A group of several hundred protesters faced off with about 50 police officers on Market Street and Van Ness Avenue Saturday afternoon, after an earlier demonstration counter-protesting a small “free speech” rally organized by Philip Anderson, a Texan who has complained about censorship, particularly by Twitter, of right-wing views expressed on social media.
Protesters with shields prepare to confront cops.
There were about ten people associated with the “free speech” rally, and 300-400 anti-fascist protesters, a small number of whom struck Anderson, bloodying his mouth and knocking out one of his teeth. Shortly after, SFPD shut down the event, deeming it a public safety risk.
“We knew that they would show up in light numbers, but we didn’t want to take any chances,” said Bianca Von Krieg, a protester who arrived at UN Plaza around noon. “There were three or four ally groups that were scheduled to protest today and out of sheer coincidence, the cosmic demonstration moons lined up, and we all just said ‘to hell with it, let’s just counter-protest these guys’, and things just kind of snowballed together.”
Police drive protesters back. Nobody was injured except the Trumpites.
Berkeley Antifa social media also issued calls to oppose the “free speech” rally on Twitter.
Around 1pm, the counter-protesters at UN Plaza gathered painted shields with the words “We Keep Us Safe,” which were constructed by the Oakland Builders’ Collective, and marched from UN Plaza down Market Street, before stopping outside Twitter’s headquarters on Market and 10th Streets, where Anderson had planned a “free speech” protest to take place at 4pm before their rally was shut down by police. There, Asmara Gebre, a demonstrator who was a midwife at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital until going on strike in July, addressed the crowd, criticizing the police as systemically racist.
“These racist police have been murdering our people…For that reason we are standing here in solidarity,” said Gebre. “This is not a conversation of good cop, bad cop, this is racist versus anti-racist, and the police system is embedded in white supremacy. It started with killing people who looked like me,” added Gebre, who is Black.
At 2:32pm, a group of anti-fascist protesters on Market between 10th and 11th Streets pursued and punched two men, one of whom was wearing a MAGA hat. Several protesters alleged that the two men were “undercover,” photographing and videotaping the counter-protesters and reporting information to the Proud Boys, an alt-right, male supremacist group founded in 2016 by Gavin McInnes, a co-founder of Vice Media. There was a rumor that the Proud Boys would show up at the “free speech” rally earlier that day, but it was never confirmed that any members of the organization were actually present. Just seven minutes earlier, another protester got into an argument with Gebre, and shortly after a third person approached the two holding a screwdriver before being cast out from the protest.
At 2:44 pm, three men in black military-looking gear emerged from the crowd of anti-fascist demonstrators, moving west towards Van Ness, carrying a partially burned “Thin Blue Line” flag, attempting to re-ignite it. The police called for backup, with roughly 50 officers forming a line across Market Street and Van Ness Avenue. At 2:50 pm, police pushed the demonstrators back roughly 40 feet, striking the demonstrators’ shields with batons and pepper-spraying at least one protester on the left side of the shield wall.
As they retreated towards the corner opposite Twitter’s headquarters, anti-fascist demonstrators chanted “Who do you protect? Who do you serve?” and “All cops are bastards.” At 3 pm, demonstrators turned onto 10th Street, turning left onto Howard Street, and then onto Mission and 9th streets, before dispersing at 3:45pm on Mission and 7th Street. Von Krieg, addressing the demonstrators as they began to disperse, promised that they would demonstrate against alt-right groups in the future should they return to San Francisco.
“We will come back as many times as needed to shut that shit down,” said Von Krieg.
On Saturday, thousands of demonstrators turned out in downtown San Francisco to march in support of women’s rights. It was hosted by the League of Women Voters SF, NARAL Pro-Choice California, Planned Parenthood Northern California, San Francisco Women’s Political Committee and more.
Shahid embodies San Francisco’s values. He has actively represented both San Francisco and Washington as a legal advocate, national non-profit leader, grassroots organizer, and movement musician. Through his work building movements for peace, immigrant rights, black lives, and the Occupy movement, Shahid dedicated his career to public service long before running for public office.
An early advocate for marriage equality for same-sex couples and a prolific organizer in the movement to end warrantless surveillance, Shahid most recently built a national grassroots network for the Electronic Frontier Foundation as the organization’s Director of Grassroots Advocacy. He has been building social movements and speaking truth to power for two decades, and graduated from Stanford Law School in 2003.
In addition to LGBTQ rights, privacy, and the right to encryption, Shahid’s work has advanced immigrant rights, campaign finance reform, government transparency, international human rights, and police accountability. His writing has explored issues from the right-wing attack on reproductive freedom to the erosion of voting rights, and from effective counter-terrorism strategies to counter-cultural activism leveraging art & culture.
Find our handy 2020 Clip-Out Guide to take to the polls (or use to vote from home) here.
President/Vice President
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris
We were for Bernie. We think he would have won in 2016 and would win this year.
But it’s not time for arguing about that. The country is facing one of the deepest threats in its history, and Donald Trump must be defeated. The endorsement begins and ends there.
On the positive side, Biden has always put himself pretty much in the center of where the Democratic Party is. During the 1980s and 1990s, when the party went to the right, so did Biden.
Now the party is moving to the left, and over the next few cycles, more progressive challengers like AOC will take on more conservative Democrats in Congressional primaries and win. And as that happens, Biden, we believe and hope, will move to the left, too.
The tragic death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg only shows how high the stakes are here. We’re not sure that American democracy can survive another four years of Donald Trump.Sponsored link
Biden’s going to win California overwhelmingly, so if you have any extra time, spend it phone banking in swing states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Florida. Or work to defeat vulnerable Republicans in key Senate races.
This is the most important presidential race in most of our lifetimes. Vote Biden and Harris.
Congress, District 12
No endorsement
We have never been big fans of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who long ago abandoned any sign of representing the politics of her home district. Her constituents don’t live in San Francisco; she represents the Democrats in the House, who made her speaker, and since a fair number of them are conservative, she won’t push a Green New Deal or Medicare for All. Although, to her credit, Pelosi’s votes on the Democratic County Central Committee have moved significantly toward the progressives in the past two years.
Still, this is the wrong time to challenge Pelosi, which is one main reason we are not endorsing Shahid Buttar. (We don’t think he’s qualified for the job, either.) This challenge is just a diversion and a waste of everyone’s time. Pelosi has vowed to retire after this term, which means in 2022 there will be an epic battle to fill that seat.
It’s critical that a progressive who can win runs for that seat (and that the progressive community comes together on a candidate). Otherwise someone like State Sen. Scott Wiener will be our rep in Congress – and one of the most powerful people in San Francisco — for the next 30 years.
That’s what we should be working on and thinking about now.
State Senate, District 11
Jackie Fielder
Incumbent Scott Wiener is, as we once described him, a political machine of his own: He is aggressive, persistent, and prolific in his legislation. At times, he shows courage and leadership: He lead the fight to allow San Francisco to open safe injection sites, and his recent (courageous) effort to remove ridiculous, homophobic language for the sex-offender laws showed he was willing to stand up to death threats, horrible anti-semitic and anti-gay attacks, and still get the bill through.
But when it comes to economic issues, particularly housing, Wiener has been on the wrong side. He is the darling of the Yimbys, someone who argues that allowing developers to build luxury housing anywhere they want will eventually bring down prices.
That’s untrue, and it’s a dangerous approach.
Wiener is on the side of Mayor Breed and the moderates and is working to shift the Board of Supes to a more real-estate friendly majority.
Fielder is more of a political newcomer than we usually support for this level of office. She’s never been elected to anything. But she has run a strong campaign, talking about taxing billionaires to provide money for affordable (non-market) housing, defunding the police, and aggressively addressing climate change. (Among other things, she wants indigenous people – who knew how to prevent massive fires for centuries before the Europeans came—to lead the way on forest management).
Vote for Fielder.
State Assembly, District 17
No endorsement
Incumbent David Chiu has done some positive things, like pushing for what turned out to be a limited, but still valuable, statewide rent-control bill. But he’s used his local clout to back all the conservative candidates; for example, he’s endorsed Marjan Philhour in D1. We aren’t endorsing him.
State Assembly District 19
Phil Ting
Ting’s record hasn’t been perfect; he has backed Wiener’s housing bills. But he’s been backing progressive candidates; unlike Chiu, he’s with Connie Chan in D1. So we are willing to give him the nod this time.
BART BOARD District 7
Lateefah Simon
BART BOARD District 9
Bevan Dufty
BART’s in serious trouble, with ridership plummeting during COVID. It also faces long-term problems with everything from policing to the fare structure. Dufty and Simon, who are effectively unopposed, are progressive steady leaders and deserve another term.
State ballot measures
Proposition 14
Stem Cell bonds
NO
We have always been a bit nervous about the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, an unelected board that gives taxpayer money in grants for work on stem-cell research. This measure would add another $6.5 billion in state bond money to keep the work going.
We’re all for more research into stem cells. But many of the board members who oversee the grants are also in a position to benefit from them. And the $3 billion in tax money already given to this agency under a 2004 bond act hasn’t led to a single FDA-approved product. Sixteen years is a long time, even by medical-research standards.
The big pharma companies that are going to benefit from this type of research have plenty of money to fund it; taxing big pharma profits to pay for this research would make a lot more sense than taking money out of the state’s general fund.
The Center for Genetics and Society, a progressive forward-thinking group in Berkeley, opposes this measure. So do we.
Proposition 15
Commercial real estate taxes
YES, YES, YES
Prop. 15 is the most important measure on the state ballot. By far. In fact, it’s one of the most important measures to face the voters in years.
The proposition would undo one of the worst, most unfair impacts of Prop. 13 – the huge tax windfall to commercial real estate.
At the time Prop. 13 passed, in 1978, commercial real estate paid by far the greatest proportion of the state’s property taxes. Now residential real estate pays the most. That’s because houses turn over (and thus get reassessed) more often than office buildings and theme parks and stadiums – but also because commercial property owners use all kinds of legal tricks to keep from getting reassessed. For example, if a building is owned by a corporation or a limited liability corporation, and instead of selling the building the owners sells shares in that corporation, they can argue that the ownership hasn’t changed – even though it clearly has.
So we have the likes of Donald Trump, who owns half of the Bank of America building, taking more than $10 million a year out from the city and the public schools in San Francisco thanks to an ancient assessment that pegs the value of the building at a fraction of what it would sell for today.
Just a tiny fraction of the commercial property owners in the state would pay the vast majority of the new taxes – and the result would be at least $7 billion or more a year for local government and schools.
Vote Yes on 15.
Proposition 16
Affirmative Action
YES
California – one of the most diverse state in the nation – is also one of only nine states that bans the use of race as a factor in considering public college admission, public contracting, and public employment.
That’s thanks to Prop. 209, a virulently racist measure that the voters approved in 1996, with the support of then-Gov. Pete Wilson.
Overturning that law is long overdue.
The data is very clear: The University of California admits Black and Latino students at levels far below their percentage of the population. A lack of diversity in public contracting hurts minority-owned businesses, and the current law prevents local government from making efforts to end historic patterns of discrimination in hiring against people of color.
It’s part of a much large public debate about equity.
Equity, as opposed to equality, recognizes that the United States today doesn’t offer a level playing field, that some people – entirely because of their race – have been historically set back, and that it’s necessary to actively promote policies that address that.
Prop. 16 could restore affirmative action to the public sector in California. Vote yes.
Proposition 17
Right to vote
YES
Thousands of Californians who have been convicted of crimes, served their time, and been released are currently ineligible to vote because they are still on parole. That makes no sense (in fact, depriving people in prison of the right to vote makes no sense in the first place). There’s a national movement toward restoring voting rights to ex-offenders, and this is one piece of that. Vote yes.
Proposition 18
17-year-old voting
YES
A small step toward expanding the voter rolls and getting more young people into the ballot box, Prop. 18 would allow a person who is 17 at the time of a primary election but will be 18 by the time of the general election to vote in the primary. Vote yes.
Proposition 19
Property taxes
NO
This is entirely the creation of the real-estate industry. The measure would allow seniors and disabled people a lifetime exemption from property-tax reassessment if they sell their original home and move anywhere in the state. They could move up to three times and never pay fair property taxes if their original home or farm was exempt.
There’s no need for this, no reason for except to help real-estate agents – and it would cost the state a lot of money.
Vote no.
Proposition 20
Restrictions on parole
NO
In an era when most sane people are working to limit the prison population, Prop. 20 is an effort to move backward. The measure would prevent parole for people who have, for example, multiple shoplifting offenses.
It’s astonishing that this even made it on the ballot. Vote no.
Proposition 21
Rent control
YES, YES, YES
Prop. 21 is up there with Prop. 15 as one of the most important measures on the ballot. It would allow cities to pass effective rent controls and prevent thousands of unwarranted evictions. It would, in essence, repeal the Costa-Hawkins Act, which is one of the worst laws passed by the state Legislature in the last 50 years.
That law, passed in 1995, prohibits cities from imposing rent controls on vacant apartments. That means all over the state, even in cities with otherwise strong rent control, when an apartment becomes vacant, the landlord can raise the rent to whatever the market will bear.
This means, of course, that landlords will go to great lengths to get rid of long-term tenants who pay less than market rate because of rent control.
Prop. 21 wouldn’t impose new rules on cities; it would just allow local government, at its own discretion, to pass stronger tenant-protection laws.
Vote yes.
Proposition 22
Uber and Lyft bailout
NO, NO, NO
Two companies that have made a fortune by exploiting drivers and breaking the law now want a special exemption from state labor regulations. They have spent more than $130 million pushing Prop. 22, and the voters need to reject it.
A landmark state law passed last year limits the ability of “gig work” companies like Uber and Lyft from treating people who are properly employees as “independent contractors.” That means drivers who work for the two multi-billion-dollar operations get no health insurance, no workers compensation, no paid vacation or sick days … nothing. During the pandemic, drivers have been forced to work or have no income. Under most circumstances (excluding the early days of the pandemic) they have no right to unemployment checks.
Now they want to overturn a reasonable state labor law. That’s why this is on the ballot. It’s a special-interest proposal that would endorse the illegal practices of a pair of tech companies that care nothing for their workers.
Vote no on 22.
Proposition 23
Dialysis clinics
NO
This is on the ballot entirely because of a battle between a health-care workers union and the companies that run most of the kidney dialysis centers in the state. We’re on the side of the union when it comes to organizing these companies – but we’re not on the side of this ballot measure.
Prop. 23 doesn’t do anything to help unionized the clinics. It just requires a doctor on site – which will drive up the cost of care.
But more than that, we are very nervous about ballot measures that seek to regulate the operations of medical clinics. If there’s an issue with safety, the state Legislature ought to address it in a way that balances the needs of all parties. We are all too aware of states that try to shut down abortion clinics with laws mandating doctors have admitting privileges at hospitals; that’s not what this is about, at all, but again: This kind of regulation of medical clinics by ballot measure makes us very uncomfortable.
Proposition 24
Consumer Privacy Laws
NO
Prop. 24 sounds good – until you take a minute to look into it. The measure claims to promote consumer privacy, but it actually give the tech industry tremendous latitude to collect and sell your personal information. It would, for example, allow companies to block you from certain apps unless you opt in and give up your privacy.
Worse, this would give the illusion that the state has taken action and needs no more consumer protections laws for electronic data.
The ACLU of California opposes this measure. So does Consumer Action. So do we.
Proposition 25
Bail
YES
Prop. 25 is a referendum on a measure passed by the state Legislature to reform the cash-bail system. This is on the ballot because the bail-bonds industry, which makes money by posting bonds for people too poor to bail out on their own (and taking a large cut in the process) wants to block the progressive changes.
California is moving slowly to end the system that allows rich people to get out of jail and forces poor people to wait as long as a year or more behind bars (losing jobs and homes in the process) just because they can’t post a bond. The new move is to base pre-trial release on the likelihood that someone will flee or engage in future violent behavior – not on the size of their bank account.
To preserve the reforms, vote yes.
San Francisco elections
In the past weeks, both state Sen. Scott Wiener and Mayor London Breed have launched attacks on the Board of Supervisors. Neither of them had any evidence to back up their claims that the board isn’t working well or is blocking needed housing or that “it’s all politics.”
In fact, this progressive board majority has done more, in this pandemic, to attempt to get homeless people off the street, to raise taxes on the rich, to protect tenants, to (start) defunding the police, to go after corruption, and to make sure that commission appointees are qualified (among other things) than any board in recent memory.
That’s why Breed and Wiener are really upset and want to elect a different majority; they don’t agree with the board’s policies. They want a more moderate, economically neo-liberal, board to go along with their own agendas.
That’s what defines this fall’s election.
We are looking for candidates who will support the current progressive leadership on the board – and will vote to elect one of the progressive supes (say, Hillary Ronen, Matt Haney, Dean Preston, or Shamann Walton) as board president. We are not looking to endorse candidates who will say that the next board president has to be more moderate and willing to work closely with the mayor and her agenda.
Fact: The current board has worked quite well with the mayor on the emergency measures taken to protect residents from the COVID pandemic. But on policy issues, including budget issues and taxation issues and housing issues, there are real, important policy disagreements. Too often, “working with the mayor” or “reaching consensus” means siding with the tech and real-estate industries.
That’s not what the city needs in this period of recovery. As we try to rebuild the local economy, we need to start with the concept of economic equity – those who have the most (and the billionaires in the city have fared quite well over the past six months) need to pay their fair share, and future development needs to meet the needs of all San Franciscans, not just the rich.
This district, which includes most of the Richmond, has voted for progressive supervisors since the return to district elections: Jake McGoldrick, Eric Mar, and now Sandra Lee Fewer, who is retiring. It’s s swing district, and some of those races have been very close.
This time around, the consensus progressive candidate is Connie Chan, who has a long history of working at City Hall. She was an aide to Sup. Sophie Maxwell, then worked for District Attorney Kamala Harris, then for Sup. Aaron Peskin. She has the experience to hit the ground running (other former board aides, like Hillary Ronen and John Avalos, were able to move quickly and effectively into the job of supervisor). She is a supporter of tenants as well as small businesses; her agenda fits this district perfectly. All of the progressive supes and community leaders are with her (as is Harris). She has the support of the Milk Club, the Tenants Union, San Francisco Rising Action Fund, the Labor Council, and the Democratic Party.
Her main opponent is Marjan Philhour, who has run in the past (and will be formidable). Philhour has the mayor and Wiener, and she’s a fan of reducing regulations and taxes and of building more market-rate housing. She is running in part on a plan of keeping homeless tents out of the district (including opposing any safe-sleeping space in Golden Gate Park.) She says that the root cause of homelessness is a failure to allow more private-sector housing. She would be a major regressive force on the board.
We are with Connie Chan, with no reservations.
District Three
Aaron Peskin
What can you say: Peskin has been one of the most effective supervisors in what is now 12 years on the board. We don’t always agree, and at times his votes and endorsements can drive us crazy – he wouldn’t support the public advocate measure, and he’s backing Ahsha Safai over John Avalos in D11 — but in the end, he’s part of the progressive majority.
He has always been a leader in seeking to regulate the tech industry, from Uber to Airbnb. He has forced major developers to change their projects to protect, for example, the Flower Market. He was a leader in the fight against the Wall on the Waterfront.
There is nobody on the board who understands the law and politics of land use as well as Aaron Peskin.
He’s also among the best politicians we’ve ever seen at holding local government accountable.
He politely, but firmly, questions administration officials at every turn. His hearings on the disaster of the Millenium Tower were exactly what we would hope a board of supes can do.
He will win another term, and he deserves it.
District Five
Dean Preston
This one is easy – and important.
Preston won this seat over Breed’s appointee, Vallie Brown, last fall. But since he was just running to fill out her term, he now needs to run for a full four-year stint.
Brown is back on the ballot, with the mayor’s support, to knock off someone who has been a strong leader in protecting tenant rights and promoting economic equity.
Preston fully deserves re-election.
Just look at his record:
Preston helped craft the law the using public money to keep tenants in their homes by funding the right to legal counsel. His legislation banned evictions for nonpayment of rent during the pandemic. He fought to stop Muni fare increases. He was a leader in the effort to move 8,000 homeless people off the streets and into hotels (something the mayor defied). He is working to bring rent control to Midtown, a largely Black community in the Western Addition.
It’s safe to say that hundreds, maybe thousands of San Francisco tenants are still in their homes thanks to Preston’s efforts.
Brown’s record in her time on the board was mediocre at best. She would be nothing but a call-up vote for the mayor. We have no hesitation in endorsing Dean Preston.
District Seven
Vilaska Nguyen
For the past eight years, one of the most conservative districts in the city (with 6,000 registered Republicans) has been represented by Norman Yee, who typically votes with the progressives. That’s an anomaly – the previous district supes, Tony Hall and Sean Elsbernd, were reliable moderate-to-conservative votes.
It’s entirely possible that this district could shift back in that direction – one of the leading candidates is Joel Engardio, who would be one of the most conservative members of the board. He is running on a platform of “law and order,” demanding more police and arrests and jail time for crimes like car break-ins.
We think the best candidate to defeat Engardio and keep this district at least modestly in the progressive camp is Vilaska Nguyen. A public defender, Nguyen has the backing of some of the progressives on the board, including Hillary Ronen, Matt Haney and Dean Preston, as well as Tom Ammiano and David Campos.
He’s a newcomer to local electoral politics, and has only lived in the district for a year or so, although he’s been involved much longer at St. Thomas More School in the district, where he coaches girls basketball.
Myrna Melgar, a longtime community activist and former Planning Commission president, is also a serious candidate. We disagreed with Melgar’s role in choosing Rich Hillis for planning director; he was the wrong candidate for the job and she was the commission president. But in one sense she had no choice – the mayor was going to make the final decision.
There’s a good argument to make for people to vote for Vilaska as their first choice, and Melgar as their second (or vice-versa) to keep this seat from going to a conservative. Sups. Gordon Mar, Norman Yee, and Sandra Lee Fewer are backing her. Our concern is simple: We aren’t convinced that Melgar would vote to put Ronen, Haney, Preston, or Walton in as board president.
So we are going with Nguyen, but we would much prefer Melgar to Engardio. (Ronen has endorsed them both) In an RCV vote, follow your own best judgment.
District Nine
Hillary Ronen
Hillary Ronen is the conscience of the Board of Supervisors. She is one of the best people elected to that position, and has shown both legislative effectiveness and an ability to stand up for the working people of her district. From addressing homelessness (through compassion but also building a new navigation center) to pushing for more affordable housing to refusing to go along with bad compromises on bills (and doing outstanding constituent service), she has had an impressive four years. She has no opposition and will serve four more. She would be an excellent board president.
District 11
John Avalos
Avalos represented this district for eight years, and after a four-year break, he is running again. (The City Charter only bars supes from serving more than two consecutive terms.) The incumbent, Ahsha Safai, has worked with progressives on some legislation. He’s collegial (unlike, say, Scott Wiener, who was a very divisive supervisor) and has the endorsement of Peskin, who says he can always work with Safai.
But in the end, Safai is a moderate who supports the mayor’s agenda, defends the interests of the real-estate industry, and would vote for a board president acceptable to the mayor.
Avalos was one of the most left-leaning supes, and sees his political agenda as driven by equity. He supports stronger rent control, taxes on the rich, and regulations on the tech industry. He has the backing of the Tenants Union and SF Rising. We’re happy to support him too.
San Francisco School Board
The San Francisco public schools are in crisis, as are public schools all over the country. Nobody knows how best to handle distance learning, particularly for younger kids. There’s nowhere near enough money for what the district needs to do. There are still serious issues of educational equity.
But COVID aside, the San Francisco Unified School District has made a lot of progress in the past decade. The public schools aren’t perfect, but they are among the best big-city schools in California.
Now the School Board is going to have to deal with both a financial calamity and the new reality of COVID – at a time when there is increased pressure to change the enrollment system. A lot of parents who live in the wealthier areas want “neighborhood schools.” And charter and private schools are threatening to take more students out of the system – costing the district money it doesn’t have.
Let us state: In a city with segregated neighborhoods, there is no perfect system for deciding which students go to which schools. The lottery system would be fair if every family had equal access to it and to the appeal process; many monolingual and low-income families get left behind. Neighborhood schools sound great, but tend to create more segregation – and schools in wealthy neighborhoods will raise more private money.
We’re looking for School Board members who understand the difficulty of this situation and avoid simplistic “neighborhood schools” solutions. We’re also looking for board members who understand the proper (limited) role of charter schools, the importance of adequate teacher pay, and the mandates of educational equity.
Our four best choices for this election:
Kevine Boggess Matt Alexander Mark Sanchez Alida Fisher
City College Board
City College is one of San Francisco’s most important institutions, and it’s in the middle of an existential crisis – brought on not just by CODIV and budget cuts but by looming state policies that seek to undermine its fundamental mission.
For decades, City College has been a school for everyone, a place where high school students could take extra classes, graduates could obtain a two-year degree and potentially transfer to a four-year college, immigrants could learn English and job skills, and adults could continue with lifelong learning.
Now, the state wants to transform community colleges into junior colleges, focused largely on getting high-school grads their AA degree and a transfer to a four-year school. Funding rules are increasingly geared toward eliminating non-credit and certificate classes.
The last chancellor of City College, Mark Rocha, largely went along with this approach. The next chancellor, who will be chosen by the next board, needs to fight back.
We are looking for a mix of board members who have the experience to understand the issues – and the political will to resist cuts that devastate the school’s mission.
We are endorsing two incumbents – Tom Temprano and Shanell Williams – but we do so with concerns. The existing board approved the cuts that are now threatening the school’s future mission. On the other hand, the existing board also fired Rocha, and is looking for a new chancellor.
Temprano and Williams need to show – immediately – that they are not going to accept any more of this slow-death-by-cuts and that they will work with the faculty and staff unions to hire a chancellor who understands and accepts the school’s historic mission. They also have to stand up at the state level – both have “dual endorsed” Jackie Fielder and Scott Wiener.
Both board members have future political ambitions; how they handle the next four years will determine whether they deserve higher office.
There are a number of qualified candidates. We are backing newcomers Anita Martinez (who worked at the school for years and knows its finances inside and out) and Alan Wong, who is an aide to Sup. Gordon Mar. Another choice, Han Zou, who has worked for the local Democratic Party and now works for Sup. Matt Haney, is also an excellent candidate.
We only have four slots, but there are five qualified candidates; vote accordingly.
Tom Temprano Anita Martinez Alan Wong Shanell Williams
San Francisco propositions
Proposition A
Homeless and Parks Bond
YES
There is pretty much unanimous agreement at City Hall (and that’s rare) in support of this $500 million bond to buy property for facilities to house homeless people facing mental-health issues and for parks and open space. We are never happy with the law that allows landlords to pass half of the cost of the property-tax hikes from local bonds onto their tenants, but we’ll go along with Prop. A.
Proposition B
Sanitation and Streets Commission
YES
If you liked the way Mohammed Nuru ran the Department of Public Works, and you are happy with the condition of the city’s streets, then you should vote no.
But we are not in either camp – and we are not – then this measure to split up DPW and create a commission with split appointments between the mayor and the supes makes perfect sense. Vote yes.
Proposition C
Removing citizenship requirement for local commissions
YES
San Francisco has a large population of people who are engaged in civic affairs, work and live in neighborhoods that are impacted by public policy – but have no right to participate even as commission members. Prop. C is a charter amendment that would allow people who are not US citizens to serve on local commissions. It’s a long-overdue idea. Vote yes.
Proposition D
Sheriff Oversight
YES
San Francisco has a civilian oversight agency for the Police Department, but complaints against sheriffs are still entirely in the control of the Sheriff’s Department Internal Affairs Unit. That didn’t work for SFPD, and in an era when almost everyone agrees on the need for more law-enforcement oversight, it doesn’t work for the Sheriff’s Office. Prop. D, sponsored by Sup. Shamann Walton, would set up a civilian board and an inspector general to look into misconduct in San Francisco’s second law-enforcement agency. Yote Yes.
Proposition E
Police Staffing
YES
Another obvious change that the city should have made years ago. Since 1994, the City Charter has mandated that San Francisco have 1,971 sworn police officers. That’s a random number that didn’t make sense 26 years ago and makes less sense now. SFPD handles at least 20,000 calls a year that are entirely about homeless people; a team of mental-health and social workers is much better trained to handle those calls. Overall, the national movement to defund the police is pushing away from armed law-enforcement response to nonviolent situations – and San Francisco should be in the forefront. But first we need to get rid of this pointless provision. Vote yes on E.
Proposition F
Business tax overhaul
YES
Everyone at City Hall has agreed for some time that the current business-tax system needed reform. In particularly, the tech industry has been getting a break at the expense of everyone else. Mayor Breed’s proposal was to shift around the burden but not bring any new revenue; the supes pushed back, and this non-consensus plan would add $100 million a year to the city treasury. It’s not a perfect tax system, but it’s a little better than what we have now, so we will support Prop. F.
Proposition G
Youth voting in local elections
YES
Voting, the data shows, is a learned experience. The sooner people start getting registered and going to the polls, the longer and more frequently they vote. Prop. G would allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in local elections. Vote yes.
Proposition H
Neighborhood Commercial Districts
NO
This is a 90-page amendment to the Planning Code that affects more than two dozen neighborhood commercial shopping streets. It was put on the ballot directly by the mayor and there has never been a public hearing on its contents, either before the supervisors or the Planning Commission. Among many bizarre provisions, it allows commercial uses on the second and third floor in mixed-use shopping districts, allowing for the displacement of residential.
But the key is that it allows these changes to occur without any public hearing. Mayor Breed’s passion for deregulation of land uses, giving full power to bureaucrats and developers. It needs to be defeated then subjected to public hearing before the Board of Supervisors and the Planning Commission and amended.
Proposition I
Real-estate transfer tax
YES, YES, YES
There aren’t a lot of ways that San Francisco can legally tax the rich; state law, for example, bars a city income tax. But taxing high-end real-state sales is one step in that direction. Prop. I would increases taxes on properties that sell for more than $10 million. It would impact almost no residential property (and anyone who sells a house for $10 million can afford to pay a few thousand more in taxes). Vote yes.
Proposition J
Parcel Tax for SF Schools
YES
We don’t love parcel taxes; everyone pays the same amount, whether the property in question is worth $100 million or $600,000. But it’s a tax the city can legally levy, and the schools are in desperate need of money, particularly today. Prop. J doesn’t raise anyone’s taxes; it just continues an existing 2018 tax that would have expired. Vote yes.
Proposition K
Affordable Housing
YES, YES, YES
Prop. K addresses an old, racist element of the state Constitution which requires a public vote before any city can build public housing. It was written by segregationist who wanted to keep poor people, especially Black people, out of wealth, white neighborhoods. It’s impact – and it’s still on the books today – is to stymie cities who want to create municipally owned and managed affordable housing.
Sponsored by Sup. Dean Preston, Prop. K would authorize 10,000 units of affordable housing in the city, and leave it to city officials and community activists to decide where that housing will go. Every affordable housing and tenant group in town supports this measure.
By all means, vote Yes.
Proposition L
Business tax on CEO compensation
YES, YES, YES
Another smart move, by Sup Matt Haney, would address, a modest way, income inequality, Prop. L would increase city business taxes on any company that pays its CEO more than 100 times what its lowest-paid worker makes. If it passes, not only will it bring in revenue, it could start a national trend that could lead to higher worker pay or lower CEO compensation – both excellent ideas. Vote Yes.
Proposition RR
Caltrain sales tax
No position
Caltrain is a crucial link from SF to the Peninsula. It could be part of a future high-speed rail project to LA. The state needs to invest more in the system, electrify it, and expand it.
But it’s run by a joint-powers agency that gives San Mateo full control while SF residents pay for it. It’s a service route for commuters from SF to exceptionally rich tech companies on the Peninsula.
And now that it’s out of money, the agency wants a regional sales tax to bail it out.
We are not fans of sales taxes, which are horribly regressive. We are not sure why low-income San Franciscans should pay higher taxes to help tech workers commute to their jobs – when the tech industry is paying essentially nothing to help out.
A tax to fund Caltrain should focus on the big industries that benefit from it.
Still, in the long term, this is an essential link that should not be allowed to die. Vote your conscience.
Amy Coney Barrett will not openly base her decisions on the Affordable Care Act, or Roe v. Wade, or the right to gay marriage on whether she herself agrees with the policies behind these cases. Instead, she will purport to base her decisions on her “originalism,” the view that the actual words of Constitution must be interpreted according to the original intent of the so-called Founding Fathers in 1789.
Why? Because according to her and her mentor Antonin Scalia, the only proper democratic interpretation of that document requires “finding the intent” of those who agreed upon it when it was signed (or when the Amendments to it were signed into law). Every broadening of the document beyond this narrow construal of the written words themselves is characterized, according to Scalia and affirmed by Barrett, as undemocratic judicial activism imposed on the document by unelected judges.
I myself heard Scalia say in a videotaped speech to the Federalist Society that there is no way we can know what each other thinks and agrees to besides attributing an objective meaning to words that people state when they write them down: he believed there was no binding moral claim that we have upon each other that can shape constitutional interpretation beyond the special words written mainly in the 18th century.
This worldview means that we human beings today must determine our relations with each other according to what a group of mainly 20 and 30 year-old white men, mostly wealthy slaveholders, thought were good and acceptable social relations about 250 years ago. The worldview has both a psychoanalytic meaning, and a day-to-day bureaucratic meaning within legal reasoning.
The psychoanalytic meaning is that the worldview reflects a fetish for our “Founding Fathers,” whose thoughts had a mystical value and prescience that we lesser beings must follow today.
The bureaucratic meaning reflected in the work of Barrett and others is that the judge must engage in the quite prosaic task of discerning the so-called “objective public meaning” of a group of words penned in and around 1789 and applying that ancient meaning to interpreting the validity of laws and statutes today, as well as to the text of the Constitution itself.
This latter bureaucratic aspect is what will enable Judge Barrett both to strike down progressive legislation like the Affordable Care Act, and refuse to extend constitutional protection to rights and activities not explicitly named in the original document or its amendments (such as the right to abortion and gay marriage). As a kind of legal philologist who simply interprets words from long ago according to their original public meaning, Barrett can say, “this activity is not liberal or conservative and does not reflect my opinions about these matters—it is rather just a matter of interpreting a text the only way it can be interpreted in accordance with democracy.”
Note that there is an irony about this justification of originalism in terms of democracy: Barrett is willingly participating in the grabbing of a Supreme Court seat while a democratic election is actually taking place, in part to determine who has the right to select a Justice for that very seat. If the true meaning of democracy were really of primary concern to her, she would refuse to accept this seat under these anti-democratic circumstances and instead insist upon waiting for the democratic election result.
But in any case, why should we care AT ALL about what a group of mainly 20 and 30-year old white male property-owning, in some cases slaveholders would think—as if we could know that—about what we are doing in the present-day world? Huge upheavals in society and consciousness have occurred in the last 250 years, with magnificent social movements rising up to advance the political and moral understanding of man-and-womankind. The idea that we should discard the wisdom that we have gained across all of that historical time when we today determine the meaning of the Constitution and the validity of democratically-passed legislation is just absurd on its face…or ought to be. Why then does “originalism” seem to have staying power as if it were a “legitimate position” to be solemnly agreed with or disagreed with?
The answer to that question has to do with the psychoanalytic meaning of originalism, the attachment that we are trained to feel toward the Founding Fathers and their Original Intent. I wrote a longer piece about this subject when the Original Intent theory was first being strongly advocated in the early years of the Reagan Revolution. In my article in the Buffalo Law Review called “Founding Father Knows Best,” I showed the relationship between fetishism of the Founding Fathers Original Intent and the growing authoritarianism that began in the early 1980s and is still with us in newer forms today (https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/buffalolawreview/vol36/iss2/4/).
Please here read a briefer statement of the ideas in that article published in the Tikkun magazine piece I wrote under the same title on the selection of Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 (https://www.tikkun.org/the-trouble-with-brett-kavanaugh-founding-father-knows-best). The same points I made there apply, of course, to Amy Coney Barrett’s judicial philosophy, an ideology of unconscious deference to Authority that seeks to impose that deference on the whole of American society. It is that philosophy and its socio-psychological underpinnings that must be engaged with and firmly rejected by progressives trying to build a new and socially just world that thoroughly transcends the moral limitations of the 18th century.
While the 18th century world view reflected in the “original public meaning” of the Constitution did help to advance human consciousness by putting forward a vision of human community that affirmed and protected the liberty of the individual from overt group coercion through government action (with the horrific exception of slavery itself), that world view utterly lacked a commitment to fostering a world based upon empathy and compassion, based upon our deep connection and care for one another and for the Earth as well.
The great social movements of the last 250 years beginning with abolitionism and continuing through the labor movement, the women’s movement, the LGBTQ movement, and the environmental movements have all carried within them an elevation of collective consciousness calling upon one another to truly see one another and fundamentally embrace each other’s common humanity as well as the sacredness of the natural world.
Contrary to the original meaning of the Constitution, these movements have not been fundamentally about extending individual liberty in an individualistic, monadic world, but rather about recognizing, affirming, and embracing each other’s humanity and our interrelatedness as social beings. It is the deeper social and spiritual awareness illuminated by these social movements that have elevated our collective moral consciousness since the Constitution was written, and it is this very elevated awareness that has been at the heart of the transformation of judicial interpretation of the Constitution, with judges responding to the demands of rising social justice movements to extend the meaning of existing Constitutional provisions like the First and Fourteenth Amendments far beyond long-surpassed original and outdated meanings. The constitutional validity of the pro-labor legislation of the New Deal, the legislation inspired by the demands for human equality emerging from the civil rights, women’s movements and LGBTQ movements, and the validity of social welfare legislation like Social Security, Medicare, and now the Affordable Care Act have all been manifestations of our sharing a greater collective wisdom about the moral bonds that unite us as social beings that were not in our collective awareness yet in 1789 and that has decisively influenced our subsequent interpretation of our culture’s foundational legal document.
In truth, this moral development of our collective consciousness is leading us toward the point where we must write a new Constitution or fundamentally transform the current one to place at its center not mere individual liberty in a world of the separated, but rather a new synthesis of individual liberty with caring for each other as moral partners in a sacred and socially-connected world.
The new emphasis on integrating spirituality, law, and social justice appearing in emerging new legal paradigms like Restorative Justice across the legal profession is a harbinger of this future rewriting of our Constitution, an expression of the growing awareness progressively dawning within us that “we the people” are “constituted” not as a mere collection of isolated individuals, but as a moral community founded upon love and mutual recognition and concern.
Until that future time comes when we can reconceive the Constitution altogether, we must embrace the liberal reinterpretations of the Constitution that judges like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, influenced by the transcendental aspect of the movements that have transformed the essence of our national community, have articulated in expanding the meaning of the existing Bill of Rights and the Civil War amendments among other legal doctrines. And we must decisively reject an “originalism” that denies the leaps forward in our common moral awareness that the great social movements of the last 250 years have bequeathed to us, movements of and within our common humanity that have been pointing us toward the Beloved Community that “we the people” must eventually become. We need your support to bring the kind of analyses and information Tikkun provides.
CIECIE CHEN/FILE One major priority for the participants at the town hall was bringing services to where homeless people are, including encampments, as many current services are located too far away.
Berkeley’s future may offer mentally ill homeless people a retreat into nature or access to mental health services in their encampments, according to community input from a town hall held via Zoom on Wednesday.
The city of Berkeley is applying for a three-year state grant to create an “innovation project” designed to increase access to mental health care for mentally ill residents who are experiencing homelessness and have not been reached by current city services. The city’s mental health division partnered with justice-focused consulting firm Resource Development Associates to hold the town hall and collect community members’ ideas for potential projects.
“We need something innovative, new to address homeless needs in order to make improvements to the current system,” said Carole Marasovic, a community activist and candidate for the Rent Stabilization Board, in the Zoom chat. “Whatever we develop will need to be sustained after by the city.”
One major priority for the participants was bringing services to where homeless people are, including encampments, as many current services are located too far away.
According to Andrea Henson, a founding member of the homeless advocacy organization Where Do We Go Berkeley, homeless people face increased challenges with distance because leaving their belongings to go across town could lead to them getting stolen.
Another common proposal at the meeting was finding mental health clinicians who can relate to homeless people. To build trust, the community members suggested developing a consistent schedule with the same clinician per client.
Marasovic, however, said this was already happening and suggested they focus on the “bridge to housing.”
According to Henson, homeless people are often left vulnerable even after they are provided an indoor space to live in because they often lack the means to buy food or the knowledge needed to buy furniture.
“They just have a roof, but it’s going to take more,” Henson said during the meeting. “They end up back out on the street with less.”
Other less clinical approaches were suggested, including a nature retreat. According to People’s Park Committee member Max Ventura, mentally ill homeless people could be provided with transportation to a lake area and given “typical picnic fixings” and outdoor games as a break from the “cement jungle.”
No project plan has been officially decided yet, as the city is only on the second of four project implementation phases. In addition to the town hall, the city will be interviewing and surveying homeless residents in Berkeley to get more input before drafting the plan in November and December.
The public will have another chance to comment on the plan in January and February before it is submitted to the state for approval.
On Monday (10/19), SFPD will hold a town hall from 3-5 PM to address the murder of Cesar Vargas by police.
No matter what they say, we know what happened: SFPD publicly executed a 21 year-old man on October 10th.
Viewers will be able to make public comment. Check back here for more updates on how to make your voice heard during the town hall — your action matters now more than ever.
Following a presentation by SFPD command staff, a call-in number will be provided to viewers wishing to offer public comment.
See info below graphic
Update on Officer-Involved Shooting from 10/10/20
As part of the San Francisco Police Department’s commitment towards accountability and transparency with our community, a virtual town hall meeting will be held on Monday, October 19, 2020, from 3:00 until 5:00 PM to provide the community with an update on the investigation of the officer-involved shooting that occurred on the unit block of Otis Street on October 10, 2020.
This virtual town hall is being held to protect the health and safety of the public and essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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ARTICLE:
Officers named in fatal SFPD shooting of 21-year-old man – October 16, 2020
KPIX CBS SF Bay Area A free speech demonstration staged by conservative activists quickly fell apart in downtown San Francisco on Saturday afternoon when several hundred counterprotesters surged the area, throwing punches. Da Lin reports. (10-17-20)
OCT8 Text Bank for Prop I & K Tuesdays & Thursdays! Public · Hosted by San Francisco Berniecrats, Democratic Socialists of America: San Francisco and 5 others clock Until Oct 29 OCT8 Thu5:30 PM OCT13 Tue5:30 PM OCT15 Thu5:30 PM +4 pin Online ticket Tickets us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYtcOugqzIuG9Rkoh9m6oVeUQoVo2ONwzcZ Find Tickets Details Help us get the word out about taxing big real estate for emergency rent relief and social housing! We’ll be text banking voters about Yes on I & K and hanging out on Zoom every Tuesday and Thursday until the election from 5:30pm-7pm. Join us and bring a friend! Yes on K: https://www.socialhousingsf.com/ Yes… Continue reading →
Chico, CA | Oct 22, 6:00pm PT / 9:00pm ET | Can Public Banks Rescue Central California? PBI Town Hall Public banks — banks owned by the public — have been shown to respond more rapidly, effectively and equitably to crises than privately-owned banks. The public is invited to learn how at an informative Town Hall titled “Bring On the Power of Public Banking: How to Rescue Main Street Post COVID-19,” hosted by the Public Banking Institute and supporters in Chico, California. Register. Topic Bring on the Power of Public Banking for Chico, CA Description Public banks — banks owned by… Continue reading →
Chico, CA | Oct 22, 6:00pm PT / 9:00pm ET | Can Public Banks Rescue Central California? PBI Town Hall Public banks — banks owned by the public — have been shown to respond more rapidly, effectively and equitably to crises than privately-owned banks. The public is invited to learn how at an informative Town Hall titled “Bring On the Power of Public Banking: How to Rescue Main Street Post COVID-19,” hosted by the Public Banking Institute and supporters in Chico, California. Register.
OCT8 Text Bank for Prop I & K Tuesdays & Thursdays! Public · Hosted by San Francisco Berniecrats, Democratic Socialists of America: San Francisco and 5 others clock Until Oct 29 OCT8 Thu5:30 PM OCT13 Tue5:30 PM OCT15 Thu5:30 PM +4 pin Online ticket Tickets us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYtcOugqzIuG9Rkoh9m6oVeUQoVo2ONwzcZ Find Tickets Details Help us get the word out about taxing big real estate for emergency rent relief and social housing! We’ll be text banking voters about Yes on I & K and hanging out on Zoom every Tuesday and Thursday until the election from 5:30pm-7pm. Join us and bring a friend! Yes on K: https://www.socialhousingsf.com/ Yes… Continue reading →
Public Bank of the East Bay Posted by LaborSolidarityCommittee WHEN: September 15, 2020 @ 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm WHERE: ONLINE, VIA ‘ZOOM’ CONTACT: Event website MEETING We are now meeting every two weeks on Tuesday at 7:00 pm. We meet over Zoom. If you’d like to join us, and aren’t on our organizers’ list, drop us an email and we’ll send you an invitation. If you would like to join the meeting early and get an introduction to the concepts of public banking, or more locally to who we are and what we do, please email us and we’ll see you online at 6:30. It is… Continue reading →
OCT8 Text Bank for Prop I & K Tuesdays & Thursdays! Public · Hosted by San Francisco Berniecrats, Democratic Socialists of America: San Francisco and 5 others clock Until Oct 29 OCT8 Thu5:30 PM OCT13 Tue5:30 PM OCT15 Thu5:30 PM +4 pin Online ticket Tickets us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYtcOugqzIuG9Rkoh9m6oVeUQoVo2ONwzcZ Find Tickets Details Help us get the word out about taxing big real estate for emergency rent relief and social housing! We’ll be text banking voters about Yes on I & K and hanging out on Zoom every Tuesday and Thursday until the election from 5:30pm-7pm. Join us and bring a friend! Yes on K: https://www.socialhousingsf.com/ Yes… Continue reading →
The original Bank Transfer Day, on November 5, 2011, was created by Kristen Christian. The tradition is repeated every November 5 to remind everyone to move their money from the large corporate banks to credit unions or local community banks. (In conjunction with Guy Fawkes Day on every 5th of November.)
Festivities in Windsor Castle by Paul Sandby, c. 1776 Guy Fawkes Night, also known as Guy Fawkes Day, Bonfire Night and Firework Night, is an annual commemoration observed on 5 November, primarily in the United Kingdom. Its history begins with the events of 5 November 1605, when Guy Fawkes, a member of the Gunpowder Plot, was arrested while guarding explosives the plotters had placed beneath the House of Lords. Celebrating the fact that King James I had survived the attempt on his life, people lit bonfires around London; and months later, the introduction of the Observance of 5th November Act enforced an annual public day of thanksgiving for the plot’s failure. Within a few decades Gunpowder Treason Day, as it was known,… Continue reading →
Strike Debt Bay Area Economics Book Group – Revenge Capitalism Posted by LaborSolidarityCommittee WHEN: November 7, 2020 @ 4:30 pm – 6:00 pm Repeats WHERE: ONLINE, VIA ‘ZOOM’ CONTACT: Email Event website EVENT EMAIL STRIKE.DEBT.BAY.AREA@GMAIL.COM FOR ZOOM INFO A FEW DAYS BEFORE THE MEETING. Strike Debt Bay Area hosts a non-technical book group discussion monthly on new and radical economic thinking. Previous readings have included Doughnut Economics, Limits, Banking on the People, Capital and Its Discontents, How to Be an Anti-Capitalist in the 21st Century, and The Deficit Myth. For our October discussion we will be reading the first two chapters of ‘Revenge Capitalism: The Ghosts of Empire,… Continue reading →
