The Bay Area politician, known for her antiwar position and breaking barriers in Congress, just left the House after more than two decades.
Former Representative Barbara Lee, a Bay Area progressive known for her lonely opposition to the war in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks and for her rise within the House’s Democratic leadership, on Wednesday joined the race for mayor of Oakland, Calif.
She made the announcement in a video on social media just days after she concluded a more than two decade career in the House, where she was the highest-ranking Black woman appointed to Democratic leadership. Ms. Lee, 78, had declined to seek re-election in order to run for a Senate seat, but she lost in that primary last year.
Grappling with high crime rates, homelessness and store closures, Oakland has had a rotating cast of mayors. The city is on its second interim mayor since November, when voters removed Sheng Thao, its mayor of less than two years, from office. A special election will be held in April.
In the video, Ms. Lee promised to use her experience as a legislator, small-business owner and longtime city resident to create an “Oakland renaissance.”
“This is our moment,” she said. “This is our movement.”
Ms. Lee finished fourth in a crowded Senate primary last May to fill the seat held by Senator Dianne Feinstein, who died in September 2023. She trailed Adam Schiff, her House Democratic colleague at the time, as well as the former baseball star Steve Garvey, a Republican, and Representative Katie Porter, another House Democrat. Mr. Schiff won the seat after he and Mr. Garvey advanced to the November election under California’s open primary system.
Ms. Lee’s first political job was working on Shirley Chisholm’s presidential campaign in 1972, and she was elected to Congress in 1998. In 2001, Ms. Lee cast the lone vote against going to war in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, one of the defining moments of her political career in Washington.