US Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) speaks during a press conference on March 26, 2026.
(Photo by Heather Diehl/Getty Images)
“We need to fight against Trump, but we need to do more than that and fight against the big corporations that are screwing you over,” says the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
The leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus sent a message on Wednesday to corporations that are hiking prices on American consumers at the gas pump, the grocery store, the medicine counter, and elsewhere: “We’re going to come after you.”
In an interview with Common Dreams shortly after the CPC unveiled its New Affordability Agenda, Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) said he believes American voters across the political spectrum are hungry for a concrete policy platform that takes aim at the corporate forces driving price increases across the economy, from the for-profit utility companies raking in huge profits off the backs of struggling families to oil titans reaping massive windfall gains thanks to war-driven oil price surges.
“Look, I smell blood in the water,” Casar said of the current political moment, marked by rising public anger against corporate price gouging that’s fueling the nation’s cost-of-living crisis.
“Let’s take this opportunity to finally build a new consensus within the Democratic Party that we should be uninvited from those lobbyist dinners and instead do what the voters are asking us to do,” added Casar, who is partnering with Rep. Josh Riley (D-NY)—a swing-seat representative and member of the centrist New Democrat Coalition—on a new bill to crack down on utility giants’ price increases.
That’s just one element of the CPC’s new 10-plank agenda, which aims to unify Democrats behind a set of popular policy demands ahead of the 2026 midterms. The agenda includes legislation to challenge the pharmaceutical industry’s monopoly control over medicine production, confront price-fixing schemes by large grocery chains, profiteering by oil giants, and prohibit unlimited election spending by corporate groups and billionaires hell-bent on maintaining the status quo that enriched them.
“I welcome their hatred,” Casar, in a nod to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famous line, said of corporations and their allies standing in the way of the affordability platform.
“In my lifetime,” Casar continued, “a populist anti-corporate message has not been the priority of most of the Democratic Party, and this has to be our chance to change it, because the past has failed us. And that’s why we have this new agenda.”
Casar stressed that the 10th and final plank of the New Affordability Agenda—“Getting Big Money Out of Politics”—is critical because “corporations being able to buy politicians and buy elections is a huge driver of what’s made things more expensive.”
The plank calls for passage of Rep. Summer Lee’s Abolish Super PACs Act, which would cap contributions to super PACs at $5,000 per calendar year. Super PACs, an outgrowth of the Supreme Court’s notorious Citizens United decision, can currently raise and spend unlimited sums on political campaigns, giving them massive sway over elections.
Casar said Lee’s bill would effectively render super PACs “useless, and no different from any other PAC.”
“There are going to be a lot of corporate interests who just want Democrats to say the word ‘affordability,’ but not do much about it. And we have to recognize it’s been many of those corporate interests that have gotten us into the problem here in the first place,” Casar told Common Dreams. “We’ve got to have a plan that wins over the voters, because I would rather have the voters than the money.”
“This is our chance to move the party. We can’t wait until we’re in the majority to start taking on these interests.”
The bills that make up the CPC’s agenda stand no realistic chance of passage as long as Republicans control at least one chamber of Congress or the presidency. This is true despite the popularity of the progressive platform among voters across the ideological spectrum—including among those who backed President Donald Trump in the 2024 election.
New polling by Data for Progress shows that every plank of the New Affordability Agenda won “majority support from at least 3 in 5 voters.” Among Trump voters, the CPC’s proposals to guarantee at least two weeks of paid vacation to all full-time workers and combat price hikes by for-profit utility companies enjoy at least 75% support.
The broad appeal of the policy agenda makes sense, said Casar, given that much of it grew out of “progressives doing town halls in Republican-controlled districts where voters say that they’re already sick and tired of Trump’s lies, but they want to know whether the Democratic Party’s really going to fight for them.”
“We need to fight against Trump, but we need to do more than that and fight against the big corporations that are screwing you over,” said Casar. “Trump voters and progressive voters want to see us crack down on the utility companies that are jacking up your bills. They want to see us crack down on Big Pharma, which is driving up the cost of prescription drugs. And so we’re using this agenda to say that Democrats have to get away from big donors and fancy parties and start doing something to take on the billionaires and corporations who are ripping people off.”
The New Affordability Agenda is already facing some opposition with entrenched elements of the Democratic establishment, such as the corporate-funded centrist think tank Third Way. Jim Kessler, the group’s executive vice president for policy, told The New York Times that “there’s obvious things to do on affordability that they ducked,” such as repealing Trump’s far-reaching tariffs. (Casar responded that “of course progressives have been for getting rid of” Trump’s “reckless” tariffs.)
The Times reported that Kessler also claimed the CPC agenda was missing “more ambitious changes necessary to reduce costs, such as overhauling regulations.”
“I understand that corporate funded think tanks have to try to say something negative here,” Casar replied, “but [Kessler] didn’t sound like he opposed anything in the agenda.”
The criticism from Third Way underscores another obstacle in the way of enacting the New Affordability Agenda, even if Republicans are swept from power: corporate-friendly congressional Democrats.
Asked if the CPC agenda has garnered support from the upper ranks of the Democratic Party, Casar said he is “talking to leadership and rank-and-file members about changing not just our message, but also our priorities as a party.”
“This is our chance to move the party. We can’t wait until we’re in the majority to start taking on these interests,” said Casar. “We have to organize across the party to get all kinds of Democrats onto these bills. We have to campaign on these ideas and then push to get them on the House floor and passed next year under a Democratic majority.”
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Our boats were approached by military speedboats, self-identified as “israel”, pointing lasers and semi-automatic assault weapons ordering participants to the front of the boats and to get on their hands and knees.
Boat communications are being jammed and an SOS was issued.
Netanyahu’s war machine has killed tens of thousands of civilians across Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran. The company fueling it is a household name — and most people have no idea.
Amazon’s cloud contract with Israel is powering the surveillance systems that build AI kill lists — facilitating deadly airstrikes on hospitals and schools. And when shareholders filed a human rights proposal demanding answers, they rejected it.
Amazon’s board meeting is a few weeks away.
2. Roblox: cut ties with any company linked to Peter Thiel!
Join NorCal ICHRP and Malaya Movement on Thursday, April 30th for three one-hour phone barrage sessions! Sessions will start with an orientation and training for participants. No experience needed!
We are calling for our representatives to take action to demand justice for Lyle Prijoles and Kai Sorem, two Filipino-Americans, who were murdered alongside 17 others by the Armed Forces of the Philippines in the Toboso massacre in Negros Occidental. Hour-long sessions will start with a 10-minute orientation for all participants. If you can’t join the sessions, please still call your representatives and check out the Advocacy Toolkit: tinyurl.com/Negros19-Advocacy-Toolkit
On April 19-20, 2026, the US-Backed Armed Forces of the Philippines carried out a 12-hour military operation in Negros Occidental that killed 19 people – including human rights organizers, youth activists, journalists, children, and peasant advocates – and displaced 653 residents. This was an undeniable violation of human rights and international humanitarian law. We demand an independent investigation, access to and return of the victims’ remains to their families, an inquiry into US involvement in this massacre, transparency and accountability from the Philippine government and the AFP for the war crimes they committed.
2. Thursday, 9:00am (?),7 of the GG26 who are facing felony conspiracy and false imprisonment charges are headed to trial
Hall of In-Justice 850 Bryant St. SF
Seven of the GG26 who are facing felony conspiracy and false imprisonment charges are headed to trial this Thursday 4/30 in department 22 at 850 Bryant, SF. Trial will then unfold at 400 McAllister, SF at the Civic Center Courthouse in San Francisco. Trial is expected to last 6-8 weeks. Join our signal announcment thread (link in linktree) to stay up to date!
The solidarity site didn’t provide a time for Thursday.
3. Thursday, 6:15pm – 8:15pm, International Hotel: The Struggle for Housing Justice
St. James Church 4620 California St (between 8th & 9th Ave) SF
btw 8th-9th Avenues – Muni #1 California stops on the block.
Doors open at 6:15pm; Program begins at 6:45pm
As we approach International Workers Day, we’re highlighting the historic fight for the International Hotel (I-Hotel).
Come to the WSTA general meeting to hear directly from I-Hotel activists and learn how their struggle continues today amid modern forms of urban renewal like upzoning and YIMBYism.
In 1977, all residents of the hotel were violently evicted after the building was purchased by a multinational corporation. However the tenants, who were predominantly poor migrant Filipino and Chinese workers, organized and led a powerful fight against the eviction and helped to spark the modern housing rights movement that continues to have a lasting impact today.
The I-Hotel was a single-room occupancy hotel located in what was known as Manilatown in San Francisco.
Explicitly racist “urban renewal” policies targeted predominantly communities of color under the guise of removing “blighted” ares of the city. In reality, these efforts reflected a collusion between government and private financial interests, using state power to create vast profit opportunities at the expense of working people.
Filipino migrant workers were the majority of the hotel’s tenants. Forced to migrate due to US and Japanese imperialist plunder of their homelands, they faced further labor exploitation in the US.
But where there is oppression, there is resistance!
In response, tenants organized for their right to housing, building a broad-based mass movement with community organizations across the city that brought together thousands of activists to confront the police on the day of eviction.
2 PM: Singing Resistance Target Action, 1980 Santa Rosa Ave
4 PM: Santa Rosa May Day, South West Park to Julliard Park
Berkeley:
11 AM: Berkeley May Day March, 2300 Ellsworth Way
There are many more actions happening in the Bay for May Day, this is not an exhaustive list! Learn more about the above events at bayresistance.org/may-day-2026 and other find actions across CA at camayday2026.org/.
Saturday, May 2
5. Saturday, 3:30pm – 5:30pm Working class perspectives-consequences of Iran War on the World, Latin America and in U.S
518 Valencia St. (between 16th & 17th Sts) SF
Wheelchair accessible
Public Transportation: 16th Street BART SF MUNI # 22, 49 & 14
You are invited to our working – class perspective on the war in Iran, and its consequences on the world, Latin America and the working class here at home.
We are living through an important moment, and we need to know what we need to do.
Chevron Corporate Station 5500 Telegraph Ave, (Telegraph at 55th) Oakland
Join a monthly demonstration at the Chevron in North Oakland, 5500 Telegraph in Oakland | FIRST SUNDAY OF THE MONTH, 1-3 PM (RAIN CANCELS)
Signs and chants will be provided. Bring your energy and tambourines!
Israel’s genocide machine couldn’t run without power from Chevron. Israel’s war on Gaza and Occupation of Palestine contributes to the climate catastrophe. Chevron supplies light and energy via its operation and co-ownership of two major Israeli-claimed fossil gas fields in the Mediterranean.
Chevron’s extraction activities are funneling millions of dollars in tax revenues to Israeli government coffers, directly fueling Israel’s system of settler colonialism and violence against all Palestinians. In 2022, those revenues amounted to over $462 million.
BDS is a global nonviolent Palestinian led movement, and we demand that Chevron immediately cut its contracts with genocidal Israel, and end its role in climate devastation globally.
Following in the tradition of the anti-apartheid gas station boycotts of the 60s & 70s, Palestinians and allies are building a global movement to hold Chevron accountable for its crimes through a coordinated boycott of Chevron gas stations and products around the world.
On April 27, the Alice B. Toklas LGBTQ Democratic Club Political Action Committee (PAC) voted to rescind its endorsement of Betty Yee, who is no longer running for Governor, and to put forward a new recommendation for Xavier Becerra. The Alice Club membership will consider this recommendation on Tuesday, May 5 at 6:00 PM at DECANT Bottle Shop & Bar, 1168 Folsom Street.
All eligible club members are invited to participate in the vote on the PAC’s recommendation for Governor. Your participation helps shape the direction of our club and the candidates we support.
By Ron Kroichick, Staff Writer Updated April 28, 2026 (SFChronicle.com)
Gift Article
Warriors head coach Steve Kerr has not been shy about expressing his views on social issues, including politics, and gun violence. Stephen Lam/S.F. Chronicle
As Steve Kerr’s future as Golden State Warriors head coach twists in doubt, one thing remains abundantly clear: Kerr will continue to speak his mind on political issues, no matter the ramifications.
The latest example came when Kerr sat down last week for an interview with the New Yorker. The story posted Sunday on the magazine’s website, amid lingering uncertainty about whether Kerr will return to the Warriors next season — and suggestions his public candor on politics doesn’t always sit well with others in the organization.
Kerr did the interview as a favor to his mom, Ann Kerr, he wrote in a text exchange Monday with the Chronicle. The author of the New Yorker piece, Charles Bethea, wrote a profile of Ann Kerr in 2018.
At one point in the interview, after Steve Kerr praised his dad Malcolm’s intelligence, patience and dignity, Bethea observed, “A different kind of leadership than you see nowadays.”
“I think we’re as weak as we’ve ever been as a country, at least in a long time, because our leadership is so misguided,” he said, without mentioning President Donald Trump by name. “There’s a lack of humility, a lack of dignity, a lack of understanding of the world, a lack of embracing other perspectives. The belligerence.”
Malcolm Kerr was a UCLA professor and Middle East scholar who became president of American University of Beirut. He was assassinated outside his office in January 1984 at age 52. Members of what became Hezbollah (a militant group allied with Iran) claimed responsibility for the killing.
Given Steve Kerr’s interest in politics, and his deeply personal connection to the ongoing Middle East conflict, Bethea then asked him about the war in Lebanon and Iran.
“My dad was killed by Iranian proxies 42 years ago,” Kerr said. “I have no regard for the Iranian regime whatsoever. But the answer does not lie in starting a war and killing innocent people.
“Imagine being a parent of one of the 175 girls who died when their school was bombed. Their loss, their suffering. … How are they going to feel about America? Violence begets violence.”
Kerr spoke to the New Yorker on April 20, three days after his team’s season-ending, play-in tournament loss to Phoenix. In his postgame news conference that night, Kerr expressed uncertainty about his coaching future — his contract runs out this summer — and noted all coaching jobs have an “expiration date,” sounding ready to walk away.
Then, last week, two reports suggested Kerr’s penchant for political commentary has ruffled feathers within the Warriors. ESPN’s Marc Spears, appearing on 95.7 The Game, referenced Kerr speaking out on issues involving social justice, racism and gun violence before adding, “I’ve heard maybe he’s being stifled a little bit in that regard. I’ve heard maybe some people are tired of his voice. … If it’s true people want him to be a little more quiet, I’m sure that might not sit too well with him.”
Later in the week, the Athletic’s Nick Friedell cited league and team sources as saying, “Kerr’s desire to speak candidly on social and political issues has at times caused internal frustration.”
Kerr declined the Chronicle’s interview request Monday. A Warriors spokesperson said owner Joe Lacob and general manager Mike Dunleavy wouldn’t be available until after Kerr’s situation is resolved.
Later in the New Yorker interview, while reflecting on his blunt criticism of Trump after he was first elected president in 2016 (including calling him a “buffoon”), Kerr acknowledged he needed to soften his tone given his role as the public voice of the Warriors.
“I was so disgusted I didn’t hold back,” he said of his ’16 rant. “I’ve learned I need to be better in terms of representing our organization in a way that I could still let my feelings be known but not get too personal. I’m representing a large group of people.”
Kerr has long railed against gun violence, including a May 2022 news conference hours after the Uvalde, Texas, elementary school shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers. He slammed U.S. senators for not voting on legislation calling for universal background checks.
More recently, in January, Kerr criticized Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials for their role in the killing of Minneapolis resident Renee Nicole Good. Kerr condemned Good’s shooting by an ICE agent, saying, “It’s shameful we can have law enforcement officers who commit murder and seemingly get away with it.”
About two weeks later, the Warriors were in Minneapolis when Alex Pretti, one of thousands of protesters of the government’s immigration policy, was killed by Department of Homeland Security officials. Kerr expressed his sympathy, then eventually waded into the issue of immigration reform.
“We’re really hopeful the protests here and nationwide will lead to a much better solution for immigration,” Kerr said. “It’s not like they’re rooting out violent criminals. They’re taking 5-year-old kindergartners, U.S. citizens, and detaining people. Immigration is a problem that needs to be addressed by Congress, legislatively, not by military force in the streets pulling people from their homes.”
Later that week, Kerr acknowledged he “misspoke,” knew ICE was arresting criminals and apologized for the comment. He repeated his criticism of the government for detaining people who “should not be detained” and the manner in which it was apprehending people.
Among other notable quotes in Kerr’s interview with the New Yorker:
• On the divisiveness in the U.S., which he said was happening before Trump: “He definitely has taken advantage of that to gain and consolidate power, and he’s using it to drive a wedge between all of us. He’s not the only one who’s done that, but he’s the president. He’s got the most power. But calling the president a buffoon, I kind of regret that even though I felt it in my heart.”
• On whether he regrets not speaking out when the NBA reprimanded then-Rockets general manager Daryl Morey for a tweet supporting anti-government protesters in Hong Kong: “Yeah. I was wrong. We had a lot of players on our team (who) were doing business in China. A lot of our players would go there in the offseason and the NBA had this huge relationship with China. … I didn’t handle it well. I was trying to walk the company line and not make the NBA mad.”
• On the oft-discussed possibility he could pursue public office after his coaching career: “I don’t have any desire to go into politics. I love basketball. This is my world. All of my friends and my people are in this world. And whether I keep coaching the Warriors or not, I imagine I’ll be involved in basketball.”
That Kerr agreed to the New Yorker interview — his only public comments since the April 17 news conference in Phoenix — shouldn’t come as a surprise. Ann Kerr always has had an affinity for the magazine.
In October 2024, during a Chronicle interview for a profile of his mom, Steve Kerr feigned anger about Ann (instead of him or one of his brothers) joining his dad for UCLA-USC football games when Steve was a kid. He recalled how she loved the atmosphere of the big college football rivalry — and how she typically brought a copy of the New Yorker with her.
Senior sports enterprise reporter Ron Kroichick has worked at the San Francisco Chronicle since 1995. Kroichick writes about the Warriors during the NBA season, and various other topics — from the 49ers and major-league baseball to college football and basketball — the rest of the year. He’s also the Chronicle’s golf columnist, covering the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and all major championships in Northern California.
Kroichick has earned numerous writing awards, including first-place Sports Feature recognition from the San Francisco Press Club for his 2024 piece on UCLA faculty member Ann Kerr, the mom of Warriors coach Steve Kerr. Kroichick also teamed with Lance Williams to land top-10 honors in Investigative Reporting (from the Associated Press Sports Editors), for their coverage of the 49ers’ contentious relationship with the city of Santa Clara.
San Francisco Democratic Party Mar 11, 2026 Tom Steyer Entrepreneur; Candidate for Democratic Nomination for California Governor ——- California Gubernatorial Fireside Chat with SF DCCC Chair Nancy Tung This fireside chat will feature the various major Democratic candidates running to be California’s next governor in conversation with Nancy Tung, who is currently serving as the chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party, about the biggest issues facing the state of California. Gubernatorial candidates will each have a 15-minute period to share their vision for the future of the Golden State one-on-one with Chair Nancy Tung.
Donald Trump’s picture could soon be on every new U.S. passport.
The State Department is finalizing a plan to put the president’s face in the travel document, The Bulwark reports, citing two sources with knowledge of the passport redesign, one of whom provided pictures. The new passports will include Trump’s second inaugural portrait superimposed over the Declaration of Independence, along with his signature in gold.
According to The Bulwark, there will be a “limited run” of 25,000 of these Trump passports, which are still waiting to be approved. While the current U.S. passport includes an image of Mount Rushmore, which has the heads of four presidents, this would be the first stand-alone image of a U.S. president, living or dead, in a passport. No foreign passports have included pictures of heads of state, and U.S. passports have previously carried the signature of the secretary of state, but not the president.
Trump has made a habit of putting his name on things in his second term as president, from the U.S. Institute of Peace to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He’s put banners with his face on federal buildings and created a website for prescriptions called TrumpRx.gov.
This new passport is supposedly part of the 250th anniversary of American independence, and comes as the Treasury Department hopes to produce two coins with Trump’s face on them: a $1 coin with Trump’s face on it for general circulation and a commemorative coin that would be “as large as possible.” The president seems intent on having Americans feel shame every time they open their wallet or travel overseas.Share This Story
Annie Karni, Congressional Correspondent – The New York Times
Stephan: Every Black Republican Representative is leaving the House. The Republican Party has become a White Supremacist cult. Here are the facts.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries speaks at the Congressional Black Caucus’s press conference. Credit: Brooke Sharp / Medill News Service
Eight years ago, Kevin McCarthy, then the House Republican leader, embarked on a push to recruit more Black Republicans to run for Congress, arguing that the G.O.P. needed to diversify to survive.
By 2022, his efforts had yielded modest success, helping pave the way for four Black Republicans to be elected to the House that year, which boosted the total number of Black Republicans serving in Congress to five, including Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.
That progress is about to be erased.
All four Black Republicans in the House are leaving Congress next year: Three are seeking statewide office, and one is retiring because redistricting in his state effectively boxed him out of his seat. The exodus is a reflection of the striking and persistent lack of diversity in the G.O.P. ranks of Congress, something that Mr. McCarthy has acknowledged is still an issue even years after his efforts to address it.
Stroy Moyd tried to open his comedy club at various locales in San Francisco, to no success. Then he looked at the Mid-Market neighborhood. Now he’s among a new wave of entrepreneurs bringing new life to the beleaguered area.Carlos Avila Gonzalez/S.F. Chronicle
Of all the places Stroy Moyd imagined opening San Francisco’s first Black-owned comedy club, Mid-Market was last on the list.
After two years, more than 80 locations toured and repeated rejections from landlords unwilling to bet on a young Black entrepreneur without deep pockets, it was the only place where he heard “yes.”
The Function Comedy Club and Cocktail Lounge sits across from the mostly vacant former Twitter headquarters at 10th and Market streets, a stark symbol of the neighborhood’s boom-and-bust cycle that spiked before the pandemic with venture-backed tech and private equity groups taking over buildings that had been home to nonprofits and social services. Now many of those buildings are empty and storefronts boarded up. Nowhere to be found are the sort of buzzy restaurants, bars and boutiques that fuel nightlife and draw crowds to the main drags of neighborhoods like North Beach or the Marina.
Moyd may not have planned to be here, but he is part of a small, determined wave of entrepreneurs betting on Mid-Market at a moment when much of the city’s focus is on reviving other corners of downtown. It’s an early sign of something like an organic rebirth as some in the neighborhood are vying to shift its identity away from a failed tech hub into an arts and theater district. Mid-Market is already home to five major theaters that, in a good year, attract upward of a million people to everything from Broadway musicals to hip-hop concerts.
“If you look at a thriving arts and culture district, it encompasses the entrepreneur, the denim maker down the street, the restaurateur, the guy who pours his love and soul into his cafe and is a welcoming third space to people,” said Fernando Pujals, executive director of the Mid-Market Business Association and Foundation. “All the bones are here.”
Years after the start of the pandemic, many of those invested in the neighborhood say conditions are finally improving. Yet the commercial retreat from Mid-Market is still visible on nearly every block.
The once-bustling Twitter building is now 96% empty. A 65,000-square-foot Whole Foods has been shuttered for three years after closing abruptly amid safety concerns. The historic Hotel Whitcomb remains boarded up after sustaining tens of millions of dollars in damage during its use as a pandemic-era shelter for the homeless. Office vacancy in the surrounding district hovers around 45%, with retail not far behind. It was so bad that during the depths of the pandemic, some in the local real estate community wouldn’t bring clients to the area. A gaping hole occupies the northeast corner of Market and Van Ness, which a developer excavated for a 47-story mixed-use project that was put on hold three years ago.
Mid-Market has been here before. After the Great Recession left the corridor lined with empty storefronts, city leaders offered tax breaks to lure tech firms in a bid to bolster its economic base. The Financial District’s offices had to reach near capacity before the city’s attention shifted to Mid-Market, downtown’s main artery connecting City Hall to the Embarcadero. Even then, it took a relentless focus from City Hall to attract investment to the neighborhood.
For a time, it worked: Companies moved in, housing was built, and the neighborhood flickered to life briefly with the promise of a dense, around-the-clock downtown corridor. There were bike shops and restaurants — one business sold handcrafted toffee and another offered flights of chai. But even before the pandemic emptied offices, that momentum had begun to slip. Today, with many of those same firms gone in search of cleaner, safer surroundings or contracting their operations in the era of remote work, Mid-Market has largely returned to where it started before the 2009 tax break.
And yet, a different kind of risk-taker is beginning to fill the void: Entrepreneurs like Moyd, often with fewer resources and less institutional backing, are moving into the very spaces others abandoned — drawn to the possibility of building something new, and hopeful that others will follow.
“Ideally, this strip would be full of shops, food and bars,” Moyd said. “But that takes a lot of effort, energy and consistency.”
He pointed to the millions of dollars in grants and funding that has been doled out to lure businesses to the Financial District and other parts of downtown. Earlier this month, a new group formed by corporate and philanthropic leaders to back Mayor Daniel Lurie’s downtown revitalization strategy unveiled a $25 million business revitalization fund providing grants and loans to small businesses activating a commercial corridor north of Mid-Market.
“They need to move that over here,” Moyd said. “In order for this neighborhood to do well, we need the city of San Francisco behind us.”
Diana Ponce De Leon, of the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, said the city is actively recruiting businesses to the Mid-Market area, helped a nonprofit buy a building and is providing grants to support businesses moving into vacant storefronts. An entertainment zone created between Fifth and Sixth streets was activated with block parties last year.
“We are leveraging everything we have in the area,” she said. “I feel the energy is there. People are interested. It feels cleaner. We still need to bring back the foot traffic.”
With or without the city’s help, businesses are starting find their way back into the neighborhood. Walk by the southwest corner of Seventh and Mission into the night and you might hear music drifting from the Roar Shack, an arts space run by the Living Earth Show, a nonprofit that creates and performs experimental chamber music. It’s the first new independent music venue to enter the neighborhood in years.
The Roar Shack fills the space vacated by nightclub Mr. Smith’s, which closed in 2019. Building owner Max Young, who also operated Mr. Smith’s, said the block had become so overrun with drug dealers and loiterers that he felt it was unsafe for patrons and staff. The two office suites upstairs, which had been occupied by tech companies, also emptied during the pandemic.
Now the whole building is full again, with two new startups taking space on the upper floors. The streets are much cleaner and the drug-dealing less conspicuous.
“The Mid-Market story is kind of rewriting itself right now,” Young said. “It’s not perfect. It’s not Disneyland. But it’s a huge difference from where we were.”
A few blocks to the west, the massive food hall on the ground floor of the former Twitter building that was nearly empty a year ago is filling up with a new generation of vendors selling empanadas, gnocchi, boba, caprese sandwiches and açaí bowls.
“A year ago I was like, ‘What am I even doing here?’” said Joy MacDonald, who manages the market. “Now it’s cleaner outside, there are more people walking by. We get a lot of people coming in and saying, ‘I haven’t been here in years.’”
Ground floor activation was often an afterthought for both new residential and office towers, but for Mid-Market’s recovery it will be key, said Benjamin Kochalski, a partner with TMG Partners, which has a long history of investing and developing in the neighborhood.
A neighborhood’s recovery “doesn’t start on the 30th floor of a building,” he said, adding that Mid-Market’s offices are unlikely to benefit from increased office tenant interest until higher-demand space in the Financial District is absorbed.
“It’s not ‘main and main’ as it relates to office space,” said Chris Pearson, senior vice president of development for Hudson Pacific Properties, describing the neighborhood’s competitive position for attracting the latest wave of tech startups. Hudson Pacific recently filed plans to convert one of its two Mid-Market office buildings into housing.
Organizations like the Mid-Market Foundation are stepping in to act as the intermediaries between the neighborhood’s landlords and small-business tenants. Pujals, the foundation’s director, said the organization helped subsidize the Roar Shack’s first year of rent.
The group keeps a database of all of the neighborhood’s ground floor commercial vacancies, and a list of landlords willing to provide concessions or support. Between Fifth and Seventh streets, the foundation has identified seven turnkey spaces ready for occupancy.
There has been “incremental” progress, Pujals said, along with setbacks. The Red Tail Wine Bar, which the foundation also supported in opening at 992 Market St., closed after just a year of operation in Mid-Market.
One of the challenges to revitalizing the neighborhood’s ground floor ecosystem is its large number of sizable cold-shell spaces, which require significant up-front capital to activate.
Pujals believes that with focused investment, both the arts and tech can flourish side by side in the neighborhood despite the fact that museums and arts venues across downtown have been struggling.
“If we were to lean in and center investing and fostering this creative economy in the neighborhood, I think that you would see a secondary wave of office lease up as the broader downtown begins to fill up as well,” Pujals said.
That thesis is being tested in real time on the northern edge of Mid-Market, where nonprofit Community Arts Stabilization Trust purchased the historic Warfield Theatre at 988 Market St. for $7.3 million last year, about half of what the building sold for in 2015. With public radio station KALW as the anchor tenant, CAST has been working to transform the nine-story building into “Warfield Commons,” a hub for arts, culture and media nonprofits. Today, the building is 90% leased.
A block away, landlord Shervin Shoustary recently landed a robotics startup as a new tenant at 965 Mission St. Shoustary said tours with AI and robotics companies are increasingly resulting in signed leases at his building, and credited the city’s focus on public safety and cleanliness in the area. “We are seeing great results,” he said.
Julian Dash, owner of the Holy Stitch sewing factory at 1059 Market, has seen this cycle before: First comes the blight and vacancy, then the priced-out creatives that leave their “thumbprints” on disinvested spaces, driving property values up, he said. “The suits usually follow.”
A 15-year fixture on Market Street, Dash has watched waves of attention crest and recede on Mid-Market, where he has occupied multiple storefronts. Dash described himself as one of Mid-Market’s “longest-standing activators.”
Previous efforts to breathe life into Mid-Market failed because they resulted in services and businesses that proved inaccessible to the very communities that are essential to its vitality, according to Dash.
“My base rent is like $6,000 per month. Next door, the same ground-level space is going for $20,000,” he said, referring to a property that once served as a former adult entertainment venue before it was replaced with a modern eight-story new development — or as Dash put it, a “fancy, stereotypical condo building.”
The rent sought for that building’s languishing, 7,100-square-foot ground floor storefront is still lower than the city’s average for retail spaces, which according to Costar, is about $40.65 per square foot. But, for Dash, the stubborn vacancy next door is “indicative” of Mid-Market’s biggest problem: “Maybe some things are being forced into a district that wasn’t built for that.”
Dash believes the businesses that find success in Mid-Market are those that serve as “assets to the community.”
“I fix people’s clothes and give young people a place to learn, and my business is growing,” he said.
With many questions still surrounding tech’s office needs in post-pandemic San Francisco, some of Mid-Market’s institutional landlords appear to have shifted strategies. Hudson Pacific, which once rented its 22-story office tower at 1455 Market St. to Uber, is now banking on a different type of office tenant to fill the void: public agencies.
The landlord signed a long-term lease with the city to backfill vacancy in the building — the deal provides the city with the option to purchase it next year.
“It’s a 1.1-million-square-foot building. If that were to just sit there empty in perpetuity, it’s going to drag the rest of the market,” Pearson, of Hudson Pacific, said. “To have actual tenants in the building now with city employees occupying it, is going to help lift all ships in that area.”
The deal with Hudson Pacific ushered in a potentially broader shift that some city officials are now actively exploring. Mid-Market Supervisor Matt Dorsey recently nixed a deal that would have allowed the San Francisco Employee Retirement System, the city’s pension fund, to exit its longtime offices in the neighborhood and relocate to the Financial District.
“I have been saying for many years that San Francisco’s most underutilized resource is Market Street,” said Dorsey, while addressing a roomful of early-stage founders, techies and researchers inside of the newly launched Frontier Tower at Sixth and Market streets earlier this month.
The 16-story tower, once valued at $62 million and home to flexible space provider WeWork, was languishing with vacancy just a few years ago, leading to its sale at a 90% discount in 2024. It has since been reborn as an underground tech coworking hub with more than 700 members — proof that Mid-Market still appeals to the startup world.
Dorsey said that he believes technology will continue to play a big role in Mid-Market, alongside the city. He plans to call a hearing to determine what the city “can do with its assets to put skin in the game on Market Street.”
“I want to make sure that Market Street is a showplace from the Castro to the Ferry building, and people will wonder why it took this long,” Dorsey said.
David Seward, chief financial officer of UC Law San Francisco, agreed with Dorsey that “the city should take some responsibility for mitigating some of the damage.” The law school, which has invested $500 million in building an academic village just off Market Street in the Tenderloin, was part of a 2020 lawsuit over the dangerous conditions on the sidewalks and in the doorways, calling it a public health menace.
“The emptying of the Twitter building was negative. Whole Foods’ decision to pull up stakes was negative. And some of that was driven by city policies that were adverse to activation of the community,” he said. “I believe Mid-Market is the key to the Tenderloin’s revitalization and for Union Square as well.”
Mid-Market, to others, is a proving ground. Tech may have a reputation for being fickle about the neighborhood, but the new generation of future-minded optimists building the city’s latest innovation hub at one of its most challenged intersections is betting on creating something more enduring.
“One of the great things about San Francisco is that it’s a city that constantly reinvents itself, and Mid-Market in particular has always been the pivot point in the city — it’s the center point,” said biotech founder Elliot Roth, a member of Frontier Tower. “How do you enable positive change in the city? You don’t want to do something that’s just a brief, momentary interjection. You want something that’s sustained and builds for the long term.”
J.K. Dineen covers housing and real estate development. He joined The Chronicle in 2014 covering San Francisco land use politics for the City Hall team. He has since expanded his focus to explore housing and development issues throughout Northern California. He is the author of two books: “Here Tomorrow” (Heyday, 2013) and “High Spirits” (Heyday, 2015).
Laura Waxmann covers the business community with a focus on commercial real estate, development, retail and the future of San Francisco’s downtown. Prior to joining The Chronicle in 2023, she reported on San Francisco’s changing real estate and economic landscape in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic for the San Francisco Business Times.
Waxmann was born and raised in Frankfurt, Germany, but has called San Francisco home since 2007. She’s reported on a variety of topics including housing, homelessness, education and local politics for the San Francisco Examiner, Mission Local and El Tecolote.
Even when the White House Correspondents’ Dinner goes smoothly, it’s a huge embarrassment to journalists. And in the wake of Saturday’s shooting that interrupted the event, the spectacle of journalists cozying up to politicians is likely to get even worse.
Notice that Trump said “we.” He’s not supposed to be in charge of the event – he was a guest of the press – but he will surely use security concerns to big-foot the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) and dictate the terms of his return appearance, unless someone has the sense to call the whole thing off.
WHCA President Weijia Jiang of CBS News has been deferential to Trump despite his ongoing campaign to feed the 1st Amendment into a wood-chipper. (See my newsletter from two weeks ago with a sample of Trump’s outrageous attacks on the press.)
As Jiang wrote in a first-person piece published yesterday, she welcomed Trump’s appearance this year because she hoped it would “restore some normalcy between the Trump administration and the press. Maybe I was naïve, but I wanted it to be a room we don’t see enough of in Washington: a bipartisan one.”
Jiang said Trump told her after the shooting, “I saw a room that was just totally unified.” She added: “Unity isn’t a word we hear much these days. But that’s how I felt, too.”
Arrrrrrg. The press isn’t supposed to seek unity with politicians. It’s supposed to seek the truth. That’s easier to accomplish – and to get the public to believe – when you’re not clinking champagne glasses with the people you’re reporting on. Jiang and other WHCA members may have good intentions, but if so, they’re such myopic journalists that they don’t understand the authoritarian threat we face. Or maybe they realize it, but refuse to pass up the opportunity to wear expensive clothes, eat tasty food, and boost their social standing – democracy be damned.
In any case, it appears that the co-stars of Washington’s next buddy movie are Trump and Jiang. At his post-shooting news conference, the president had high praise for the WHCA chief, calling her “madam chairman,” and let her ask the first question.
Plans for a dinner do-over are unclear. Jiang wrote: “Trump insists we are having the dinner again in 30 days. Let’s see.” Some Washington journalists think it would be best not to attempt another dinner this year, but Trump tends to fixate on his stupidest ideas. If the dinner does happen, look for the WHCA and the White House to work in lockstep, billing it as a patriotic gesture – an act of “unity.”
Will the event return to the Washington Hilton or will Trump push for another venue? He was quick to note that the Hilton was “not a particularly secure building” and argued that the shooting showed the need for his beloved ballroom, which he has tried to ram through, despite a legal challenge.
Beyond the arrangements for an “even nicer” makeup dinner, there are more reasons to think Saturday’s gunfire will work to Trump’s advantage with the press.
The gunman’s anti-Trump political views are already being used by the right to depict political terrorism as a left-wing problem, when it’s actually more common on the right. If journalists don’t accept the right’s spin, Trump will accuse them of covering up leftist violence.
Also, I fear the shooting will create a stronger emotional bond between Washington journalists and the people in power. It’s human nature for people who go through a harrowing event together to become closer. Politicians and the press – two groups that have a naturally adversarial role in our society – shared a jarring experience in which they faced a common danger. I’m not saying the shooting is likely to make Trump more empathetic – he’s still Trump, after all – but it might lead to a less aggressive posture by the journalists of the WHCA.
And it’s not as if White House reporters were tough on Trump before the shooting. They frequently treat his comments with wide-eyed gullibility, even though he’s the most prominent public liar of our time. They regularly normalize and sanewash his unhinged behavior.
“You know why I do it?” he said. “I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so that when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.”
If journalists accept that version of “unity,” we’re doomed.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has played a key role in helping Trump trash America’s global standing, yet Politico cited his “savvy handling of foreign conflicts” in a story last week as if it were an established fact.
US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) speaks during a hearing of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on April 22, 2026.
(Photo by Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
“We cannot allow unlimited outside spending to distort our elections or drown out the voices of working people.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders is leading a coalition of Democratic senators pushing for the party’s leaders to require candidates to swear off billionaire- and corporate-backed super PACs, or political action committees, in this year’s primary elections.
Five of the senators are members of a group of Senate Democrats known as the “Fight Club” that has formed to oppose Schumer’s preferred candidates in contested Democratic primaries, many of whom are closely aligned with the party’s traditional corporate backers.
While the senators applauded the DNC’s resolution last month broadly condemning the influence of dark money in party elections, calling it an “important first step,” they said Democratic leaders needed to take more “concrete steps to curb the influence of dark money,” particularly the artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency industries and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
“Corporate-funded super PACs are shaping the 2026 elections as we speak, and the scale of their resources is unprecedented,” the senators said. “Crypto-aligned groups are preparing to spend $200 million, and AIPAC-affiliated groups already control more than $90 million. The AI industry has already spent over $185 million this year alone. These sums are being deployed to influence Democratic primaries and overwhelm candidates who rely on grassroots support.”
April’s broad anti-dark money resolution was passed by the DNC in lieu of one that directly singled out “the growing influence” of AIPAC, specifically over its more than $100 million spending blitz in 2024 to oust progressive candidates. Despite a dramatic shift toward opposition to Israel among Democratic voters over the past three years, that resolution was voted down by a DNC panel.
AIPAC continues to dump massive amounts of money behind its preferred candidates. The senators’ letter notes that “in Illinois alone, outside groups spent over $50 million in recent Democratic primaries.” Nearly half of that money was spent by AIPAC, which secretly funneled money to support its candidates using shell groups that appeared to be unaffiliated.
The group has used similar tactics in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Ala Stanford, a candidate for Pennsylvania’s 3rd District in Philadelphia, was recently revealed to have received $500,000 worth of backing from AIPAC through a super PAC despite claiming to have received no support from the Israel lobby.
Meanwhile, in Maine, a clique of Republican billionaires who back Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine)—including Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman and Palantir CEO Alex Karp—also recently dropped $2 million to fund an ad campaign seeking to hamper the chances of the Democratic Senate primary front-runner Graham Platner.
“We cannot allow unlimited outside spending to distort our elections or drown out the voices of working people,” the senators said in Sunday’s letter.
Super PACs like AIPAC, AI and crypto are buying elections with billionaire money.
We'll never address the major crises facing our country as long as that continues.
We must overturn Citizens United and kick billionaire-funded super PACs OUT of Democratic primaries NOW. pic.twitter.com/weZGwx0izI
The senators noted Schumer’s past statement that overturning the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which opened the door for the flood of corporate money into elections by allowing individuals to independently spend unlimited amounts in support of candidates, was “probably more important than any other single thing we could do to preserve this great and grand democracy.”
They said that while reversing the ruling remained a “critical long-term goal,” the party “has the authority—and the responsibility—to act now with clear, enforceable rules.”
“National and state parties should require all Democratic candidates to sign a pledge opposing billionaire- and corporate-backed super PAC spending on their behalf in Democratic primaries,” they said. “The DNC, state parties, and committees working to elect Democrats to the House and Senate have many potential tools at their disposal to enforce that pledge, including withholding endorsements for those who make endorsements in the primary, and they should use whatever tools necessary to do so.”
Sanders has said that simply requiring candidates to take a pledge is not enough and that party leaders need to be diligent about holding them to it.
“If the Democrats are going to be honest and consistent in terms of their concerns about money and politics, they’ve got to clean up, in my view, their own house immediately,” he said in an interview on Saturday. “That means getting super PACs out of Democratic primaries, congressional as well as presidential.”
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