Vice Mayor Rex Richardson is asked to recuse himself from an upcoming Agenda Item benefiting a recent campaign donor and previous employer.
EDITORIAL On March 9, 2021 Vice Mayor Rex Richardson will urge his Council colleagues to “support the SEIU Local 2015 'We Can Do It!' mass vaccination campaign.” A City resolution, his vision is to “create a long-term care system” to help Black and Brown residents get shots in the arm.
On the surface, the Vice Mayor’s agenda item appears well intended and equity focused. However, when we follow the money, the details of his proposal reveal the uglier side of pay-for-play politics that does more to undermine equity than to serve it.
To be clear, the motivation to vaccinate underserved residents is pure and important. Additionally, the Vice Mayor is within the letter of the letter not to recuse himself.
However, there are deeper principles at stake.
Based on a review of the City Attorney’s 2015 revision of the Ethics Guide it may be best for everyone if the Vice Mayor were to both abstain and disclose the potential conflict of interest.
Next steps matter because the scope of Richardson's leadership as Vice Mayor is City-Wide and impacts Council's culture beyond his 9th District home.
Our editorial staff views this agenda item as a moment to lay out the facts and press the reset button. Rather than to attack the Vice Mayor we take the time to explore steps he might take to remedy what appear to be conflicts of interest.
Here are the Rules and the Facts:
The Rules
According to the Long Beach City Attorney: If (1) a city official (2) makes a public action (3) the public action affects their personal financial interest then they cannot make, participate or influence the government decision.
Under the Long Beach City Charter Sec. 210 “Ordinances and resolutions are the formal acts of the City Council reduced to writing and passed under legal restrictions governing action thereon.”
The Facts
Fact: Vice Mayor Richardson is a city official recommending a resolution.
Fact: The Vice Mayor authored a recommendation calling for the City Attorney to draft a resolution in support of SEIU local 2015. A resolution is a formal public action.
Fact: As well as having been previously employed by SEIU, the Vice Mayor’s Campaign has recently received campaign/office holder dollars from SEIU local 2015.
Our Inference
It's inappropriate for the Vice Mayor to make, participate or influence the recommended resolution and agenda item.
Should the City Attorney draft the resolution, it would be a conflict of interest for the Vice Mayor to participate or influence the resolution at that stage.
What’s going on
What is worrisome is not the agenda item or its intent but the money motivating the Councilman responsible for the item.
You see SEIU Local 2015 is a nursing union. The union itself is one of the most powerful in the state. Most of their members are women of color, which as you will see is important to the goal of the agenda item.
According to the Long Beach Health Department, during the first several weeks of vaccinations a disproportionate percentage of White elderly residents, residing on the east side, received vaccinations. On the other hand, residents of color who live primarily in underserved areas of North, West and Central Long Beach were underrepresented.
Aside from access, one of the reasons for the low rate of vaccinations among racial groups such as Blacks is due to vaccination reluctance. Their reluctance stems from assorted reasons not the least of which are historical incidents such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments. Unfortunate events like these, worked to further fracture generations of what was left of a skeptical relationship between Blacks and the medical industry.
Vice Mayor Richardson’s Relationship with SEIU
The Vice Mayor’s agenda item proposes that the city should support “unleashing the [SEIU nurses] collective power” to tackle vaccination disparities. What the agenda item won’t tell you is that the SEIU unions have also unleashed donation dollars into the Vice Mayor’s office holder account.
Importantly SEIU has a family of local chapters that include Richardson's former employer and the union before Council Tuesday.
Not only is SEIU a trusted donor but the union also employed Richardson. After serving as President of CSUDH student body the young - and future councilman - was brought on board because of his natural inclination for organizing.
With Richardson’s campaign fundraiser scheduled the very day after City Council takes a vote on whether to support the SEIU campaign, their recent contributions and his previous employment for the larger union give the appearance of impropriety.
To be fair, the Vice Mayor isn't the only Councilperson for whom SEIU stands among its biggest donors. You’re welcome to view more of the numbers here.
While those who seek to ban or restrict these sort of practices equate pay-for-play as legalized corruption, it’s important to note that the Vice Mayor’s receipt of these contributions is lawful.
The overriding question, however, is whether the practice undercuts our City’s moral fabric and whether his bringing the item forward creates a conflict of interest.
The Council that Cried Wolf
Without a doubt, data and experience support that there are serious equity issues in Long Beach related to both race and socio-economics. Since the murder of George Floyd sparked a summer of protest, politicians have latched on to academic lingo such as the often recited term “equity lens.”
Father of Long Beach’s Framework for Reconciliation, Vice Mayor Richardson’s agenda item states, “Utilizing a lens of equity, the campaign will work to target the most COVID-impacted communities in Long Beach.”
Like anything in life, the overuse of a term can dull its impact.
But there is another unintended consequence that cost even more at the tolls. If leaders make it an ongoing practice to pull out their handy equity lens but bury our heads on fair process and government transparency, we do more to harm the goal of equity than to champion better policy.
Unintended Consequences
The heart of the matter reaches beyond word-smithing and pitch-perfect messaging. The biggest threat of the way an agenda item like this is moved through Council is that it undercuts the soul of why so many Long Beach residents took to the streets during the 2020 summer uprising.
Their number one issue was unconstitutional policing and the police strangle hold on the City’s budget.
The primary culprit for the police department’s monopoly of budget resources was the Long Beach police officer union. Numerous articles have noted the details of their local campaign donations that make up the bulk of not only Mayor Garcia’s support but many other council persons.
Arguably, because the police are city employees and Council members vote on their salaries it’s a conflict of interest that the police union funds the bulk of their campaigns.
Thus, the charge of Long Beach protesters was simple. The police dominate the budget because of pay-for-play politics.
In championing the Framework for Reconciliation, the Vice Mayor positioned himself as a broker between protestors and the status quo. While politically advantageous, that does little good when he continues to drive the very vehicle for systemic racism.
In other words, equity cannot cure systemic racism so long as pay-for-play politics is alive and well.
Reasonably, what moral ground would protesters have to stand on if we call out the Mayor for pay-to-play politics related to the police union but we fail to call the Vice Mayor on the carpet when he plays the same hand but with a different union.
Regardless of whether you view police or nurses as heroes - and perhaps even both - if one stands against pay-for-play politics then one must apply it across the board or risk losing legitimacy.
If not, then equity is reduced to not more than a self serving tool rather than a guiding moral principle.
Sending A Message to Council
This is not just “any old” agenda item. This is an opportunity to send a clear message to Council that we are paying attention and are serious about the changes we’d like to see on critical issues like environmental justice, constitutional policing, homelessness and food insecurity.
As second in line to City governance, this agenda item continues an established precedent that hurts our collective sense of justice.
Imagine if the next time that park poor residents on the North or West side of town have to stand up against a national developer for park equity. If we take a stand now on pay-for-play, the voices of underserved residents won’t be so easily dismissed simply because the developer contributed to an incumbent’s office holder account or campaign.
Looking at the political landscape, we can’t transform our local political system if we give our incumbents a free pass. According to political writer Mike Soraghan, incumbent candidates and their political organizations are typically the greatest beneficiaries of pay-for-play politics.
Our two highest elected officials are both incumbents. Soon Mayor Robert Garcia will be up for re-election after surviving a recall campaign. The Vice Mayor has already kicked off his re-election campaign with a virtual fundraiser scheduled for next week.
To be fair, this is not a partisan issue. Both the Democratic and Republican parties have been criticized for the practice.
Moving Forward Together
The Vice Mayor has built a career in this city. He worked his way up from Councilman Steve Neil’s favorite staffer to two terms as 9th District Councilman and two terms as Vice Mayor. Aside from the Mayor, there isn’t a single person currently serving on council with more years of experience than Councilman Rex Richardson.
His place wasn’t given to him. It was earned. Not only is he a proud father but he’s completed college coursework while simultaneously holding office, a full time job, and playing influential roles as president of SCAG and now the Southern California board of Air Quality Management.
The point is his experience and relationships bring value to the City. And it can be more important that we motivate our elected officials to do the right thing when we see them get off course than to take their mis-step as an opportunity to hurt their career.
This is a lesson I learned first hand when attempting to recall the Mayor. Our fight isn’t with the man but with his behavior.
Thus, in the spirit of reconciliation and to begin to remedy the profound impact pay-for-play politics has had on our City’s moral fabric, perhaps our Vice Mayor might consider recusing himself from this agenda item. Maybe another member of council, without conflicts of interest, is willing to take up the sword for underserved Black and Brown residents facing disproportionate health outcomes from COVID 19.
If the Vice Mayor will not recuse himself it would be honorable if he were to please return the funds to the union he now seeks the City’s support.
If not, then what has equity become other than a ‘sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal’?