- By Patrick Hoge | Examiner staff writer
- Aug 16, 2026 (SFExaminer.com)
A group spearheading the hot-button affordable-housing ballot measure that Mayor Daniel Lurie attacked this week is the San Francisco chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, an organization in the headlines across the country this year with the election of member Zohran Mamdani as New York City mayor and a spate of other electoral wins.
Democratic Socialists of America — San Francisco — which decries the failings of capitalism and the concentration of wealth, aims to empower workers, and calls for city divestment from companies supporting Israel — is a leading champion of Proposition I, which would dedicate city transfer taxes on properties worth $10 million or more to housing-related purposes.
The left-wing group has had a significant effect on San Francisco government in recent years. It has seen two supervisors elected and backed a property-tax measure that has raised more than $500 million, among other things. It says its dues-paying membership in The City has surged more than 28% this year to 1,506 members in the wake of Mamdani’s victory.
“We are fighting for material gains for the working class in San Francisco, and we also are the working class in San Francisco,” said Anne Richards, one of the local group’s two co-chairs, who said she was “a tech worker” in The City.
The local chapter’s growth has been mirrored at the national level as DSA candidates have won elections in federal and state primaries, as well as for local offices in Colorado, Michigan, New York, Washington, D.C., and other places. The national organization said in July it had hit 120,000 members, making it the largest socialist organization in U.S. history.
“People are just seeing that the system is broken for all but a handful of people, and I think there’s a lot of people who are very disillusioned and disappointed with the establishment Democratic Party and are actively looking for something different.” Richards said.
In July, DSA issued a national platform that drew criticism from some Democratic and Republican figures alike.
The platform calls, among other things, for abolishing the U.S. Senate and the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency; replacing the president and the supreme court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to the House of Representatives; public financing for all elections; and redirecting “funding to public services as steps towards fully abolishing the police and prison system which protects the rich and jails the poor.”
Hazel Williams, who helped produce the platform as a San Francisco delegate on the organization’s national political committee, said parts of the platform “we want to do right away, and then there are some that represent the horizon for us.”
“The biggest point here is that we are winning. We are winning more than ever. Our message is resonating with people more than ever,” she said.
“This pushback is largely people that have been defending the status quo for a very long time, feeling threatened by this renewed energy, this progressive, radical energy that people are rallying around, and so they kind of weave this story,” Williams said. “DSA offers an alternative to the liberal status quo that has not been working for people.”
Along with the recent victories, nevertheless, have come defeats, including for a DSA candidate in Wisconsin who narrowly lost an Aug. 11 Democratic primary for governor after polls had shown her leading.
Asked about the Democratic Socialists of America, Nancy Tung — chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party — was measured in her response.
“I think generally the Democratic Party has to be a big tent, and we have to not be afraid of having conversation, whether or not there’s consensus or disagreement,” Tung said.
The San Francisco chapter’s recent growth has come after city voters in 2024 elected a more moderate majority on the Board of Supervisors and a popular business-friendly mayor who has emphasized the importance of public safety and clean and safe streets.
Former District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston, a member of DSA, lost his seat in that election to Supervisor Bilal Mahmood. Preston had won a special election in November 2019 to finish London Breed’s term after she was elected mayor, and he was re-elected in 2020.
Still on the board is District 9 Supervisor Jackie Fielder, a DSA member who won in 2024 with nearly 60% of the vote against a more centrist challenger.
In addition to Prop. I, the local DSA chapter is supporting a November ballot measure sponsored by Supervisor Chyanne Chen that would create a public bank — something Fielder and the organization have sought.
In an interview, Fielder talked about the organization’s various priorities.
“On a bigger level, it means an expanded weight of the people into the decisions that actually govern their lives,” she said.
“It means making sure that money does not obliterate representative democracy, and ensuring the economy works for all of the working class — not just the billionaires who have all the capital and means of production,” Fielder said.
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Lurie and The City’s police and firefighters unions on Wednesday warned that Prop. I would create “an unaccountable slush fund” while carving a hole in The City’s general fund by shifting what the City Controller said would be nearly $120 million a year to a House SF Fund for affordable-housing programs — a charge Prop. I backers vehemently rejected.
Max Szabo, a Lurie spokesperson on political matters, reiterated Friday that Prop. I “misleads voters” and that it would “tie The City’s hands by requiring millions to flow to a small group of nonprofits — such as those who wrote the measure — with no requirement that they actually build housing.”
But Prop. I proponents said that the mayor’s “slush fund” allegation made no sense because the measure puts the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development in charge of administering the money, and it requires the city Controller’s Office to audit spending.
“[Lurie is] calling his own department an unaccountable slush fund,” Preston said.
A section in the measure says “[OHCD] shall administer the House SF Fund.” The same office also administers the Housing Trust Fund that would be extended and expanded by Proposition C — another ballot measure the mayor does support — according to The City’s website.
“These are the same rules that apply to any other housing funding measure that The City has passed in recent history,” said Quintin Mecke, executive director of the Council of Community Housing Organizations.
Prop. I also specifies percentages for how much of the tax proceeds must be spent on affordable-housing production, preservation or acquisition programs, tenant stabilization or homelessness prevention, and administration.
DSA victories
Former Supervisor Dean Preston said Proposition I follows a series of successful city ballot campaigns in which the local chapter of Democratic Socialists of America played a big role over the past eight years.
2018: Preston was the author of Proposition F, which established a right to city-funded legal representation for residential tenants facing eviction.
2018: The chapter was part of a coalition that opposed Proposition H, an unsuccessful measure to enact policies to equip San Francisco police officers with conductive-energy devices (also known as tasers) and to govern the use of such devices by police officers.
2018: Proposition C established the Homelessness Gross Receipts Tax, which imposes a tax on businesses with gross receipts of more than $25 million to feed the Our City, Our Home Fund. Proceeds go to services for people experiencing homelessness and to prevent homelessness.
2022: The Empty Homes Tax established penalties for leaving residential properties vacant for extended periods. The measure was struck down by a San Francisco Superior Court judge in a ruling The City is now appealing.
2020: Proposition I changed the City’s property transfer-tax rate on commercial and residential properties valued between $10 million and $24.99 million from 2.75% to 5.5%, and on properties valued at $25 million or more from 3% to 6%.
2020: Proposition K authorized The City to own, develop, construct, acquire or rehabilitate up to 10,000 units of low-income rental housing. Passed with more than 73% of the vote, it had no funding tied to the measure and was a companion piece to Prop. I.
2022: Proposition H changed the election cycle for mayor, sheriff, district attorney, city attorney and treasurer from odd-numbered years to even-numbered years concurrent with presidential elections.
Service Employees International Union Local 1021 — The City’s largest public-employees union — publicly endorsed the initiative this week, joining United Educators of San Francisco.
The money in question comes from an existing transfer tax on property transactions worth $10 million or more, which voters doubled in 2020 via a ballot measure sponsored by Preston.
Prop. I proponents say the measure is needed because even though the 2020 tax initiative was touted to voters as a housing measure — and the Board of Supervisors at the time unanimously stated the intent that the proceeds should go to housing-related programs — city officials have since used money from the tax for other purposes.
The tax had raised $504.6 million by February, about $200 million of which initially went to housing-related programs, advocates say.
“This one’s exciting because it’s a real solution to the housing affordability emergency that we have in The City,” Richards said. “It expands city investment in developing affordable housing and rent relief without raising taxes.”
Prop. I was also written to protect the high-end levy by removing the existing authority of the Board of Supervisors to reduce, suspend, or repeal the property transfer tax without voter approval.
Earlier this year, Lurie and Mahmood proposed eliminating the tax for transactions of multifamily housing, commercial real estate and other property— excluding single residences — valued at $10 million or more as a way to stimulate economic activity. They later suspended that effort in the face of massive budget deficits, but Mahmood said he hoped to revive the plan.
“We are defending this money that voters mandated to be put towards affordable housing — housing that San Franciscans can afford,” Richards said.
The San Francisco chapter of DSA was launched in the early 1980s. One of its founding members was Harry Britt, who was appointed to fill the vacancy on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1979 left by the assassination of gay-rights activist Harvey Milk.
Members say the modern incarnation of the chapter traces its roots to 2016 and a surge of interest across the country sparked by the Democratic presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.
In addition to electoral activities, the San Francisco chapter has working groups focused on specific areas such as labor unions, homelessness, immigrant rights, tenants’ rights, “ecosocialism” and “Palestine solidarity.”
Members have raised money for and walked picket lines with striking workers and delivered food and clothes to people who are homeless.
“It’s been a very active chapter,” Preston said. “I think that the DSA chapter in San Francisco has had a big impact in The City in recent years.”
