You found it! The Pissed Off Voter Guide for San Francisco's November 2024 election.
November 5, 2024:
Let's Do This!
Federal Offices
President: Kamala Harris
US Senator: No Endorsement
US Representative, District 11: No Endorsement
US Representative, District 15: No Endorsement
State Offices
State Senator: No Endorsement
State Assemblymember, District 17: No Endorsement
State Assemblymember, District 19: No Endorsement
Local Offices
SFUSD Board of Education: Jaime Huling, Matt Alexander, Virginia Cheung
City College Board of Trustees: Alan Wong
BART Board Director, District 7: Victor Flores
BART Board Director, District 9: Edward Wright
Mayor: Aaron Peskin
Supervisor, District 1: Connie Chan
Supervisor, District 3: #1 Sharon Lai, #2 Moe Jamil
Supervisor, District 5: Dean Preston
Supervisor, District 7: Myrna Melgar
Supervisor, District 9: #1 Jackie Fielder, #2 Stephen Torres
Supervisor, District 11: #1 Chyanne Chen, #2 Ernest "EJ" Jones
City Attorney: No Endorsement
District Attorney: Ryan Khojasteh
Sheriff: No Endorsement
Treasurer: Jose Cisneros
State Propositions
Prop 2: $10B Education Facilities Bond: Yes
Prop 3: Marriage Equality: Yes
Prop 4: $10B Water Infrastructure and Parks Bond: Yes
Prop 5: Lower Voting Threshold to 55% for Housing and Infrastructure Bonds: Yes
Prop 6: Abolish Slavery in CA Prisons: Hell Yes!
Prop 32: Raise the Minimum Wage: Hell Yes!
Prop 33: Allow Local Governments to Expand Rent Control: Hell Yes!
Prop 34: Grudge Measure against AIDS Healthcare Foundation: No
Prop 35: Extend Funding for Medi-Cal: Yes
Prop 36: Treat Misdemeanors as Felonies: Hell No!
City Propositions
Prop A: $790M School Infrastructure Bond: Yes
Prop B: $390M Community Health Infrastructure and Parks Bond: Yes
Prop C: Create Inspector General to Combat Corruption: Hell Yes!
Prop D: Mayoral Power Grab to Gut City Oversight Commissions: Hell No!
Prop E: Democratically Streamline City Oversight Commissions: Yes
Prop F: Let Cops Collect Double Pay Before They Retire: No
Prop G: Fund Affordable Housing for Seniors and Families: Yes
Prop H: Earlier Retirement Payday for Firefighters: No
Prop I: Retirement Buy-In for Per Diem Nurses and 911 Operators: Sure
Prop J: Protect Funding for Children, Youth and SFUSD: Yes
Prop K: Parkway at Upper Great Highway: Yes
Prop L: Rideshare Tax to Fund Muni: Yes
Prop M: Business Tax Reform: Strategic "No Endorsement"
Prop N: Empty Gesture for First Responders: No
Prop O: Guarantee Reproductive Freedom in SF: Yes
Want to know why we recommend voting this way?
Keep reading for our research and snarky analysis!
Looking for a voter guide outside of SF?
We focus on San Francisco, but if you are in the Bay Area we recommend voting with Bay Rising Action's voter guide for Oakland, Alameda, Contra Costa, Sonoma and beyond!
Voting Logistics
Register to Vote at the Post Office or online at RegisterToVote.ca.gov. The deadline to register is October 21st, but in SF you can register in person at City Hall up until Election Day. You can also register at any polling place on Election Day: just ask to cast a provisional ballot. Call 415-554-4375 for more info.
WHEN?
October 7th: Early voting starts at City Hall, weekdays 8am-5pm.
October 26th: Weekend early voting starts at City Hall, Saturdays and Sundays 10am-4pm.
November 5th: Election Day! Polls open 7am-8pm. If you’re in line by 8pm you can vote. You can also drop your ballot off at any polling place on Election Day.
WHERE?
Drop off your ballot early at one of the 37 official ballot drop boxes across the City, from October 7th through 8pm on Election Day. On election day you can drop your ballot off at any polling place by 8pm on November 5th..
Mail your ballot if you can't drop it off. You don't need a stamp, but make sure you sign the envelope and that it's postmarked by November 5th.
Where’s your polling place? Check SF Elections' Voting Lookup Tool, call 311, or just go vote at City Hall.
WHAT ELSE?
Did you forget to register? You can still vote! Go to City Hall or your polling place and tell them you want to "register conditionally and vote provisionally!"
People with felony convictions can vote! You can vote even if you’re on parole. Re-register at Restore Your Vote.
Youth can (almost) vote! If you’re 16 or 17, pre-register to vote and your registration will automatically be activated when you turn 18.
Ranked Choice Voting Strategy
RCV allows you to vote for multiple candidates: your 1st choice, 2nd, etc. Your vote initially goes to your first choice, but if that candidate ends up in last place, they go poof and your ballot is ‘moved onto the pile’ of your second choice. This keeps happening until one contender has enough votes to win.
RCV is intended to reduce polarization and increase voter choice–and we can also use it strategically: to play defense. It sometimes makes sense to cast an RCV vote for a candidate you don’t like in order to block a candidate you hate.
For instance, entiiiiirely theoretically, say you don’t love London Breed but detest Mark Farrell. You could vote for your favorites 1st and 2nd, then list Breed as a 3rd choice, leaving Farrell off your list entirely. This way, if it came down to a faceoff between Farrell and Breed, your vote would help keep him out of the mayor’s office. Use ranked choice voting to vote your heart while making sure the worst candidate doesn’t win.
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Dear San Francisco,
What a time to be a pissed-off voter! Hometown girl Kamala has stepped into the spotlight, and while she’s far from perfect, the momentum of her meme-fueled campaign is undeniable. And thank god, because we don’t even want to think about the alternative.
So let’s take a tour through the rest of the ballot instead! It’s festooned with ridiculous PR stunts, of course, and weighed down with wonky props, but we promise it also hides some gleaming opportunities to improve our City and all of California. Top of our list? Expanding rent control, funding public schools, and squashing City Hall corruption.
Most importantly, we’ve got the first competitive mayor’s race since 2018, and this one is crucial! San Francisco has a notably ‘strong mayor’ form of government, and whoever gets the job is gonna exercise that power to the hilt. Three “moderate” big-money candidates are barking hysterically about crime, hoping we won’t notice that they want to turn SF over to developers, criminalize our houseless neighbors, and make our city unaffordable for regular people. That's not moderate, it’s right wing and regressive, and we’re not going back.
Our guy Aaron Peskin has what it takes to save the city we love. Plus, the Board of Supervisors is on the line, and we’re fighting like hell to elect champions who share our values up and down the ballot. We’re fired up, working hard, and thrumming with…hope? After all these years? Wild.
Love,
The League
The Headliners
President: Kamala Harris
You know, sometimes there’s nothing for it but to acknowledge that the extremely ambitious “top cop” with the crappy record as a prosecutor and the awful rhetoric on immigration and the terrible policies on Israel and the sketchy relationships with big donors, crypto, and our very own City Family— is sometimes the candidate we want to win. If Angela Davis can bring herself to vote strategically for Kamala, so can we all.
We hope you know how much is at stake. Don’t sit this one out - even in a safe blue state, if the shit hits the fan it’ll take a high number of popular votes to convince Trump’s backers that he lost.
This one really matters, friends. San Francisco’s Mayor wields an inordinate amount of power, and this year’s race is wide open.
Here’s our current tl;dr as we’re still figuring out this ranked-choice shit show:
- Aaron Peskin: our guy!
- Daniel Lurie: I mean maaaybe, by process of elimination?
- London Breed: ugh, we’ll probably rank her somewhere, because…
- Mark Farrell: anyone but this friggin guy!
- Ahsha Safai: AKA Mr. Irrelevant
Mayor: Aaron Peskin
The League is enthusiastically endorsing Aaron Peskin, a true progressive, a champion for everyday San Franciscans, and an unabashed good-government geek. You’ve seen the ad in which Aaron Peskin swims across the Bay from Alcatraz and emerges, picking up his briefcase, to go fight corruption in City Hall, right? Well, yeah: Peskin understands how government works (and how it falls apart).
Honestly, Peskin’s the only grownup in the race. In a field where most candidates are jockeying to be the most conservative, and exploiting the city’s very real and heartbreaking problems to score points, Aaron is running a campaign built on hope and recovery. His campaign platform is music to our ears: finance affordable housing for working San Franciscans, expand rent control, lift up San Francisco’s neighborhoods, and implement real solutions to homelessness that will actually address the reasons we got here.
And he has practical, real-world expertise getting shit done, too: problem-solving and passing creative legislation and working with people across the political spectrum. In his nearly 20 years in office, Aaron has been at the center of countless policies that have become part of the fabric of our city: taxes to fund transit, landmark inclusionary requirements for affordable housing, universal healthcare, and even using his masterful negotiation skills to save the SF Flower Market! When it comes to public safety, Peskin has successfully fought for more foot patrols in his district, and cops that reflect the communities they serve. To be honest, he’s almost too pro-cop for some of us, but his work has shown that public safety can be a progressive value.
We need a Mayor who is capable of, and actually likes, digging into the boring details and overwhelming bureaucracies of government. Peskin knows what all the different types of bonds and infrastructure finance districts are, what different clauses in the Civil Service rules mean, how the Port operates, and can quote specific code sections about all that crap with ease. He not only knows all the department heads, but the staff who actually run the departments; he knows in granular detail how building codes and MOUs with labor unions get written and enforced; he knows who’s been raking in pork-y contracts, and who’s doing honest work. Peskin talks with everyone, reads everything, and knows how to make things happen.
But maybe you’ve heard from people who really hate Aaron Peskin or maybe you’re one of them? Back in the day, Peskin earned a bad reputation for late night, angry, drunken phone calls to department heads. Unfortunately, those stories are true – and if he was still like that, this endorsement would’ve been a tough call for us. But Peskin apologized and sought treatment in 2021 and he’s been sober ever since. It’s reasonable to be skeptical of “reformed politician” stories, but we’re here to vouch that he really is a changed person. Where he used to be brash and harsh he’s now more humble, happy, and solid. We encourage you to just listen to him for yourself and decide. Here are his emotional comments in January when he was trying to negotiate a compromise on a resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza (jump to 14:36 in this video) and his recent interview on KQED Forum.
Or maybe you’ve heard that he’s “anti-housing?” Well, this fact-check of his legislative record documents how he’s voted for over 115,000 units of housing, pioneered ADUs, kept vulnerable tenants in their homes, and consistently championed affordable housing funding.
No wonder the right-wing PACs have an “anyone but Peskin” ranked-choice strategy and are pouring unprecedented amounts of money into their candidates: They cry crocodile tears about “dysfunctional bureaucracy,” but what really makes ‘em weep is Peskin’s promise to purge corruption and cronyism, make City Hall start working effectively, and save our city. Vote for Aaron Peskin #1, and get five other people to vote for him, too!
What about the other candidates flooding your mailbox and social media feeds with ads? As you consider your ranked-choice options (remember– we’re using strategy here), ask yourself: who is the absolute worst candidate that we need to block?) Here’s some background to help you pick your poison:
Let’s start with the avatar of the new machine, Mark Farrell. It’s an interesting trick to combine good-old-boy, cop-and-firefighter vibes with new venture-capital and nasty Republican support, but Farrell somehow does it.
Farrell is a venture capitalist himself (though he claims to be a “small businessman” on the ballot) and has the support of billionaires Michael Moritz and Bill Oberndorf and the big-money PACs of GrowSF, Together SF, and Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, who pull in lots of out-of-town conservative cash. But Farrell’s still working those old-school City ties too, via a PAC set up by Angus McCarthy, the ex-president of the DBI oversight commission who let private builders edit and rewrite DBI policies. Remember, Farrell’s no stranger to campaign finance violations: back in his time as supervisor from the Marina/Pac Heights/Cow Hollow, and then as six-month interim mayor, he operated what ethics experts call a “slush fund,” spending thousands in campaign cash on fancy restaurants. Now he’s created a fundraising committee for Prop D’s mayoral power grab which has been accused of comingling funds with his mayoral campaign.
Farrell is shamelessly running as the only candidate who can clean up an evil city. He believes that “our streets have disintegrated into a free-for-all of tents, homelessness, and drug abuse.” He wants more cops, of course, but Farrell has also said he would fire the police chief, who’s apparently too soft on crime, and has called for deploying armed National Guard troops to fight drug dealers.
On other issues, Farrell is so terrible it’s almost funny. He wants more tax breaks for Silicon Valley investors to “bring tech companies back to the city” (since that worked so well the last time around with Twitter) and insists he’ll re-open Market Street to Uber and Lyft to “revitalize downtown.” By the way, he wants you to come back downtown and stop working from home, too. He wants to defund all harm reduction programs, clear all encampments, jail drug users, fire the head of Muni, lower developers’ affordable housing requirements, cut the transfer tax on properties over $10 million, and eliminate police oversight. Our members are divided on who will get their #2 and #3 votes, but it’s pretty clear we need to do everything we can to keep Farrell out of the Mayor’s office.
Daniel Lurie has toootally been on Muni before (source: CBSNews.com)
Let’s move on to the non-machine candidate, Daniel Lurie, heir to the Levi-Strauss fortune. Lurie doesn’t need a machine because he’s running on pure cold hard cash, the vast majority of it donated by himself and his family. He seems to think that purchasing enough name recognition will overcome voters’ understandable reluctance to elect someone who’s never been in government, doesn’t understand government, and shows no interest in learning how it actually works. While Lurie claims this gives him an advantage over the “City Hall insiders” in the race, we’re not confident he has the capacity to run a complex city. His only qualification is founding Tipping Point, an anti-poverty grantmaking organization, with his family’s money. While Tipping Point appears to have done good work, funding organizations around the Bay Area (including charter schools), running a smallish nonprofit doesn’t prepare you to run San Francisco. We’re not sure who he would enlist to help him, but his campaign rhetoric features the same pro-cop, tough-on-crime, nonprofits-are-ruining-the-city talking points as the rest of the ‘moderate’ contenders. We already tried that, bro.
All that said, many of us will probably rank him #2 simply by process of elimination. At least he’s a new and unknown quantity who doesn’t flagrantly break campaign finance laws (like Farrell) or perpetuate City Hall’s culture of corruption (like Breed). And maybe he hates poor people less than Farrell— but that’s a low bar to overcome.
Supervisor Ahsha Safaí jumped into the mayoral race early, bent on bashing Breed, but never managed to get real traction. His bid to get endorsed by the biggest labor unions fizzled, and he’s a fifth wheel in the polls. Like the other candidates, Safaí says he wants less homelessness, more housing, better schools, more mental health treatment, a busier downtown, happier families—you know, all the things. To Safaí’s credit, his ideas are sometimes a bit less reactionary than those of Farrell or Lurie or Breed, though he seems to believe homelessness will be solved by “abstinence-based shelter.” We called Safaí “a phony, do-nothing house-flipper” in 2020, when he was endorsed by the Police Officers’ Association and got most of his contributions from the real-estate industry. His record as District 11 Supervisor is lackluster, and his recent decision to endorse Mark Farrell for #2, after sounding more like a Peskin copycat on the campaign trail, shows his true colors. Safaí is trailing in the polls, so if anyone you know is planning to pick him as #1, make sure to vote for Peskin as a second choice!
Finally, representing the Willie Brown/Gavin Newsom/Ed Lee/Ron Conway/City Family machine, we’ve got the incumbent mayor London Breed, who gets points for at least knowing how to do a 180 with a straight face. Breed has flipped, in less than a year, from demanding emergency powers to fight “the bullshit that has destroyed our city” and declaring downtown a filthy disaster zone full of junkies and criminals who need “tough love,”( i.e. more cops)… to insisting that San Francisco is in great shape, actually, due to her excellent stewardship —though we still need tough love ( i.e. more cops). Oh, did we mention Breed’s the candidate endorsed by the POA?
During her tenure, Breed has presided over a staggering level of corruption from the departments and the insidery department heads she’s appointed, and gone out of her way to ally herself with the most conservative Supreme Court justices in American history. She revels in cronyism, refuses to take responsibility though she’s thoroughly in charge, and governs mainly by press release. Buuuuut will some of us rank her somewhere on our ballots anyway, just in case it comes down to Farrell vs. Breed? Maybe? Probably. Yikes.
And we’re still debating how we feel about Breed vs Lurie. We’re not down with Breed, but at least we know what we get with her! Lurie is an enigma wrapped in a trust fund tsunami of money. One last reason to consider ranking Breed higher: she’d be termed out in four years, while Farrell or Lurie could serve for eight. Hmmm….
Go make some phone calls for Aaron right now.
Supervisor, District 1: Connie Chan
Supervisor Connie Chan has spent the last four years representing the Richmond, with a unique ability to bring genuine community voices to the table on projects where they are often waved aside. It’s inspiring to see Connie demand neighborhood resources from City Hall: funding for police ambassadors, expansion of street crisis teams, and affordable housing developments. Connie’s an effective, thoughtful advocate for West Side neighborhoods, and delivers for working families citywide. In her past two years as budget chair, she has fought to protect important city services that keep families and seniors in their homes, and to fund vital programs despite the Mayor’s austerity agenda.
The GrowSF/Big Money machine has been targeting Chan, along with Dean Preston, for a while now, hoping to replace her with more law-and-order, pro-developer candidates (among them perennial loser Marjan Philhour). And during the irregular, partisan, and frankly kinda corrupt 2022 redistricting, the Mayor’s buddies swept a bunch of the city’s richest residents into Connie’s district, while splitting the left-leaning voters at USF. So Chan, who’s been popular among the working families and small businesses who make up her base, is facing a tough fight.
But keep your eye on the prize, here: the League early-endorsed Connie Chan because we know how much it matters to have an experienced progressive on the Board— someone who can see through the bullshit and make things work. She’s also endorsed by a ton of unions, and by most of her Board of Supervisors colleagues, including some moderates, because they respect her smarts and ability to do the job. Vote Connie Chan for D1 Supervisor!
Supervisor, District 3: #1 Sharon Lai, #2 Moe Jamil
District 3 voters, who elected Aaron Peskin as their supervisor for almost two decades, are gonna be choosing from a more conservative cohort this time around. Peskin himself has endorsed Sharon Lai and Moe Jamil, the best of the bunch.
Sharon Lai, a former City planner and SFMTA board member who advocated for better public safety on Muni, gets our #1 as the only D3 candidate who didn’t support the reckless expansion of police powers on the March ballot (Mayor Breed’s Prop D).
Moe Jamil, a deputy city attorney and neighborhood booster, gives us pause with his support for drug-testing city welfare recipients, but he’s also pro-tenant and pro-neighborhood preservation. Gold stars to both for supporting the repeal of Costa Hawkins– yay! And no stars or votes for Matt Susk, the fave of big money and the police union, or for Danny Sauter, a smarmy developer shill– booo!
Supervisor, District 5: Dean Preston
Supervisor Dean Preston, is a democratic socialist who has been the Supervisor for District 5 since 2020. His commitment to tenants’ rights is legendary, and he’s figured out smart and efficient ways to keep the city affordable for regular people and small businesses. He halted tenant and small business evictions during Covid and helped turn hotels into emergency housing; taxed real estate sales over $10 million to provide pandemic rent relief and build affordable housing; came up with the empty homes tax on big landlords, and passed the country’s only law establishing tenant right to counsel. He knows budgets, and keeps an eye on police expenditures (including, woof woof, Spot the Robot Dog) and City Hall corruption. Dean Preston is an extremely effective politician, and a champion of the kind of city we want to live in.
A fairly ridiculous crowd of challengers are competing in the race, with the big money and endorsements coalescing behind Bilal ‘no really I’m a neuroscientist’ Mahmood (backed by London Breed, Grow SF, GarryTan, etc.). School board recall founder Autumn Looijen got “stabbed in the back” by Grow SF and and seems to have been pushed aside; newcomer Scotty Jacobs wrung an endorsement out of Mark Farrell, (maybe for fuming about deporting “illegal immigrant drug dealers”), and Allen Jones, who, bless his heart, teaches Bible studies at Juvi, doesn’t seem to have found a single patron.
In a nice gesture, though, the hardly-democratic-socialist Nancy Pelosi endorsed Preston, sending a message to upstart wannabe kingmakers that they’re not in charge of who gets elected in San Francisco.
Ah, but that’s all backstory. We’d happily support Preston just on the grounds of the odiousness of his opponents, but it’s more important to understand what he means for constituents in D5–the most progressive district in the city—and for the non-billionaire residents of San Francisco. Vote Dean Preston for Supervisor!
Supervisor, District 7: Myrna Melgar
Supervisor Myrna Melgar may be that rarest of birds, a principled supporter of Mayor London Breed. We don’t like it when she stumps for the mayor and votes with the wretched Dorsey-Mandleman bloc, but then again, they don’t always like the way Melgar makes up her own mind.
On housing —the hottest issue in this district’s race—Melgar is a YIMBY darling who can sometimes slow down the sharkiest developers, as she did when she served on the Planning Commission. Her push for upzoning has angered conservative West Side homeowners, who, she charges, “want a thriving business corridor with everything their heart desires, but don’t want neighbors next door- let alone renters.” But she’s not a total shill for luxury apartment towers, and seems willing to look for mechanisms that fight speculation and the displacement of Latina families like her own.
Melgar is endorsed by Breed—but also by Aaron Peskin; by the SF Tenants Union as well as by YIMBY. She’s by no means a perfect political match with the League, but her somewhat independent voice, and her actual experience working with groups across the political spectrum, make her by far the best candidate in this ugly race.
Matt Boschetto, an opportunistic political newbie who hasn’t even bothered to vote in recent city elections, is sucking up huge amounts of cash for his own campaign, as well as for his ethically-challenged ballot measure committee in favor of cars on the Great Highway. Stephen Martin-Pinto, a firefighter and former Marine who’s also a pro-cars guy, ran in the 2020 District 7 campaign as a Republican, and wants to abolish ranked-choice voting. Both Boschetto and Martin-Pinto are still angry about Chesa Boudin, and think the city “ties the hands” of the police; both are in favor of more homeless sweeps, and are working hard to paint Melgar as soft on crime. We definitely don’t want either one of them or their conservative backers to take over this district, which has become more progressive with redistricting. Vote Myrna Melgar for D7 Supervisor.
Supervisor, District 9: #1 Jackie Fielder, #2 Stephen Torres
Our pick for D9 is Jackie Fielder, the democratic socialist we cheered on when she jumped into the 2020 state Senate race to challenge Scott Weiner. Then, as now, she ran on a platform of taxing billionaires for a Green New Deal, free Muni, a government takeover of PG&E, and a public bank. Fielder, a Latina renter in the Mission, is a former educator at SF State and an advocate for truly affordable housing. She’s endorsed by the nurses of SEIU 1021, the SF Tenants Union, the teachers of UESF, and many more who want to keep our beloved D9 neighborhoods strong, progressive, and a powerful counter to the city’s most reactionary bosses.
We’re also endorsing Stephen Torres as our #2 pick, both for his solid overall politics and his experienced advocacy for sane small-business policies. He understands the role that decently-paid service workers (he’s one himself) play in keeping D9 vibrant, and knows the challenges facing restaurants, bars, and clubs. He thinks clearly about how to reduce drug overdoses (Torres points out that his own job, as a bartender, is to oversee a “supervised consumption site”) and he has the most thoughtful proposals for bolstering the city’s public health system. A good guy.
For angry conservatives, D9 is to San Francisco what San Francisco is to the country: If they can defeat the progressives here, they believe, it will launch an unstoppable right-wing coup.. And so we see the big bucks pouring in for Trevor Chandler, who made his SF debut as part of the billionaire-funded conservative slate that took over the county Democratic Party in March. Chandler is a former lobbyist for AIPAC who calls himself an “educator” on the basis of backing the school board recall and making a hasty scramble for a substitute teacher gig. His real job, though, is to gut the progressive bastions of D9 with support from YIMBY, Together SF Action, GrowSF, and SF o Association of Realtors boss Mary Jung. Don’t be fooled by Chandler’s description of himself as “progressive,” and his bland, friendly, white-boy-next-door charm: Chandler is all about protecting “our families,” by which he means property values.
Supervisor, District 11: #1 Chyanne Chen, #2 Ernest "EJ" Jones
Chyanne Chen gets our #1 because she’s a badass health care union organizer with wide support from D11 communities. She started as a youth organizer in Chinatown, then spent two decades in the labor movement, where she prevented cuts to In-Home Supportive Services care programs and secured fair treatment for workers. Chyanne’s priorities reflect her multigenerational district: she’s all about investing in child care and home care for seniors, as well as improving quality of life through community safety initiatives. Vote Chyanne Chen for D11 Supervisor (#1 choice).
Our #2 is Ernest “EJ” Jones, who has lived his whole life in the often-forgotten Lakeview/OMI neighborhood. He has legit City Hall experience as a legislative aide to incumbent supe Ahsha Safaí. We’re not big Ahsha fans, but we like EJ’s passion for his neighborhood’s needs, like access to transit and housing. We don’t know if Jones would be the same kind of champion for our values as Chen, but he would be a solid district supervisor who would listen to his constituents instead of the billionaires.
We’re excited that our two D11 candidates are working together with an authentic ranked-choice strategy built on mutual respect, and fostered by a grassroots coalition of OMI and Excelsior OGs who are supporting both Chyanne and EJ.
Leave Michael Lai all the way off your ballot– D11 doesn’t need a carpetbagger who built his scammy “daycare startup” by exploiting teachers and families.
District Attorney: Ryan Khojasteh
We don’t need to explain how thoroughly untrustworthy we find the current DA, Brooke Jenkins. She was appointed by Mayor Breed after the billionaire-funded recall campaign (a campaign Jenkins was paid to lead) dumped progressive prosecutor Chesa Boudin. Once appointed, Jenkins purged attorneys Chesa had hired; dropped charges he’d filed in police shooting cases; hired her old friend (someone with no legal experience) to run the DA’s office, made endless tough-on-crime speeches, cracked down on drug users, basically did whatever the mayor (and the cops) said, and is currently raking in the big bucks from tech figures through sketchy state campaigns. The League, as they say, would endorse a ham sandwich over Jenkins. 🥪
Our pick Ryan Khojasteh was originally hired by Chesa Boudin and assigned to a unit prosecuting crimes by juveniles, with a focus on rehabilitation instead of punishment. He later moved to prosecute adults for crimes including attempted murder, arson, and drug cases. He was, no surprise, fired by Brooke Jenkins, and went to work in the Alameda County prosecutor’s office.
Khojasteh is an advocate for partnering with schools and community groups to work with youth to keep them out of prison, and maintains his commitment to rehabilitation. He plans to run triage on the city’s backlog of cases starting with violent crimes first, and he believes in treating drug use as a public health problem and not a criminal one. Let’s bring San Francisco values back to the DA’s office and vote Ryan Khojasteh for District Attorney.
SFUSD Board of Education: Matt Alexander, Virginia Cheung, Jaime Huling
Wow, SFUSD is a hot mess right now. The plan to close and merge schools is in chaos, the district’s bloated administration seems dead set on running itself right into a state takeover, and our beloved schools are still reeling from the pandemic, the payroll fiasco, divisive recalls, and decades of disinvestment. So our next Board of Education will have their work cut out for them.We’re proud to endorse 3 candidates we trust to focus on the needs of low-income and BIPOC students, fight to improve working conditions for teachers and staff, hold the administration accountable, and resist efforts to privatize our schools.
Matt Alexander, by far the most progressive and experienced candidate in this race, has been on the school board since 2020 and is now the Board President. He has a reputation for centering students and staff in decision-making, and is a champion for racial equity. Matt knows how the district works: In his first term he negotiated increases in teacher pay while balancing the budget, investigated SFUSD’s excessive central office spending, and supported new evidence-based math and literacy curricula. With over 20 years as a teacher and principal, if he wins he’ll be the only educator left on the Board! Our kids are lucky to have Matt on their team.
Virginia Cheung is an SFUSD parent committed to engaging parents and communities in the “Resource Alignment Initiative” (i.e. closing and consolidating schools) and ensuring that marginalized communities are not disproportionately harmed. She understands that families sometimes need non-academic support, like help with food or housing, and wants to see the district do more to connect families with those services. Her years of experience in early childhood education will come in handy as SFUSD expands its offerings for Pre-K and TK.
Jamie Huling is a SFUSD parent and deputy city attorney. She’ll help the board focus on the critical need for the district to avoid a state takeover. Huling is committed to rebuilding trust with families and holding the administration accountable to its promises of “equity and excellence” across all schools, once these closure decisions play out. She has endorsements from across the political spectrum and we hope that means she’ll be able to set aside political drama and get to work.
Side-Eye Note: There are 4 seats open in this race, but only three candidates earned our endorsement. Whatever you do, DO NOT VOTE for Ann Hsu, Laurance Lee, or Supriya Ray. These jokers style themselves as “The Guardians”—- they were behind the ridiculous recall of progressive school board members in 2022, and the meaningless algebra prop on the March ballot. They’re destroyers, not builders. Thankfully, the school board has moved on from the exhausting drama of a few years ago, and there’s too much work to be done to drag us back into it.
Side Note: When we first discussed this race, some of us Leaguers were hesitant to support anyone except Matt Alexander, since the other candidates all supported the 2022 recalls. But ultimately, we decided to endorse some folks we aren’t 100% aligned with, because it’s so important to keep those “Guardians” out. UESF (the teachers’ union) took a similar approach. While only Alexander met the threshold for endorsement in their full membership vote, the Executive Committee voted to endorse 3 additional candidates so Alexander would have some allies on the Board when he wins. 🤷Politics!
City College Board of Trustees: Alan Wong
There are four open seats for City College Board, but City is in such a crisis right now that we recommend you only vote for the one candidate who is doing anything about it: Alan Wong. Alan’s whole family went to City College, and before serving on the Board, he wrote legislation to fund ‘Free City’. As Board President, Alan Wong has focused on building back the school with a responsible budget and a plan to bring back laid-off faculty. No wonder he got the sole endorsement of AFT 2121, the City College faculty union.
City College Board has long been used as a stepping-stone for politicians running for future office, who are all too often backed by real estate developers and motivated to cut classes, fire faculty, and sell off the campuses. But Alan is here for the long haul, baby, because City is more than just a junior college: it provides job training, childcare, and ESL classes– for free! He’s part of a progressive coalition that is fighting to keep City from shrinking; instead of making the pieces of the equity pie smaller, we need to bake a bigger pie. And Alan Wong bakes a mean pie. Vote only for Alan Wong for City College Board of Trustees.
Side Note: why did we only endorse one candidate for College Board when there are four seats open? The short answer is: strategy.
In multi-seat elections like College Board, there are a certain number of seats open and a passel of candidates; you can vote for as many candidates as there are seats (no ranking needed). Here’s the twist. In these races you might want to ‘bullet’ vote: select only the candidate(s) you adore and not use the rest of your votes.
Why? Well let’s say there are four seats open and ten candidates: Once the ballots are counted, the top four snag the spots. If your fave is fifth you’re out of luck. And if you voted for a few other popular candidates too, your votes are in their piles, helping them outrank your beloved! So in multi-seat races where there aren’t even a few so-so options, don’t toss your votes around: spend them only on those you truly want to see elected.
Right-wing PACs are flooding the field with money supporting their candidates for College Board, so any votes that go to others threaten to push our guy off the board. That’s why we’re voting for Alan Wong and only Alan Wong 🥧
BART Board Director, District 7: Victor Flores
BART Board District 7 is mostly in Alameda County, but includes the Bayview, some of Potrero Hill, and Little Hollywood. Two candidates are competing for this open seat, vacated by (our favorite!) Lateefah Simon. Lateefah leaves behind some big shoes to fill, and we agree with her endorsement for the person who should step in.
Victor Flores is a formerly incarcerated rising young Democrat who has become a transit and climate leader through his work at the Greenlining Institute and Greenbelt Alliance. Serving as a constituent liaison under two Oakland City Councilmembers, he advocated for immigrant communities and working-class neighborhoods. Victor gets that BART plays a vital role in climate resilience, economic security, and culture for the Bay Area. His campaign is supported by the BART transit unions, and we’re happy to help our East Bay neighbors grow the bench of elected community leaders.
Dana Lang is the other candidate in this race. She currently serves on the BART Police Citizen Review Board and is endorsed by Robert Raburn, the BART Director who appointed her. Lang worked for the SFMTA and SFPD, did a stint in the administration of Oakland Mayor Elihu Harris in the 90s, and says her career in grant writing will help her bring in BART funds. While her transit and public safety experience are laudable, we decided to follow the lead of Director Simon and the transit unions and not endorse her this time.
BART Board Director, District 9: Edward Wright
Edward Wright is a great candidate for the BART Board of Directors. Edward came up in the progressive movement, working for Jane Kim and Cleve Jones and serving as President of the Harvey Milk LGTBQ Democratic Club. He wrote significant legislation as former Supervisor Gordon Mar’s Chief of Staff, and currently works on transit strategy and communications for the City. We’re excited to see this seat filled with a dedicated activist who knows his way around a budget.
BART is heading towards a funding crisis and Edward is committed to making sure BART’s budget isn’t balanced on the backs of its riders. His priorities include modernizing BART’s funding model, expanding fare-free transit passes, and filling BART stations with events and retail stands. He has sound policy platforms focused on keeping BART affordable, funded and safe. We’re excited to vote for Edward Wright for District 9 BART Board.
Wright’s opponent is a literal YIMBY: Joe Sangirardi, who won a seat on the DCCC earlier this year by raising tens of thousands of dollars from a who’s who of real estate and tech elites. Joe seems to have his eyes set on running for District 8 Supervisor (notably, his website and email address are generic “Joe for SF”.) BART is a stepping stone for him. He works for CA YIMBY, and is coming up through the Scott Wiener pipeline, which places a premium on surface-level politics while blocking regulatory efforts. Joe was a loud advocate for Another Planet Entertainment’s renovation of the Castro Theatre, where he created a new group to undermine collaborative dialogue between APE and the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District–and look at that! APE ended up contributing $5k to Joe’s March DCCC campaign. When somebody tells you who they are, believe them the first time! BART deserves leaders who will actually focus on the work at hand.
The Other Candidate Races
US Representative District 11: No Endorsement
We’re not going to endorse Nancy Pelosi, but that’s OK, because the Boss will do just fine without us. There are plenty of issues on which we differ from the Speaker Emerita, but you gotta admit she understands power. Like, really understands power. And by dragging the let’s-pretend-everything’s-fine Democratic Party and its hopelessly confused candidate away from the precipice and changing the entire landscape of this presidential election, this time Pelosi deployed her formidable skills for the good of the people. Also, she endorsed Dean Preston for Supervisor! Thanks, Nancy.
US Representative, District 15: No Endorsement
Here’s what we said about unopposed incumbent Kevin Mullin in the March Primary: Okay, incumbent Kevin Mullin may be a “proud member of the Dads Caucus” who brags about his high-school past as DJ “Cutmaster Kevvy Kev.” But he’s endorsed by the state establishment, gets lots of mainstream money, and has no serious opponent– so he doesn’t need our endorsement. Side note: it’s such a drag to have nothing but blah candidates for Congress. Until there’s someone we can get excited about, we’re staying out of it.
State Senator: No Endorsement
We haven’t been fans of Scott Weiner, the incumbent, since he battled his way from the SF Board of Supes to the State Senate, turning a paler shade of conservative with every step. Scott is a smart, ambitious neoliberal who’s been consistently pro-police and anti-homeless. And, as we wrote in 2016, “Whenever there’s a debate between a developer’s profits and public benefits, expect Wiener to vote for the developer’s profits.” In 2020, Scott got more money from the real estate industry than any other state legislator. Now he’s a darling of the “moderate” YIMBY Democrats, with a high profile in the party, and will very likely be re-elected.
Weiner’s opponent, Yvette Corkrean, is an anti-vax, anti-trans, pro-nuclear power Republican who thinks Scot Weiner is a screaming radical. Even her main cheerleader, the Marina Times, says she’s a longshot. Leave this one blank.
State Assemblymember, District 17: No Endorsement
Here’s what we said about incumbent Matt Haney for the March primary: “We supported him in his previous runs for the Board of Ed and Board of Supervisors, and he’s even been to several of our meetings. But by the time he ran for Assembly in 2022, he was distancing himself from his previously progressive record. While he’s done some good things in Sacramento for renters like himself, Haney’s 180 toward YIMBY housing doctrine and his willingness to attack former allies have given him a (well-funded) seat at the moderate table. Now he’s getting support from GrowSF, and his endorsement of real-estate funded candidates for DCCC– who just happen to be running against progressives for supervisor in November– is just bonkers. We’re sad that we can’t endorse him this time around– do better, Matt!”
Since March he’s done some stuff better and some worse:
- Better: a solid legislative record, including expanding methadone access and letting tenants opt in to have credit agencies use on-time rent payments to boost their credit scores.
- Worse: spending $75K from his campaign contributors on living the high life at 49ers, Warriors, and Giants games. He claims these were fundraisers, but his insta sure looks like he was just living it up on his supporters’ dime. Worst of all, we haven’t heard any explanation or apology.
State Assemblymember, District 19: No Endorsement
David Lee has run unsuccessfully for the Board of Supes three times. He ran against progressives Eric Mar and Sandra Fewer, positioning himself as a centrist upset about homelessness and crime. Now these and other progressives are supporting Lee, and they have pushed him to evolve his positions. Lee’s ideology wasn’t well-developed or consistent enough to earn our endorsement, but he is committed to raising the minimum wage, supports City College, and will fight Big Oil. Outgoing rep Phil Ting, who supports Lee, says that community leaders see the contest between the two Democrats as a question of AAPI representation, not of ideology, and admits that Lee “definitely needs to improve his understanding of all the varieties of policy”.
At least Lee is not Catherine Stefani, who is her own piece of work. Stefani is currently the District 2 Supervisor. She’s a conservative Cow Hollow lawyer and a developer-friendly politician well experienced in back-scratching, who as supervisor has voted reliably with the Mod Squad and aligns with the more conservative factions of the California Democratic Party. She’s never met a cop or a cop-funding measure she doesn’t like, and says she looks forward to serving in the Assembly so she can provide “appropriate consequences” for repeat offenders. Stefani was a big booster of the Chesa Boudin recall (and was widely understood to be gunning for the DA job herself,) has supported Mayor Breed on virtually every issue, and was part of the winning “moderate” (i.e. big-money-funded) slate for DCCC . Sending her to Sacramento would consolidate the Scott Weiner/Matt Haney bloc of San Francisco pols who give the city a bad name.
Stefani’s donors include the CA Apartment Association, the SF Apartment Association, California Real Estate PAC, Fox Corporation, McDonalds, construction trade unions, some tech magnates, and various billionaires.
Lee’s donors are varied, and come from both moderate and progressive supporters.
Stefani, unfortunately, has a stronger campaign. Lee’s candidacy shows just how weak our progressive bench is. No endorsement.
City Attorney: No Endorsement
We’ve had mixed feelings about David Chiu in each of his three elected positions–previously on the Board of Supervisors and State Assembly and now as City Attorney. See our March 2020 take on him for some of that backstory.
London Breed installed Chiu as City Attorney in 2021 as part of a machiavellian triple play that took three of her strongest potential challengers off the board: Chiu replaced Dennis Herrera, whom Breed enticed to give up the job in return for taking over the SFPUC from now-jailed Harlan Kelly. Then Matt Haney ran for Chiu’s vacated AD17 Assembly seat, removing him from the Board of Supes where he might have pursued his own mayoral ambitions.
In general, Chiu seems to be doing a good job of carrying on Herrera’s legacy as City Attorneys who look out for San Franciscans, while notching some big-time legal victories. But Chiu lost our endorsement with two ugly moves.
He submitted a dishonest amicus brief to the Supreme Court in the Grants Pass lawsuit, arguing that the City should be able to sweep homeless encampments without offering shelter. Neal Gorsuch’s opinion quoted a lot of Chiu’s reprehensible, underhanded, and false arguments, allowing the most right-wing Supreme Court in decades to agree with a brief submitted in our City's name.
And now Chiu is suing the EPA about limits on how much sewage we can dump in the Bay and ocean. He recently appealed that case to the Supreme Court, giving the Trump court an opportunity to weaken the Clean Water Act. No thanks!
Sheriff: No Endorsement
We’re old enough to remember when San Francisco was proud to have the most progressive Sheriff in America (Mike Hennessey) who pioneered strategies to reduce recidivism, diversify the sheriff’s office, and stand up for the Sanctuary City policy that makes us all safer. Unfortunately, the jails have become a shame on our City, and we have no faith that incumbent Sheriff Paul Miyamoto is going to fix things.
Inmates are suing the City because they’re let out of their cells less than four hours a week, the jail is overcrowded and unsafe leading to endless lockdowns, and there’s no plan to fix things. Back in November 2020, we passed Prop D to create a Sheriff’s Department Oversight Board, but they’ve done virtually nothing, and just finally hired an Inspector General to lead the office, but he’s taking a painfully slow phase-in approach to the job, even though numerous cases of serious misconduct by deputies continue to go unpunished. Miyamoto wants to hire more deputies, but doesn’t seem to offer any real solutions for the hellish state of our jails.
The only challenger on the ballot is Michael Juan, a UCSF police officer who formerly worked for the Sheriff’s office, SFPD, and the SFSU police. There’s nothing unhinged or regressive in his platform, but it’s vague and doesn’t speak to officer misconduct, and Juan lacks the management experience this job needs. Still, we don’t blame you if you want to fill in his name as a protest vote.
Treasurer: Jose Cisneros
Jose Cisneros was first appointed Treasurer by Gavin Newsom way back in 2004, and he’s been the most ‘undercover’ citywide elected official ever since. He’s not the bold champion taking on the big banks that we’d like to see in that office. But he’s competent and he’s kept his nose clean (which has sadly become a triumphant feat for department heads in the extended Willie Brown-Gavin Newsom-Ed Lee-London Breed era). He’s also launched a number of solid initiatives, like the Financial Justice Project which reformed fines and fees that unfairly impacted low-income San Franciscans, and the Office of Financial Empowerment that helps residents with financial coaching and obtaining bank accounts.
We didn’t endorse Cisneros in 2019, largely because of his lack of support for a public bank. But we’re glad to see he’s become more supportive, with his chief of staff serving on the Reinvestment Working Group that developed and unanimously submitted a business plan for a public bank to the Board of Supervisors. Come on Jose, let’s make it happen!
Local Ballot Measures
Prop A: $790M School Infrastructure Bond: Yes
Prop A is a $790 million bond that replaces other bonds that are expiring (so it doesn’t raise taxes). Every few years, SF voters pass a bond to fund infrastructure improvements in SFUSD schools. Despite SFUSD’s apparent inability to manage money in a responsible way, these bonds actually have a pretty good track record. They’re vital, because our aging school buildings desperately need work, and schools are so broke that only the “credit card” of the bond program can cover it. Money from Prop A will go to all kinds of projects across the district (outdoor classrooms, libraries, athletic fields, electric/water/ventilation system updates, earthquake safety, technology, etc) with a big chunk going to improve nutrition facilities so school food can suck less.
The biggest bummer about Prop A is that $790 million’s not nearly enough money. SFUSD’s recent facilities master plan found that to get every building up to snuff would cost $6 billion! With a B! Sigh. Well, let’s pass this, hope that they do as much as possible with it, and steel ourselves to authorize another splashout in 2028.
Prop B: $390M Community Health Infrastructure and Parks Bond: Yes
Prop B is a $390 million bond that will fund renovations to public health facilities, improvements for pedestrian safety, and renovations of public spaces in downtown. This bond is one of many that come before SF voters every cycle (see Prop A, and also the general obligation bonds in 2020, 2016, 2008). The city’s strategy is generally to propose a new bond for the ballot when an old bond expires, so this won’t raise your taxes.
What the bond does do is authorize nearly $200 million in spending to perform much-needed repairs, expansions, and earthquake-proofing of critical healthcare facilities in San Francisco, including Chinatown Public Health Center, City Clinic in SOMA, the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, and Laguna Honda Hospital. These vital healthcare facilities, along with a network of community primary-care clinics, provide outpatient, inpatient, emergency, and ongoing services to San Francisco residents of all ages, in many languages. This bond also dedicates $50 million to build or improve existing homeless shelters in SF, with a focus on shelters for families and emergencies, and another $63.9 million for street safety improvements.
Finally, the bond includes $41 million to “beautify” downtown and put up a statue to Harvey Milk. That part is sort of silly, but overall we’re for a Yes on B to keep our people healthy and our city running well.
Prop C: Create Inspector General to Combat Corruption: Hell Yes!
Prop C will amend the City charter to create a dedicated office of the Inspector General, who would be authorized to investigate fraud or waste in City departments and contractors. It’s about time! San Francisco is one of the only major US cities without an Inspector General. With multiple City Attorneys asleep at the wheel, we’ve had to rely on the Feds to track down the ‘City Family’ criminals who have been selling out San Francisco in smoky backrooms. And the Feds have only been able to catch the little fish!
The Ethics Commission can’t audit the finances of entire departments or of contractors– and in any case, when the SF Ethics Commission slapped Mayor Breed with fines for illegally accepting gifts from convicted felons, its budget was threatened. Neither the DA’s office nor the City Attorney are capable of taking on systemic corruption, either. Prop C would place the new Inspector General under the protection of the City Services Auditor, which has a budget protected by the City charter. With subpoena power and budgetary protections, this position will have the tools necessary to root out the corruption that has been cheating us out of a working city government for decades. Vote Hell Yes on Prop C!
Prop D: Mayoral Power Grab to Gut City Oversight Commissions: Hell No!
Prop E: Democratically Streamline City Oversight Commissions: Yes
At their best, the City’s 115 commissions are a vital part of providing the checks and balances that prevent deparmental bad behavior and corruption. At their worst, they are examples of do-nothing bureaucracy. Right now the City has hundreds of commissions, ranging from crucial oversight of the police to ‘advisory’ committees, which have no power and cost the City no money.
There are two props about commissions on the November ballot: D and E. Whichever gets the most votes becomes law and pulls the plug on the other. We’ll give you a tour through both!
Prop D is San Francisco’s very own Project 2025. It was put on the ballot by MAGA Mark Farrell for three reasons: as a slush fund to launder money from his sleazy Republican donors; to spin a right-wing narrative that demonizes commissions as government ‘bloat’, thereby justifying axing them to block healthy public oversight; and to increase the scrutiny-free power of the Mayor’s office - an office Farrell hopes to occupy soon.
Prop D guts public oversight by dissolving the commissions’ decision-making ability and transferring it to the mayor. The mayor would gain even more power than granted already by our exceptionally “strong mayor” system. Prop D is billed as a way to streamline inefficient bureaucracy, but its real purpose is to reduce transparency and slide decision-making out of view of independent oversight.
Under Prop D, a task force would have nine months to arbitrarily reduce SF commissions to fewer than 65 or BOOM! all the existing commissions dissolve, except for those required by law. There goes the last check on mayoral power.
Aaron Peskin’s Prop E, on the other hand, is a reasonable approach to getting rid of unnecessary bureaucracy and no-show commission appointments that reward politicians’ friends. It acknowledges that city commissions have proliferated, but seeks to trim them down judiciously rather than carpet-bomb the lot.
Peskin’s plan would launch a two-year process to streamline commissions rationally through a task force (a five-person committee, appointed in a balanced way: one expert in open government, appointed by the mayor; one labor rep appointed by the BoS; and the City Attorney, City Administrator and City Controller or their departmental designees).
Prop E will increase transparency, making the functions of commissions and the budgets of the city departments they oversee much clearer. It would require a rationale for doing away with any given commission, ensure that each axed commission’s practical duties would be reassigned, and codify changes through a Charter Amendment written by a real-life City Attorney. Vote No on D and Yes on E!
Prop F: Let Cops Collect Double Pay Before They Retire: No
It’s hardly a secret that many of the races this year are competitions to see who can most luridly whip up voters’ anxieties about “public safety” and appear most rabidly pro-cop. Prop F was sponsored by Sup. Matt Dorsey, a former police comms guy, but most of the supes and mayoral candidates felt obliged to endorse this shameless giveaway to win the support of the powerful, reactionary police officers’ union.
Prop F would establish a “deferred retirement option plan” intended to entice officers to stay in what the SFPD insists on calling an “understaffed” force. Never mind that many cops are already functionally retired on the job— not responding to citizens’ calls, pulling down overtime to stand around in groups watching skateboarders, or sitting in their cars on the BART plazas playing Candy Crush for hours. Annnnd they got a 20% pay bonus last year.
The DROP prop would let cops practically double their salary in their last five years of employment. If old officers stay on, they will be able to collect their retirement pensions, for 3-5 years, while they continue to pocket their regular salaries. On average, officers double-dipping like this would earn close to $450K a year.
We’re not balance-the-budget conservatives, but given that the city’s facing a $800 million deficit, this is ridiculous. Vote No on Prop F.
Prop G: Fund Affordable Housing for Seniors and Families: Yes
Because of convoluted housing formulas, many low-income seniors don’t make enough money to qualify for the city’s low-income housing! The Board of Supes responded to this ridiculous situation in 2019 by setting up a subsidy program, but the Mayor’s budget reduced its annual funding from $4 million a year to a measly $125 thousand. Prop G would establish a baseline of $4 million annually to subsidize units for seniors and families who are too poor to qualify for low-income housing, so that the people who most need homes aren’t shut out.
Prop H: Earlier Retirement Payday for Firefighters: No
Okay, speaking of uniformed city employees whose unions’ endorsements have a huge political impact, next up is a sweetheart retirement deal for the firefighters.
In 2011, voters raised the retirement age for firefighters to 58; Prop H would reverse that back down to 55, and would also tweak the employer contribution to pensions so that the city pays more. The cynical political logic is impeccable: who’d want to oppose heroic firefighters? We need to shell out to retain those irreplaceable first responders, right?
The thing is, the SFFD doesn’t have trouble recruiting or retaining firefighters: they’re highly paid, with great benefits, and applicants flock from around the state for these jobs. (And after a 1988 consent decree to overcome a legacy of racial discrimination, the city’s “most intransigent institution” even made some hires from outside its good-old-boy network.)
You’ve probably seen the firefighter union’s billboards claiming that since they get more cancer than the rest of us, they should be able to retire earlier. Listen, everyone should be able to retire earlier. But other at-risk workers (all the underpaid cleaners, night-shift workers, and food delivery serfs) don’t get politicians clamoring to increase their pensions–at a cost of more than $10 million in the first year alone. The ever-mounting cost of this prop—by 2040, the controller estimates it will add over $21 million a year to the budget— does nothing to improve the actual operations of the fire department, and means likely cuts to other city services. We know firefighters are sexy, but vote no on Prop H.
Prop I: Retirement Buy-In for Per Diem Nurses and 911 Operators: Sure
Well, the city loves to talk about health care workers as “essential” first responders but doesn’t actually treat its nurses or its 911 operators very well. It’s infuriating to watch generous measures (Props F and H) shovel cash toward cops and firefighters, who already rake in big salaries and overtime and get the City’s top-tier retirement plan. Like those measures, Prop I is pitched as a way for the city to attract and retain essential employees and address understaffing. But it’s far stingier. [angry snort emoji]
First, some definitions. City-employed per diem nurses are part-time temporary employees. They make more per hour than full-time staff nurses, but don’t get the same benefits. Like travel nurses, per diems fill in gaps caused by austerity scheduling and understaffing, though at least per diems are in the union. Sometimes, nurses who have been working in a per diem role apply for and win permanent positions, at which point they start accruing credit toward their eventual City pension. But their years as a per diem don’t count, despite the fact that they might have been working in exactly the same role. Prop I would give nurses in that situation the option to buy into the (second-tier) City pension plan, and get retirement credit for up to three years of per diem service.
But like we said, it’s kinda miserly. Not all per diem nurses would be eligible for the system; they’d still have to buy retirement credit; and they’d only get credit for 3 years of per diem work. As for 911 operators, they’d be moved up from the very bottom tier of the City retirement plan to the second, meaning they’d pay in more and get better retirement benefits (though not as plush as what cops and firefighters get.)
Overall, this measure is a hack that doesn’t address San Francisco’s very real problem of understaffing, which is largely caused by a terrible City HR process and bottlenecks in hiring. Prop I tries to sweeten the deal for per diems, saying the measure will “give them an incentive to accept full-time positions.” But the real reason most per diems don’t “accept” full-time positions is because it takes too damn long to go through the byzantine hiring process. They give up after waiting six months or more for HR to call them back, and take full-time jobs elsewhere.
The League supports as many people as possible getting into pension systems: God knows these workers are going to need it. So we give a strong yes in support of better benefits for per diem nurses and 911 operators; it’s the least they deserve. But let’s be honest: giving a few people a better retirement deal down the line is not going to solve understaffing: for that, we need real reform of the city’s dysfunctional HR department and hiring process (For that we need Aaron Peskin as mayor to clean house).
Prop J: Protect Funding for Children, Youth and SFUSD: Yes
Prop J would create an “Our Children, Our Families Initiative” to coordinate services for children, youth, and families in the city. Any money from the City budget that goes to these services (either through a city department like the Department of Children, Youth, and Families or SFUSD) would have to be linked to a larger citywide plan with clear outcomes and metrics, and the Mayor and Board would have the right to put money on hold during the budget process if those targets aren’t met.
Supervisor Melgar says she put this on the ballot because she was concerned that the Public Education Enrichment Fund (also known as PEEF - about $185 million in the most recent budget), the biggest chunk of money the City gives to SFUSD, was like a “slush fund” and more accountability was needed. It makes sense to have city departments and the school district working together to meet families’ needs, and it makes sense for the Board of Supervisors and the Mayor to keep an eye on how $$ is being spent. If this works well, the various stakeholders could avoid redundant programs and identify gaps in services with an eye toward equity, and families across SF will benefit.
We did have some minor reservations about this one. A lot of this setting-goals-and-making-reports work already happens at DCYF and SFUSD, so is Prop J creating unnecessary layers of bureaucracy? There’s also a potential worst-case-scenario if this passes and elected officials don’t like what the district’s doing with city money, and public schools wind up with even less than they do now. But SFUSD’s Superintendent would be part of the team setting the targets, and any attempt to cut funding for kids would likely incur the wrath of SF voters. Plus, maybe having these accountability measures in place could lead to City leaders giving more money to programs for kids and families down the road? Maybe??
Prop J does one crucial thing that tipped us over to a “Yes.” Remember when we passed the Student Success Fund a few years back, to give city money as grants to public schools for academic and social-emotional programs? That money goes from SF’s general fund to DCYF, which then makes grants to schools. In the last round of budget battles, DCYF’s budget was cut because they counted the Student Success Fund as part of DCYF’s baseline funding! When it was supposed to be extra! That led to huge cuts in other programs funded by DCYF [facepalm emoji]. Prop J includes a provision that protects the Student Success Fund, specifying that those funds “cannot replace, supplant, count as, or substitute for other City funding for the School District or children and youth.” So let’s at least fix that bug. Vote yes on Prop J.
Prop K: Parkway at Upper Great Highway: Yes
Prop K would close the Upper Great Highway to cars between Lincoln and Sloat, as the first step in creating a permanent oceanfront park there.
In 2020, during shelter- in-place, the City closed streets to provide open space for recreational purposes. This included the Upper Great Highway. In May 2022, the City launched a pilot program that closed the Upper Great Highway to cars on Friday afternoons, weekends and holidays. The pilot expires at the end of next year.
This prop would make the closure permanent so we can walk and bike beside the ocean anytime - glorious! There’s some concern about increased traffic on residential streets nearby… but since the Great Highway south of Sloat is permanently closing anyway, because it is literally falling into the ocean, traffic is going to have to redirect in any case.
If the Great Highway is closed, it will save the City $350-700K annually just from not having to move as much sand off the road, and $4.3M savings just to not do traffic signal upgrades. The money to build the actual park will be planned and funded through the Rec and Park capital planning process, and will conduct separate community outreach.
We’re invigorated by this enthusiasm for public space and climate resilience, but Leaguers would have liked to see the plan go through the Board of Supes instead of by ballot measure, to get broader community buy-in. But supporters of Prop K decided to go for it now, in hopes of locking the plan in during a high-turnout election. We’re excited to see Prop K pass so the City can lead a robust community input process to create an accessible park for all. Race ya to the beach! Vote Yes on Prop K.
Prop L: Rideshare Tax to Fund Muni: Yes
We love the bus! But love alone doesn’t pay the bills, and Muni needs our help. Prop L, The ComMUNIty Transit Act, will add a small gross receipts tax (1% - 4.5%) on ride hail companies (Uber, Lyft, Waymo) and use the money for Muni’s operational costs (think: driver salaries and new routes, not infrastructure improvements).
The current Muni funding sitch is dire; SFMTA is preparing for service cuts as soon as next year when federal aid begins to run out. Service cuts mean less frequent and reliable service, so people abandon Muni. Fewer riders means less funding, which leads to more service cuts - a doom loop. Meanwhile, Uber & Lyft are posting double-digit growth figures, robotaxis like Waymo are using SF’s streets to beta test their cars (endangering and injuring pedestrians along the way), and SF is woefully behind its Vision Zero targets set in 2014. Shit’s bleak, and like we wrote in 2019, we need mass transit over personal transit. We need Muni and Muni needs us!
Our biggest complaint: Prop L isn’t anywhere close to enough money to fill the gap. It’s expected that Prop L will generate $25M of yearly revenue, but SFMTA’s projected annual deficit is $214M [sob emoji] Other cities have enacted way stronger rideshare taxes than this one: we wish this packed a bigger punch than $0.45 for every $10 ride. But we need every bit of help we can get.
Much like Prop D from 2019 (which we also endorsed, and which also wasn’t enough money, and which passed), Prop L will get money to SFMTA ASAP, to cover current operational costs. The possible transit bond that we’ll vote on in 2026 will mostly be for infrastructure improvements. Those are great, but we need operational funding now!
Unlike in 2019, rideshare companies are coming out swinging against this tax. Uber’s already poured $750,000 into opposing Prop L, and Lyft’s up to $115,000. The campaign against Prop L is led by none other than the ringleader of 2020’s horror show, Prop 22, which screwed over rideshare drivers.
And worst of all, Prop L has an evil twin in Prop M, which contains a “poison pill.” If both props pass, but M gets more votes, Prop L is nixed. So see our recs for strategic voting on Prop M– but no matter what, do your utmost to pull in votes for Prop L. We wish that we didn’t have to fight “David vs. Goliath” battles every time we want to fund, like, basic services. But we’re going to the polls with all our love for Muni, and saying Yes on Prop L!
Prop M: Gross Receipts Tax Reform: Strategic "No Endorsement"
San Francisco’s various business taxes bring in a staggering $1.4 billion per year to the City’s budget, second only to property tax. It’s a critical source of revenue which allows the City to provide any number of vital services that we defend every year, from low-income rental subsidies to expanding drug treatment programs and homeless services.
But it can also be a volatile source of funds. Every once in a while, City policymakers undertake the arduous task of adjusting the business tax to align incentives with the City’s policy priorities and - perhaps most importantly - stabilize the budget against the City’s notorious boom-bust economy. This prop hopes to do just that.
One of the best parts of Prop M is that it would expand the tax exemption to thousands of small businesses, including independent restaurants and retailers who are in a daily struggle to stay afloat. That’s why it’s garnered the support of community-minded small business coalitions like Small Business Forward. At the same time, Prop M would slightly reduce the City’s reliance on the Top-5 taxpayers. While some of us see that as a tax break for the City’s richest businesses, it would also make the City less dependent on - and less politically beholden to - those dominant businesses. Broadening the City’s tax base, while alleviating the tax burden for small businesses, helps to ensure a more stable tax base going forward.
As the trend toward remote work continues, particularly in the tech industry, Prop M would also transition the City away from the volatile payroll tax. That will make it cheaper for San Francisco-based businesses to hire more workers, and reduce labor costs for businesses who rely on in-person employment, including service-oriented businesses, so we love that part.
But we had a hard time with Prop M because it contains a “poison pill” that was inserted in an early draft to ward off a pro-corporate tax proposal that was also headed for the ballot. The poison pill language is still there, and in a stroke of bad luck, it's phrased in such a way that it would also kill Prop L, the Transit Tax! It’s an unfortunate conflict between two good measures that was caught too late to be avoided.
In sum: Prop L (good) and Prop M (okay) both need at least 50% of the vote to pass. If Prop L gets more votes than Prop M, fabulous, both win! But if Prop M gets more votes than L, then L is toast 🥲. That's why our members voted for a strategic no endorsement on this one: what we're ultimately hoping is that *both* measures pass, but Prop L comes out ahead.
What does that mean for your vote specifically? Well, we encourage you to understand what both of these propositions are about, educate your friends, and then…uh…follow your heart!
Prop N: Establish Unfunded First Responder Student Loan Forgiveness Fund: No
Prop N creates a completely unfunded “fund” to forgive student loans for first responders. We love (most) of our first responders, but with no actual money allocated for this, it’s another 100% vibes-only prop that does nothing except make our ballot longer. Why didn’t the Board of Supervisors just pass this as an ordinance? Prop N is really a PR move: an empty gesture with the not-so-secret goal of boosting its author Ahsha Safaí’s mayoral campaign.
We could write more about why it is not the best use of time or the effort to get it on the ballot, but Aaron Peskin summed it up pretty perfectly during a rules committee meeting on he measure, “We could pass it tomorrow at the BOS; it does not need to be an appendage to the ballot. We could just do our jobs right here.” Vote no.
Prop O: Guaranteed Reproductive Freedom in SF: Yes
Prop O is a symbolic reaffirmation of San Francisco’s dedication to preserving abortion rights. Fake crisis pregnancy centers would be required to post signs saying they’re actually not health care providers. The City would be required to not cooperate with federal prosecutors or other states coming after us for providing medical services that might be illegal in other places. This one is a slam dunk. Vote yes.
State Ballot Measures
Prop 2: $10B Education Facilities Bond: Yes
Yup, it’s another school bond! Proposition 2 would issue $10 billion in state bonds to supplement local money for a range of infrastructure projects: rebuilding schools over 75 years old, lead remediation, seismic upgrades, broadband internet, and more. $8.5 billion is dedicated to K-12 facilities, with $1.5 billion for community colleges.
A lot of CA school buildings are hella old, and on top of catching up on repairs and maintenance they need money to improve climate resilience and make technology upgrades. As multiple studies (and anyone who has tried to learn geometry in a musty classroom) can tell you, there’s a connection between the quality of school buildings and student performance. So the money provided by Prop 2 could have a big impact on students across the state, and most major school districts have endorsed it.
Buuuut there’s a catch – to be eligible to receive state funding from the bond revenue, Proposition 2 sets a funding formula to determine the amount of money each district is required to contribute . This “matching funds” requirement would require local money to cover 40% to 50% of school infrastructure project costs, with only a few districts maaaybe qualifying for a hardship exemption. Opponents argue Prop 2 will perpetuate inequities across the state, since lower-income and rural school districts might have a tougher time coming up with their share of the money for much-needed projects. On the other hand, maybe it’s not so black-and-white: SFUSD might count as a “wealthy” district compared to other places in the state but lord knows our facilities could use some love.
While we wish Prop 2 had a more equitable funding formula, we gotta say yes to this one because every student in CA deserves to learn in clean, safe, and modern facilities. Yes on Prop 2!
Prop 3: Marriage Equality: Yes
The California Constitution needs to get with the times. Prop 3 amends the California Constitution to include the fundamental right to marry as part of the rights to enjoy life, liberty, safety, happiness, privacy, and the right to equal protection and due process under the law.
This change repeals the language put in place by 2008’s Proposition 8 that defined marriage as only between a man and woman (Uhhhm, is anyone else shocked that Prop 8 is still on the books? Oops!). Kevin de Leon put this one on the ballot, and it’s supported by the ACLU, Human Rights Campaign, Equality CA, Governor Newsom, the CA Democratic Party, etc. The only opponents are some very determined conservative groups, including one called “Concerned Women for America” lol.
Let’s clear this up STAT – especially if marriage equality gets overturned at the federal level, we need to codify it in the state constitution. Vote yes on Prop 3!
Prop 4: $10B Water Infrastructure and Parks Bond: Yes
Wildfires, flooding, extreme heat . . . climate change is here and it’s expensive!
Proposition 4 would authorize the state to issue $10 billion in bonds to fund various environmental, energy, and water projects. Here’s how the money would break down for the following categories of projects:
- $3.8B for safe drinking water, drought, flood, and water resilience programs.
- $1.5B for wildfire and forest resilience programs
- $1.2B for coastal resilience programs
- $450M for extreme heat mitigation programs
- $1.2B for biodiversity protection and nature-based climate solution programs
- $300M for climate-smart, sustainable, and resilient farms, ranches, and working lands programs
- $700M for park creation and outdoor access programs
- $850M for clean air programs
Prop 4 requires that 40% of the bond revenue be used to fund activities that benefit communities with lower incomes or that are disproportionately vulnerable to environmental changes or disasters. More than 100 environmental groups pushed the legislature to get this bond on the ballot, especially since some programs that address these needs were cut from this year’s state budget.
It’s super-frustrating that there’s nothing on the state ballot to actually address the main causes of climate change in California (mostly heavy industry, vehicles, and buildings). But Prop 4 is a smart way for us to get much-needed resources for climate resilience and adaptation, without being at the mercy of the state’s highly-politicized budget. Vote yes on Prop 4!
Prop 5: Lower Voting Threshold to 55% for Housing and Infrastructure Bonds: Yes
Prop 5 would make it easier for voters to approve general obligation bonds to fund affordable housing and infrastructure projects, by lowering the vote threshold for approval from two-thirds to 55%.
This measure was put on the ballot by affordable housing advocates in order to make it easier to pass the regional housing bond BAHFA (which was unfortunately pulled from the ballot at the last minute, despite being supported by every local government across the Bay Area). Even though Prop 5 won’t have the intended impact of supporting a historic affordable housing investment, it’s still important, because it makes it easier to pass important infrastructure bonds like this election’s Prop B and State Prop 4. It also paves the way for an easier path to victory for future campaigns to fund affordable housing.
This makes a real difference. For example: If Prop 5 were already the law of the land, then June 2022’s Prop A would have passed, which would have unlocked a once-in-a-decade opportunity to fund Muni’s capital needs. Instead, Prop A failed with 65% “yes” votes because it didn’t make it to 66%! Gah! The failure of that critical transit bond, fueled by the conservative furor around the Chesa Boudin recall, drove Muni right up to the edge of the fiscal cliff it’s now facing.
Prop 5 is an important step to reclaiming our democracy from rich people who don’t want to pay taxes to fix our crumbling city and state. Vote yes on Prop 5!
Prop 6: Abolish Slavery in CA Prisons: Hell Yes!
Prop 6 would amend the California Constitution to remove involuntary servitude (AKA slavery) as a punishment for crime. (Again, is no one in charge of keeping that document up-to-date? This bullshit has been in there since 1849!!!)
Right now, language in the state constitution prohibits involuntary servitude except to punish crime. Prop 6 replaces that with language prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude absolutely. It would also prohibit the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation from disciplining any incarcerated person for refusing a work assignment, but authorize the department to award credits to incarcerated persons who voluntarily participate in work assignments. Of course, many Californians would also like to see minimum wage requirements for incarcerated workers. But the Prop’s sponsors worried that voters wouldn’t want to fund the $1.5 billion that would cost, so they decided to keep this one simple as a first step.
This change is one of the reparations priorities for the CA Legislative Black Caucus, led by Lori Wilson (whose district in Suisun County has a state prison). People of color are over-represented in our state’s carceral system, and while Black residents make up just 6% of the state's overall population, Black people make up 28% of the prison population.
This proposition isn’t just a language change to our constitution, it means an end to punishment for people who resist involuntary servitude, and an important step toward racial justice. Vote HELL YES on Prop 6!
Prop 32: Raise the Minimum Wage: Hell Yes!
Back in 2016, Governor Jerry Brown signed SB3, which raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour. The minimum wage has never really kept up with the cost of living (at least not in our lifetimes), and too many Californians are working fulltime and still struggling to make ends meet.
Cue Prop 32, which would extend the state’s minimum wage to $18 an hour! The increases follow the same trajectory as last time, with small businesses getting to take it a little slower. After that, minimum wage would adjust annually in line with inflation (measured as CPI) just as it did under SB3. While some argue that Prop 32 would force businesses to raise prices or lay off workers to cover costs, it doesn’t really work that way. In reality, better-paid workers stay in their jobs longer, so businesses save money on hiring and training new people. Better yet, there’s some evidence that reducing wage inequality would save the state money by allowing low-wage workers to reduce their need for public safety net benefits.
And come on: 18 bucks an hour is $36,000 a year—before taxes!
Vote HELL YES on Prop 32!
Prop 33: Allow Local Governments to Expand Rent Control: Hell Yes!
This prop would repeal the awful Costa-Hawkins Rental Act of 1995, a landlord-friendly state law that restricts the type of units eligible for rent control. Costa-Hawkins is why single-family homes and buildings built after 1979 don’t have rent control in San Francisco. Prop 33 won’t change any local laws, or enact rent control everywhere (we wish!) It just lets cities make their own rules. We’re stoked that if this passes we could expand rent control in SF (especially if we have Mayor Peskin in Room 200 – squee!). Don’t fall for the well-funded misinformation on this one - let’s make sure SF voters push Prop 33 over the finish line.
Is rent control pro-housing or anti-housing?
Rent control expansion is pro-housing, actually, because it keeps people in their homes. The biggest problem with rent control is that there isn’t enough of it! We reject the real estate lobbyist framing that says that any legislation that gets in the way of higher real estate profits is “anti-housing”. It’s not “pro-housing” to increase a family’s rent by 10% and force them out onto the street.Vote Hell Yes on Prop 33!
But won’t rent control hurt tenants?
There is a ridiculous real estate industry narrative that rent control is a bad thing for tenants. Corporate landlord profiteers and their lobbyists are warning us that if rent control is expanded even a little bit, everyone’s rents will go up and new construction just won’t “pencil out.” This is, frankly, delulu. Even more wild, they accuse rent control expansion of being a Republican plot to restrict construction of affordable housing in small beach towns like Huntington Beach.
The idea that a wealthy enclave would pass super-restrictive rent control is strictly hypothetical– there is no actual history of that happening. Republican voters hate rent control and continually vote against it, so it beggars belief that Republican leaders would impose pretextual rent control– it’s straight up antithetical to the way their constituents think about markets. The real estate industry argues that enticing developers to build a couple hundred apartments in snobby towns is more important than providing stability and affordability to literally millions of low and middle income renters in the major metro areas that support and want to expand rent control. Don’t believe the hype: Prop 33 is good for tenants.
What’s our plan for the housing crisis?
It’s becoming clearer and clearer that the private market has no plan for financing housing without the promise that rents will go up. Housing is seen as a sound investment for Wall Street instead of a human right for everybody. We have to shift our thinking about the housing crisis from one of regulation to one of financing, and specifically a form of financing that protects tenant stability and promises rents will actually come down. This will require innovative financing like public revenue bonds, which SF is currently pioneering. If there’s revenue for housing production, the builders will build it.
Prop 34: Attack on AIDS Healthcare Foundation: No
In a stunning example of “ugh, why do we have to vote on this shit?” Prop 34 is a targeted attack on the political activities of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. Prop 34 would require them to spend 98% of revenue on patient care (AHF is not named in the prop, but the only organization that fits the text’s description is AHF). Reading between the lines, this is a blatant attempt by the CA Apartment Association to raise even more money to sink this ballot’s Prop 33 Rent Control Expansion, which the AHF is backing–and funding.
Under its President Michael Weinstein, AHF has contributed millions of dollars to local and state ballot measures over the years. There has been some controversy around their political positions and their confusing opposition to PrEP. We certainly haven’t always agreed with them, and there’s obviously some merit to the argument that healthcare dollars should be spent on healthcare, not politics.
But we’re not on board with confusing and expensive ballot measures targeting exactly one person, especially when it’s Big Landlords bullying a rent control champion. Vote No on Prop 34!
Prop 35: Extend Funding for Medi-Cal: Yes
We urge YES on Prop 35 because money meant for Medi-Cal should go to Medi-Cal. We’re not big fans of the healthcare industry, the major backers of this prop, but we think even corporate medicine’s self-interest (make more money by caring for poor people) overlaps enough with California’s interest (get more health care for poor people.)
Long version: More than a third of Californians get Medi-Cal, and the state has been steadily expanding access to cover all residents, regardless of immigration status. And yet many folks with Medi-Cal still don’t have reliable healthcare, since doctors and hospitals often won’t take them because their care is reimbursed at a lower rate. When Medi-Cal patients do find doctors who’ll see them, they wind up waiting forever for appointments or to see specialists.
Medi-Cal’s money comes from a special tax called MCO that HMOs and health insurance companies pay, which is matched dollar for dollar by the federal government. The higher the tax, the more matching dollars California gets—but the tax has to be approved by the feds. And the feds have already warned California that it’s exploiting the system: For years we’ve been using the tax and federal matching money to offset state general fund spending on Medi-Cal, and the governor and legislators have dipped into it to fill state budget gaps.
Some health care advocates are opposing Prop 35 because it locks in Medi-Cal funding the way it’s set up now, which could hinder future efforts to restructure the MCO tax and get more money into the pot (that’s probably why the big hospitals and health insurance companies like it so much). Also, if Prop 35 passes we’ll lose out until 2026 on two good things in the current state budget: about $2 billion through to increase payments to some providers who see Medi-Cal patients, and giving kids 0-5 continuous coverage so they’re not automatically disenrolled if their parents don’t re-apply each year.
However, Prop 35 would use Medi-Cal tax funds instead to bump Medi-Cal payments now for behavioral health, expanded primary care, community hospital outpatient care, pediatric and geriatric doctors, some public hospitals, and rural health care—all desperately needed to serve the state’s poorest patients. The measure requires that 99% of the revenues must go to actual patient care, capping administrative expenses at 1%. And, crucially, all Medi-Cal tax and federal matching funds going forward will be locked up for Medi-Cal; it will be safe from legislators trying to divert it to their pet programs every budget cycle.
The governor and many lawmakers hate voter initiatives that tie spending to specific areas because they want to have “flexibility” when it comes to balancing the budget—i.e. To make funding deals and decisions with lobbyists and among themselves. Yes, a few groups, like the advocates for child continuous coverage, are upset that they got left out of the deal for two years. But almost all the state’s healthcare groups, including doctors’ organizations, hospitals, Planned Parenthood, and community clinics, want to ensure that this money secures Medi-Cal for good. Vote yes.
Prop 36: Treat Misdemeanors as Felonies: Hell No!
If you want to know why League voters are so pissed off, just take a look at this ugly proposition, which blends biases against the poor and drug users with contempt for voters. Ten years ago, California voters approved Prop 47, in an attempt to reduce the state’s horrendous prison overcrowding by making some retail theft and drug crimes into misdemeanors. Over the years, and especially after the pandemic, cops, DAs, and right-wing opportunists have frothed and fulminated, blaming Prop 47 for the state’s increase in property crimes, shoplifting, “rampant drug use,” and homelessness. (Yeah, you might think that homelessness happens because people can’t afford housing—but these knuckleheads argue that it’s caused by drug use, and homelessness will be fixed if people are forced into treatment. Or prison.)
This is the haters’ attempt to reverse Prop 47– which, by the way, has hardly ended the carceral nightmare that is the California jail and prison system. Prop 36 would reclassify some misdemeanor theft and drug crimes as felonies, and create an entire new category of crime, “treatment-mandated felonies.” People who didn’t contest the charges could complete drug treatment instead of going to prison, but if they didn’t finish it, they’d be imprisoned.
This entire cruel, stupid exercise ignores the fact that, as much as Mayor Breed likes to pontificate about “tough love,” forcing people into treatment doesn’t work, as multiple studies have shown. And it also ignores the reality that the state is “hemmorhaging” drug treatment facilities, and doesn’t have nearly enough treatment beds, even for people who want them. And that homelessness won’t be fixed by incarceration. (And that, by the way, plenty of wealthy, housed people use drugs.) And that voters already declared it was nuts to treat shoplifting as a felony. And that the “new Jim Crow” of mass incarceration fueled by the war on drugs has already devastated our state’s Black communities. And that Prop 36 will spend hundreds of millions of dollars on police and court and prisons without doing anything significant to reduce crime, much less poverty, while actual schools and housing and job programs go without funds. And…..well, you get the idea.
The people have spoken, and we were right the first time: Hell No on Prop 36.
Meet the SF League of Pissed Off Voters
We're a bunch of political geeks in a torrid love affair with San Francisco. The League formed in 2004 with the goal of building a progressive governing majority in our lifetime. Our contribution is this voter guide: a secret decoder ring for SF politics. All of us lucky enough to enjoy the San Francisco magic owe it to our City to fight to keep it diverse, just, and healthy.
This voter guide (our 33nd in SF!) is thoroughly researched and thoroughly biased. It’s how we educate our friends on the issues, excite pissed-off progressive voters, and remind sellout politicians that we’re paying attention.
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