Profile: Margot Smith, State Assembly

Margot with her daughter Janet.

Margot Smith is challenging Buffy Wicks, a rising star in the Democratic caucus of the Assembly, who has access to large donors and endorsements from the powerful.  Margot is running to raise issues about Wicks’ policies, especially about housing policy.  Her website is margotsmithforassembly.com.

Margot’s outlook is based on her training and experience in social science of public health.

As a Doctor of Public Health from UC Berkeley I worked for decades as a research social scientist for the California State Health Department in mental health, environmental health and access to health care. At Stanford I researched rural health care, at UC Davis, health planning. 

Margot says:

I will be a Democrat on the ballot to PROTEST the wild west trickle-down housing economics coming out of Sacramento. Buffy Wicks voted to build on green People’s Park!

We have a terrible shortage of housing for people with average and low incomes. I am FOR more housing, low cost housing for working folk, older folk, students; housing so our kids can live near us; low cost housing for teachers, veterans, and the people who work every day in supermarkets, restaurants, parks, who drive trucks, provide child care.

I am not a NIMBY or a YIMBY but for smart housing, housing that we desperately need. I care that people must camp on the street and live in cars because they cannot afford 
housing.

The laws coming from Sacramento encourage developers to build high-rise market-rate housing anywhere, and permit developers to bypass our local elected city councils and county supervisors. Their “affordable” housing is for people making $100,000 a year. They vote to weaken our environmental laws and CEQA so they can build bigger and higher.

This is not the housing we need, it is housing for the rich. Even the low cost housing proposed has gifts and gimmicks: we need to watch carefully

We need low-cost housing, housing for all of us.

Margot wrote a helpful article especially for Berkeley Speaks readers, ”Berkeley’s Real Need for Housing,” which explains a lot about the Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) and how it is pushing Berkeley to allow so much unaffordable housing.

See Margot’s webpage titled “Our State Favors Housing for the Rich: Lots of High-Cost Housing, Very Little for the Poor.” The image above is a depiction of what is planned for People’s Park, now that the trees are felled and the unhoused are all removed.

Margot is not a single-issue candidate, but sees multiple issues connected through a social justice lens. For example, she prioritizes environmental justice, supports Measure GG to pay for conversion from gas to electricity, and urges that:

“We must strengthen our environmental laws to protect the planet, not bypass these laws to profit developers. The State must act to respect our local lawmakers and elected city councils. We can’t let developers bypass our concerns and build anywhere. We need housing for everyone, not just the rich.”

Here’s an example of the kind of things Wicks does that get Margot’s ire up.

New laws let PG&E stick many of us with higher monthly bills. PG&E will charge us a flat $24.15 fee every month as well as bill us for the energy we use. 

And PG&E can raise the fee each year. Our State Assemblymember Buffy Wicks killed AB1999, a law that would cap how much the fee goes up each year. As Chair of the State Appropriations Committee she let it die.

PG&E is a PUBLIC utility that should give us energy at a reasonable price. We elect lawmakers to regulate public utilities so they benefit the public. Charging us an extra fee every month is not a benefit.

Behind closed doors, Wicks, the appropriations chair, has final say on which bills pass and which ones are held. She decided to let PG&E raise fees every year.

On the subject of education Margot states, “I oppose Charter Schools and will vote more funds for public schools, for small classes and safe schools, and tuition free college.”

In sum, here are key issues that Margot cares about:

  • Housing for All, not just the rich.
  • Single Payer Health Care for All: Be well. Stay well.
  • Education: PUBLIC, not Charter schools; tuition free college.
  • Tenants Rights: Fund those in need, prevent evictions.
  • Restore Affirmative Action: Justice for all.
  • Police Reform: Keep us safe with civilian oversight. 
  • Fix Prop 13: Fair taxes on big corporations: Chevron, Disney.