Jackie Fielder

Jacqueline Fielder is an American politician who serves as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors for District 9, which includes the neighborhoods of the Mission District, Bernal Heights, and Portola.

Early life and education

Fielder was raised in Long Beach, California, and is of Indigenous and Mexican descent. Her grandfather grew up on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation and her grandmother on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. She was raised by a single mother in a working-class family, attending public schools.

She graduated from Stanford University with a BA in public policy and an MA in sociology.

Activism

Fielder is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Public banks

Fielder is an advocate for public banks. She advocated to pass California AB 857, which allowed local governments to create their own banks. She co-founded the San Francisco Public Bank Coalition, the first publicly-owned municipal bank in San Francisco.

Dakota Access Pipeline

As an indigenous woman, Fielder felt moved to support the Standing Rock Protests. She traveled to the Standing Rock Reservation, where she was inspired to do more. She noted indigenous Seattle residents had advocated for the city to divest from the pipeline, which led her to consider what she could do. She decided to try to do the same in San Francisco, which led to the public bank.

Policing

While at Stanford, she joined the Black Lives Matter protests of 2014. She also opposed the San Francisco Police Officers Association's use of force policy, and has criticized her political opponents for their support from police associations.

Political career

In 2020, Fielder challenged State Senator Scott Wiener for his seat in the 11th district. She advanced to the general election in a top-two primary system along with Wiener, but lost to him in the general election. At the time, some in local politics compared her to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

San Francisco Board of Supervisors

In 2024, Fielder ran for an open seat in the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in district 9, since Hillary Ronen was termed out. She won, beating more moderate candidate Trevor Chandler, with Fielder earning 59.67% of the votes compared to Chandler's 40.33% after ranked choice voting. Former district 9 supervisor Tom Ammiano administered Fielder's oath of office at her swearing-in ceremony in January 2025.

Fielder chairs the Government Audit and Oversight Committee of the Board of Supervisors.

Immigration

One of Fielder’s first actions as Supervisor was introducing a resolution reaffirming San Francisco’s status as a sanctuary city, which received unanimous support from the Board. She emphasized the importance of ensuring immigrant residents feel safe accessing city resources, such as schools, hospitals, and emergency services. Fielder addressed a crowd of 9,000 people who were protesting raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Francisco, and condemned the arrest by local police of people attending the protest.

Family homelessness

Fielder has made family homelessness a central focus of her legislative actions. She introduced legislation to end the city’s policy that limits family shelter stays to 90 days, arguing that no child should worry about where they will sleep at night. She has repeatedly called on the mayor’s administration to reconsider policies that could evict families from shelters without providing viable alternatives for affordable housing. Fielder endorsed a proposal to allocate $66 million a year to support families experiencing homelessness.

San Francisco Parks Alliance

Fielder has demanded accountability in the wake of the San Francisco Parks Alliance financial scandal. She has called for a comprehensive audit of the Parks Alliance's relationship with the city's Recreation and Parks Department, specifically to scrutinize all financial and in-kind relationships, including restricted funds and special arrangements. Fielder has emphasized that she will “do everything in my power so that the leaders of the Parks Alliance are held responsible”. Fielder has also asked the city's Budget and Legislative Analyst to audit of the Recreation and Parks Department itself to determine what city officials knew about the Alliance's financial mismanagement and when they became aware of it. This audit aims to clarify whether city oversight failed and to identify any systemic weaknesses in the city's partnership with nonprofits. With Supervisor Shamann Walton, Fielder has called for subpoenas to compel testimony from the Parks Alliance's former top leaders, including ex-CEOs Robert Ogilvie and Drew Becher, and board treasurer Rick Hutchinson. These subpoenas are intended to force these individuals to explain, under penalty of perjury, how millions in donor and city funds were misspent and why community groups' funds vanished. Fielder has been vocal in public hearings, highlighting the impact of the scandal on smaller community organizations that relied on the Parks Alliance as a fiscal sponsor. She has pushed for transparency and answers regarding how these groups can recoup their lost funds and continue their work.

Personal life

To pay bills, Fielder has been a server and bartender, as well as serving as a lecturer in ethnic studies at San Francisco State University.

She is queer.

She has been homeless, relying on couch-surfing and sleeping in her car.

References

Further reading

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Fielder, Jackie
21st-century California politicians
21st-century American women politicians
Members of the Democratic Socialists of America from California
American LGBTQ city council members
LGBTQ people from California
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
San Francisco Board of Supervisors members
1990s births
Native American city councillors
21st-century Native American politicians
Native American women in politics