Rebecca Kaplan was born in Ontario, Canada and grew up living with a universal healthcare system, in a family and community which encouraged her to fight for the rights of workers. Stories about the history of worker abuses and the fight for worker rights, such as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, as well as people giving their lives for social justice, such as the murder of Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner were part of Rebecca’s upbringing and inform her values.
Rebecca attended MIT as an undergraduate, where she was actively involved in organizing for women’s rights and reproductive freedom, LGBT equality, and part of the successful effort to get her campus to divest from apartheid-era South Africa. She volunteered on the re-election campaign of Senator Kennedy and worked for the City of Cambridge Commission on the Status of Women. Rebecca obtained her law degree from Stanford Law School, where she had the opportunity to learn from teachers like Michelle Alexander (author of The New Jim Crow) and became involved in advocacy for prisoner rights and against mass incarceration. She worked in Oakland as a tenant’s rights attorney and advocate and helped pass “Just Cause for Eviction” on the ballot. She served for over seven years on the AC Transit Board of Directors, an elected position, and expanded late night bus service, opposed outsourcing, expanded bike-transit connections, solar power, and sustainable fuel initiatives. In 2008, Kaplan was elected city-wide as Oakland’s Council member at-large, where she has launched major projects and policies, including a vacant property tax to fund homeless services, zero emission vehicle technology, bicycle and pedestrian safety and access improvements, and has been elected unanimously by her Council colleagues to serve as Oakland’s Vice Mayor. Kaplan also works for improvements throughout our region, serving on the Board of the Alameda County Transportation Commission, and the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority Board. Kaplan has also served on the Bay Area Air Quality Management District Board where she launched new projects to reduce dangerous pollution in hard-hit communities.
