If minority-owned businesses received federal contracts reflecting their share of the US biz sector in 2020, they would’ve received an additional $64 BILLION. We’re calling on @SBAGov to release all FY21–23 data so we can improve equity in contracting.
—Then U.S. Representative Barbara Lee on social media platform X, April 15, 2024
In a post on X, attorney Laura Powell notes that during the 1996 State Senate race, “current Oakland mayoral candidate Barbara Lee was called out by her opponent for her company’s federal contracts . . . she was awarded many of these contracts without facing any competitive bids. Barbara Lee responded by saying that it was ridiculous to suggest that her close association with Congressman Dellums helped her win those contracts.” Powell also quotes Lee’s response at the time: “I am a self-made woman. I work very hard. I’m a product of affirmative action. I understand the barriers that are there that exclude people like me from participating.” Powell also adds a little background: “After graduating college with a degree in social work, Barbara Lee worked in Congressman Dellums’s office for 11 years, then started a facilities management company in 1987. In 1990, she went to the California Assembly, while continuing to run this company, which she says grew to 500 employees before she sold it.”
Powell’s assessment is spot on — it turns out The Voice of San Francisco was already looking into Lee’s financial past. Not only did she make multimillions of dollars from federal contracts, mostly without competition, but she seems to have “forgotten” that part of her history: In a post on X dated April 15, 2024, Lee said, “If minority-owned businesses received federal contracts reflecting their share of the US biz sector in 2020, they would’ve received an additional $64 BILLION. We’re calling on @SBAGov to release all FY21-23 data so we can improve equity in contracting.”
In an April 2018 article entitled “The Days of Booming Black Business, Political Clout and Braggadocio – Part I,” Harry C. Alford writes that during the 1980s and 1990s, two major pieces of legislation helped open the doors for “new Black business owners who became polished and adept at business acumen. The day of the Black Entrepreneur arrived.” The first was Title VII, which dealt with employment equity. The second was Title VI, which dealt with businesses regulated under the federal government. “Title VII created a new well-educated group of Blacks that would become the quite noticeable Black Middle Class through the new avenues of equal employment opportunity,” Alford explains. “Meanwhile, in Congress legends such as the great Parren J. Mitchell, Adam Clayton Powell, Gus Savage, John Conyers, Louis Stokes, William Gray, Ron Dellums, Shirley Chisholm, and dozens of others started demanding accountability from federal agencies in the procurement activity. Suddenly, Black business ownership started becoming apparent throughout the land.”
It’s easy to be successful, even have 400 to 500 employees, when contracts are steered your way.
In other words, a new, opportunity-filled playing field had been built around the Minority Business Enterprise (MBE). The National Minority Supplier Development Council defines an MBE as a for-profit business that is at least 51 percent owned, managed, and controlled by a member(s) of a qualified group defined by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. For purposes of NMSDC certification, “a minority group member is an individual who is a U.S. citizen who is at least 25 percent Asian-Indian, Asian-Pacific, African-American/Black, Latin American/Hispanic, or Native American, Native Hawaiian/Alaska Native.”
Remember, Barbara Lee worked for 11 years in Congressman Dellums’s office. Just prior to her exit, on Oct. 31, 1986, Lee filed Articles of Incorporation for the W.C. Parish Company, Inc., cofounded with her mother, Mildred Parish Massey, in Oakland, California. Operated under the name Lee Associates, the corporation issued 10,000 shares of stock. W.C. Parish Company was named after Mildred’s father, William Calhoun Parish, Barbara Lee’s grandfather. It was family run, with Mildred managing it alongside Barbara (until Mildred’s retirement in 1998).
In 1994, as president of W.C. Parish Company, Inc., Lee filed a consent to use of name, “Pursuant to Section 5122(b) of the California Corporations Code, the undersigned, on behalf of W. C. Parish Company, Inc., California corporation, hereby consents to the use of the name W. C. Parish Foundation by Claudia A. Baldwin, incorporator, for the purpose of incorporating a California nonprofit public benefit corporation with that name.”
During the 1990s, while Barbara Lee served as a California State Assembly member (1990–1996) and later as a State Senator (1996–1998), W.C. Parish secured contracts with federal agencies, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Posts on X and public commentary suggest that the company received significant federal contracts, however, these figures stemmed from unverified sources and lacked corroboration from official federal contract databases — until now. A months-long investigation by The Voice turned up decades of apparent bias procurement, set-asides, and entitlement: In other words, it’s easy to be successful, even have 400 to 500 employees, when contracts are steered your way — and that’s likely why the whole story has been kept under wraps, for the most part.
In March 1996, the Oakland Tribune ran a story about no-bid allegations against Lee’s contracts. Bob Campbell, one of her opponents in California’s Ninth State Senate district election, raised questions about “Lee’s family-owned management consulting firms, W.C. Parish Company Inc. and Lee Associates,” which had contracts to supply security guards and other support services to the federal Departments of Agriculture and Energy, the Army, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Geological Survey. According to Campbell, the value of the contracts exceeded $8.3 million, but that number “could not be confirmed even by them.” A review of Federal Procurement Data System records showed Lee’s companies secured four contracts, through the Small Business Administration, that were not open to competitive bidding. “Lee Associates and W.C Parish obtained another contract, to manage the Oakland Army Base motor pool for $557,000, that was open to competitive bidding. But Lee’s companies were the only ones to bid on the contract, according to federal records supplied by the Campbell campaign,” the article stated. Campbell suggested Lee heard about those contracts through her position as an Assembly member, state Base Conversion Council and chairwoman of the Assembly Select Committee on Defense Conversion. “Let me put it this way, had she not worked for Ron Dellums, I’m sure she would have never known about those contracts,” Campbell said. “It doesn’t smell right to me.”
Using the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS), The Voice compiled 96 pages of contract actions referring to W.C. Parish. Examples including a $677,000 no-bid award with Edwards Air Force Base and a $247,000 award from the Environmental Protection Agency San Francisco listed as “Facilities Operations Support Services. Purchase Order. Women Owned Business. Small Business Set-Aside.” Lee’s firm was the only bidder. According to the BLS CPI Inflation Calculator, that $677,000 contract is worth $2.5 million today, while the $247,000 contract is worth $626,500. There are 287 contract actions totaling more than $63 million in the FPDS associated with both W.C. Parish entities, mostly while Lee was in political office, with over $44 million of the contract volume (168 contract actions, or 59 percent) relating to “guard services.”
Here is the database compiled by The Voice from the federal database, along with the original Articles of Incorporation.
