by Randy Shaw on October 21, 2024 (BeyondChron.org)
SF’s Leading Moderate-Controlled Groups
Should Voters Trust Moderate Voter Guides?
Self-identified political moderates control the San Francisco Democratic Party. They also control the three most heavily funded independent expenditure committees: Grow SF, Neighbors for a Better San Francisco, and TogetherSF Action.
Moderates have not had such dominance since the Feinstein years. But despite their money and power, San Francisco moderates are providing confusing and even contradictory assessments of what troubles the city and which candidates deserve support.
Consider:
The moderate-controlled SF Democratic County Central Committee (the SF Democratic Party) gave Mayor Breed its sole endorsement. The SF Democratic Party felt she was the only candidate worthy of a vote.
Yet TogetherSF is telling moderates to cast their first-place vote for Mark Farrell. It has been scathing in criticizing Breed. TogetherSF Director Kanishka Cheng emailed last week that “Mark Farrell is the only candidate with the competence and experience to move San Francisco forward.” So what are voters to make of the the moderate-controlled SF Democratic Party saying Breed should be the only mayoral choice?
Neighbors for a Better San Francisco dual endorsed Lurie and Farrell.
We have one group of moderates seeing Breed as the only choice and two groups seeing it very differently.
Grow SF tried to avoid adding to the moderate confusion by telling voters they were free to pick either Breed, Farrell or Lurie as their top choice. But that raised a question: Since Farrell believes Breed is the chief cause of San Francisco’s problems, why should Grow SF act as if the two are interchangeable?
Adding to the confusion is influential moderate Garry Tan, who repeatedly attacks Lurie on X (formerly Twitter). Tan is a Board member of Grow SF and has donated at least $54,000 to the group. One wonders how GrowSF made Lurie an equally top endorsement when its most prominent Board member opposes him.
Tan tweeted last week, “Push the hard left political machine completely out of power and the SF boom loop is guaranteed.” Does this mean Tan believes Mayor Breed has no responsibility for the city’s problems? Would he and other moderates have exempted the mayor from responsibility if a progressive had held the office the past six years?
I doubt it.
What Do Moderates Want?
Why are moderates offering voters contradictory messages? Where is the unifying vision? Are the endorsements all driven by personal preferences of staff? By the preferences of high donors? Why do these moderate groups prioritize negative attacks instead of touting the record of those they have endorsed?
Perhaps those running these groups are not as connected to an actual “moderate” voting base as their public sentiments imply.
Moderates agree on some key issues. But their candidate picks are contradictory.
Consider housing. Moderates all want San Francisco to build a lot more housing. Yet Grow SF and Together SF are running aggressive campaigns against D7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar, who is backed by the moderate San Francisco Democratic Party and the pro-housing SF YIMBY. The former groups are backing Matt Boschetto, whose housing record does not come close to matching Melgar’s.
Moderates also prioritize public safety. TogetherSF has been very involved in the struggle to close open air drug markets. Yet by sole-endorsing Breed, the moderates elected to the San Francisco Democratic Party—after running on a campaign for “Change”— gave a big thumbs up to the mayor’s failure to close drug activities. When Mark Farrell announced his candidacy calling for Chief Scott’s termination, he was criticized by some moderates for doing so.
In D3, Grow SF has been bashing Moe Jamil even though he has the strongest record on public safety. Jamil was the only major candidate in the race endorsed by the SF Police Officers Association. Jamil is also the only major candidate in the D3 race to back Prop F last March, mandating drug treatment for welfare recipients.
Grow SF did a mailing that mistakenly reversed Jamil’s position on Prop F with Danny Sauter’s, the group’s pick. To my knowledge this critical error, which has the candidate’s positions reversed on what Grow SF determined was one of three key issues, has not been corrected.
Moderates Ignore a Lack of Deep District Connections
District elections emerged as a way to elect neighborhood activists to the Board. But moderates clearly don’t care if the supervisor candidates they endorse have any history of working in their district or on city issues.
In D11, all of the moderate groups endorsed Michael Lai. Lai didn’t move into the district until February. Mission Local had a troubling story on Lai’s business record, a past history that didn’t prevent his endorsement. Unlike his two chief opponents—EJ Jones and Chyanne Chen—Lai has no record of district service.
Nor does Trevor Chandler, the consensus moderate choice in District 9. I had never heard of Chandler until he announced his candidacy and began regularly posting on social media. In contrast, Roberto Hernandez helped found Carnaval and served as its director for forty years. He’s had fifty years serving D9! Yet Hernandez’ district history meant nothing to these groups; they gave him no first-choice endorsements.
The bypassing of Hernandez and Melgar is striking. These moderate groups are telling voters that electing a Latino to the Board is not a priority. They talk about promoting diversity but their endorsements say otherwise.
Misleading Labels
The “moderate” and “progressive” labels have lost meaning in San Francisco. Politicians should be judged on their actions, not on how they label their views. Solely blaming “progressives” for a city run by a “moderate” mayor is either ignorant or dishonest. Public safety is a progressive value. If moderate groups were endorsing based solely on candidates’ public safety performance and positions, their endorsements would have to change.
This will be a very revealing election for San Francisco. Growing support for Daniel Lurie, who would become the city’s first “outsider” mayor, speaks to a growing demand for a citywide political reset.
Voters are likely to favor supervisor candidates riding that reset wave.
Randy Shaw
Randy Shaw is the Editor of Beyond Chron and the Director of San Francisco’s Tenderloin Housing Clinic, which publishes Beyond Chron. Shaw’s latest book is Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America. He is the author of four prior books on activism, including The Activist’s Handbook: Winning Social Change in the 21st Century, and Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century. He is also the author of The Tenderloin: Sex, Crime and Resistance in the Heart of San Francisco
