“As an adjudicated insurrectionist, Trump is an illegitimate president according to Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, and therefore every official act as president will be illegitimate.”
–Mike Zonta, co-editor of OccupySF.net
The 14th Amendment states: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”
Call your Congressperson and your U.S. Senators at (202) 224-3121
How SF Can Promote Recovery, Safe Streets. Of all the strategies San Francisco has used to reduce drug-filled sidewalks—- the $22 million Linkage Center, $13 million crisis clinic at 822 Geary, the $6-14.5 million for the RESET Center, and the over $10 million annually spent using tourist hotels as shelters—none matches the positive impact of drug-free housing.
So why hasn’t the city aggressively funded this strategy?
Why Drug-Free Housing is Best Strategy
Last week, the Board of Supervisors passed Matt Dorsey’s legislation mandating that new supportive housing sites be drug-free. The challenge now is to get the city to add sites, and to finally offer drug-free permanent housing.
Residents of drug-free housing are more likely than addicts to either work or be seeking jobs. They are not hanging out using drugs on sidewalks.
Contrast two hotels on the 600 block of Geary.
The city has leased the Abby Hotel at 630 Geary as drug-free temporary housing for years. There have been virtually no neighborhood complaints. But after the Breed Administration began using the Adante Hotel at 610 Geary as a shelter that was not drug-free, neighborhood complaints exploded. Responding to these concerns the Lurie Administration closed the Adante shelter earlier this year.
Similarly, the Tenderloin Housing Clinic’s drug-free program at the Drake Hotel at 235 Eddy left the area in front of and near the hotel clear of sidewalk drug activities even when they were exploding elsewhere. (I head THC and it publishes Beyond Chron).
Prior to the then-vacant Kean Hotel on Mission between Sixth and Seventh Street being leased to the Salvation Army, it had a huge open-air drug market nearby. It disappeared once the Kean became drug-free temporary housing.
Those seeking drug-free housing are out to improve their lives. They want to get as far away from drug users as possible.
That’s why drug-free housing involves more than recovery by individuals. It’s a core public safety strategy that San Francisco should expand.
City Invests in Costly, Ineffective Alternatives
It’s mind-boggling how much money San Francisco has spent trying to close open-air drug markets but instead making sidewalks and the city less safe.
The Linkage Center was supposed to get drug users off Tenderloin sidewalks. Driven by harm reduction ideology that says you can improve safety by creating de facto safe injection sites, it caused Central City drug activities to explode. The city spent $22 million wrecking the Mid-Market, SOMA and Tenderloin economy and expanding sidewalk drug use.
The city purchased 822 Geary because Mayor Breed saw an opportunity to open the nation’s first safe injection site. But legal concerns halted this plan. So after buying the site for $6.2 million the city had to find a new purpose. It became a crisis clinic Mayor Lurie routinely praises it as an example of what the city is doing to address the drug and public safety crisis.
But 822 Geary did not make the Tenderloin safer. There never was drug activity in front or near the site. It’s become a citywide clinic that should have been connected to SF General or another medical facility. Instead, the city converted what was a longtime grocery store and then a Goodwill into a crisis clinic.
For all the talk about the Tenderloin needing a grocery store, let’s be clear: the best site was at 822 Geary. It was long home to Solo Foods grocery. The city’s acquisition was a negative for the Tenderloin.
The RESET Center
It’s too soon to issue a final verdict on the RESET Center on Sixth Street. But it’s not too soon to conclude that it has not met expectations. And that it is virtually certain to fall far short.
I, along with the Tenderloin Business Coalition, backed the RESET Center. We thought it would return cops to the street faster after arrests. I spent a lot of time on this issue in 2014. We had a breakthrough then but it proved temporary.
The RESET Center at 444 Sixth Street has only served Southern Station. JJ Smith’s videos (check out July 12) show that Sixth Street drug activities are still thriving. SOMA activist Lara Hashimoto emailed the mayor’s office last week, stating “that despite having RESET in our neighborhood we continue to see the same volume of drug addicts and continue to rely on MMCBD and Urban Alchemy to move these individuals off our block every day.”
We appreciated Mayor Lurie’s RESET plan and his openness to new strategies for combating sidewalk drug use. But despite using RESET exclusively for Southern Station, the 6th and Market open-air drug market still thrives.
Under RESET police arrest people for public intoxication or being under the influence of illegal drugs. They are then brought to 444 Sixth Street instead of jail. The RESET Center is not a jail and those brought there are free to leave once they can care for themselves. Most of those arrested soon return to the streets. The first two reports found only 29% and 27% of those brought to RESET accepted treatment. The mayor’s office describes this as a success.
That’s a very low bar for “success.” The city is funding a program where over 70% refuse to even enter treatment. We don’t know how many leave after a week. Or stay until completion.
The RESET bottom line: the city is spending millions—even with its creative performance-based outside contract—on a population that overwhelmingly doesn’t want recovery. Police resources are not making a visible difference.
Why not instead prioritize drug-free housing for those who do want to get help?
Wouldn’t that do more to get sidewalk drug users off our streets?
The mayor’s funding of Urban Alchemy has reduced sidewalk drug activities on Sixth Street. So did drug-free housing at the Kean.
The city should prioritize proven strategies that close drug-filled sidewalks. How about following Dorsey’s legislation with a major investment in drug-free housing?
Randy Shaw is the Editor of Beyond Chron and the Director of San Francisco’s Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which publishes Beyond Chron. Shaw’s new book is the revised and updated, The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco. His prior books include Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America. The Activist’s Handbook: Winning Social Change in the 21st Century, and Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century.
Democrats on Capitol Hill and voting rights advocates on Tuesday sounded the alarm about Republicans in the House of Representatives trying to push through voter suppression legislation under cover of passing a ban on congressional stock trading.
According to a Tuesday report from Roll Call, House GOP leaders recently added “unrelated language” to what was a bipartisan bill banning congressional stock trading that would “require voters to produce photo ID at the polls, a signature issue for President Donald Trump.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) hammered Republicans for what she said were underhanded tactics that are undermining what had been a serious bipartisan effort to halt congressional stock trading.
“Republicans are trying to pull a trick this week,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a social media post. “They say we are voting on an ‘insider trading’ bill, but have snuck in massive SAVE Act-style voter suppression measures to it. This is a GOP effort to sabotage national mail-in voting, disguised as a trading ban. I’m voting NO.”
Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, said that the caucus was opposing the GOP’s legislation not just for its attacks on voting rights, but because it only forces congresspeople to stop making new stock trades, while not requiring them to divest of their current holdings.
“House Republicans are not serious about enacting a meaningful congressional stock trading ban,” said Clarke. “The combined Stop Insider Trading Act and Voter ID Act… would allow members of Congress to continue owning, selling, and, in some cases, purchasing individual stocks while simultaneously imposing stricter voter ID requirements that would make it harder for millions of eligible Americans to vote.”
“This bill is a Trojan horse,” Clarke added, “using the premise of congressional ethics reform to advance a broader effort to restrict access to the ballot box.”
The Campaign Legal Center (CLC) on Monday sent lawmakers a letter opposing the GOP-backed legislation, which it said would “impose onerous new requirements on voting.”
Among other things, the group said the proposed legislation would “demand Americans provide ID to cast a ballot but only accept an unreasonably narrow list of acceptable types of documentation,” excluding the kind of “widely held and reliable forms of ID that young people and voters of color disproportionally rely on.”
The CLC also said the bill doesn’t provide “sufficient safeguards” for voters wrongly deemed ineligible to prove they are legally allowed to participate in US elections.
A page on congressional contact portal 5 Calls recommended users oppose the GOP-backed bill, which it described as “partisan legislation” that “uses the guise of much-needed ethics reform to sneak through an unpopular and unrelated attack on voting rights.”
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District 1 supervisor Connie Chan (left), former software engineer and Capitol Hill staffer Saikat Chakrabarti. Photos by Yujie Zhou.
Saikat Chakrabarti, who failed to score a place on the November ballot for California’s 11th congressional district, said Wednesday that he will support Connie Chan’s race through the November election.
Already, his newly formed SF Solidarity PAC has spent $425,000 for Chan.
“I’m gonna do what I can to help her win,” said Chakrabarti.
Earlier, Chakrabarti offered his campaign staff of some 250, mostly paid canvassers, the option of working on his new independent expenditure committee to back Chan through July 10.
Now, his support of Chan will be through the general election on Nov. 3.
The field team plans to return to residents who were Chakrabarti supporters in the primary and persuade them to vote for Chan in November.
It’s unclear what the campaign will do after that outreach is finished.
“We’re going to look at where we are at the end of the month [July 10] to see how much more work is left to do, and to see what we need to do to actually make sure she wins,” said Chakrabarti.
Nate Allbee, Chakrabarti’s campaign consultant, who now works on the SF Solidarity PAC, oversaw the Chakrabarti campaign’s field operation, one of the largest paid-canvasser operations in San Francisco history, with canvassers paid top dollars.
So far, Albee said on Tuesday, they have talked to 500 Chakrabarti supporters in Wiener’s old supervisorial District 8. Some 80 percent of them said at the end of the conversation that, yes, they’d vote for Chan, according to Allbee.
“I mean, that’s really high,” he said.
Chakrabarti won 17 percent of the vote in District 8 compared to 26 percent for Chan and 51 percent for Wiener.
Chakrabarti, who self-funded his own campaign with $10 million, is also committed to spending whatever it takes to help Chan.
“We haven’t made a decision on how much funding the campaign will need, but the goal is absolutely to make sure Connie wins,” said Allbee.
Chakrabarti said, “this is about trying to help the progressive movement at large in Washington.” He added he’s also putting “significant financial support” towards helping close to 20 other progressive candidates across the country.
He’s still trying to decide how much money to put into each race.
Locally, Chakrabarti sees himself playing whatever role necessary to help the progressive movement and fix issues in the city. He’s been a generous donor to nonprofits, and he’s willing to contribute more right now when many are facing budget cuts.
He’s also open to being a supporter — and possibly a sponsor — for ballot measures that represent causes he supports.
“There’s no calculus of which faction or which tribe or whatever,” he said. If he agrees with the idea, he said, “I’m going to support them,” giving as an example Wiener’s November measure to fund public transit.
Map by Kelly Waldron.
How significant are Chakrabarti’s money and endorsement for Chan?
Chakrabarti’s endorsement of Chan doesn’t mean his votes will automatically transfer to the 47-year-old supervisor of District 1.
Before the primary, the general perception was that whichever candidate, Chan or Chakrabarti, advanced would need almost all of the other’s votes to have a chance of defeating Wiener in November.
Until the last few weeks of the campaign, Chan and Chakrabarti were careful to avoid upsetting each other’s supporters and instead directed most attacks at Wiener. That now makes it easier for Chan to convert Chakrabarti’s voters, his campaign said.
“We never said, ‘Don’t vote for Connie,’” when knocking on doors, Allbee said.
However, with Chakrabarti clearly antagonistic to Representative Nancy Pelosi’s way of doing business, it’s unclear if his supporters will embrace Chan, the candidate with Pelosi’s endorsement.
And it’s unclear how much Chakrabarti’s quick backing of Chan means.
Joe Arellano, Wiener’s campaign spokesperson and advisor, said many of Chakrabarti’s supporters who are urbanists will transition to Wiener, who has branded himself as the pro-housing candidate in the race.
And some may just disengage entirely from the process, “because they were in it for the cult of Saikat and his personality. It doesn’t simply transition over to Connie as soon as he’s gone,” said Arellano.
“Some of Saikat voters who were really motivated by his outsider and anti-establishment messaging might not feel excited about either candidate” and may sit out the general election, added Mike Chen, a Wiener supporter and a member of the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee.
“It’s one thing to win some votes for yourself, it’s much harder to use your own profile to sway an election where you are not on the ballot,” said political consultant Derek Jansen. Chakrabarti “is just not a real factor in San Francisco.”
The two assets he could bring to Team Connie are funding and, potentially, an endorsement from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. However, his campaign fell short of earning the latter, and Chan could earn that on her own.
“I don’t think [Chakrabarti’s endorsement] is gonna have a huge impact. But it is not nothing,” San Francisco State University political science professor Jason McDaniel said.
To an extent, “she doesn’t need him to get progressive voters. She got more of them than he did,” he added. For the remaining ones, “I don’t think they liked him and hated her,” meaning they would go to Chan, the sole progressive candidate in November, even without Chakrabarti’s support.
Chan may be her own best advocate
A plus for Chan is that she has few political enemies. In a two-person race, where the competition to claim support and allegiance in San Francisco’s political circle has been fierce,
Chan has created an environment where “she’s made it easy to come over and help her. And I really appreciate that,” said Allbee.
This may have something to do with Chan’s philosophy as a politician.
“I believe in direct communication and building intellectually honest and respectful relationships,” she said in response to a Mission Local Q&A in May.
Allbee agreed. “Connie doesn’t have a lot of enemies for a reason. It’s just how she acts in politics and how she treats people. It’s not surprising to me that she has such a broad coalition at all … When you disagree with Connie on something, there’s a basic level of respect.”
“Over the years,” he added, “I’ve always felt like Connie was somebody that I could disagree with in a friendly way.”
We won’t ignore your neighborhood
When a San Francisco neighborhood has a Mission Local reporter, it means someone is there. We’re following new housing projects proposed on your block, keeping tabs on what your district supervisor is up to at City Hall, and letting you know when longtime businesses close (and new ones open). When big news breaks, we already know the context.
Most neighborhoods don’t have that. Yours could.
That’s what Mission Local is building. Our reporters don’t parachute in — they write consistently on San Francisco, so you’re never reading about your neighborhood from someone who just looked it up.
So far we are in five of San Francisco’s neighborhoods. But we know all San Franciscans deserve our kind of coverage. Will you join us?
Yujie is a staff reporter covering city hall with a focus on the Asian community. She came on as an intern after graduating from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and became a full-time staff reporter as a Report for America corps member and has stayed on. Before falling in love with San Francisco, Yujie covered New York City, studied politics through the “street clashes” in Hong Kong, and earned a wine-tasting certificate in two days. She’s proud to be a bilingual journalist. Find her on Signal @Yujie_ZZ.01More by Yujie Zhou
FRONTLINE PBS | Official May 9, 2023 FRONTLINE As controversy erupts around Clarence and Ginni Thomas, this two-hour documentary special tells the inside story of their path to power. This journalism is made possible by viewers like you. Support your local PBS station here: http://www.pbs.org/donate. Over the past three decades, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has risen to the center of power in Washington, impacting issues affecting millions of Americans — from abortion to affirmative action. By his side has been his wife and best friend, Ginni Thomas. Together, the Thomases have left an indelible mark on America — in the legal realm and in conservative politics. But what has fueled their rise and expanded influence, and what have been the consequences? “Clarence and Ginni Thomas: Politics, Power and the Supreme Court” is a FRONTLINE production with the Kirk Documentary Group. The director is Michael Kirk. The producers are Michael Kirk, Mike Wiser and Vanessa Fica. The writers are Michael Kirk and Mike Wiser. The reporters are Vanessa Fica and Jane Mayer. The editor-in-chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE is Raney Aronson-Rath. Explore additional reporting related to “Clarence and Ginni Thomas: Politics, Power and the Supreme Court” on our website: https://to.pbs.org/3LyTJbv
The Committees of Correspondence were vital Patriot networks established by American colonies before the Revolutionary War. Initiated by Samuel Adams in Boston (1772) and expanded colony-wide by Virginia (1773), they allowed leaders to share political grievances, mobilize grassroots resistance, and coordinate the First Continental Congress. Wikipedia +5
Origins and Purpose
Before the American Revolution, intercolonial communication was slow, limited, and heavily reliant on official (and often intercepted) British mail routes. To counter British policies—such as the Stamp Act and Townshend Acts—Patriots established an underground letter-writing network to bypass royal authority. Wikipedia +2
The movement evolved in two major phases:
Local Committees (1772): On November 2, 1772, during a Boston town meeting, Samuel Adams formed the first major committee to draft a statement of colonial rights and circulate it as a pamphlet throughout Massachusetts. Wikipedia +1
Intercolonial Committees (1773): In March 1773, Virginia leaders—including Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and Richard Henry Lee—established the first intercolonial standing committee to communicate directly with other colonies, unifying the Patriot cause. Encyclopedia Britannica +1
Key Functions and Impact
The Committees of Correspondence functioned as “shadow governments” that actively undermined royal rule in the Thirteen Colonies: History.com +2
Information Exchange: They rapidly circulated news about British abuses, legal infringements, and local protests (such as the Gaspee affair). George Washington’s Mount Vernon +2
Public Mobilization: They educated everyday colonists on their political rights, ensuring that the push for liberty reached rural towns and not just coastal cities. George Washington’s Mount Vernon +1
Unification: By spring 1773, 12 colonies had joined the network, creating a unified political front that bridged cultural and economic differences. Society for History Education +3
Legacy and the Continental Congress
The unified communications network laid the crucial political groundwork for organized resistance. When the British Parliament passed the Coercive Acts (Intolerable Acts) in 1774, the committees were instrumental in organizing and summoning the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia. The vast majority of delegates who attended this historic convention were active members of their local or colonial Committees of Correspondence. Wikipedia +3
Supervisor Bilal Mahmood said Sunday he’ll drop a controversial proposal to tax vacant chain grocery stores, shifting his focus to an ordinance to support smaller grocery stores.Scott Strazzante/S.F. Chronicle
San Francisco lawmakers killed a package of ballot measures Monday aimed at lowering grocery prices and penalizing shuttered supermarkets during a committee hearing Monday after the proposals met pushback from business interests and Mayor Daniel Lurie.
Supervisor Bilal Mahmood’s original “Affordable Groceries Act,” as introduced last month, sought to place two separate measures on the November ballot: a city-run fund to convert corner stores into grocery stores and a tax on existing vacant grocery chain locations. But after the tax drew opposition from fellow city leaders and members of the business community, Mahmood said he’s reversing course
Instead, the District 5 supervisor says he’ll focus on pushing a new ordinance that would devote funds toward helping convenience stores stock fresh produce and support new grocery stores with incentives and zoning reforms. The new legislation would be decided at the Board of Supervisors rather than by voters, who would have decided the fate of the original proposals.
Tensions over the measure spilled into public view earlier this month as Mahmood pushed back against mounting criticism from business groups, developers and elected officials. The measures’ demise signals the political might of the mayor, who has enjoyed tremendous popularity during his first term in City Hall.
At a Rules committee meeting Monday, Mahmood said he did not have the votes necessary to move either of his original proposals to a vote at the full Board of Supervisors after Supervisors Shamann Walton and Stephen Sherrill withdrew as co-sponsors last week.
Mahmood previously told the Chronicle the measures were inspired in part by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s plan to open city-run grocery stores to combat rising grocery costs. Over the past few years, San Francisco has faced several high-profile grocery store shutdowns — including a Safeway in the Fillmore, a Whole Foods in Mid-Market and a Lucky in the Bayview, the neighborhood’s only major supermarket prior to its closure last year.
While Mahmood’s proposal would not have put the city in charge of running the grocery stores, it would have allowed it to use donations from nonprofits or money from the tax to support more grocery stores. Mahmood had said he hoped the tax would also incentivize bigger chains to remain open.
Mayor Daniel Lurie opposed the vacancy tax. A spokesperson for the mayor told the Chronicle that Lurie was working to get more grocery stores in San Francisco but believed a tax wasn’t the way to do it.
The Chamber of Commerce and Align Real Estate, the developer seeking to turn the shuttered Safeway in the Fillmore into a housing complex, also spoke out against it, arguing it would make it harder to fill that site with a new tenant. Mahmood told the Chronicle that Amazon, owner of the empty former Mid-Market Whole Foods, was “actively lobbying” against the tax.
Supervisor Connie Chan, the chair of the board’s budget committee, declined to bring the vacancy tax to a vote and expressed reservations about the policy earlier this month. E
On Friday, Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman told the Chronicle he questioned whether the vacant grocery store tax might have “unintended consequences” as the city tries to lure businesses back after the pandemic. Mandelman said he is “concerned that measures like this send a different message that is a little more adversarial and that imagines that San Francisco can tax and regulate our way to recovery.”
Mandelman said representatives from the mayor’s office including Lurie shared concerns including that putting the measures to voters in November could distract from “extremely high-priority” measures headed to the ballot already, including funding for public transit and a slate of charter reform efforts.
“There’s a strong argument to be made that we really want to try to limit how much stuff we’re throwing at the voters and how much opposition we might be summoning,” Mandelman said.
Walton said in a statement Monday that he changed his mind after a report from the controller found that the vacancy tax would yield little money for city coffers.
In light of the opposition, Mahmood said he would pivot his efforts from twin ballot measures.
“I recognize that while there is not consensus in City Hall on how to address this issue today, … I know and believe that there is will in our city to still address the underlying issues of food insecurity,” Mahmood told the committee Monday.
Instead, Mahmood announced that he would ask the city attorney to draft new legislation that would expand existing city programs to help combat rising grocery costs and food deserts in the city. It would revive an expired city initiative that helped convenience stores sell fresh produce and exempt new grocery stores from building and permitting fees in food deserts.
It would also provide incentives to developers who build new housing with grocery stores on the ground floor. Mahmood said that idea came out of conversations with Mamdani administration staffers about a similar New York City program that launched in 2009.
“We’re seeing these large scale developers coming in and removing grocery stores, so we need to make sure that when housing is built we’re maintaining neighborhood benefits,” Mahmood told the Chronicle on Monday.
Mahmood said he believes his colleagues had changed their minds about supporting the measures “due to pressure.” It’s not clear whether the new proposal will be met with similar opposition.
“I remain committed to working with anyone and everyone to advance the solutions we agree on today, while continuing to push for the bigger changes our city needs,” Mahmood told the committee.
Megan Fan Munce is a reporter on the climate team covering California’s home insurance crisis. She writes about rate changes, state policy initiatives, the growth of the California FAIR Plan, and how homeowners are navigating challenges in the insurance market. Her awards include the 2026 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting for “Burned,” a series that explored how insurance industry practices left many wildfires survivors unable to rebuild and recover. Munce joined the Chronicle as part of the two-year Hearst Journalism Fellowship, spending her first year at the Houston Chronicle. She grew up in the Bay Area before attending Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.
How to reach Megan
Email megan.munce@sfchronicle.com or reach her on Signal at meganmunce.88 to share tips or tell Megan about your experience with home insurance in California.
Alyce McFadden is a City Hall reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle covering the Board of Supervisors. McFadden previously worked at the New York Times, where she was a news assistant and reporting fellow. She covered Andrew Cuomo’s history of sexual harassment, the trial of the man accused of attacking Salman Rushdie, the Los Angeles wildfires and the reaction to the killing of Charlie Kirk. McFadden has also written for Law360, OpenSecrets and the Maine Beacon. She’s a graduate of Bowdoin College, where she studied government and legal studies and was editor in chief of the student paper.
How to reach Alyce
To provide story tips or feedback or to obtain her Signal number, email alyce.mcfadden@sfchronicle.com.
State Sen. Scott Wiener was not invited to the Trans March. He was really, really not invited: In fact, Gabriel Haaland, one of the founders of the march, told me, he had been asked specifically not to attend.
In 2016, then-Sup. Wiener, then-state-Sen. Mark Leno, and then-Mayor Ed Lee were booed off the stage at the march. (That was when Leno and Wiener were close, before Wiener stabbed his mentor in the back and endorsed London Breed for mayor.)
“We told them very clearly that we didn’t want politicians in our space,” Haaland explained to me. “We changed our policy because of Wiener, and his anti-tenant policies, and asked them not to come back.”
Wiener crashed the march, then used it to raise money
And yet, Wiener showed up this year—and again, was heckled by the crowd, particularly over his past support for the Netanyahu government of Israel. No violence occurred; the only violence was when the cops cracked down on a traditional party in what was called Stud Alley.
But Wiener didn’t just show up; after he left, he used video of the event to raise national money, $127,000 in national money, for his Congressional campaign. (According to the Standard, even Netanyahu sided with Wiener, saying he was treated unfairly.)
And that’s created some serious push back in the LGBTQ+ community.
“It’s about as craven as I’ve ever seen,” Haaland told me. “To use our community in this way to raise money is disgraceful. … He never even picked up the phone and reached out to the Trans March folks.”
Trans activist Storm Miguel Florez noted:
He put the trans community in more harm than we already are by naming the Trans March and trans community in his national campaign to blast this incident and paint himself as a victim. He knew what he was doing. You might not call that an attack, but he certainly targeted the trans community whether in a passive or aggressive way. The consequences are that nationally, the stories in the media and think pieces are painting trans people, and specifically trans people at the Trans March as violent and unhinged.
The Harvey Milk Club agreed. In a statement unanimously approved by the board, the club announced:
In 2016, Scott Wiener, then-State Senator Mark Leno, and Mayor Ed Lee were booed off the stage at the San Francisco Trans March. The organizers changed their policy and asked politicians not to attend the Trans March. Earlier this year, Scott Wiener ignored that request. A few individuals verbally confronted Wiener about his too little, too late position on Gaza—which changed only under a great deal of community pressure during his Congressional campaign. Wiener then went on a national media tour, stoking derision against Trans March organizers and attendees, and used the incident in fundraising emails instead of engaging his constituents or Trans March organizers.
Local papers are reporting that Wiener’s fundraising and media pitch paid off and he raked in $127,000 for his Congressional campaign coffers. Our Club reminds community that this fundraising was carried out on the backs of, and with great harm to, hundreds of people in San Francisco’s trans community. Additionally, in response to this incident, other San Francisco politicians have engaged in harmful anti-queer rhetoric to belittle attendees of the march. This is truly a watershed moment signaling an alarming change in orientation by those in power toward trans and queer people.
Meanwhile, on the same night, SFPD charged at Trans March attendees and made arrests at the end of the march, resulting in people being pepper-sprayed and arrested for graffiti. These attendees spent the weekend in jail and have been charged with felonies right next to the historic Compton’s Cafeteria, where trans women fought back against police repression in 1966.
The Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club condemns these self-serving actions by State Senator Wiener and urges politicians to stop using vulnerable communities as a fundraising tool. Trans people already face immense danger in this country. We need real allies, not people who will sell us out for a fundraising opportunity.
As has been his practice for some time now, Wiener did not respond to my request for comment.
The Rules Committee will consider Monday/20 the reappointment of Lydia So to the Planning Commission, but Board President Rafael Mandelman has not nominated any members, and the term of Commissioner Derek Braun has technically expired—so the commission may be unable to meet for lack of a quorum.
Mandelman told me he is interviewing candidates, but at this point, with the board’s August recess coming up, there may be no Planning Commission in San Francisco for more than a month.
When the supes voted to “streamline” the commission system, they banned the process of people whose terms had expired continuing to serve as “holdovers” until someone new was appointed.
Meanwhile, because the committee hasn’t voted on any nominees to the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force, that body can’t meet. Rules Chair Shamann Walton told me that committee members are seeking applications for the panel; it’s a few hours work a week, and comes with no pay but members get the city’s health insurance. You can see the qualifications here.
If you want to apply, submit a resume and a Form 700 to bos-appointments@sfgov.org.
Full disclosure: My adult independent daughter works on the Connie Chan for Congress campaign.
48 Hills welcomes comments in the form of letters to the editor, which you can submit here. We also invite you to join the conversation on our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Tim Redmond has been a political and investigative reporter in San Francisco for more than 30 years. He spent much of that time as executive editor of the Bay Guardian. He is the founder of 48hills.
On July 7, the Board of Supervisors took a monumental step towards actualizing a decade long project—a San Francisco Public Bank. In a 9-2 vote the supervisors approved a City Charter amendment that, if voters approve, would set up Municipal Finance corporation and Public Bank.
San Francisco has the potential to set an incredibly powerful standard, wresting financial control from predatory institutions like Bank of America (where the city’s General Fund money is currently kept) and into the hands of the people.
Sup. Jackie Fielder started working toward a public bank ten years ago
A San Francisco public bank would provide financial support for small businesses and eventually consumer services that BofA and other such companies never would.
“One of the really exciting possibilities is a transition to worker ownership and the current finance system is not really set up to facilitate that flexibly,” Misha Steier, spokesperson for the SF Public Bank Coalition told 48hills.
The arduous process, still in its inception, started in 2017. Organizers in San Francisco, including current District 9 supervisor Jackie Fielder, were disturbed by the municipal misalignment with the city’s values. Her experience protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline brought the reality of climate change into focus and pushed her to begin organizing for more democratic control over the city’s money.
“This is a tool in our tool box that leverages the public infrastructure of SF to support economic development and small business as well as affordable housing and renewable energy,” Fielder told 48hills.
Currently, San Francisco puts its roughly $13 billion of operating money into Bank of America. That money is then used to finance fossil fuels, weapons manufacturers and other hyper extractive industries. So, Fielder and other organizers bonded together to begin the lengthy process of taking back ownership of the people’s funds.
Thus, the San Francisco Public Bank Coalition was born. At the time, it seemed like a Sisyphean task—mostly because public banking was not strictly speaking legal in the Golden State. It took two years to clear that first hurdle, and in October of 2019 AB857 passed. The assembly bill was authored by current City Attorney David Chiu.
“Currently, a portion of our tax dollars go to some of the largest Wall Street banks in the form of fees and high interest rates. I think public banking could provide a more efficient and beneficial avenue to keeping the public’s money safe and investing in worthwhile community endeavors,” Chiu told El Tecolote at the time. “AB 857 is really about making sure that the public’s money is used to benefit the public.”
The next step came in the summer of 2021 when the Board of Supervisors unanimously passed the Reinvest in San Francisco Ordinance, authored by former District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston. That ordinance created a working group, staffed with both financial experts and local organizers, to assess both the viability and the mechanics of establishing a public bank. While that extended process was, at times, marred by some friction between the financial types and the organizers, the group eventually determined that a slow phase-in of an MFC was the most effective way to get to a public bank in the city.
Former District 1 Supervisor Sandra Fewer was also instrumental in getting the SFPBC off the ground.
“We have taken many steps towards a public bank during my three years on the Board of Supervisors, but the next step necessary to move this project forward is the development of a business plan,” Fewer told El Tecolote in 2019.
Now, that business plan is in development.
“Once the funds are capitalized, to bring about an official MFC and eventually a public bank, we’ll have the ability to really make this city affordable,” Fielder said.
Affordability is often at political odds with viability, at least when it comes to any redistributive policies. A single-payer health care system is decried as too expensive, building adequate affordable housing is seen as untenable because there’s not enough money to finance it. With the public bank, San Francisco has the potential to show that in fact affordability is viable and that political will, rather than functionality, is the largest impediment.
“With financialization you just see every available dollar has to account for the potential profit it could earn otherwise. Everything is facing profit and all the money that could go towards meeting people’s needs, the vast majority of it goes towards enriching people,” Steier said.
A public bank offers more funding for affordable housing and renewable energy, and could provide small business owners lower interest rates loans. It would allow the city to empower local credit unions and small financial institutions that could further support working-class communities in the city.
The potential is overwhelming, but at this point it is just that. Compared to 2017 when I first wrote about the public bank, the city’s political landscape has moved to the right. Tech money has infiltrated local elections and Mayor Daniel Lurie has repeatedly shown not just a willingness but an eagerness to strip social welfare programs down to bare bones, if not eradicate them entirely. Political positions once taken as standard, like supporting the unhoused and expanding affordable housing, are now constantly challenged by so-called moderate elected officials.
Notably, the only two dissenting votes last Tuesday were Supervisor Sherrill of District 1, a grad-school classmate of Lurie, and Supervisor Alan Wong of District 4, a Lurie appointee.
Given the city’s move to the right and the ever-expanding political push of San Francisco technocrats, now is a pivotal time to take back democratic control of city funds.
“The best time to start a public bank is 20 years ago,” Steier said. “the second best time is now.”
Troy Jackson, as a Democratic candidate for governor, speaks to reporters at a campaign event, June 5, 2026, in Bar Harbor, Maine. Credit: Robert F. Bukaty/AP Photo
Troy Jackson will be the replacement Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Maine after smoking his opposition in the 16 county delegate elections held over the weekend. Jackson will take on Sen. Susan Collins as a substitute for Graham Platner on the November ballot, and he got there by leveraging Platner’s formidable organizing network to blow out his competition.
A total of 17,279 Mainers cast ballots in the race. Jackson’s slate won the majority of the vote in 15 of 16 counties, and in most counties, including the biggest (Cumberland, home to the city of Portland), his slate won every delegate. Overall, he took more than 90 percent of the delegates, according to a review by the Prospect.
Jackson, a former state senator and third-place candidate for governor this year, therefore has enough support to secure an absolute majority on the first ballot at the July 25 convention in Bangor. The 101 state committee members wouldn’t matter even if they voted as a bloc against Jackson.
Jackson’s top two opponents in the quick-strike nomination race, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows and public-health official Nirav Shah, both dropped out on Sunday and endorsed Jackson. Neither of them had a path to victory, as their slates failed to secure more than a handful of votes, and a few of those who did win also appeared on Jackson’s slate.
“In November, Mainers will defeat Susan Collins, and we will take back our Senate seat from the billionaires and corporations who think they own it,” Jackson said on social media.
The progressive Jackson, who earned the support of the Maine chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America in the governor’s race, starts out $11 million behind Collins in fundraising, and that doesn’t count the $8 million in the bank from Pine Tree Results PAC, Collins’s own super PAC funded by billionaire private equity tycoons. But in a state with fewer than 900,000 registered voters, grassroots mobilization does matter. And Jackson just showed that his network has the aptitude to pull it off.
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An unexpected single-location countywide caucus on a weekend in July is a unique challenge, even if it was a high-profile event inside the state. Jackson identified a delegate slate, and members of Platner’s volunteer network, which at its height numbered 15,000 across the state, swung to Jackson’s side during the quick-strike process. The two agreed on most issues and put the concerns of working families, labor, and the need for universal health care first.
Organizers in “Jackson for Maine” T-shirts left over from his gubernatorial run stormed the weekend caucuses, after making a week of phone bank calls to get supporters out. Jackson’s longtime connection to the labor movement also helped with organizing; he has the endorsement of the state AFL-CIO.
For John Kirk of Blue Hill (Hancock County) and his wife Susan, becoming a Jackson delegate was “based on his platform, his progressive track record and on the recommendation of our daughter and her friends in South Portland,” he told me over text. Kirk’s Democratic club held a straw poll early in the week and Jackson got two-thirds of the vote. Local state representative Nina Milliken and several other supporters organized the slate in conjunction with the campaign, while also collecting signatures for Jackson’s candidacy.
Outside the Hancock County meeting in Ellsworth, Kirk and others manned the table and talked to voters. “In the end it worked out,” he said. Jackson’s slate won 22 out of 23 delegates.
A large number of delegate candidates in their personal statements spoke to the need to honor the will of the voters in Maine, who gave Platner the nomination with 72 percent of the vote in June. Platner withdrew after a credible allegation of sexual assault.
The unusual circumstance created a one-week mini-campaign where television ads were nonexistent, outside groups did not exert any influence, and success was measured in grassroots muscle, getting people out to community meetings and having conversations with neighbors. Jackson’s alignment with Platner’s movement and the various forms of organization he could draw from made the contest child’s play.
Retail politics may be the only place Jackson will have an edge, given the financial disparity between the two candidates. But that can go far in a heavily dispersed state where turnout is usually pretty high. The caucuses became a test of how the candidates could reach people well below the din of campaign cash and on-air sound bites. And Jackson soared over the bar.
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David Dayen is the executive editor of The American Prospect. He is the author of Monopolized: Life in the Age of Corporate Power and Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary Americans Uncovered Wall Street’s Great Foreclosure Fraud. He co-hosts the podcast Organized Money with Matt Stoller. He can be reached on Signal at ddayen.90. More by David Dayen
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