Should Fresno Democrats accept police money? Local party divided
After a heated debate, the Fresno County Democratic Central Committee on a split vote Wednesday night decided to defer a decision on whether the party or local elected officials it supports should accept money from law enforcement.
The debate comes amid a national reckoning with racism, police brutality against people of color, particularly Black people, and calls for government agencies to “defund the police” and redirect money to social services. Locally, thousands took to the streets in Fresno and other towns to protest, and Fresno created a police reform commission.
The Democratic Central Committee provides support to local candidates and voter services and education.
Emily Cameron, elected to the Democratic Central Committee in March, on Wednesday night made two motions: that the local Democratic Party refuse all monetary and non-monetary donations from law enforcement unions, associations, organizations and political action committees; and that all Fresno County Democratic elected officials do the same, as well as refrain from promoting endorsements from law enforcement groups.
Both motions were sent to an ad hoc committee and were not put to a vote. The decision to send them to an ad hoc committee was decided by one or two votes. The motions were made during the committee’s monthly meeting, hosted virtually on Zoom.
Cameron created a website, whotakescopmoney.com, that shows Fresno County political organizations and elected leaders who have accepted money from law enforcement groups. Cameron linked to supporting documentation, such as California Secretary of State records and other local campaign disclosures.
The website shows the Fresno County Democratic Party received more than $50,000 since 2015 from PACs for the Fresno Police Officers Association and the California Correctional Peace Officers Association. The site also lists a number of local elected Democrats and Republicans who received similar donations, including school board members, city council members and state legislators. The one elected person to reject money from FPOA was Fresno City Council President Miguel Arias.
Cameron said she was inspired by a similar measure passed by San Diego’s Democratic Party.
“I believe that accepting law enforcement donations is unethical to the democratic process. Law enforcement has basically bought us out. We’ve demonstrated that we’re open to just being pretty much bribed into complacency with the status quo,” Cameron said. “If we keep taking money from these types of groups, it’s sending an unwavering message to progressives, young people, young voters of color, especially, and people targeted by police that the Democratic Party is an obstacle to progress and not an ally to progress. … And if you say, ‘Black Lives Matter,’ I don’t think that you can reasonably accept money from law enforcement.”
‘They protect murder’
Other committee members who supported the proposal said it would send a message of solidarity to people of color and denounced the function of law enforcement unions.
“We also have to keep in mind here what exactly this union does that almost no other union does. They protect murder,” Alex Ramos O’Casey said. “What other union do we work with that actively spends taxpayer dollars to defend murderers? That is insane. That is absolutely insane.”
Before the vote, Ricardo Franco said it would be personally offensive to him as a person of color if the motion wasn’t supported.
Jeff Rosendale proposed creating the ad hoc committee, which ultimately passed a vote. The committee could be an opportunity to open up a dialogue with law enforcement unions, he said.
Others worried about alienating Democrat law enforcement officers and that rejecting police money would open up a can of worms for other sectors that donate.
‘Brothers and sisters in blue’
“I think we need to stay in conversations with our brothers and sisters in blue,” Jon Bath said. “It seems the narrative is that with Dems being involved with any police organization is us somehow OKing some of the awful things that have occurred, and I don’t accept that narrative.”
Racism is bigger than the police department and permeates every facet of the community, said Dottie Smith.
“As a Black person, I want to say this: it is not just police. So do we not support somebody running for school board? … I can tell you right now, there’s a lot of racism within the school board. There’s a lot of racism everywhere,” she said. “This is bigger – as a Black person – than the police department. Black lives matter in all facets of this community, and as the Democratic Central Committee we have to think about the entire Fresno County situation.”