Elections 2011

Lessons of the Avalos campaign

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By N’Tanya Lee

It’s the middle of the night. His two kids and wife are home in bed. Supervisor John Avalos, candidate for mayor, heads downtown in his beat-up family car. He parks and walks over to 101 Market Street, and casually starts talking to members of OccupySF. He’s a city official, but folks camped out are appreciative when they see he’s there to stand with them, to try to stop the cops from harassing them, even though its 1 a.m. and he should be in bed.

John Avalos was the first elected official to personally visit Occupy SF. It wasn’t a publicity stunt — his campaign staff didn’t even know he was going until it was over. He arrived and left without an entourage or TV cameras. This kind of moment — defined by John’s personal integrity and the strength of his personal convictions — was repeated week after week, and provides a much-needed model of progressive political leadership in the city.

John Avalos is more than “a progressive standard bearer,” as the Chronicle likes to call him. He’s also a Spanish-speaking progressive Latino, rooted in community and labor organizing, with a racial justice analysis and real relationships with hundreds of organizers and everyday people outside of City Hall. He’s demonstrated an authentic accountability to the disenfranchised of the city, to communities of color and working people, and he knows that ultimately the future of the city is in our hands.

Some accomplishments of John’s campaign for mayor are already clear: He consolidated the progressive-left with 19%, or nearly 40,000, first-place votes, despite the confusion of a crowded field; he came in a strong second to incumbent Ed Lee despite being considered a long shot even weeks before the election; after RCV tallies, he finished with an incredible 40% of the vote, demonstrating a much wider base of support across the city than he began with, and much broader than former frontrunners Leland Yee and David Chiu, who outspent him 3-1. He won the Castro, placed third in Chinatown (ahead of Yee), and actually won the election-day citywide vote. Not bad. In fact, remarkable, for a progressive Latino from a working class district in the southern part of town, running in his first citywide race.

I believe John Avalos demonstrated what can be accomplished with a new kind of progressive leadership — and suggests the elements of a new progressive coalition that can be created to win races in 2012, and again, in 2015.

It’s Monday afternoon, 1:35pm, time for our weekly Campaign Board meeting. John rushes in, after a dozen appointments already that day. The rest of us file into the ‘cave’ — the one private room in Campaign headquarters, with no windows, a makeshift wall and furniture that looks to be third-hand. The board makes the key strategy, message, and financial decisions. There are no high paid political consultants here. Most of us are, or have been, organizers. Today, we need to approve the campaign platform. Finally. We’ve decided to get people excited about our ideas, an agenda for change. We leave the meeting excited and nervous, wondering if anyone will get excited about the city creating its own Municipal Bank.

We were an unlikely crew to lead a candidate campaign — even a progressive one in San Francisco. We come from membership based community and labor organizations, and share a critique of white progressive political players and electeds who spend too few resources on building power through organizing and operate without accountability to any base. We are policy and politics nerds, but we hate traditional politics. Seventy percent of us are people of color — Black, Filipina, Latino, and Chinese. We are all women except John, the candidate, and nearly half of us are balancing politics with parenting.

The campaign board — including John himself—shared a vision for building progressive power. The campaign plan was explicit and specific about achieving outcomes that included winning room 200 but went beyond that central goal. We set out to strengthen progressive forces, to build towards the 2012 Supervisor races, and increase the capacity of the community-based progressive electoral infrastructure so we can keep building our collective power year-round, for the long-term.

We hope these victories will shape progressive strategy moving forward:

1. In just a few months, Team Avalos consolidated a new and unique progressive bloc. We brought together people and organizations who’d never worked together before — white bike riders and Latino anti-gentrification organizers, queer activists and African American advocates for Local Hire. The Avalos coalition was largely community forces: SF Rising’s base in working class Black, Latino, Filipino and Chinese communities; the Bike Coalition’s growing base of mostly white bike riders; affinity groups like Filipinos, Queers, Latinos and Arabs for Avalos; progressive Democrats; social networks of creative, young progressive activists affiliated with the League of Young Voters; and loyal families and neighborhood leaders from John’s own District 11. The campaign prioritized communicating to voters in four languages, and according to the Chinese press, John Avalos was the only non-Chinese candidate with a significant Chinese outreach program. There were stalwarts from progressive labor unions (most notably SEIU 1021 and USWW) who threw down — but overall, labor played it safe and invested resources in other guys. And then, in the great surprise development of the race, supporters of the new national occupy movement came to be a strong part of the Team Avalos base because the campaign was so well positioned to resonate with the call to take on the one percent.

2) Team Avalos built popular support for key progressive ideas. We used the campaign to build popular support for a citywide progressive agenda. Instead of leading with our candidate we led with bold, distinctive issues that provided a positive alternative vision to the economic crisis: Progressive taxation, municipal banking, and corporate accountability for living wage jobs instead of corporate tax breaks. By the end of the campaign, at least three other candidates came to support the creation of a city-owned bank, and the idea had enough traction that even the San Francisco Business Times was forced to take a position against it.

3) Team Avalos built the electoral capacity of grassroots organizations whose members have the most at stake if progressives gain or lose power in SF: poor and working-class communities of color. We developed the electoral organizing skills of a large new cohort of grassroots leaders and organizers of color with no previous leadership experience in a candidate campaign. They are ready for the next election.

For the last few months, I had the privilege of working with an unusual but extraordinary Avalos campaign team, who were exactly the right people for the right moment in history, to lead a long shot campaign to an unlikely, remarkable and inspiring outcome. Let’s build on these gains. In the coming weeks and months, we must be thorough in our analysis of this election, engage and expand the Avalos coalition base, and build unity around one or more collective demands of Mayor Lee from the left. And in time, we will have a progressive voting majority and a governing bloc in City Hall. We will win, with the mass base necessary to defend gains, hold our own electeds accountable, and truly take on the city’s one percent.

NTanya Lee was the Executive Director of Coleman Advocates for Children & Youth, and served as a volunteer chair of the Avalos for Mayor campaign board. You can find her now at USF or working on her new project about a long-term vision for left governance called Project 2040.

 

Onek supporters rally ’round

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A small crowd of District Attorney Candidate David Onek’s most passionate supporters gravitated to the Pilsner Inn to celebrate the end of an energized campaign.

“The last four days of an election are complete chaos,” said one volunteer. “It’s exciting but I’m exhausted.”


San Francisco political icon Jane Morrison and school board candidate Sandra Fewer came to show their support as well as Onek’s father, Joe, who traveled from Washington D.C. to help with Onek’s campaign.

Onek stopped in briefly to thank his supporters and volunteers before returning to an undisclosed location to monitor the polls as they come in through the night.

“We’re looking forward to the next round of results, but I’m really just incredibly proud of all my supporters and every one else [from all] over the city who came by,” said David Onek after shaking hands with his supporters and expressing thanks to his campaign volunteers. “..We feel great and we’re about to head out and await the next results and we’ll go from there.”

Mirkarimi likes where it’s going

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At the Carnelian by the Bay behind the Ferry Building, District 5 supervisor Ross Mirkarimi seemed like a guy who didn’t want to speak too soon.

But the cheers and hugs from supporters  — and the smile spreading across his face — reflected polling results so far.Mirkarimi was ahead by 10 points.

“This isn’t over yet,” he said. “But I like where it’s going.”

Sen. Mark leno was more direct, saying, “I think you are the next sheriff of San Francisco.”

Adachi, smiles, frets about Prop C

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By Shawn Gaynor

A montage of campaign pictures projected on the wall of the packed Harbor Court Hotel ballroom (totally fancy, good desert) show a man who wears a smile with a natural, genuine ease. Mayoral candidate Jeff Adachi arrives with that smile and looks up, reflecting on the photos for a moment before his supporters notice he has entered. Suddenly, a cheer goes up.


“We’re still in it, we have to be patient,” Adachi announces to about 200 supporters.

Adachi is concerned, though at the apparent passage of Prop C pension reform, saying this means $400 million more in SF budget woes.

“It’s just pushing the issue down the road,” says Adachi who worries that the voters’ choice will put additional pressure on the city’s social safety network.

Adachi encouraged his supporters to go out and “do the right thing and make change happen.”

“If you look at everything we’ve done together, it was honest and from the heart and real — and that’s what I’m proud of.”

Chris Cunnie draws big supporters

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Chris Cunnie’s event at the Delancey Street Foundation was packed early with top pub safety officials — San Francisco police chief Greg Suhr, San Francisco Firefighters Union president John Hanley, San Francisco Police Officers Association president Gary Delagnes.

Cunnie was greeted with applause when he arrived, saying “We’re going to win tonight — stick with me.” Numbers suggest he’s currently not leading, but the air of “It’s not over” is palpable.

Suhr told the Guardian, “I can’t tell you how much I’m hoping I get to work with Chris.”

California Attorney General Kamala Harris said, “The night is early and we’re in it for the long haul.”

Upstairs, former police chief turned district attorney gascon is also having an event. He’s bearing much better in the polls: supporters, clustered around a TV, cheered when early returns came back putting him at 48 percent with one percent of precincts reporting. 

Sharmin Bock gets jazzed up

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The first DA numbers have just come in: Gason 48%, Bock 21%, Onek 15%. But so far a smoking little jazz trio downstairs is about the only real excitement at DA candidate Sharmin Bock’s campaign party at Yoshi’s on Fillmore. No big reaction yet, and the candidate isn’t expected to arrive until 9:30.

Yet campaign coordinator Kimberly Walz Abando tells me there’s been a lot of energy in the Bock campaign. It even reminds her a little of Chicago, where she worked on Mayor Rahm Emmanuel’s last campaign before moving to San Francisco.

Rough-and-tumble Chicago is a very different place, she said, “but what’s the same is you get a lot of passionate volunteers who believe in the candidate and will work 15 hour days.”
She also has a policy background and liked how Bock raised big issues: “She was able to bring forward the issue of unsolved murders and rapes.”

Survey shows Lee aligned with tenant advocates only half the time

The results of a mayoral candidates’ survey created by the Council of Community Housing Organizations (CCHO) offered some surprises. Based on candidates’ responses, venture capitalist Joanna Rees, one of the more conservative contenders, came across as a stronger advocate for affordable housing and tenants’ rights than interim Mayor Ed Lee, who previously defended tenants as an attorney with the Asian Law Caucus.

The survey posed 25 yes-or-no questions to mayoral hopefuls, formulated by CCHO, the San Francisco Tenants Union, and the Housing Rights Committee. A “Yes” answer meant the candidate was aligned with the housing advocates’ standpoint, a “No” response was frowned upon as contrary to advocates’ housing agenda, and a “?” signified the response, “I’ll consider it.”

All told, Lee responded “No” to six questions, “I’ll consider it” to seven questions, and “Yes” to 12 questions, demonstrating consistency with the housing advocates’ agenda about half the time. Rees, on the other hand, responded “No” to three questions, and “Yes” to every other question.

Other respondents included Public Defender Jeff Adachi, Sup. John Avalos, green party candidate Terry Joan Baum, Board President David Chiu, former Sup. Bevan Dufty, City Attorney Dennis Herrera, and Sen. Leland Yee.

Candidates who answered in the affirmative to every survey question were Avalos, Baum, and Yee. Dufty responded “No” to eight questions, and “I’ll consider it” to one. Chiu responded “Yes” to most questions and “I’ll consider it” to four questions, though there was some confusion as his response wasn’t listed every time.

There you have a summary of the scorecards. So what were the questions?

Every single candidate answered “Yes” to this one: “To make up for the huge State and Federal cutbacks in affordable housing funding, will you commit to placing a dedicated affordable housing funding measure on the November 2012 ballot of at least $100 million?”

So no matter who’s elected, housing advocates will have an opportunity to advance this idea.

Among the more divisive issues was the question of reforming condo conversion laws to regulate tenancies-in-common conversions, in order to stem depletion of affordable housing stock. Lee, Rees, and Dufty responded that they would not seek such reforms; Yee, Avalos, Adachi, and Baum said they would. Herrera declined to answer.

Candidates were also divided on whether the San Francisco Rent Board, which mitigates disputes between tenants and landlords, ought to be reformed to “increase tenant representation and balance appointments between the Mayor and Board of Supervisors?” Yee, Lee, Dufty, and Adachi rejected that idea.

And Lee stood alone in answering “no” to this question: “Will you enforce a balance between market-rate housing and affordable housing that fulfills the City’s adopted housing goals, even if such a linkage slows down the overproduction of luxury condos until a minimum level of affordable and middle income housing catches up?”

All others said they would, except Chiu, who said, “I’ll consider it.”

View the full results of the survey here.

Stealing an election — and more

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news@sfbg.com

OPINION The emergence of apparent voter fraud that mars San Francisco’s mayoral election rightly resulted in calls for a federal investigation and federal monitors. It’s not the political interests of rival candidates that are at issue. It is the consequences of a dishonest election process for our city and its future.

Almost exactly 20 years ago, the McArthur Foundation, home of the genius awards, recognized the Democracy Index for showing the connection between voter participation and election and campaign reforms. The group found that the greater the transparency in political contributions, the stronger the protections against pay-to-play politics, and the greater protection against voter fraud, the higher voter participation climbed.

Today it doesn’t take a genius to recognize that sleazy tactics, end-runs around campaign rules, and dubious voting schemes do as good a job suppressing voter interest as the Republicans did in Florida in the 2000 election victory of George W. Bush, or poll taxes did in the past.

In this year’s mayoral election, we appear to be headed toward the bottom of a slippery slope. Campaigns hungry for advantage aren’t slow to recognize loopholes; soon a loophole becomes a strategy. What follows then is to push the envelope over the line. A candidate’s honorable intentions too quickly fall prey to the politics of convenience.

This year, with an interim mayor pledged not to run for election and thus avoid the entanglements of political self-interest, the expectation was raised high.

“My goal is to restore the trust in the mayor’s office of the past,” Mayor Ed Lee said in an interview just two weeks after assuming office.

In the ensuing months, Lee’s posture changed. He would be no better than the minimum standard required in the law, he said in his interview with the San Francisco Examiner.

He would not release the names of his finance committee, he claimed that a Run Ed Run effort was blameless after the Ethics Commission found a loophole that left them outside the city’s campaign laws, he complained that keeping track of contractor contributions was burdensome paperwork that he should be spared, and he maintained a close relationship with the leaders of independent expenditure committees while insisting he knew nothing of their activities.

When new tools can provide citizens with near instant access to everything from when the next bus comes to restaurant inspection scores, Lee’s campaign is supported by efforts that are deliberately opaque, designed to misinform if not to mislead.

Clearly this is not a mayor trying to leave the city, or its political process, better than he found it.

A 2011 mayoral victory under fraudulent terms would make everyone a loser, regardless of candidate preference.

It’s not just an election that might be “stolen” by unethical or illegal manipulation.

We would be defrauded of what we are entitled to have: the chance for all of us to forge a better future for the city without our optimism shattered by dishonest, unethical practices. That should not be sacrificed for anyone’s political advantage…

Larry Bush publishes citireport, a journal of politics and money

 

Lee under fire over voter fraud accusations (VIDEO)

    Just over two weeks before election day, allegations of voter fraud carried out by agents of an independent expenditure committee created on behalf of Mayor Ed Lee threw a curveball into the San Francisco mayor’s race. Lee has been the clear front runner for months.

    Volunteers for Sen. Leland Yee, a mayoral candidate, accused Lee supporters working on behalf of the San Francisco Neighbor’s Alliance in Chinatown of marking ballots for San Francisco voters, guiding ballot selections with stencils, and collecting ballots in a bag, in apparent violation of election law. Videos of a voting station where the activity occurred were shot by Yee volunteers and aired on major media outlets.

    An onslaught of questions about these accusations were directed at Lee at a campaign event Oct. 24, in which Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, the former San Francisco mayor, announced his endorsement for Lee’s candidacy. Lee sought to distance himself from the independent expenditure committee in question, saying his own campaign has kept things clean. The mayor said he supported his rivals’ calls for investigation into any “fishy business,” and supported the idea of bringing in federal election monitors.

    Here’s a video of Lee getting the third degree from reporters at the press event, which was held in the office of a SoMa-based tech company called BranchOut.

Video by Rebecca Bowe

The case against C and D

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By Brenda Barros, Riva Enteen, Joe Jacskon, Renee Saucedo, Dave Welsh, David H. Williams and Claire Zvanski

OPINION The Guardian started out right on Proposition C and D:

“Our initial instinct was to oppose both of these measures… There’s a basic unfairness about all of this that bothers us … city workers are being asked to give up part of their pay — but the wealthiest individuals and big corporations in San Francisco are giving up nothing. It’s part of the national trend — the poor and middle class are shouldering the entire burden of the economic crisis, and the rich aren’t suffering a bit.”

It’s too bad that the Guardian editors didn’t stick to their guns.

We all know why decent pensions and health care cost so much: corporate greed. And the identity of the corporate criminals who are driving the economy into the ground is no secret. It’s the Wall Street banks and financial speculators. It’s Bank of America and Wells Fargo. It’s the corporate CEOs. It’s the insurance companies.

All workers, whether they work for the city or not, have a right to affordable medical care and a decent retirement.

Take Ethel, who retired 10 years ago after working for the city for more than 20 years and collects a pension of only $17,000 a year. Both Prop C and Prop D would take money out of her check. Some city workers qualify for section 8 housing — Prop C and D would take money out of their paychecks too.

None of this is rocket science. But the corporate media pounds away daily at public employees and ignores the shenanigans of their buddies in the corporate boardrooms. And far too many fall for this bait and switch, or are just too confused to stand up and fight back.

Now, with Propositions C and D, the downtown bigwigs and their lapdog politicians are taking advantage of this confusion to sock it to the victims, and make workers pay for the party the rich have been having at our expense.

Unfortunately, there are those among us who think we should concede many of our hard-fought rights in order to appear reasonable and fend off future attacks.

Making these kinds of concessions is like putting a little blood in the water, and hoping that the corporate sharks will be satisfied. But the reality is that when sharks taste blood, they just get hungry for more.

The editors of the San Francisco Chronicle, the mouthpiece for Wall Street and its minions, said pretty much the same thing in a recent editorial:

“San Franciscans should have no illusions,” wrote the Chronicle editors. “Props C and D offer only modest down payments on the reforms [sic] that must be pursued… The very fact that business and labor leaders are supporting Prop C… sets the stage for… further reforms [sic] that will almost certainly be needed…”

Of course the “reforms” that the Chronicle is demanding are just more attacks on workers’ rights. That’s why many political leaders, including former Supervisor Chris Daly and Ted Gullicksen of the Tenants Union — opposed both Propositions C and D.

Enough is enough. Let’s take heart from the Occupy Wall Street movement. After decades of Reaganomics, Bushonomics, and Democratonomics, it is high time to draw the line, stand up to Wall Street, and fight back.

Join former Supervisor Chris Daly and Tenant’s Union leader Ted Gullicksen, and: Vote NO on C! Vote NO on D! Tax the Rich! 

Brenda Barros is vice-chair, Social Economic Committee, SEIU 1021. Riva Enteen is a member of SEIU 1021. Joe Jackson is co-chair of the S.F. African American Employee Association. Renee Saucedo is a member of SEIU 1021. Dave Welsh is a delegate to the S.F. Labor Council. David H. Williams and Claire Zvanski are retiree members of SEIU 1021.

Lee under pressure for contract disclosure law violations

By Lisa Carmack

Mayor Ed Lee has allegedly failed to file 67 reports detailing contracts worth $50,000 or more with the San Francisco Ethics Commission.

Lee has come under attack by fellow candidate City Attorney Dennis Herrera, who claimed that he has “repeatedly delayed filing his required disclosure forms.”

“I’m not aware of specific delays yet, but any time we get a notice and our campaign is reviewed, everything we’re supposed to file as far as I know, we’re in compliance,” Lee said when asked about the claims.

According to city law, any elected official who approves contracts worth $50,000 or more is required to file a report within five days of approval. The requirement serves as a safeguard against illegal campaign contributions, since the city’s Campaign Finance Reform Ordinance bars officials from receiving contributions from vendors within six months of contract approval.

“It just came to my attention today,” said the executive director of Ethics Commission John St. Croix. “We’re gonna have to talk to him and his folks about why these reports have been excessively late.”

On Oct. 5, Herrera publicized records listing each time Lee failed to comply with the ordinance since becoming interim mayor in January of this year.

Whether or not punitive actions will be taken is up to the Ethics Commission. “In this case we have to investigate first,” said St. Croix, adding that while the agency would look into the matter, he could neither confirm nor deny the existence of an official investigation. “I’m not aware of any other entity that files late on a routine basis.”

City contractors plunk down for Lee

Representatives from Stellar Services, an IT infrastructure services provider that also does business as 4 U Services, contributed a total of $7,500 in support of Mayor Ed Lee’s bid for a full term, filings with the San Francisco Ethics Commission show. The New York-based company holds a contract with the San Francisco Public Utilities commission (SFPUC) and has been paid $91,737.80 to date for programming and coding services.

Lee also received a maximum $500 contribution from a senior vice president at AECOM, another city contractor. While the contributions may have squared with campaign finance law, significant support from companies doing business with the city nevertheless give the impression of businesses attempting to advance their own interests through political influence.

The majority of the contributions from Stellar came in the form of a $5,000 donation from 4 U Services to the Committee for Effective City Management, an independent expenditure committee created in support of Lee that recently hosted a Lee fundraiser in Millbrae honoring special guests Sup. Jane Kim and former Mayor Willie Brown.

4 U, according to its website, also does business as Stellar Services, a company based in New York that has an office in San Francisco. “Stellar is currently a sub-consultant that is working to develop our new online invoicing system called SOLIS,” SFPUC spokesperson Tyrone Jue told the Guardian. “The invoicing system centralizes and streamlines the invoicing process, makes invoicing transaction transparent to all users, increases reporting and transparency, and makes invoicing completely paperless.” Jue noted that the contract was signed in July 2009, and the SOLIS pilot program is underway.

The remainder of contributions from Stellar were made to Lee’s official mayoral campaign. Five individuals who listed Stellar Services or 4 U Services as their employer, including company founder and president Liang Chen, made maximum contributions of $500, according to a report filed with the San Francisco Ethics Commission.

Shaista Shaikh of the Ethics Commission noted that it is legal for city contractors to make contributions to independent expenditure committees formed in support of a candidate for public office. City contractors run afoul of ethics law if they make campaign contributions to an elected official who must approve the contract at any time during contract negotiations or until six months have passed from the date of contract approval, she explained. Since the contract with Stellar was approved in 2009, the contribution would have been made well past the six-month mark  — so it apparently squares with the campaign finance reform ordinance.

Reached by phone, Lee spokesperson Tony Winnicker told the Guardian that if the contract was approved in 2009, it would not be included in a database of city contractors maintained by the campaign, since “there’s no prohibition” against accepting campaign money after the six-month ban has passed. “So that should not be a concern to the Guardian,” he said.

On Sept. 17, Lee received a maximum $500 contribution from Joseph G. Moss, Jr., who listed his occupation as a senior vice president of AECOM in Atlanta, according to an Ethics filing. Lee received another $875 in contributions from AECOM employees, Ethics records show. According a press release on the AECOM website which seems to have been taken down since the Guardian highlighted it, an AECOM joint venture was awarded a $150 million contract for program management services for the SFPUC’s wastewater improvement program on Aug. 16. AECOM is also a partner in a joint venture working on construction of the controversial Central Subway project.   

Since the contractor contribution ban (Section 1.126 of the city’s campaign finance reform ordinance) sets a number of parameters for determining the legality of contributions, it wasn’t immediately clear whether the contributions from AECOM were in line with the ordinance.

Regardless of whether the campaign cash falls on the right side of the law, however, substantial support for Lee from city contractors is likely to raise eyebrows, especially in light of concerns progressives have raised that San Francisco is about to witness a resurgence of the pay-to-play politics that characterized City Hall under Brown.

A case for Avalos, Yee and Dufty

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OPINION Like all of us, SEIU 1021 can take three dates to the prom when it comes to voting for mayor, but narrowing it down in a field of so many candidates was still challenging. After a month-long process, we arrived at a dual endorsement of Supervisor John Avalos and State Senator Leland Yee for first and second choice, and Supervisor Bevan Dufty for our third choice.

It’s a diverse slate, and the choices are representative of the constituencies, perspectives and priorities in our membership.

Yee’s record on labor issues in Sacramento has been impeccable, and he has long been a staunch supporter of our union, so endorsing him was a no-brainer. The Guardian asked me personally, as I am also a transgender activist, how I could support Leland after his vote against transgender health benefits. Frankly, I was disappointed in how my response was framed.

Leland approached transgender activists a number of years ago and apologized for his vote. Instead of denying or rationalizing like other politicians might do, he had the courage to come to a community meeting of transgender activists, stand in front of us, admit he was wrong, and apologize. For people to continue to attack an individual for having a true change of heart is very discouraging. We would never make any advancement of our rights if we continued to shun those who have come to understand and support the transgender fight for equality. In fact, Yee’s support was critical to the collective effort to save Lyon-Martin, a clinic that is a key service provider for trans folks, after it almost closed earlier this year.

That’s why so many in the transgender community now support Yee so strongly and why he has become an even closer, tested ally through this experience.

SEIU 1021 has always had a very close relationship with John Avalos. Avalos has been a steadfast supporter of crucial social and health- care services, and has been a leader in creating needed progressive revenue measures. But most importantly, John understands how essential jobs are for lifting people out of poverty and stimulating the local economy for everyone in San Francisco.

Last year, he introduced a Local Hire ordinance that is becoming a real jobs generator in our city and a national model. Like many of our members when they first started working for the city, workers hired under the Local Hire ordinance may for the first time have a living-wage job with benefits.

And while some in labor have been critical of this legislation — in fact, it cost him the endorsement of the San Francisco Labor Council — that’s a short-sighted criticism.

As more people are employed in San Francisco with living wage jobs, they spend money in San Francisco, boosting tax revenues and in turn creating more jobs across the city. Moreover, this visionary legislation has other benefits — workers coming from low-income communities bring a new found pride in and community spirit to what could be otherwise economically depressed areas. That’s why SEIU 1021 supports Avalos, and why I am proud to endorse him as well.

Rounding out SEIU’s endorsements in this campaign is former Supervisor Bevan Dufty. Dufty has a history of supporting preserving city services. Some have argued that Dufty can’t handle downtown pressure, and yet, Dufty has consistently supported public power, took a stance against Sit-Lie despite intense pressure, and several years ago, at a critical juncture for Tom Ammiano’s signature health care legislation, Healthy San Francisco, he didn’t blink when we called on him to be our 8th vote. In fact, he committed to the bill, unequivocally, and called on other supervisors, like Fiona Ma, to say it was time. She immediately co-sponsored and eventually it was a unanimous 11-0 vote.

For labor and progressives, Ammiano’s Healthy San Francisco legislation was the single most important piece of legislation of the last decade. And while history has been rewritten, and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom now takes credit for the legislation, then-Mayor Newsom did not come on board until after Dufty declared his support, and as the 8th supporter, created a veto-proof majority.

Each of these candidates have shown their capacity to grow and transform as leaders making them the best choices for progressive labor, and we believe for the San Francisco. Whatever you do, you have three votes, make them count. 

Gabriel Haaland is a transgender labor activist and the SEIU 1021 San Francisco political coordinator.

 

Deep-pocketed Lee supporter aims to take back S.F. from progressives

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Power brokers Willie Brown and Rose Pak aren’t nearly the only influential backers working behind the scenes to help elect Mayor Ed Lee to a full term. Three different committees have been set up to support his candidacy and are fundraising independently from his official campaign, according to Ethics Commission filings.

The principal officer and treasurer of one of these independent expenditure committees are, respectively, a Republican Silicon Valley tech investor who’s spoken publicly about taking San Francisco back from progressives, and a political attorney who worked on Pacific Gas & Electric Co.’s failed yet stunningly expensive Proposition 16 campaign.

“San Franciscans for Jobs and Good Government, Supporting Ed Lee for Mayor 2011,” was created in late August with a San Rafael address, according to an Ethics filing. Its principal officer is Ron Conway, a Silicon Valley angel investor who made his fortune in the tech industry. Conway was quoted in a San Francisco Business Times article last year as saying “we must take our city back” from progressives, a rallying cry he delivered at a dinner hosted by the the Bay Area Council, a business association. A book written about Conway by Gary Rivlin dubs him “The Godfather of Silicon Valley.”

According to campaign finance records, Conway, a registered Republican, has donated more than $320,000 to Republican state and federal candidates since 1999. He also contributed $1,000 to a Draft Ed Lee for Mayor committee, a separate effort from Progress for All which was formed before Lee announced his candidacy to encourage him to run. Conway has made substantial contributions to Democratic hopefuls, too, but the majority of his campaign donations over the last decade have benefited GOP candidates.

The treasurer of “San Franciscans for Jobs and Good Government” is Elli Abdoli, a political attorney who works in the San Rafael office of Nielsen Merksamer Parrinello Mueller & Naylor, a heavyweight political firm based in Sacramento whose services were tapped last year by PG&E to advance the Proposition 16 ballot initiative that the company bankrolled. Prop 16 was designed to crush municipal power programs that threatened to compete with PG&E by requiring a supermajority approval of the voters before they could move forward. Despite sinking more than $45 million into that campaign, voters rejected Prop. 16.

Abdoli served as the assistant treasurer for the Yes on 16 committee, according to a form filed with the Fair Political Practices Commission. She was listed as a contact for the “San Franciscans for Jobs and Good Government” committee and had not returned calls by press time.