Election 2024: Former San Jose mayor ready to step into higher office

A crowd forms around Sam Liccardo in Palo Alto. In a few moments, beaming volunteers will deploy to knock on doors and make the case for San Jose’s former mayor as their next congressmember. But the microphone is on the fritz when it’s time for Liccardo to give a pep-talk. He doesn’t need it anyway.

The focus, he tells canvassers under clear skies, is about starting a conversation. Liccardo’s bid for Congressional District 16 against his opponent, Assemblymember Evan Low, has been a bitter and unusual fight. A historic tie in the primaries sparked a contentious recount that left Liccardo and Low bumping heads with negative campaigning and dueling FEC complaints. Both are vying for retiring Congressmember Anna Eshoo’s seat.

At the September campaign event in downtown, Liccardo urged his team not to argue at people’s doorsteps but find agreement in the sunshine.

“Don’t feel like you have to be a policy expert when you’re knocking on the door. Your job is to invite folks to the conversation,” Liccardo tells the crowd, dressed in a casual polo and shorts on California Avenue. “And then they can come argue with me.”

The 54-year-old politician of Sicilian, Irish and Mexican descent said he grew up around household conversations that were constant, passionate and wide-ranging. The youngest of five siblings recalled how his father’s work as a lawyer — representing farmworkers hurt in accidents and bailing Chicano Movement protesters out of jail in the 1970s — brought a range of lively guests to their home in Saratoga. At first there were Catholic priests, who would then bring activists such as American labor leader Dolores Huerta, who started what is now United Farm Workers with Cesar Chavez. Childhood friends Liccardo invited for dinner would leave bewildered by his family’s debates about politics, religion and philosophy.

“There was always a discussion about politics at our table. I grew up with a sense that politics was something intrinsic to our goal in a democratic society — that we had to be engaged,” Liccardo told San José Spotlight.

From those dinner talks emerged the 65th mayor of Northern California’s largest city, steering it from 2015 to 2023 during the COVID-19 pandemic, civil unrest, a homelessness crisis and a mass shooting at VTA. In his bid for a congressional district spanning Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, Liccardo’s policy platform takes the form of an 80-page book, outlining priorities that include making housing more affordable and combatting homelessness, as well as reducing Silicon Valley’s cost of living.

Some donors — most notably, billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg — have pulled out all the stops to help Liccardo grab the congressional brass ring. Bloomberg has spent a total of $2 million in support of Liccardo, who has raised a total $4.3 million since launching his campaign in 2023. He’s also seen $516,997 in independent super PAC support. Low, meanwhile, has raised roughly $2.5 million since launching his campaign in 2023 with $875,877 in independent super PAC support.

Liccardo proposes a federal tax credit to convert empty commercial buildings into multi-family housing, creating a federal financing program for accessory dwelling units, or backyard homes, and reforming federal tax exemptions for capital gains to boost housing stock.

“We need ideas that don’t just involve more spending — we know Republicans won’t go for that,” Liccardo told San José Spotlight, arguing his proposals will get barriers to housing production out of the way and make housing cheaper.

He said he’s also looking to tackle the cost of living, pushing to slash agricultural subsidies that raise prices at grocery stores and oppose supermarket consolidation, such as this year’s controversial proposed merger between Kroger and Albertsons. He said a tripling of direct child care assistance for low-income parents — under a program known as the Child Care and Development Fund — could uplift more than half a million families who need to work but can’t afford child care.

As mayor, fighting PG&E became Liccardo’s signature move when he sought alternatives to the controversial utility, including a plan to create a cooperative, customer-owned utility to replace the company’s hold over Northern California. The plan ultimately fell short, but he tried again by proposing a city-owned public utility. Last October, the San Jose City Council approved exploring the possibility. PG&E favors Low in the race.

“We have seen several more rate increases from PG&E in the last year alone,” Liccardo said. “It’s an ongoing battle.”

Before first winning office as a downtown San Jose councilmember in 2006, Liccardo was a criminal prosecutor in the sexual assaults unit of the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s office. He prosecuted cases of child molestation and rape and other violent crimes. Most recently, he taught a course on homelessness and housing solutions at Stanford University.

Liccardo said Congress needs to take a hard look at Medicaid reimbursements — known as Medi-Cal in California — that have forced providers to limit their scope of services that could treat mental illness and curb crime. He also wants to change restrictive federal funding laws that cut off Medicaid money to large mental health inpatient facilities in a push toward community treatment. Liccardo believes the government learned its lessons from institutionalization and needs to fund large facilities.

The safety of Asian American Pacific Islander communities is a key theme in the race. Liccardo’s opponent chairs the California Asian American & Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus in Sacramento. Although Low introduced two pieces of legislation to strengthen hate crime enforcement after the COVID-19 pandemic ushered in a wave of anti-Asian violence in the U.S., former state Assemblymember Kansen Chu is throwing his support behind Liccardo.

Chu, who was born in Taiwan, worked with Liccardo as councilmember for eight years. He praised Liccardo as a policymaker who puts other people’s thoughts first. He also lauded Liccardo’s record on public safety and credited him with expanding the police force, a claim disputed by the city’s police union. Liccardo as a councilmember supported the controversial Measure B in 2012, crafted by his ally ex-Mayor Chuck Reed, to cut public pensions. He eventually appeased labor unions by negotiating a scaled-back version of the measure and settling costly lawsuits. Though his refusal to lean into “defund the police” rhetoric resulted in protesters defacing his home.

“One of the biggest issues for the AAPI community is public safety,” Chu told San José Spotlight.

Liccardo lists endorsements from environmental advocacy groups such as California Environmental Voters, the Sierra Club and 350 Bay Area Action. He’s also been endorsed by gun control advocacy groups and newspapers such as the San Francisco Chronicle and Mercury News.

Liccardo’s platform includes gun violence prevention proposals. He lists several outdated policies on the books at the federal level that he thinks should be changed. Among them: federal laws destroying gun purchaser approval records within 24 hours of approval.

As mayor, he spearheaded a cadre of gun reform measures in light of the 2021 VTA mass shooting. They included a landmark gun harm reduction policy requiring gun owners carry insurance and pay a fee toward prevention programs. But it was stalled by legal challenges as soon as it was approved. Last month, state appellate judges dismissed the final remaining challenge by pro-gun groups — freeing the law to move forward.

Menlo Park City School District Board President Francesca Segrè flocked to team Liccardo after her pick — Supervisor Joe Simitian — was knocked off the ballot following a recount. Simitian initially tied for second place with Low in the March primary. Liccardo was accused of secretly coordinating the recount which was funded by a PAC that supports him and requested by a supporter. He has denied doing so.

Segrè said Liccardo won her over for having a plan for his ideas around climate change and public safety.

“It is so easy to say you are for these things. What about doing something about it?” Segrè told a crowd of Liccardo supporters in Palo Alto. “This is where Sam Liccardo shows up for me.”

Contact Brandon Pho at [email protected] or @brandonphooo on X, formerly known as Twitter.