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There has been a lot said recently about free speech in the United States, yet here in Berkeley – birthplace of the free speech movement in the 1960s – the radical left is using their slim majority on the Berkeley City Council to silence their critics and suppress the will of the majority of the people in Berkeley. It is time for progressives to speak out about what really has been happening in Berkeley.  

Recent controversies about the resolution passed by the Berkeley City Council opposing efforts of the United States in Afghanistan has obscured much more insidious and serious activity by the very same council members who passed that resolution – activities that have included back-room deal making on council business and the intimidation of Berkeley residents who are exercising their democratic right to oppose this radical majority. 

First, the anti-U.S. resolution proposed by Councilmember Dona Spring – ill-timed and ill-worded – was written in secret by three members of the council, proposed at a council meeting without any prior notice to colleagues on the council or the public, and passed on a purely ideological vote with complete disregard to input from council colleagues or the public. Politics as usual for the radical left on the Berkeley City Council. 

Then, having essentially gotten away with that, the same group met behind closed doors – in possible criminal violation of the open-meeting Brown Act – and drafted an ill-conceived and poorly written resolution gerrymandering new council districts in Berkeley. This “oligarchy on the left” then passed this resolution, once again, on a purely ideological vote with complete disregard to input from council colleagues or the public directly affected by the new districts. 

Berkeley residents who have had enough of this unfair representation formed a group, Citizens for Fair Representation, to fight this unscrupulous politicking of the radical left, and began a petition drive to ask the council to reconsider their politically-motivated vote on redistricting that created unbalanced council districts – with 17,000 people in one and 12,875 in all the others – in a blatant power grab designed to create a super majority for the radicals on the Berkeley City Council. 

But, legislative back-room dealing apparently isn’t enough for the radical left in Berkeley. Members of the Berkeley council majority – specifically councilmembers Dona Spring and Kris Worthington – have resorted to intimidation and harassment to try and prevent Berkeley residents from challenging their misdeeds. 

Twice this past weekend, and again on Monday, these councilmembers and their political cronies disrupted the efforts of volunteer signature gatherers working on a referendum to repeal their unfair redistricting ordinance. This is simply outrageous. At a time when all across the nation people are talking about how to be sure all voices on the political spectrum are allowed to participate in public discourse, the far left in Berkeley is seeking to silence what we know to be a majority of the residents. 

A referendum is one of the very few ways citizens can directly challenge improper actions taken by elected officials. It is very hard work to collect signatures, yet over 100 volunteers have joined Citizens for Fair Representation collecting signatures every weekend throughout the city. Berkeley voters are eager to register their disgust with the back-room deals that have come to plague municipal politics, and the fact that the petition process is succeeding has councilmembers Spring, Worthington and their cohorts running scared. 

The radicals in Berkeley say free speech is essential, yet they violate it to suit their ends. They say fair representation is important, yet they disregard it. What are they afraid of, the will of the people? They have set a bad example. When the eyes of the country are on Berkeley about a vote the radical majority claims was about free speech, perhaps they should consider practicing what they preach. 

David Tabb is a Political Science Professor at San Francisco State University, Chair of Citizens for Fair Representation, and a Berkeley resident.