Ousted Oakland Mayor Bitterly Clung to Power, Casting Votes After Recall
Sheng Thao cast tie-breaking votes on 2 ordinances, 12 days after her term as mayor officially ended. Thao now faces six federal corruption charges.
Sheng Thao was elected as the 51st mayor of Oakland, California, in 2023 and was touted as the first Hmong American mayor of a major U.S. city.
While she was elected based on her many promises to fight crime, in June 2024, the FBI raided Thao’s home, which she shared with her partner Andre Jones, as part of an ongoing investigation. Later that summer, Oakland’s police union called for her resignation.
Still, she persisted….and crime continued to explode, and businesses fled.
Thao was finally recalled last November, along with District Attorney Pamela Price, because of the crime and chaos erupting in and around her city.
Voters in Oakland, California, have ousted Mayor Sheng Thao just two years after she narrowly won office to lead the liberal San Francisco Bay Area city.
The Associated Press called the race Monday.
“Thank you for choosing me to serve as your Mayor. As the first Hmong American woman to become the mayor of a major American City, it has been the honor of my lifetime,” she said in a statement last week.
She committed to ensuring a smooth transition.
Thao must vacate the office as soon as election results are certified Dec. 5 and the Oakland City Council declares a vacancy at its next meeting, which would be Dec. 17, Nikki Fortunato Bas, City Council president, said in a statement.
I highlighted the above date as Thao bitterly clung to power and voted on important council issues after December 5th.
On December 17, 2024, Oakland City Council passed two contentious ordinances. Both were passed with a tie-breaking vote from former mayor Sheng Thao, who had been recalled 12 days earlier in the general election by 60.62% of voters. The Alameda County Registrar of Voters certified former mayor Thao’s recall on December 5, legally ending her term.
However the city claimed she remained in office until December 17, allowing her to cast the tie-breaking votes. It is our position, based on a close reading of city and state law, that Thao was a private citizen on December 17, with no more authority to cast a tie-breaking vote than any other resident of the city.
California Elections Code Section 11382 states that an elected official is removed from office as soon as a majority of voters vote yes to recall her.
BREAKING: Oakland’s City Council just redefined democracy—apparently, losing an election doesn't mean you have to leave office!
Former mayor Sheng Thao, recalled by 60% of voters, illegally cast tie-breaking votes 12 days after being removed. Now the city faces a potential…
— Seneca Scott (@SenecaSpeaks21) February 10, 2025
The voters want those ordinances back on the ballot for an up-or-down vote, as the process was clearly contaminated by Thao’s input.
Meanwhile, Thao faces six federal charges related to corruption.
Ms. Thao is among four people being charged. The federal indictment also names Ms. Thao’s boyfriend, Andre Jones; the head of a local waste company, David Trung Duong; and Mr. Duong’s son, Andy Hung Duong.
Patrick D. Robbins, the first assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California, said on Friday that Ms. Thao in October 2022 had agreed to extend a city contract with the waste company, California Waste Solutions, buy housing from the Duongs and use her influence to help them in exchange for a campaign mail effort and side payments that would benefit her and Mr. Jones.
California Waste Solutions then spent $75,000 on an attack mailer that helped Ms. Thao’s campaign in the 2022 mayoral election, prosecutors said. After Ms. Thao took office, the company paid $95,000 to Mr. Jones for a “no-show” job and had promised additional payments to the couple in exchange for Ms. Thao’s influence at City Hall, according to the indictment.
Prosecutors alleged that Ms. Thao followed through by taking steps to help companies owned by the Duongs and by appointing a high-level city official that they had selected.
Ms. Thao faces six charges, including bribery, conspiracy, mail fraud and wire fraud. Ms. Thao and the rest of the defendants pleaded not guilty at their arraignment hearings on Friday.
I can only hope the next mayor is better.
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Comments
So again, there goes the lie… Let the women handle it & there’ll be no problem!
There was a time when a FBI raid and indictment would have been solid proof of criminal wrongdoing. But after the last few years and seeing the corruption and weaponization of government against political dissidents I have to admit there is a non-zero chance (maybe 50-50) she is being framed.
If that is the case: which Communist Party satrap did the ex-mayor make angry at her?
While Hollywood and the media has romanticized and nearly deified the Bureau, particularly for their work against the Klan, the reality is the FBI has been a troubled law enforcement organization since its inception. Congress was extremely skeptical of a national police force and that skepticism has turned out to be very prescient. Yes, they’ve had their moments of success and even excellence at times. But, they’ve also had episodes and lengthy periods of extreme corruption, mismanagement and abject incompetence. Hoover was a tyrant, arguably the most powerful man in the country for decades who consolidated that power by abusing the authority of the agency he led. While we’ve never seen someone as bad as Hoover, too many have tried. Mueller’s handling of Whitey Bulger was a cautionary tale of how things might go should he run the show. The Russia Collusion hoax might be their most damaging criminal enterprise, it certainly wasn’t their first criminal enterprise.
Ask the people who keep track how many hostages the FBI Hostage Rescue Team has rescued… compared to the number of political unfortunates they have killed.
Maybe she just needed a newly woke, old man to give her a Gran Torino.
“I can only hope the next mayor is better.” Forget it, Jake–it’s Oakland!
Looks to me like you should have read the bit after your highlight:
and the Oakland City Council declares a vacancy at its next meeting, which would be Dec. 17
That “and” means their interpretation is that the office has to be declared vacant, as well. Now, it seems illogical for that to be the case, but it’s the big clue to this scheme – that’s the day she voted on those laws.
I will almost guarantee you that the council aided and abetted her by putting those items on the agenda before the item where they declare her position vacant. Just so she could vote for them.
The problem here is that the mayor isn’t the only one they should have recalled.
The law California Elections Code 11382 reads:
There shall not be an election for a successor in a recall of a local officer pursuant to Chapter 3 (commencing with Section 11200). If a majority of the votes on a recall proposal for a local officer are “Yes”, the officer is removed and the office shall be vacant until it is filled according to law.
The City Council seems to be trying to break that into two parts:
1) The certification of the recall election votes resulting in the recall
2) A separate vote declaring the elected office vacant.
That seems to be contrary to the plain language of the law saying “the person is recalled and the position is vacant.” The City Council wants a two step vote process where there is clearly only one step.
If nothing else, the second vote allows for the process of a special election to start. It is not a part of the recalled official to remain on the Council.
But you are right. If the Mayor is ousted by recall, why allow her votes to count? Why wouldn’t you put the vote on declaring the vacancy before the resolution votes?
I originally thought that like many cities, the Mayor of Oakland controls the agenda. Yet according to their own rules, it is the City Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas that controls the agenda as governed by a certain order in the rules.
However, according to their own rules, the City Council President can change the order of the agenda and any City Council member can request a change in the order.
It appears you are correct that the order of the votes was maintained to allow the recalled ex-Mayor to vote on those ordinances.
There is something else that further buttresses your position,
The City Council operates under Roberts Rules of Order which allows any voting member to request a role call vote. The moment the City Clerk called the name of the Mayor to vote, why didn’t someone say “she’s not in office anymore and cannot vote?”
Even more basic, why was the recalled ex-Mayor to even sit on the dais to begin with? After the recall vote, she is no longer a part of the City Council (or City government.
You are dead on in saying the Council screwed this up and they all should be removed. The troubling thing is that City Council President Bas trying to argue out of both sides of her mouth, She claims that the Mayor was no longer the Mayor after the election certification, but allowed the ex-Mayor to vote two weeks later.
Finally, and this is an ongoing beef with me….
Where are the multiple City Attorneys? Why didn’t any of them speak up and say “what the Council is doing is contrary to the law?” It seems far too often that while the actual clients of City attorneys are the City Council, they should have some fiduciary duty to the people and to the integrity of the City government as well.
source for Council rules: https://www.oaklandcityattorney.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/90066-C.M.S.pdf
“The problem here is that the mayor isn’t the only one they should have recalled.”
I don’t think it’s possible to recall the people who voted for her.
The mayor is over come with identity politics which is the ‘progressive’ stay out of jail card.
This, You CANNOT challenge a FEMALE politician — especially one with the shiny Democrat “first” badge of “FIRST Hmong American woman to become the mayor of a major American City!”
(The Democrat edition of Guinness is too big to fit into our town library.)
‘and Mr. Duong’s son, Andy Hung Duong.’
C’mon man! Also maybe the entire city council needs to go.
Enough, already! How many examples of Ranked-Choice Voting do we need?
Ranked choice is a system of diluting the fringe votes further to obscurity. I am convinced that most of our city council got there with 1000 first choice and 15,000 6th choice votes. Plus it requires computers and that makes it harder to follow the fraud.
I’m all set to give the urban areas of Commiefornia to Denmark whether we get Greenland in exchange or not.
“…the officer is removed and the office shall be vacant until it is filled according to law.”
Which is plain English meaning that there is no tie-breaker. This isn’t interpretable; it’s black and white. The issues on which she voted remain in limbo until either one of the members changes its mind or a new mayor occupies the office and chooses to break the tie.
I don’t get what the discussion is about.