also taking part in house parties where people can posit "hard questions" for her to answer, said Wang.
"People are sick given what is happening in Oakland. They don't want platitudes or sound bites. They want real solutions because so much crap is going on here in Oakland," said Wang.
To learn more about Wang, and her plans to address various issues, visit her campaign website.
The League of Women Voters of Oakland is hosting candidate forums this Saturday, March 15, for the special election races. The District 2 one begins at 11:30 a.m., while the mayoral one starts at 1 p.m.
Information on how to watch them can be found here.
LGBTQ nod trifecta for gay San Jose council candidate
In his own special election for a seat on the San Jose City Council, gay planning commission chair Anthony Tordillos has picked up an LGBTQ trifecta of support for his candidacy. In addition to having sole endorsements from EQCA and the Victory Fund, which also named him one of its "Essential Voice for Equality" candidates this year, he also picked up the support of BAYMEC, the LGBTQ-focused Bay Area Municipal Elections Committee.
Low, who has met Tordillos on several occasions, told the B.A.R. that "his service as a leader and chair for the planning commission helps to reflect his key core competency on understanding the substantive nature of policy."
In a post on his Threads account, Tordillos said he was "humbled" to be endorsed by the three political groups that work to elect LGBTQ people to public office.
"It wasn't that long ago that some of us wondered if we'd ever see another gay councilmember in San José after the scandal last year. I'm incredibly grateful that our LGBTQ+ community has put their faith in me to restore trust in local government," wrote Tordillos.
He is one of seven people running in the April 8 election for the District 3 seat that covers much of the South Bay city's downtown area. Should no one secure more than 50% of the vote, then the top two vote-getters will face off in a June 24 runoff.
Gay former councilmember Omar Torres resigned from the seat last fall after being arrested on child sex crimes charges. Elected in 2022 as the first gay Latino and out person of color to serve on the council, Torres is next scheduled to appear in court April 28 as his case moves towards trial.
Engineering firm owner Carl Salas is serving as the interim appointed District 3 councilmember until the special election is decided. Among the top candidates with Tordillos are Gabriela "Gabby" Chavez-Lopez, a Latina mom who heads the Latina Coalition of Silicon Valley, and Matthew Quevedo, deputy chief of staff to San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan.
Last week, Tordillos joined other LGBTQ advocates in denouncing Governor Gavin Newsom's remarks against trans athletes on the debut episode of his new podcast. In a post on Threads, Tordillos wrote that, "Newsom's comments on his podcast were incredibly disappointing to say the least. You deserve elected officials that aren't afraid to do the right thing and protect everyone in our community, in spite of political pressure. That's why I'm running."
Web Extra: For more queer political news, be sure to check http://www.ebar.com Monday mornings for Political Notes, the notebook's online companion. This week's column reported on how transgender judges are now obscured in the annual demographic reports for the California court system.
Keep abreast of the latest LGBTQ political news by following the Political Notebook on Threads @ https://www.threads.net/@matthewbajko and on Bluesky @ https://bsky.app/profile/politicalnotes.bsky.social.
Got a tip on LGBTQ politics? Call Matthew S. Bajko at (415) 829-8836 or email [email protected]
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