“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
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
Attend or host a vigil to demand Justice for Lorenzo. Justice for Johan. Justice for All. this Saturday, July 25. Lorenzo and Johan were two husbands, fathers, and neighbors ripped from their families by Trump’s out-of-control secret police force in a single week. We must come together in solidarity in communities across the US to demand an end to ICE’s violence as we mourn Lorenzo, Johan, and all victims of ICE and fight for accountability. P.S. — You may also notice vigils before the 25th listed, and we encourage you to gather as vigils are planned, either through the mass day of action or before. Don’t see an event near you? Sign up to host your own.
You’re probably referring to the papal bull Dum Diversas, issued by Pope Nicholas V on June 18, 1452.
This document has become one of the most controversial papal decrees in history because it authorized the Portuguese crown to wage war against certain non-Christian peoples and to enslave captives.
The key passage granted King Afonso V of Portugal the authority:
“…to invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever… and to reduce their persons to perpetual servitude…”
In modern English, “perpetual servitude” means permanent slavery.
Why was it issued?
The historical context was the expansion of Portugal along the west coast of Africa and conflict with Muslim powers following the fall of Constantinople’s predecessor conflicts. The papacy was encouraging Portugal’s military campaigns against Muslims and supporting exploration and territorial expansion.
Three years later, in 1455, Nicholas V issued another bull, Romanus Pontifex, which expanded Portugal’s exclusive rights over lands it discovered along the African coast. That document reinforced Portuguese claims to trade, conquest, and enslavement in those regions.
Was this the “Doctrine of Discovery”?
Partly.
The so-called Doctrine of Discovery is not a single document but a collection of papal bulls and later legal principles. Among the most important are:
1452 – Dum Diversas (authorized conquest and perpetual servitude of certain non-Christians)
1455 – Romanus Pontifex (expanded Portuguese rights of conquest and trade)
1493 – Inter Caetera, issued by Pope Alexander VI after Columbus’s first voyage, which divided newly claimed lands between Spain and Portugal.
Together, these documents were later cited by European colonial powers to justify territorial claims over lands inhabited by non-Christian peoples.
How is it viewed today?
Today, these bulls are widely criticized as providing religious justification for colonialism, conquest, and slavery.
In recent decades, many Christian denominations and Indigenous organizations have called for repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery. In 2023, the Vatican issued a joint statement rejecting the legal and political use of the “Doctrine of Discovery.” The statement said that these papal documents “did not adequately reflect the equal dignity and rights of Indigenous peoples” and that the doctrine “is not part of the teaching of the Catholic Church.”
One interesting philosophical observation, given our previous conversations, is that Dum Diversas illustrates a distinction you’ve often explored in your Translations: the difference between authority and Truth. Historically, a pope possessed immense institutional authority within the Church. But your first step asks a different question:
Does institutional authority, by itself, establish Truth?
That question allows one to distinguish between an institution’s historical actions and the metaphysical question of what is ultimately true. It’s one reason these fifteenth-century documents continue to be discussed—not only as historical artifacts but as examples of how claims of authority can shape history in ways later generations may judge very differently.
Protesters memorialize people killed in encounters with federal immigration agents during a gathering at San Francisco’s 24th Street Mission BART plaza Saturday.Lucy Hodgman/S.F. Chronicle
Protesters filled San Francisco’s 24th Street Mission BART plaza Saturday afternoon, voicing anger and grief over the deaths of three people in encounters with federal immigration officers this month.
In the span of less than a week, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers fatally shot 25-year-old Joan Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine, and 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston. A third man was fatally struck by a tractor-trailer while fleeing ICE agents in St. Augustine, Fla.
Their deaths reignited national frustration over President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and calls for a day of action across the country Saturday. Dozens of people joined the protest in San Francisco, carrying “ICE out” signs and a banner demanding “Justice for Lorenzo, Joan and all victims of ICE” as passing cars honked in support.
“I’m furious about what happened to Lorenzo and to Joan and to many countless others,” Kari Hwang, an organizer with Nodutdol for Korean Community Development, told the crowd. “I’m furious that this doesn’t surprise us anymore.”
In January, U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti were fatally shot by ICE agents in Minneapolis, sparking protests around the country. Thousands of Bay Area residents participated in a nationwide general strike that month, with students around the region walking out of class and dozens of businesses closing in solidarity.
Nancy Jodaitis said she came from the Richmond District to the Mission neighborhood for Saturday’s protest in hopes of showing solidarity with immigrants in the city and around the country. “There’s grief, there’s outrage, and there’s a commitment to fight against what is happening,” she said.
Federal immigration authorities have been “poking a sleeping giant,” said Eisa Al-Shamma of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Recent protests, he said, are a sign of people “waking up.”
“That could be any of us,” Al-Shamma said of the people killed by ICE agents this year. “What’s to separate me from those men? There’s really nothing but luck and birth.”
Both Guerrero and Araujo were killed after federal agents tried to pull their vehicles over, prompting ICE to suspend most vehicle stops. Trump later appeared to contradict that guidance when he wrote on social media, “we CANNOT give up one of ICE’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools, THE TRAFFIC STOP!”
Jim Martinez, a San Franciscan wearing a U.S. Navy veteran cap and an array of anti-Trump pins, said he felt a sense of deep frustration when he learned of the shooting deaths this week.
“These people are just going to work,” Martinez said. “They’re minding their own business. It’s total bulls—.”
Lucy Hodgman is a Hearst Fellow on the Chronicle’s climate and breaking news teams. She previously covered politics for the Times Union in Albany and breaking news for Politico and the Sacramento Bee. Originally from Brooklyn, she is a graduate of Yale University, where she studied English and edited the Yale Daily News.
How to reach Lucy
To provide story tips or feedback, email lucy.hodgman@hearst.com. To share tips securely, use Signal at lucyhodgman.32.
Supervisor Bilal Mahmood argues that the failure to revive the site shows the need for his proposal to bring Mamdani-style government grocery stores to SF.
The Safeway on Webster Street closed in early 2025, leaving the Fillmore without a neighborhood grocer. | Source:Magali Gauthier for The Standard
Three separate efforts to bring a grocery store back to a vacant Safeway site in the Fillmore have collapsed, deepening a political fight over who’s to blame — and what San Francisco should do about it.
Grocery Outlet, Smart & Final, and Sprouts Farmers Market(opens in new tab) have all explored taking over the former Safeway at 1335 Webster St. on a short-term basis, as Safeway finalizes the sale of the property to Align Real Estate, which intends to build housing on the site.
The collapse of all three efforts leaves the Fillmore, a historically Black and low-income San Francisco neighborhood, without a full-service grocery store for the foreseeable future — more than a year after Safeway’s Webster Street location closed. The failed talks come amid a broader political fight: Supervisor Bilal Mahmood is pushing a ballot measure to tax vacant grocery stores and subsidize new operators, an effort now tangled up with accusations that Safeway hindered efforts to bring in a new grocer.
In an interview, Mahmood said negotiations to bring a grocer back to the site are dead in the water, and emails his office provided in response to a verbal records request back up that account. Sprouts’ interest in the site has not been previously reported.
“Oh my God. It’s devastating news,” said Majeid Crawford, a Fillmore native. “We were really hoping something would happen; the community has been waiting and hopeful.”
In the months before Safeway closed in February 2025, neighbors rallied and pushed(opens in new tab) for the grocer to stay open, or for a new grocer to take over the space. Crawford — executive director of the New Community Leadership Foundation, a group trying to prevent the Fillmore’s gentrification — said the failure to find a new grocer will send shockwaves through the neighborhood.
Safeway’s Webster Street store served the Fillmore community for four decades. The new owner, Align Real Estate, plans a mixed-use project on the site with more than 1,800 housing units(opens in new tab) and a ground-floor grocery. Lawmakers had hoped a temporary grocery store could load Fillmore neighbors’ shopping bags in the years before the project breaks ground.
Supervisor Bilal Mahmood wants to revive his effort to bring government-backed grocery stores to San Francisco. | Source:Jason Henry for The Standard
Mahmood is hoping his ballot measure to establish a fund to subsidize grocery stores and levy a tax on vacant supermarkets will pressure grocers to lease to new operators or reopen. The idea resembles one from New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whose proposal would establish government-subsidized grocery stores.
While Mahmood’s proposal faced a setback last week from the Board of Supervisors and opposition from Mayor Daniel Lurie, he’s planning to introduce a motion Tuesday(opens in new tab) for the Board of Supervisors to re-hear the measure by the end of the month, which would restart the process of placing it on the ballot. Lurie previously said he’s working to bring more grocery stores to San Francisco, but new taxes won’t help that effort.
Mahmood alleges the negotiations between the three grocers, Safeway, and Align Real Estate failed because Safeway impeded efforts to find a replacement grocer. Emails Mahmood provided offer a behind-the-scenes look at negotiations marked by canceled meetings, stalled talks, and growing frustration.
“It shows us that Safeway was never intending to actually put a grocery store in there,” Mahmood said of the emails. “We know of three grocers who were made an offer to go onto that property.”
Safeway, Grocery Outlet, and Sprouts declined to comment. Smart & Final did not respond to a request to comment. David Balducci, a principal at Align Real Estate, told The Standard they’ve not given up.
“The Fillmore community deserves a grocery store, and we will do everything we can to bring one to the site,” Balducci said. “Unfortunately, Supervisor Mahmood’s tax on grocery store vacancies would only make it more difficult to open a store.”
Mahmood told a different tale.
“Align told me that there is no plan to do a short-term activation with another grocery operator anymore,” he said.
The effort was difficult from the start — Safeway promised to rip out its freezers(opens in new tab) at the end of 2024, before it even closed, making it more difficult for a new grocer to move in.
In January last year, Grocery Outlet made an offer to Safeway to take over the site. In an email sent Jan. 9, Bill Coyle, vice president of real estate with Grocery Outlet, aired a hopeful tone about his meeting with the supervisor and Align Real Estate.
“You have [Grocery Outlet’s] commitment we shall pursue with vigor and hope for the best outcome,” he wrote.
On Jan. 22, 2025, Grocery Outlet sent a proposal to Safeway, outlining a “scaled-down” version of its store for two to three years, paying Safeway $400,000 in annual rent. The hope, Coyle wrote, was that Grocery Outlet would become a permanent grocer once Align Real Estate’s project was complete.
“Politicians happy. Community happy,” he wrote.
His optimism was short-lived.
Coyle said he wrote to Mahmood Feb. 4 that “I have NOT heard back” from a consultant working for Safeway. In an email venting his frustration over the process, he alleged Safeway has a pattern of making it difficult for other grocery stores to open.
“It’s what they do,” he wrote to Mahmood, “impede competition.”
By Feb. 19, the parties met once again. Coyle emailed Mahmood shortly before, noting that the cost to open a grocery store there — even a temporary one — would be at least $2 million.
In this redacted email, an Albertsons real estate officer acknowledges that Grocery Outlet withdrew from a deal to lease space at a Safeway site in the Fillmore neighborhood. | Source:Email provided by Supervisor Bilal Mahmood’s office
Emails revealed the deal’s definitive end in April: Eric Holzer, senior director of corporate real estate at Albertsons, which owns Safeway, wrote to Mahmood acknowledging that Grocery Outlet “dropped their interest.”
In the intervening months, Safeway and Align Real Estate held discussions with Smart & Final, a grocer with other San Francisco locations, and Sprouts, a Bay Area staple exploring its first San Francisco location in the Showplace Square neighborhood.
Sources with knowledge of the deal rejected the notion that Safeway had impeded efforts to bring in a new grocer and said the grocers walked away from the deal for financial reasons. The amount needed to bring the building up to code, which may have been $2 million to $4 million, was so high that they would need to operate a store there longer than the proposal allowed for it to pencil out.
Mahmood said the emails show Safeway “intentionally dragged their feet to allow the deal to die.”
The Webster Street Safeway was a neighborhood staple and a lifeline for low-income families and people with disabilities. | Source:Magali Gauthier for The Standard
The lack of a local grocery store hurts low-income Fillmore families, people with disabilities, and seniors who can’t travel far, according to Crawford, the neighborhood advocate. He knows its importance personally: His mother was an artist and single parent who shopped at Safeway when he was a child. She would stretch her limited dollars and buy ingredients to whip up a family favorite: spaghetti and meatballs.
“To hear all those things fell through,” he said, “it feels like our community is being erased.”
US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Michigan Democratic candidate for Senate Abdul El-Sayed, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) greet the crowd after El-Sayed spoke at The People v. The Powerful rally at the Detroit Opera House on July 18, 2026 in Detroit, Michigan.
(Photo by Sarah Rice/Getty Images)
“When the stakes are so high,” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, “is the answer to our problems to turn to the same playbook over and over again?”
Ahead of early voting in Michigan’s Democratic US Senate primary, candidate and Medicare for All advocate Abdul El-Sayed was joined in Detroit Saturday evening by progressive leaders, including Sen. Bernie Sanders and Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, for a rally titled: “The People vs. The Powerful.”
The senator declared to 1,600 attendees that the choice in the primary is not simply between El-Sayed and his opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens.
“In all due respect to Congresswoman Stevens, everyone knows that this is not an election between her and Abdul El-Sayed,” said the Vermont Independent senator. “This is an election between Abdul and the billionaire class.”
Sanders: In all due respect to Congresswoman Stevens, everyone knows that this is not an election between her and Abdul El-Sayed. This is an election between Abdul and the billionaire class. That is what this election is about.
The final weeks of the primary, in which Michigan voters will go to the polls on August 4, have been marked by reports of massive outside spending in favor of Stevens and against El-Sayed, who has made the refrain, “Money out of politics, money in your pocket, and Medicare for All” the central message of his campaign.
As Common Dreams reported last week, El-Sayed led the way in fundraising in the second quarter of 2026, bringing in $4.6 million while Stevens raised $2.2 million.
But Federal Election Commission (FEC) campaign finance filings showed that outside spending by people and groups supporting Stevens has soared to an estimated $50 million, according to an analysis by Punchbowl News.
“More than half of the total ($28.4 million) is coming from United Democracy Project (UDP),” said congressional reporter Ally Mutnick, referring to the super political action committee (PAC) affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which has also backed the vehemently pro-Israel Stevens in the past.
UDP acknowledged last week that it had spent nearly $15 million on the Michigan Senate primary race so far, including $9.3 million in support of Stevens and $5.7 million against El-Sayed.
El-Sayed is a strong supporter of Palestinian rights and—like a growing majority of Democratic voters after more than two years of Israel’s assault on Gaza—has called for the US to end military aid to Israel.
In recent weeks he has responded to reporters’ frequent questions on his views about whether Israel has a “right to exist,” by asking whether Palestine has a right to exist and, in a Sunday interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, saying that a more pertinent question for American voters is whether Israel has “a right to our tax dollars.”
Does Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed think there’s room in the Democratic Party for both supporters and opponents of Israel?
EL-SAYED: “There's always room in the tent for folks. And I'm for human rights. I'm for equal rights to peace, dignity, and self-determination.… pic.twitter.com/Amfvsnmx6J
At the rally on Saturday night, Sanders said that AIPAC’s focus on funding Stevens’ campaign “has everything to do with the fact that they understand that Abdul and I, and the vast majority of the American people, want a foreign policy that is based on morality and decency.”
“This is an election that will show the nation whether AIPAC and other billionaire-funded super PACs can spend tens and tens and tens of millions of dollars to buy a US Senate seat, or whether, within a corrupt campaign finance system, the voices of ordinary Americans—the people of Michigan—can prevail,” said Sanders. “That is what this campaign is all about. It is about democracy versus oligarchy, and we are on the side of democracy.”
Sanders: Why is the whole country looking at this election? In fact, people all over the world are watching what’s going on here in Michigan.
And the answer is that this is an election that will show the nation whether AIPAC and other billionaire-funded super PACs can spend tens… pic.twitter.com/ALMk10YzJu
Ocasio-Cortez noted that the contest between El-Sayed and Stevens comes as Americans are struggling to afford groceries, gas, and other essentials while President Donald Trump continues his war against Iran, dismisses working families’ financial struggles, and insists the federal government cannot afford to provide universal public services.
“When the stakes are so high, when more people than ever are living so close to the bone, eventually we have to ask ourselves: Is the answer to our problems to turn to the same playbook over and over again?” said Ocasio-Cortez. “A playbook that says, in order to win, Democrats must rely on the same dark money—$50 million and counting—from the same people who backed 35 election deniers to Congress who voted to overturn the 2020 election?”
“I believe Michiganders—Democrats, Republicans, and independents—believe that good leadership swings for the fences,” said the congresswoman, who has been named as a potential presidential or US Senate candidate in 2028. “Good leadership gets big money out of our system. It takes on the corruption that blocks commonsense solutions that lift working people. And, by the way, it helps not to take their money in the first place.”
AOC: When the stakes are so high, when more people than ever are living so close to the bone, eventually we have to ask ourselves:
Is the answer to our problems to turn to the same playbook over and over again? A playbook that says, in order to win, Democrats must rely on the… pic.twitter.com/oqIaQzSQfH
“We can choose to reward the $50 million in dark money by voting their way—which, by the way Michigan—do you think that $50 million is for free?” continued Ocasio-Cortez. “Do you think it’s an act of charity? We know how this works. There’s $50 million in this race because they’re expecting a return. It’s an investment… So we can choose that or we can choose Dr. Abdul El-Sayed for the United States Senate.”
On Sunday, as El-Sayed and his high-profile supporters in Congress prepared to rally more voters in Grand Rapids and Lansing, CNN reported that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) had confronted Sanders in a phone call, complaining about his “meddling” in primary elections.
“The candidates we are supporting are candidates who are representing working people, and I think it’s a long time overdue for the Democratic Party to stop worrying about their wealthy campaign funders and start worrying about the needs of working people,” Sanders told CNN.
CNN correspondent Seung Min Kim suggested that Stevens is seen by Democratic leaders as a safer bet to win the general election in Michigan in a crucial election year. But recent polls have shown her views on Israel and her support from AIPAC, as well as her donations from the for-profit health insurance industry and her opposition to Medicare for All, could harm, not help, Stevens.
Along with big spending from the pro-Israel lobby, the primary race has been characterized in recent weeks by El-Sayed’s call for social media users to refrain from mocking and making personal attacks against Stevens and to focus instead on the issues at the center of the campaign, as well as recent Islamophobic vitriol against El-Sayed, including from Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.).
Fetterman told Fox News Saturday that El-Sayed is “essentially, a pro-Hamas candidate that’s been anti-American and deeply anti-Israel,” adding that “44% of Muslims, you know, they have positive views of Hamas.”
Journalist Prem Thakker of Zeteo News called on Stevens to “condemn this racist and Islamophobic rhetoric coming from your allies,” as El-Sayed had earlier called for civility from his own supporters.
El-Sayed pointed to the recent attacks at the rally, saying his opponents “have taken to calling me ‘dangerous.’”
“If you’re a worker who wants our economy to work for you, I’m not dangerous,” said El-Sayed. “If you’re someone sitting in medical debt, wondering what your financial future is because you deigned to see a doctor in the richest, most powerful country in the world, if you’re that person, I’m not dangerous.”
El-Sayed: They’ve taken to calling me dangerous.
If you’re a worker who wants our economy to work for you, I’m not dangerous.
If you’re AIPAC and want to send our money abroad, you damn well better believe I’m dangerous.
“But if you’re Blue Cross Blue Shield shareholders, yep, I’m dangerous!” he added. “If you’re AIPAC and want to send our money abroad, you damn well better believe I’m dangerous. If you’re Chuck Schumer and want to keep doling out corporate money to elect people who are going to do your bidding, I am so damn dangerous!”
“If you’re somebody who wants government to work for you,” El-Sayed said, “I aim to be the best friend you ever had.”
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Troy Jackson, Democratic candidate for US Senate, speaks to a woman during a demonstration after a man was fatally shot by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on July 14, 2026 in Scarborough, Maine.
(Photo by Ryan Murphy/Getty Images)
“We’re well on our way to getting the government that we deserve,” said Jackson.
As Democratic US Senate candidate Troy Jackson pulled far ahead of his opponents in the race to replace Graham Platner as the party’s nominee on Saturday, one commentator credited the former state Senate president’s campaign with an “extremely impressive organizational feat”—one that was focused on nominating a working-class champion.
Eight of Maine’s 16 counties held in-person and virtual delegate nominating meetings on Saturday, deciding on the first 319 of 500 total delegates who will vote for the Democratic nominee at next weekend’s convention, which was rapidly organized after Platner dropped out of the race last week following rape allegations that he denied.
At least 290 of the delegates who were chosen in the first eight counties backed Jackson, the Bangor Daily News reported. The former logger, who previously ran for governor, has deep union ties, and has been endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), won at least 148 of the 149 delegates in Cumberland County, all 44 delegates in Penobscot, and 22 of 23 in Hancock, dominating in several other counties as well.
The rest of the state’s counties will vote on delegates at similar meetings on Sunday, but as one election watcher said, “Troy Jackson will almost certainly be the next Democratic nominee for Maine’s 2026 US Senate election.”
Jackson appeared confident enough in Saturday’s results to announce a celebratory tailgate planned for Sunday in York County as voters there would be selecting delegates. The Maine State Nurses Association also announced its endorsement of the candidate on Sunday morning.
After Saturday’s county meetings, Jackson addressed some of his supporters virtually, giving his volunteer network credit for quickly organizing on his behalf after many had previously expected to be campaigning for Platner, who spent nearly a year mobilizing Mainers from across the political spectrum with a platform focused on taxing billionaires, ending US “forever wars” and military aid for Israel, and passing Medicare for All.
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all the hard, hard work. I’ve been getting text messages all day about what a great job I did. I didn’t do a goddamn thing, all of you just smoked it,” said Jackson in a video posted on social media. “It’s really, really incredible, so thank you so much. We’re well on our way to getting the government that we fucking deserve, and that’s what I’m excited about.”
We're well on our way to getting the government that we deserve. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. pic.twitter.com/pP1HDr9RKF
Organized volunteers attended some of the county conventions, some wearing “Jackson for Maine” t-shirts leftover from the candidate’s gubernatorial run and passing out flyers with the names of the pro-Jackson delegate slate—supporters whom volunteers had spent the past week calling to secure their commitment to the progressive candidate.
The eight remaining counties will select 181 more delegates on Sunday. Another 101 Democratic state committee members have already been chosen to attend the statewide convention on July 25. Together they make up the 601 delegates who will vote for the party’s nominee.
The party’s nominee will face five-term Republican Sen. Susan Collins, whom Jackson has condemned in recent days for voting to fund US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which he has called to abolish. An ICE agent fatally shot 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine last week.
A poll by Wedgewood earlier this month found Jackson leading Collins in a hypothetical matchup, 48-43, with 9% of voters undecided.
Ahead of Saturday’s meetings, Jackson addressed a crowd of about 100 supporters in Portland.
“I’m running for the logger in Allagash who does not think that anyone in Washington knows about them,” said Jackson. “I’m running for the nurse that’s working another double shift because their hospital is understaffed, and all the while billionaires and massive corporations are making record profits, buying influence in Washington, and telling the rest of us that there is just nothing that we can do.”
“I’m asking for your vote, but I’m also asking for more than that,” he added. “I’m asking you to organize… I’m asking you to talk to your neighbors. I’m asking you to show up at your county meetings, make the calls, send the texts, and bring even more people into this movement.”
Writer Cole Sandick suggested that despite the excitement that Platner’s campaign had generated, many of his supporters appeared to have quickly pivoted toward Jackson, also a Medicare for All supporter and opponent of military aid for Israel, in an effort to ensure progressive priorities are represented in the Senate.
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