November 2024 Voting Recommendations for California, San Francisco, and more

Hi folks,

I’m a San Franciscan who has worked in affordable housing in the Bay Area for 8 years and cares a lot about my city and state. These are my opinions about who and what deserves your vote this November (and what doesn’t). I’m generally on the progressive end of democratic politics, and for me being progressive includes relaxing zoning restrictions to allow more housing to be built to address our housing crisis.

These opinions are mine alone, and represent my best efforts to decipher the massive stack of paper we’ll all have to sift through this year. This is a work in progress, beginning with the issues I know the most about and feel the most strongly about, and expanding from there. Let’s jump right in.

If you take nothing else away from this: VOTE YES ON PROP 5 AND PROP G!

California Propositions

Prop 2: School Bonds: Yes. We should invest in our public schools and community college facilities.

Prop 3: Constitutional Right to Marriage: Yes! This measure would enshrine the right to marry, regardless of sex or race, including gay marriage. It undoes 2008 Prop 8, which added language to the CA constitution stating that marriage is between a man and a woman. The Supreme Court already legalized gay marriage in 2015, so this wouldn’t cause any immediate changes in the real world, but it aligns our state constitution with the law and is the right thing to do, plus it could protect gay marriage from some shenanigans the new conservative Supreme Court might try to pull.

Prop 4: Environmental and Clean Water Bond: Yes. Clean water, wildfire prevention, and environmental preservation are worthy causes that deserve our investment.

Prop 5: Make It Easier to Pass Affordable Housing and Critical Infrastructure Bonds: YES!! This is a critical measure to make it easier to fund affordable housing statewide. It allow voters to pass bonds for affordable housing and critical infrastructure bonds with 55% of the vote and strict accountability measures. Currently they need 2/3rds of the vote and no accountability measures. That means even when 66% of voters want to fund affordable housing, they cannot — you need 66.6% minimum. We should remove this undemocratic roadblock and stop giving 34% of voters a veto over solving our housing crisis.

Prop 6: End Slavery in Prisons: Yes! In 1865, the 13th amendment ended slavery “except as punishment for crime”, and American prisons have been taking advantage of that clause for the last 159 years. This measure ends involuntary servitude in prisons, eliminating one of the underpinnings of the prison-industrial complex. Tellingly, no official ballot argument against this measure was submitted. Here’s hoping that it passes!

Prop 32: Raise the Minimum Wage to $18 in 2025 : Yes. The minimum wage in California is already set to rise to $16.50 in 2025 and will be adjusted for inflation either way, so this isn’t as dramatic a raise as it would have been a few years ago. But it still is worth doing. From CalMatters: “According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, even in the cheapest California county (Modoc), a single adult with no children would need to make at least $20.32 an hour to comfortably afford the basics. The statewide average? $27.32.”

Prop 33: Expand Rent Control: Yes! In 1995, the CA legislature passed a bill called Costa-Hawkins that placed detrimental limits on rent control that have resulted in higher rents and more evictions for the last 29 years. Costa Hawkins says that cities cannot rent control homes built after 1995 or single family homes built at any time. Part of our current housing crisis has been driven by private equity firms buying up the single family homes lost in the 2008 crash and renting them out at high prices, keeping. Prop 33 would repeal Costa Hawkins and allow cities to expand rent control to more renters.

The consensus best practice for rent control in the housing field is to exempt buildings from rent control for 15–20 years in order to allow developers to recoup their investment. In my mind, an ideal rent control policy would be that landlords cannot raise rents more than inflation (as measured by CPI) or 5%, whichever is less, and that policy would apply to all housing built 15 or more years ago, except for 1–4 unit buildings where the landlord lives in one of the units. Costa Hawkins makes that kind of policy nuance impossible.

One wrinkle here is that that Prop 33 includes very strong language preventing the state from intervening in local jurisdictions rent control policies. On the one hand, that’s good, because absent that, the state legislature could just pass another Costa Hawkins and put us back in the original predicament. On the other hand, it means nefariously minded jurisdictions (*cough cough Beverly Hills) can pass overly restrictive rent control that actually could disincentivize new development — think only 0.01% rent increases for the first 20 years of a building’s existence. I think the benefit of rent control for jurisdictions using it in good faith will outweigh the few NIMBY jurisdictions that will try to misuse it, but it’s a caveat worth mentioning.

This measure has been tried twice before, in 2018 and 2020, and failed 60–40 both times after huge TV ad spending by the real estate industry. I’m already getting multiple disingenuous ads a day saying that Prop 33 will raise rents (absolutely not true), so I expect the same will happen this time.

Prop 34: Ban the AIDS Healthcare Foundation from Political Contributions: No

While it’s written to obscure its true intent, this measure is a revenge measure put on the ballot by the California Apartment Association to keep the AIDS Healthcare Foundation from funding rent control initiatives like Prop 33. It only applies to organizations that that spend at least $100 million on expenses other than direct care, which is only one organization in California. I’m not a huge fan of Michael Weinstein and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, he has opposed housing development in LA and statewide, as well as opposing PrEP. But I find it inappropriate to use the state proposition system to ban one’s political enemies, especially when tailored so specifically to just one organization and couched in misleading language.

Prop 35: Provide Permanent Funding for Medi-Cal: Yes

Prop 36: Allow Felony Charges and Increased Sentences for Drugs and Thefts Under $950: No

I do think that Prop 47 needs some reform — the intent of that Proposition was to remove felony charges for petty theft. But the unintended consequence has been people stealing juuuust below $950 in goods over and over again, which was obviously not the goal. However, I think this measure goes too far backward toward the war on drugs and mass incarceration.

California Statewide Offices

State Senator: Adam Schiff. While I had hoped for Barbara Lee or Katie Porter to be our new Senator, Adam Schiff is preferable to his Republican opponent Steve Garvey.

San Francisco Propositions

Prop A: School Facilities Bond: Yes. We should continue to maintain our school facilities.

Prop B: Bond for Healthcare Facilities, Temporary Shelters, and Public Spaces: It’s a bit of grab bag, but the uses of the bond do seem necessary. I’m leaning Yes.

Prop C: Office of the Inspector General: Yes! After having multiple city officials arrested by the FBI for corruption in recent years, it’s clear that we need an independent investigative body in our government, to catch this kind of thing before it has to get to FBI-worthy levels of criminality. The candidates and Super PACs opposing this measure warrant a very suspicious glare.

Prop D: Even Stronger Mayor: NO! This proposition would let the mayor appoint 5 out of 7 positions on most city commissions, and terminate their appointments without cause. It would also remove essential commissions such as the Police Commission, putting oversight of the police entirely within the police department (we’ve all seen how that goes — zero accountability). We already have a very strong mayor system in San Francisco, and it has been largely detrimental to the way our city is governed, enabling corruption. Let’s not go any further down the rabbit hole.

Prop E: Task Force on Reducing Number of Commissions: Nah. This is pretty much creating a commission to reduce the number of commissions. The idea is that the task force will debate which commissions are unnecessary and then bring a ballot measure in a future year to eliminate them. I’m sure that process will be very contentious and take up a lot of attention that would be better used elsewhere. I think that if we want to streamline city government, we should start with process reforms at the departments, as well as anti-corruption measures like Prop C.

Prop F: Pay Retiring Police Even More: No. Police in San Francisco already have some of the highest pay in the state. Incentivizing police to stay on an extra five years when they are already at the end of their careers is one of the most expensive ways to increase the number of police — we’re talking up to $500k per officer between their pension and pay. Even if you believe we need a lot more police, improving recruiting of junior officers is a better and longer-term way to do it.

More broadly, we need to increase our spending on addressing the root causes of crime, as opposed to investing in a police department that solves less than half of the crimes brought to them.

Prop G: Affordable Housing Opportunity Fund: YES!! One problem with the current way affordable housing is structured is that “affordable” is defined based on a percentage of the Area Median Income — known as AMI(eyes glazing over yet?) AMIs all over the Bay Area have been rising rapidly for the last decade as rich people move in and poor people move out, but it’s not like everyone’s income has been going up 10% a year this whole time. That’s especially true for seniors, people with disabilities, and others on fixed incomes. Prop G sets aside 8.25 million per year for rental subsidies that will make affordable housing truly affordable to people with extremely low incomes. It’s long overdue, vote yes.

Prop H: Revert to retirement + pension at 55 for firefighters: I think so. I’m generally supportive of good benefits for firefighters, but this is one of the most expensive things on the whole SF ballot. It makes me a little uneasy because the city already has a problem with huge pension obligations. A ballot measure back in 2012 switched from firefighter retirement at 55 to retirement at 58, and this would change it back. I’m not an expert on how long it makes sense for firefighters to work, so I voted yes in the end but encourage you to seek out other resources on this one.

Prop I: Retirement Benefits for Nurses and 911 Operators: Yes. This one is much less expensive, and extends first responder retirement benefits to a couple categories of city employees who certainly should be in there.

Prop J: Education Funding: Yes. As best I can tell, this sneakily adds more public funding for education in the course of moving things around. Would be interested in education experts opinion here, but it seems good, especially with our school district currently at risk of having to close schools.

Prop K: Ocean Beach Park: Yes. The Great Highway extension is already closing because the cliffs it’s on are falling into the sea. The rest of it is closed 30–60 days a year because of sand blowing from the beach onto it. Changing uses from a little-driven road to a park contiguous with the beach will save money, as well as just being nicer.

Prop L: Tax Rideshare and Robotaxis to Fund the Bus: Yes! This is a truly grassroots measure put forward by transit activists to help address the budget shortfall for transportation in San Francisco. I was part of some of the initial conversations around the campaign, though I’m sorry to say I’ve done a bad job of getting out to canvass for it. It’s a very straightforward measure: it taxes Uber/Lyft/Waymo etc to provide funding for MUNI. The amount of money involved here is fairly small, but it’s a great first step toward funding public transit the way it deserves to be funded.

Prop M: Change from Payroll Tax to Gross Receipts Tax: Strategic No. I do want this measure to pass, but Prop L only takes effect if it gets more votes than Prop M. It moves San Francisco business taxes away from payroll taxes, which only apply to companies with employees in San Francisco, to gross receipts, which apply to companies that sell goods in San Francisco. This aligns incentives much better — instead of incentivizing companies to move out of San Francisco, it taxes their revenues from San Francisco, a source of profit they are extremely unlikely to attempt to abandon. There’s a ton of money going towards this measure, so I’m not super worried about it not passing, just want to do my small part to get Prop L more votes than it.

Prop N: Pay off $25k of student loans for first responders: Yes. This is one of the cheapest measures on the ballot and responds to one of the issues that’s hampering recruitment for crucial first responder positions.

Prop O: Declaration of Support for Expansion of Reproductive Rights and Services: Yes. As far as I can tell, this doesn’t actually do anything in practice, but in a national environment where reproductive rights are under attack, it’s a good statement of principles.

San Francisco Elected Offices:

Mayor: It’s Complicated

This is a tough one for me. I’m not 100% in agreement with any of the mayoral candidates in this race. I wish we had a candidate who was committed to reforming policing, to building both affordable and market rate housing, and ending corruption in city government, but we don’t. We do have a strong supporter of affordable housing in Aaron Peskin, a strong supporter of upzoning and market rate housing in London Breed, and plans to end corruption from a number of candidates, though I’m not sure which is actually credible. None of the candidates want to reinvest resources away from policing and towards addressing root causes of crime through social services, which is disappointing.

I’m planning to rank the major mayoral candidates like so:

1. Aaron Peskin
2. Ahsha Safaí (doesn’t really have a chance but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
3. London Breed
4. Daniel Lurie

I think Mark Farrell is the most dangerous of all of them, and would advise ranking him last or not at all. He was a highly conservative supervisor who pushes dishonest narratives about rampant crime and wants to return to ineffective, counterproductive war on drugs policies (though I have to point out that Daniel Lurie and London Breed do the same). On corruption, I don’t trust him in the slightest, for one main reason: Campaign finance law in San Francisco specifies that the maximum donation to a mayoral candidate is $500. However, he is comingling expenses with the ballot measure Prop D, which can receive unlimited contributions, to sneak around the limit and receive hundreds of thousands from Republican billionaires like Bill Oberndorf. A reporter paid a visit to the supposed joint office of Mark Farrell’s campaign and Prop D and asked the campaign manager if they had any Prop D materials. The response was “What ballot measure?” That sort of shamelessly corrupt behavior has no place in our government.

City Attorney: No Endorsement. David Chiu was one of the most pro-renter, pro-affordable housing legislators in the whole state assembly when he was there. That said, I wish he would have stayed a legislator, because while this is more on the Mayor than on David Chiu, San Francisco has been on the wrong side of a lot of lawsuits recently. Allow me to explain:

1. San Francisco filed an Amicus briefing in the Supreme Court in support of the Grants Pass v. Oregon ruling that allows cities to arrest and fine people for sleeping outside even if there is nowhere inside to go.
2. San Francisco is also being sued by the Coalition on Homelessness for illegally throwing away homeless people’s belongings when it conducts street sweeps.
3. San Francisco is currently suing the Environmental Protection Agency to be allowed to dump more sewage in the Bay (really?) and the implications of SF winning that case could be far reaching — so much so that tons of oil companies, mining companies, and others who are eager to pollute waters all over the country are on SF’s side. Arguments for SF vs. EPA were held before the Supreme Court just a couple weeks ago on October 16th — here’s hoping SF loses.

And those are just the ones I know about — oy vey! But the challenger, Richard Woon, seems to think leading a “Patriot Pub Crawl” to protest COVID restrictions is a qualification for office, so there’s no real alternative there.

District Attorney: Ryan Khojasteh. He’s the progressive running against our current District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, who was a key figure in the Chesa Boudin recall and was hit with ethics complaints over it. Since being elected, she has dropped multiple cases involving police officer misconduct, declined to prosecute Banko Brown’s murderer, and has pursued unnecessarily harsh sentences against pro-Palestine protestors. I admittedly don’t know as much about Ryan Khojasteh but will definitely take him over Brooke Jenkins.

District 1 Supervisor: Connie Chan. She’s been helpful on a number of affordable housing ordinances, and is very pro-union. I don’t think she’s that great on transit, but I’m willing to live with it. I don’t have confidence in her opponents, one is a perennial candidate who got a lot more money this time from various corporate big spenders, and the other cut her teeth in the Chesa Boudin and School Board recalls.

District 3 Supervisor: Sharon Lai. I’m not super tuned into this race, but I briefly met her at the kickoff for the local affordable housing bond campaign in March and liked what I heard from her. She also has the endorsement of most of the progressive groups.

District 5 Supervisor: Dean Preston! My favorite politician in San Francisco. Dean truly believes in protecting renters and building affordable housing, and possesses a rare combination of idealism and pragmatism. He has done a ton of important work since he was first elected in 2019, including right to counsel for tenants facing eviction, eviction moratoriums to prevent an even bigger explosion of homelessness during the pandemic, and taxing big business and the wealthy to fund affordable housing. I do disagree with him about the role that market rate housing has to play in addressing the housing crisis, but it’s a small disagreement compared to the huge strides he has taken on other housing issues that are dear to my heart.

District 7 Supervisor: Myrna Melgar. While I don’t always agree with her, I find her to be a thoughtful supervisor. And she is definitely better than her right wing challengers.

District 9 Supervisor: Jackie Fielder. She is the most progressive candidate in the race.

District 11 Supervisor: Ernest “EJ” Jones. Another race I have been less tuned into, but have heard good things about EJ from some of my colleagues, and he has the endorsements of the progressive groups, along with Chyanne Chen.

US Representative, District 11: Nancy Pelosi. I’ve been pretty critical of Nancy Pelosi over the years, she’s mostly been pretty far to the right of where I would hope from a representative of San Francisco. But recently I’ve seen some good signs — getting Biden to step down, boycotting Netanyahu’s speech to Congress, and even bucking the new centrist majority in the local democratic party to endorse Dean Preston. So for once, I’ll be voting for her.

State Senator, District 11: Scott Wiener. While I’ve had my disagreements with him in the past, I respect the work he’s done trying to actually require cities in California to do the work of building new housing.

State Assembly Member, District 17: Matt Haney. I worked with Matt Haney’s office on a bill to limit HOA dues on certain affordable condos in 2023. I was happy that he wanted to take on this problem and found his staff easy to work with and committed to affordable housing. Though the final version of the bill ended up with more compromises with powerful capitol interests than I wished, I still support Matt Haney’s efforts on it and other pro-renter bills like AB 12, which limited security deposits to one month of rent.

State Assembly Member, District 19: David Lee. While he’s not as experienced as I would like, he’s running on good progressive principles. His opponent, Catherine Stefani, has been one of the most conservative Board of Supervisors members during her term.

Board of Education: Matt Alexander, Virginia Cheung. I usually go with the United Educators of SF (teacher’s union) endorsements for the board of education, but this year they are the same as Grow SF, TogetherSF, and other corporate money groups that I absolutely do not trust. I decided to vote for Matt Alexander and Virginia Cheung mainly on the basis of the endorsements they received.

Community College Board: Aliya Chisti, Alan Wong. Same as above, I ended up going based on endorsements.

President:

If you’re still here, you can probably guess that I think Donald Trump is a huge threat to our democracy. He didn’t accept that he lost the previous election, and egged on his supporters to try and overturn the result. I expect that the same will be true if he loses this election. Be prepared. I recommend https://whatiftrumpwins.org/ as a way to ground yourself, avoid panicking, and start thinking through what might happen and what you might be able to do.

I’m very disappointed by Kamala Harris sticking with the Biden administration’s continued funding and weapons sales to Israel even as they carry out atrocities in Gaza and now, risk igniting a wider war in the Middle East by attacking Lebanon. However, on every other issue she is highly preferable to Donald Trump. Some people on the left like to say that the Democrats and Republicans are the same, but that’s really not true. While I often wish Democrats would be bolder, they typically support abortion and raising the minimum wage, believe in climate change, and want to regulate the worst excesses of corporations. And in this election, the most important distinction is that they believe in democracy and will accept the results of fair elections.

Vote for Kamala Harris if you are in a swing state (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, New Hampshire, Maine, Virginia, Iowa, Nebraska’s 2nd district). If you are in California or another safe state, do whatever you like (though of course I don’t recommend voting for Trump). Harris is nearly guaranteed to win California anyway, and if she loses it, she will have already lost all the swing states that he needs to win the presidency. So on the one hand, our votes don’t matter. On the other hand, you’re free to vote for whoever you want for president with no consequences 🤷