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For the 20 years Maudelle Shirek has sat on the City Council she could always count on the support of Berkeley’s foremost progressive political organization. 

Until now. 

Berkeley Citizens Action, which has endorsed Shirek in all of her council races, at times unanimously, voted overwhelmingly Sunday to back her rival in District 3, Max Anderson. 

The 41-17 vote for Anderson, the chair of Berkeley’s Rent Stabilization Board, cemented the challenger’s credentials as the standard-bearer of Berkeley’s left and finalized a painful separation between Shirek and some of her core supporters. 

Don Jelinek, a former councilmember, who introduced Anderson to the convention, said giving his speech endorsing Anderson was “the most difficult thing I’ve ever done in my life. 

“The idea of saying those words in front of Maudelle was painful beyond imagination,” he said. 

Telephone calls to Shirek Monday went unanswered. 

Anderson said he was “extremely grateful” for the BCA endorsement. “I think they see me as someone who represents and embodies their interests.” 

The vote by 59 dues-paying BCA members came after the BCA Steering Committee voted 4-1 to recommend endorsing Shirek.  

The 93-year-old Shirek has been one of the most revered figures among Berkeley progressives for her decades of work fighting for civil rights and against housing discrimination in the city. 

But in recent years she has frequently voted with more moderate councilmembers, and last month when a procedural slip-up cost Shirek her place on the ballot, progressives bolted en masse for Anderson. 

With Shirek running as a write-in candidate after she failed to collect enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot, she has seen Anderson win the endorsement of progressive organizations like the Sierra Club and the East Bay Gay Lesbian Transgender Club which Shirek had received in prior races. 

Jae Scharlin, a BCA trustee who collected the signatures for Shirek that the city clerk disqualified because fewer than 20 of the names were from District 3, said she was no longer working on the Shirek campaign and questioned Shirek’s decision to mount a write-in campaign. 

“We need unity in the district,” she said, fearing that Shirek’s campaign could tip the election in favor of Laura Menard, a more moderate community activist. 

Had Shirek qualified for the ballot, Jelinek said BCA members probably wouldn’t have seen her as a spoiler and might have voted differently. 

“If she had qualified I think we would have had a dual endorsement,” he said. 

While Shirek was getting squeezed out of Berkeley progressive establishment, she was trying, with some success, to make inroads with Berkeley moderates. For the first time Thursday, Shirek sought the endorsement of the Berkeley Democratic Club, the moderate’s flagship organization. 

Shirek failed to win the endorsement but drew enough votes to keep Menard from winning it and left with the pledged support of councilmembers Gordon Wozniak, Betty Olds and Miriam Hawley, widely considered the three most conservative members of the council. 

Olds, who had already endorsed Menard, said Monday she would now endorse both candidates for District 3. 

While the BDC failed to endorse any candidate in District 3, they did endorse Olds for city council in District 6 and ZAB Commissioner Laurie Capitelli in District 5. They made no endorsement in District 2, where Peralta Community College District Trustee Darryl Moore is a big favorite. For school board, the club endorsed incumbent Joaquin Rivera and for the ballot measures only the schools tax managed to win 60 percent of the vote. 

Besides endorsing Anderson, the BCA endorsed Moore in District 2, Karen Hemphill and John Selawsky for School Board and Nicky Gonzalez Yuen for the Peralta Board of Trustees. In District 5 neither Capitelli, whom the steering committee recommended, nor Green Party member Jesse Townley could manage the 60 percent of the BCA vote required to earn an endorsement. State Senator Don Perata also failed to get the BCA endorsement. 

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