Quest for divestment drives Native candidate Jackie Fielder’s California Senate run by Frank Hopper

Did you know there are currently 157 billionaires in California with dozens in San Francisco alone? Yet thousands of people in that city sleep in doorways or in tents under the freeway or in cars.

California State Senate candidate Jackie Fielder, who is of Hidatsa, Lakota and Mandan heritage, knows the score. Until just recently the 25-year-old Stanford graduate was living in a van due to the rising costs of rent in San Francisco.

“Here in San Francisco we have one of the worst Gini coefficients in the world, and it’s not just income inequality. We have thousands of people sleeping on the street every single night,” she said in a recent interview.

Fielder, a Democratic Socialist, is running against incumbent Democrat Scott Weiner for the District 11 state Senate seat, which includes San Francisco and part of San Mateo County.

For the past three years Fielder has been involved in the divestment movement and as cofounder of the San Francisco Public Bank Coalition, has worked toward giving control of society back to the people and out of the hands of big business.

“They pour millions of dollars every single year into California legislature elections. When I saw that our state Senator was running unopposed in a presidential election year and has not had a great record with being in line with his own city, I mean even right now he’s pushing for this bill that would fast track displacement and gentrification, I decided someone had to run and it should be me!”

Follow the money!

Fielder first became politically active in 2014 while still at Stanford. She majored in public policy, later earning a masters degree in sociology. During that time she became involved in the Black Lives Matter movement.

“I think my very first protest ever was taking over the 101 freeway in Palo Alto and marching through the streets of Palo Alto chanting ‘Hands up! Don’t shoot!’ It definitely changed my life.”

Seeing how public safety for people of color was being negatively affected by campaign and lobbying money from police unions opened her eyes to the true inner workings of government. “Follow the money” became her guiding principle.

From Standing Rock to the divestment movement

In December 2016, after finishing her masters program, Fielder traveled to Oceti Sakowin Camp at Standing Rock.

“I went there and it was remarkable. It felt really special, especially considering my grandma and my grandpa. My grandma was Hidatsa but my grandpa was Two Kettle Lakota from Cheyenne River.”

Fielder could only stay a short time. After returning to San Francisco, she wondered how she could continue supporting the water protectors.

“I was waiting around for a way to support them from afar. I saw Matt Remle and Rachel Heaton leading the Seattle Defund DAPL Movement, bringing 700 people to finance committee meetings. From there I just knew it had to happen in San Francisco.”

From divestment to the quest for a public bank

In February 2017, just as the last water protectors were forced from the camps at Standing Rock, Remle and the Seattle Defund DAPL movement succeeded in convincing the city of Seattle to divest $3 billion of the city’s funds from Wells Fargo due to their funding of the pipeline.

The victory was short lived, however, when a little over a year later the city renewed its contract with Wells Fargo. It could find no other large bank willing to take on the high volume of depository services required by the city. Other cities who want to divest have run into the same problem.

“No one has divested because there are no good alternatives,” Fielder explained. “And ‘good alternatives’ being a bank that is big enough. For example credit unions and small banks can’t handle multi-billion dollar budgets. We need to have our own establishment built by the public and accountable to the public. And that’s why we’ve been working on this public bank project for the past three years.”

A public bank is owned by a governmental organization, such as a city government. The funds deposited are invested in projects the community needs such as affordable housing. They typically would not be invested in fossil fuel projects or luxury housing development, for example.

In October, California enacted a bill to allow the development of up to ten public banks. Around the same time, Fielder helped create a proposal the San Francisco Board of Supervisors will vote on in January that will move the city one step closer to the creation of a public bank.

Coming full circle

From San Francisco to Standing Rock to Seattle, Fielder’s journey as a Native protector has now come full circle, back to San Francisco where she’s running for the local state Senate seat.

She faces a primary election in March, just two and a half months away. If she survives that, the final election is next November. She holds no illusions about her chances against her corporate-backed opponent. She notes, however, that Native people have a history of standing up to overwhelming opposition.

"It’s a legacy of resistance and seeing the odds, the grim odds, of success and survival and stepping up to the plate regardless of the odds. And that’s exactly what I’m doing."

Win or lose, her campaign will raise the visibility of many important issues and will no doubt help the drive to create a public bank in San Francisco.

Frank Hopper is a Tlingit freelance writer, born in Juneau and raised in Seattle. He currently lives in Tacoma.