Yesterday we reported concerns that veteran candidate Jorge Lerma, running again for the vacant OUSD District 5 seat, has failed to disclose who is funding his campaign, despite seemingly having reached the $2,000 requirement to do so. Well, now it is clear that Mr Lerma has reached the threshold. Yesterday, district 5 voters received a two page mailer from the candidate through the US Postal Service, which clearly cost more than $2,000 to send. All doubt is now removed – Mr Lerma has reached the threshold to file campaign donor and expenditure disclosure reports and has failed to do so in violation of law.

This is not just the error of a first-time candidate, Mr Lerma has previously run for this same seat and properly filed the same forms in question. In his unsuccessful 2020 campaign, Mr Lerma properly disclosed in his final 2020 Form 460 an expenditure of $4,217.10 for a mailer to district 5 voters – we would expect that this current mailer which was sent on or before October 14, 2023 had a similar cost, well over the $2,000 floor.

This is also not just a technical compliance issue – these disclosures are absolutely critical to ensure transparency, fairness and integrity in our electoral system. As stated on the City of Oakland Elections website: “Campaign finance statements can help answer questions about who is contributing money to Oakland candidates and political campaigns as well as how that money is being spent.¹” This is critical information to allow voters to freely exercise their fundamental right to vote for candidates who represent their views.

As voters in District 5 have already received their ballots in the mail and voting is underway, this is a truly shocking failure by Mr Lerma to follow the law and disclose who is contributing to his campaign and how he is spending those funds. We know he knows better, because he has done this before, and managed to file the appropriate disclosures (with the same treasurer in 2020 as in 2023). So what will the disclosures, assuming they are finally filed, tell us about who is behind his campaign? We know he has close ties with some current and former members of the school board, including Dr Gary Yee and Jumoke Hinton, as well as the former mayor (who we know is a big charter school proponent). We also know that he is supported by charter industry leaders (both publicly and behind the scenes), and based on several messages received by Parents United leadership yesterday, those charter leaders are close enough to the campaign to have insider information about whether/when Mr Lerma will file his disclosures and to intervene on his behalf.² We believe it is also very clear that Mr Lerma has not demonstrated the integrity, transparency and accountability that would qualify him for a seat on the Oakland Unified School Board. We need OUSD board members committed to following the law and interacting transparently with and accountably to the students, families and staff of OUSD. Mr Lerma has demonstrated that he is not that candidate.

1. https://www.oaklandca.gov/services/campaign-finance-disclosure
2. Parents United leaders received messages yesterday stating that the leader of an Oakland charter school chain had “heard” that Mr Lerma had filed his disclosures “late” and that as of last night “his forms are up” which was and is not true. Mr Lerma did file his form 410 on October 12, 2023 (as laid out in our previous post) in which he said he “qualified” by having raised/spent $2000 as of 8/11/2023. That Form 410 should have been filed much earlier, and it then triggered the need to file a form 460 on September 28, 2023 identifying donors and expenditures. That has not been filed as of 10/17/2023 at 9:27am.