By Austin Turner
At 19 years old, he doesn’t have a driver’s license and rides an electric bicycle alongside the dense traffic of San Jose dressed in a suit and tie.
Commuting on a bike isn’t uncommon for teenagers. However, Marshall Woodmansee isn’t your typical teenager.
He’s one of five candidates whose name will be on the ballot for the District 6 seat on the San Jose City Council during the 2020 primary election in March.
Woodmansee’s political mission is clear. He pulls a homemade wooden contraption on wheels with his name, face and cause plastered all over.
On a national level, he’s unhappy with the current political climate. Woodmansee said the government has not done enough to address mass shootings and climate change, among other things.
College sparks political engagement for many young people, but Woodmansee dropped school entirely to run for elected office.
“The impact of inaction is striking closer and closer to home,” Woodmansee said. “When I was in school it was ‘oh no the polar bears are drowning.’ Now it’s like ‘my family’s home burned down in Paradise.’ ”
Woodmansee said he could make a change by running for office.
“Call it rebellion, call it disobedience, I don’t know what it is,” he said. “We need change because our lives are already suffering.”
Before seeking a seat at the table, the teen involved himself in several political endeavors.
After high school, Woodmansee helped start Project Now SJ, a nonprofit centered around building youth interest in local political issues.
The group attended Santa Clara Valley Transit Authority meetings and protested for climate action. Woodmansee said running the group caused a personal “snowball effect.”
“There’s issues in our community. What can we do? We can organize. What else can we do? We can also support candidates,” he said. “Well we can support candidates, but we can also run for office.”
Once this idea fluttered into the young minds of Project Now SJ members, Woodmansee was picked by his peers as the obvious choice. He was the president of the organization and had already shown an ability to galvanize a community.
“I couldn’t think of any reason not to run,” he said.
Woodmansee is challenging San Jose City Council incumbent Devora “Dev” Davis for the District 6 seat on the city council. Also contending for the spot are . biomedical engineer Jake Tonkel, mechanical engineer Andrew Boone and tech salesman Ruben Navarro.
“Why not challenge Dev?” Woodmansee said. “Incumbents should always be challenged . . . Profit over people is what our current city government is, and she is part of the majority.”
When Woodmansee announced his candidacy for San Jose City Council in July 2019, he was 18 years old. He decided to take a year off from De Anza College in order to run his campaign.
Along with climate issues, his top priority for the San Jose agenda is the housing crisis. More than 4,300 San Jose State students have experienced some form of homeless at some point in their college careers according to a 2018 California State University study.
SJSU political science professor and former San Jose City Council member Dr. Ken Yeager said local political candidates must focus on issues that uniquely affect their areas.
“Without any doubt [the biggest issue in San Jose is] housing,” Yeager said. “Everybody’s affected by the homelessness.”
Yeager said that it’s important to focus on issues unique to the community when running for local office.
Raised in San Jose, Woodmansee has been exposed to the political process since he was a child.
“I think the first time I spoke [at a city hall meeting], I had a little handwritten speech. I was probably seven,” Woodmansee said. “A little kid, coming up, maybe lower than the podium.”
From a young age, Woodmansee learned more about political action outside of the classroom.
“He has been raised with this mission,” his mom Tessa Woodmansee said. “We did everything that was right . . . I didn’t drive him anywhere, we took public transit. We rode our bikes. We have a garden, we compost.”
Marshall Woodmansee grew up in a politically-active household. Tessa Woodmansee was a climate activist in San Jose. Unsatisfied with the public school system, she homeschooled her son until high school.
Tessa Woodmansee registered her household as a private school so that she wasn’t restricted to the state curriculum.
Straying away from textbooks and standardized testing, Woodmansee and his mom traveled around San Jose and helped people in need.
“My whole education growing up in the heart of San Jose was volunteering,” Woodmansee said.
Before high school, he raised money from people “eight times” his age for the YMCA, took the lectern at city hall meetings and spoke to other students at the Guadalupe River Park Conservancy.
From ages 13-18, Woodmansee was a member of the California YMCA Youth & Government organization, which he describes as a “super intense mock legislature” forum.
After finishing this program, Woodmansee is finally putting his experiences into practice.
Even in the shadow of his mother’s political influence, the 19 year old made it clear that he’s the one who decided to run for office.
“It’s a common misconception that she’s pushing me to do this,” he said. “That’s not it at all.”
With little to no help, Woodmansee balances canvassing, fundraising and public speaking to advocate for his campaign and cause.
On Monday, Woodmansee hosted a news conference where he denounced a proposal to build a hotel in the historic Garden-Alameda neighborhood.
The project was zoned for 615 Stockton Ave. in his district and down the street from his house. San Jose City Council unanimously voted to block the development.
Woodmansee was furious about the plan and argued that the land could instead be used for permanent housing.
Despite his consistent political advocacy, Woodmansee is several thousand dollars behind Davis and Tonkel in fundraising.
As of Jan. 18, Dev Davis and Tonkel raised the most money for their campaigns at $138,474 and $49,488 respectively, according to San José Spotlight. Woodmansee was at $4,230 – a drop in the bucket.
“I think it’s exciting when young people want to run,” Yeager said. “But the odds of them winning are almost zero. So you want to encourage people to run, but more important for them is that they learn the process or learn the issues.”
Woodmansee knows the odds are stacked against him, but he’s not intimidated. He treats his campaign as a revolution and as a sign of what’s to come from the new generation of politicians and voters.
“I’ve had people contact me and say ‘I will run for city council now because I saw that you could do it,’” Woodmansee said. “To me, that shows my success. Whatever happens in March, I’ve won. I’ve done my duties.”
