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About pragmatism

Zelda Bronstein
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8
About pragmatism

I want to say a word about pragmatism, about Sup. David Chiu’s contention that “we were voted into office to get things done.” 


I’ll all for pragmatism. I’ve even for compromise sometimes. And I’m certainly in favor of getting things done. But just for a moment, I want to take a step back and remember what Chris Daly (who was actually quite good at getting things done) said during his final board meeting:


“I’ve seen go along to get along. If you want to do more than that, if you think there’s a fundamental problem with the way things are in this world, then go along to get along doesn’t do it.”


Daly’s tactics weren’t always terribly helpful. And working with people who don’t always agree with you doesn’t necessarily mean “going along to get along.” But I share Daly’s basic premise: There are fundamental problemws with the way things are in this city, and “getting things done” has to be about changing the situation. It’s not enough to keep the lights on and the cogs spinning; the city under Mayor Newsom went in the wrong direction, and the new administration has to take a new path.


Civility is good, as far as it goes. Reaching across the aisle and forming a progressive-centrist alliance, as Paul Hogarth suggests, can be useful. But President Obama quickly learned the dangers of an obesssion with bipartisanship, and while we all try to work together, we have to remember: The financial interests that supported Newsom and the conservatives on the Board of Supervisors don’t want to compromise on the big issues. They don’t want substantive change. They want to win, on their terms. And sometimes you just have to fight back.


So the question for 2011 is this: How much is David Chiu a fighter who is willing to use his substantial political capital to push for a progressive agenda? At what point will he say, gee, love working with all of you but some things are right and some things are wrong and there really are two opposing visions of this city and only one of them can win?


I remain the optimist, as always. But naming Carmen Chu, who is strongly opposed to taxes and is one of the most fiscally conservative members of the board, as Budget Committe chair, is enough to make me nervous. 

Ed Lee is San Francisco’s interim mayor

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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4

After a unanimous vote by San Francisco’s newly installed Board of Supervisors on Jan. 11, City Administrator Edwin M. Lee was sworn in as interim mayor of San Francisco. The swearing-in was regal affair staged in the rotunda of City Hall. A host of prominent political figures, including Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, congregated to witness the changing of the guard.

Former Mayor Willie Brown served as master of ceremonies, standing behind a podium on the grand staircase with members the newly elected board to his right and former Mayor Gavin Newsom and Mayor-elect Ed Lee to his left.

Newsom offered advice to Lee on how to govern the city, saying, “Figure out what it is you want to accomplish, and work backward from there.”

Rose Pak, the powerful head of the Chinatown Chamber of Commerce, was seated near the front row for a close-up view of the ceremony. Speaking to the historic nature of the first Asian American holding the office of mayor in San Francisco, Lee singled out Pak, whom he called his good friend, saying, “Today, Rose, our struggle is here, and it’s succeeding.”

Newly anointed as mayor, Lee expressed gratitude to Brown, Newsom, Pak, and the members of the Board of Supervisors who supported him.

He also noted that several weeks ago, he hadn’t even anticipated such a momentous change. “It’s been a whirlwind for me,” he said.

Lee promised to be “a mayor who tackles things head on, and moves the bar forward.” He also vowed to be inclusive – and if he is true to his word, it will mark a dramatic difference from Newsom’s administration, which tended to exclude anyone who disagreed with the mayor.

“I want to say to all of you: I will do my very best to represent all the communities,” Lee said. “I’m going to open up that Room 200 to everybody.”

Following the swearing-in was a reception featuring tables piled high with sushi, gourmet finger foods, and fancy cheese, plus a bar serving wine and beer. Several observers remarked to the Guardian that they had never seen such a feast offered up to the public at City Hall.

How Jerry can save $125 million a year

Zelda Bronstein
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0
How Jerry can save $125 million a year

Here’s an excellent point from Julia Rosen at Calitics: While Jerry Brown is scrambling around saving a few million here and a few million there (not that I’m against cutting back on state cell phones), the state could save far, far more just by abolishing the death penalty. That’s a lot of money. The Illinois legislature just voted to end the death penalty, in large part because the strapped state can’t afford the inordinate expense of killing people. I personally think the death penalty is ghastly, and I’m horrified that our new district attorney is willing even to consider it, but even if you don’t have moral or societal qualms about executions, you have to admit it’s a horrible waste of money. The number one cause of death on California’s Death Row is old age. Life without parole works just as well. 

John Ross is dying

Zelda Bronstein
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7
John Ross is dying

My friend John Ross — investigative poet, reporter, internationational shit disturber and reluctant honoree of the City and County of San Francisco is dying. His constant friend and supporter Elizabeth Bell let me know that he’s very weak: “John Ross and his cancerous liver are fading fast on the shores of Lake Patzcuaro,” where he has gone from Mexico City to retire. There’s a story about him in La Journada, if you read Spanish.

John never liked to sugarcoat things, so I’m not going to say that we all hope for a recovery; as he told me a month ago, we’re pretty close to the end here. He lived an amazing life, and of course, has no regrets.

I’ll bring you more info when I have it. Meanwhile, tune in to KPOO Jan 13 at 6 pm; Chelis Lopez will devote most of her show to his work. You can read John’s recent contributions to the Guardian here.

Judge Kopp to run for D.A.?

Zelda Bronstein
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11
Judge Kopp to run for D.A.?

Yep: Quentin Kopp, the 82-year-old former supervisor, former state Senator, retired Superior Court judge and political fixture in this city for four decades, is being talked about as a potential challenger to the new district attorney, George Gascon.


I just talked to Kopp, and he confirmed that a lot of people have approached him about running in November, and while he’s not a candidate at this point, he hasn’t ruled it out. “If I do run — and I have to think about the rigors of a campaign — I would run on a platform of using the district attorney’s office to root out political corruption,” he said.


Kopp has always been fairly conservative on law-and-order issues and is a supporter of the death penalty. His political base has always been on the West side of town. But in a typically untraditional fashion, Kopp has become a bit more liberal in his later years — and has always been a strong supporter of open government and a foe of political sleaze.


And he seems to be in good health and certainly hasn’t lost his political vigor. (And, he reminds me, the legendary DA of New York, Robert Morgenthau, served past his 90th birthday.) So Kopp would be a formidable candidate in what’s shaping up to be a fairly large field.


Never a dull moment in this town.

Tucson, the rabid right and gun control

Zelda Bronstein
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4
Tucson, the rabid right and gun control

In today’s episode, we talk about the Tucson shootings, how the right wing has inflamed violence — and whether America needs more impulse control or more gun control Listen to Tim and johnny mix it up (guess who favors gun control?) after the jump.

sfbgradio1102010 by endorsements2010

What progressive means

Zelda Bronstein
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85
What progressive means

Willie Brown says that choosing a person of color for a leadership position should be a “progressive” value. David Chiu says Ed Lee is a progressive. Several supervisors, and other political observers, say the six-vote progressive majority on the board is gone.

And nobody really talks about what that word means.

Progressive is a term with an excellent political vintage, but it’s changed (as has the political context) since the 1920s. (Progressives these days aren’t into prohibition.) So I’m going to take a few minutes to try to sort this out.

I used to tell John Burton that a progressive was a liberal who didn’t like real estate developers, but that was in the 1980s, when the Democratic Party in town was funded by Walter Shorenstein and other developers, who were happy to be part of the party of Dianne Feinstein, happy to be liberals on some social issues (Shorenstein insisted that the Chamber of Commerce hire and promote more women) and happy to promote liberal candidates like John and his brother Phil for national office – as long as they didn’t mess with the gargantuan money machine that was highrise office development in San Francisco.
Arguing that Shorenstein’s economic agenda was driving up housing prices, destroying low-income neighborhoods and displacing tenants was a waste of time; the liberals like Burton (who also represented real estate developers as a private attorney) weren’t interested.

But these days it’s not all about real estate; it’s about the fact that the level of economic inequality in the United States has risen to levels unseen since the late 1920s, and the impacts are all around us. And it’s about (Democratic) politicians in San Francisco blaming Sacramento, and (Democratic) politicians in Sacramento blaming Washington, and the Democratic Party in the United States abandoning economic equality as a guiding principle.

So I sat down on a Saturday night when the kids went to be (yeah, this is my social life) and made a list of what I think represent the core values of a modern American progressive. It’s a short list, and I’m sure there’s stuff I’ve left off, but it seems like a place to start.

For all the people who are going to blast me in the comments, let me say very clearly: This isn’t a litmus-test list (we’ve endorsed plenty of people who don’t agree with everything on it). It’s not a purity test, it’s not a dogma, it’s not the rules of entry into any political party … it’s just a definition. My personal definition.

Because words don’t mean anything if they don’t mean anything, and progressive has become so much of a part of the San Francisco political dialogue that it’s starting to mean nothing.
For the record: When I use the word “progressive,” I’m talking about people who believe:

1. That civil rights and civil liberties need to be protected for everyone, even the most unpopular people in the world. We’re for same-sex marriage, of course, and for Sanctuary City and protections for immigrants who may not have documentation. We’re also in favor of basic rights for prisoners, we’re against the death penalty, and we think that even suspected terrorists should have the right to due process of law.

2. That essential public services – water, electricity, health care, broadband – should be controlled by the public and not by private corporations. That means public power and single-payer government run health insurance.

3. That the most central problem facing the city, the state and the nation today is the dramatic upward shift of wealth and income and the resulting economic inequality. We believe that government at every level – including local government, right here in San Francisco – should do everything possible to reduce that inequality; that means taxing high incomes, redistributing wealth and using that money for public services (education, for example) that tend to help people achieve a stable middle-class lifestyle. We believe that San Francisco is a rich city, with a lot of rich people, and that if the state and federal government won’t try to tax them to pay for local services, the city should.

4. That private money has no place in elections or public policy. We support a total ban on private campaign contributions, for both politicians and ballot measures, and support public financing for all elections.

5. That the right to private property needs to be tempered by the needs of society. That means you can’t just put up a highrise building anywhere you want in San Francisco, of course, but it also means that the rights of tenants to have stable places for themselves and their families to live is more important than the rights of landlords to maximize return on their property. That’s why we support strict environmental protections, even when they hurt private interests, and why be believe in rent control, including rent control on vacant property, and eviction protections and restrictions on condo conversions. We think community matters more than wealth and that poor people have a place in San Francisco too — and if the wealthier classes have to have less so that the city can have socio-economic diversity, that’s a small price to pay. We believe that public space belongs to the public, and shouldn’t be handed over to private interests; we believe that everyone, including homeless people, has the right to use public space.

6. That there are almost no circumstances where the government should do anything in secret.

7. That progressive elected officials should use their resources and political capital to help elect other progressives – and should recognize that sometimes the movement is more important that their own personal ambitions.

I could add a lot more, but I think those six factors are at the heart of what I mean when I talk about progressives. We support a lot of other things; I put the right of workers to unionize under Number 3, since unions (along with public schools and subsidized higher education) are one of the major forces behind a stable middle class and a more equal society. We think racism and homophobia are never acceptable, and we support affirmative action, but that goes under Number 1.

This is not a socialist manifesto; I never mentioned worker control of the means of production. Progressives don’t oppose private enterprise; they just think that some things essential for the good of society don’t belong in the private sector, and that the private sector should be regulated for the good of all of us. We trust and support small businesses much more than big corporations – and we think their interests are not the same.

I don’t know if Ed Lee fits my definition of a progressive. We won’t know until we see his budget plans, and learn whether he thinks the city should follow Gavin Newsom’s approach of avoiding tax increases and simply cutting services again. We won’t know until he decides what the tell the new police chief about enforcing the sit-lie law. We won’t know until we see whether he keeps Newsom’s staff in place or brings in some senior people with progressive values. We know that the people who pushed him to take the job aren’t progressives by any definition, but you never know. I agree that having an Asian mayor in San Francisco is a very big deal, an historic moment — and when Lee takes office, I will be waiting, and hoping, to be surprised.

Chiu and pragmatism win over the new board

Sasha Cuttler
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13

Despite the re-election of David Chiu as president of the Board of Supervisors today, there was a palpable shift in the political dynamics at City Hall. “Ideology” has been deemed a dirty word by a majority of the Board of Supervisors, while the politics of identity and “getting things done” is the new imperative.
That shift was most evident in the 8-3 vote for Chiu, with progressive Sups. John Avalos, David Campos, and Ross Mirkarimi supporting Avalos for the post through two rounds of voting. Chiu won it on the second round after fiscal conservative Sup. Sean Elsbernd withdrew his nomination, with he and his other three backers – Sups. Carmen Chu, Scott Wiener, and Mark Farrell – all supporting Chiu in the second round.
“This year represents a changing of the guard, a transition,” Chiu told us, noting the departure of both Mayor Gavin Newsom and supervisors that include Chris Daly. “We’re going to have to get past the oppositional politics of personality.”
In place of a progressive politics based on principled positions and aggressively challenging the influence that powerful downtown interests still exert on City Hall, Chiu is advocating for more pragmatic solutions to the considerable challenges facing the city, starting with a projected budget deficit of almost $400 million.
“None of us were voted into office to take positions, we were voted into office to get things done,” Chiu said.
His approach has occasionally earned him the scorn of progressives over the last two years, particularly in Chiu’s high-profile compromises with Newsom over cuts to Muni and city programs, business tax breaks, and other issues, as Avalos noted. But as Avalos told Chiu, “Clearly today, you have been validated in your hard work.”
Chiu was backed in both rounds of voting by progressive Asian-American Sups. Jane Kim and Eric Mar, both of whom also struck pragmatic notes in their comments. But they also noted that the board’s new civility and diversity are progressive values. “I think this new board represents the evolution of the progressive movement in San Francisco,” Mar said.
Newsom has been pointedly criticizing the notion of ideology for years – apparently unaware that his anti-tax, pro-business philosophy is an ideology – and it was echoed by several supervisors, including Farrell, who said he wants “to turn City Hall into a place based on issues and ideas and not ideology.”
Now, we’re all left to wait and see what kinds of issues and ideas take root. We’ll have much more on an extraordinary week at City Hall – with a new board and new incoming Mayor-select Ed Lee – in next week’s Guardian.

Highlights of Ed Lee’s nomination

Mary Magee
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25

An awful lot went down at City Hall today: four Board members were termed out, new Board members were moving into their offices, the old Board nominated Ed Lee as interim mayor, and Gavin Newsom revealed he’ll be gone as mayor by Monday afternoon. Here in no particular order are some of the highlights:


When termed-out D6 Sup. Chris Daly suggested that Rose Pak be nominated mayor, since she apparently managed to broker the Lee deal in three short days, Pak shot back, “I would do it, only if Chris Daly would be my Chief of Staff.”


Pak told me that she persuaded Lee to take the job, over the cell phone, while he was at the airport in Hong Kong.


Pak outlined her reasons for supporting Ed Lee as mayor. “Ed Lee has devoted 35 years to San Francisco. He’s earned his stripes. He’s the most qualified, the most unifying agent, and the most talented.”


 The crowd of seniors from the Self Help for the Elderly non-profit who crammed City Hall today are a likely preview of things to come during the mayor’s race.


 Board President David Chiu’s insistence that there were no back room deals. “Shortly after Gavin Newsom was elected Lt. Governor, I said Ed Lee should be considered as a candidate,” Chiu told me. “There was never a deal.”


The strong sense that Chiu is running for mayor in November, though he hasn’t filed. Asked if he was running, Chiu said. “I’m here at the Board focused on the work.” Asked if he wasn’t running, Chiu said, “I’m here at the Board focused on the work.” (That’s not a very convincing denial, David!)


On being reminded that the Year of the Rabbit kicks off in February, Chiu added,  “Hopefully, this will be a very fortunate year for San Francisco.”


Oakland and San Francisco will both have Asian American mayors—160 years after Chinese immigrants first settled in San Francisco and 129 years after the Chinese Exclusion Act sought to prevent these immigrants from rising to the top.


The rejoicing that reportedly is going in the Asian community, right now.“Chinatown is excited,” a reporter for Sing Tao Daily told me. “Ed Lee is a low-key kinda guy. No one really knows him, but as former DPW director, he was always filling up pot holes.”


The stated hope that Lee will support Sup. Avalos local hire ordinance, which kicks in Feb. 23, implement Sup. David Campos’ due process for immigrant youth ordinance, and enforce the recommendations of the Mayor’s African American Out Migration Task Force.


The growing sense that Sup. John Avalos is a strong contender as new Board President.


Sharen Hewitt’s observation that burgeoning racial tensions between African Americans, Asian Americans and Latinos need to be addressed. Now.


Julian Davis’ observation that while the way Lee was appointed is not something San Francisco should be proud of, the fact that we now have an Asian American mayor with the almost unanimous support of the old Board is (Daly was the lone dissenter).


Newsom’s reminder that the old Board’s vote was symbolic.“Today was an extraordinary historic vote,” Newsom said. “But remember, it’s symbolic. The new Board will make the appointment.”


 Newsom’s description of Lee as a ‘recruitment” as he, too, insisted there were no backroom deals. “There were no deals, no backroom deals,” Newsom insisted. “He’s the right person at the right time.”


Newsom’s claim that this isn’t about Lee (or anyone else who’d been nominated.) “It’s not about you,” Newsom said, recreating a conversation he allegedly recently had to convince Lee, who’d just been guaranteed five more years employment as City Administrator, to become interim mayor for the rest of 2011. “You are that something more, that something better. You’re the one guy who can pull it altogether, including if disaster strikes, which is my biggest fear.”


Newsom’s relief that he only needs to prepare a 3-page budget brief. “Someone who understands so much of the process doesn’t need 20 pages,” he said.


Newsom’s claim that ideologues make terrible mayors.”If this city gets off track, plays some ideological game, it impacts the entire region,” he said. “I love that Lee is not even in the country. If he had been here, he’d probably have been convinced not to do it. Ideologues make terrible mayors, and mayors make terrible ideologues.”


Newsom’s explanation of how Lee will be able to get back his job, though the charter prohibits people who served in elected office from working for the city for at least a year.
”Hopefully, the Board will make it easy for him. Four members of the Board can put a charter amendment on the ballot. Or Lee can do it himself.”


Newsom’s revelation that he will be sworn in as Lt. Governor at 1:30 p.m, Jan. 10, and San Francisco will find out who the next District Attorney is by then.


Newsom’s claim that 2010 was an “incredible” year. “The Shipyard, Treasure Island, the America’s Cup, Doyle Drive, the Transbay Terminal. All these things are groundbreaking,” he said.


 


 

Historic mayoral vote followed a flawed process

Sasha Cuttler
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6

Ed Lee would be San Francisco’s first Chinese-American mayor right now – if Mayor Gavin Newsom wasn’t delaying his swearing in as lieutenant governor. And Lee might also have had 10 votes on the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, as he had today, if the process hadn’t involved backroom deals and moderate, lame-duck supervisors kowtowing to the outgoing mayor. In other words, this historic occasion just didn’t need to be sullied the way it was this week.
There was real jubilation at City Hall when I left there a few minutes ago, and for good reason, even though today’s vote will have to be repeated by the new board after Newsom officially resigns. “This is a historic moment for the Chinese-American community,” Board President David Chiu told a packed board chambers, calling it, “a community that has struggled, a community that has seen discrimination.”
Chiu braved the taunts of Sup. Chris Daly and some progressive activists for supporting Lee on Tuesday, steadfastly maintaining that Lee is progressive and the best candidate for this job, despite his five progressive colleagues voting for Sheriff Michael Hennessey. And Lee does have progressive roots and support, as the progressive supervisors have attested publicly.
Once the progressive supervisors were given the chance to talk to Lee – whose openness to accepting the nomination came out of nowhere, reportedly at the urging of Chinatown power broker Rose Pak and former Mayor Willie Brown – all but Daly voted to support Lee.
Yet all of them also publicly noted how the process was deeply flawed and contrary to progressive principles of openness and accountability. “I have questions about the process and how we got to this point,” Sup. John Avalos said before announcing his support for Lee based on a half-hour telephone conversation yesterday (Lee has been in China through his public consideration as interim mayor).  
Sup. David Campos said he nominated Hennessey as a compromise caretaker mayor based on the representation from Newsom that he was acceptable and after being told by Sup. Bevan Dufty that he would support Hennessey. Instead, Dufty refused to vote until calling for a recess and marching down to the Mayor’s Office on Tuesday, returning to be the swing vote for Lee.
“I’m very disappointed in the way this process has gone down,” Campos said, adding that Hennessey “did not deserve the kind of treatment he received.” Sups. Ross Mirkarimi and Eric Mar echoed the point, with Mirkarimi saying he still doesn’t understand why Dufty flipped or what happened when he went to visit the Mayor’s Office.
Through the whole hearing, Dufty – a candidate for mayor himself – didn’t say a word. At one point, he even started clearing out his desk in Board Chambers, throwing away recycled papers and filling a big envelope full of paper clips. He didn’t stick around the hallway for the celebration that he helped enable, instead going straight into his office, where I found him and asked for a reaction to his colleagues’ questioning of his motives and integrity.
“My actions speak for themselves,” was all Dufty would say.
Perhaps they do, but even Lee’s strongest supporters acknowledged that the process of picking him was flawed. “Part of the problem was Ed’s because he couldn’t make up his mind,” Rev. Norman Fong told the Guardian. “The process was bad.”
Without a public discussion or the ability of reporters or supervisors to talk to Lee, Fong acknowledged why some progressives worried that a deal had been cut to continue with Newsom’s policies and personnel. “Some people were concerned about who he’ll listen to,” Fong said, but he said, “I’ve fought with Ed Lee and I know his heart…He’ll do the right thing.”
Gordon Chin of Chinatown Community Development Center said he has worked closely with both Lee and Hennessey and both would have been good interim mayors, and he said this should not have been a partisan fight. “Who nominated Mike Hennessey as the nominee of all of progressive San Francisco?” Chin asked, noting that few progressive constituencies were consulted on the choice or offered their buy-in.
Yet he also acknowledged the unseemly way in which Lee came out of nowhere to get the nomination, with little public vetting, “If Ed was out there a week earlier, it would have been a lot better. It was a flawed process,” Chin said.
So flawed that Daly and many progressive activists are still smarting about what happened and wary of what kind of mayor Lee will be. “No more backroom deals,” queer activist and blogger Michael Petrelis repeatedly shouted at Rose Pak as she was being interviewed outside board chambers.
But Fong just shrugged and told me, “There’s backroom deals on the left too.”

Congratulations to Ed Lee

Zelda Bronstein
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5

Congratulations to Ed Lee, who, unless Gavin Newsom still refuses to leave or the next board does something terribly surprising, will be the city’s first Asian mayor. This, as Sup David Chiu pointed out, is an historic moment, a watershed event in San Francisco history. And we shouldn’t forget that.


Now Lee will face a massive challenge, starting with a terrifying city budget — and a need to reassure progressives that he can be trusted. It’s not Lee’s fault that Rose Pak and Willie Brown settled on him as their candidate — but starting from Day One, he is going to have to demonstrate independence.


I have no doubt that, true to his roots, he will be solid on sanctuary city and local hire — two major issues that the supervisors mentioned today. And on those issues, and on civil rights in general, he will be vastly better than Newsom. He won’t deport high school kids and break up families.


But I have to wonder if he’ll be true to progressive values on the city budget — because the willingness to accept that, as Chris Daly just said, something is very wrong in this country and this world, and it includes (perhaps starts with) the vast income and wealth disparities that are making our society unsustainable, and that it’s the responsibility of every official at the federal, state AND local level to try to address that problem … that’s what separates out the real progressives.


Good luck, Mayor Lee, we sincerely wish you the best, look forward to working with you and can’t wait to hear your ideas on new city revenues.

Daly’s swan song

Zelda Bronstein
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4

I’m just going to quote the way Chris Daly summed up today’s actions, because I think (beyond the vote today) it’s an important point for everyone to remember. Take it away, Chris:


“I’ve seen go along to get along. If you want to do more than that, if you think there’s a fundamental problem with the way things are in this world, then go along to get along doesn’t do it.”

It looks like Ed Lee — but will that hold tomorrow?

Zelda Bronstein
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1

Well, Campos says he’s with Ed Lee — and that means it’s over. For now, anyway. There’s a new board in place tomorrow; it’s hard to imagine that the new supes will change this vote, but they’ll have to reaffirm it.


So Mayor Ed Lee will have a tough job ahead of him — starting with the fact that there’s no question he came to office at least to some degree because of Willie Brown and Rose Pak. And that’s going to hurt his credibility. He doesn’t need to convince us that he’s no Gavin Newsom; ne needs to convince us that he’s not going to take directions from Willie Brown.  

Leno will not run for mayor

Zelda Bronstein
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1
Leno will not run for mayor

Just as the supervisors were meeting to select a successor mayor, Mark Leno called me to tell me that, after a lot of thought, he has decided he won’t be a candidate for mayor in November. He’s going to be running the state Senate Budget Committee, dealing with the worst fiscal crisis in California history, and “I just wouldn’t have the time to run a campaign.”


Leno would have brought a lot to the race, particularly as it’s shaking down now, but I certainly understand his choice.

Chinese community out in force for Lee

Zelda Bronstein
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5
Chinese community out in force for Lee

Well, Rose Pak promised a big demonstration and she’s got one: City Hall is mobbed with Ed Lee supporters pushing the supervisors to vote for the city’s first Asian mayor. Lee is still out of town, so he can’t answer questions, although he’s talked to several supervisors by phone. One said he seemed a little overwhelmed by all of this; he wasn’t even sure he wanted the job until Pak and Willie Brown talked him into it.


The revelations that the vote for Lee was a backroom deal orchestrated by Pak and Willie Brown (and from years of Brown watching, I can you this was a classic Brown move) will put Lee supporters like David Chiu and Eric Mar in a tough situation. Aaron Peskin, former supervisor, wasn’t mincing words when I talked to him jost before the meeting started:


“This is no so much about left and right, it’s about democracy and how power is transitioned,” he said. “This is disgusting, not because Ed Lee is or isn’t left or right or a progressive or a liberal. This is about the politics of power, and conservatives and moderates should be just as revolted as anyone.”


Meanwhile, my old friend Rev. Norman Fong, a leading Chinatown progressive, says he supports Ed Lee, as do a lot of progressives in the Asian communtity. I get that, and he’s a decent guy with a good history as a civil rights and housing lawyer, and he might even be a decent mayor. But this process stinks. There’s no other way to put it.

SFBG Radio: Are conservatives brain damaged?

Zelda Bronstein
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3
SFBG Radio: Are conservatives brain damaged?

Well, maybe not damaged — but Johnny talks about the new evidence that the brains of right wingers are different from those of other people. You can listen after the jump.

sfbg.com172010 by endorsements2010

City Hall’s mad political swirl

Sasha Cuttler
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1
City Hall’s mad political swirl

It was common knowledge around City Hall that Chinatown power broker Rose Pak and former Mayor Willie Brown were lurking behind the sudden emergence of Ed Lee as the pick for interim mayor, but Bay Citizen reporter Gerry Shih does an excellent job showing how it actually went down in a story that appeared in today’s New York Times.

Pak is also expected to orchestrate a big show of Chinese-American power during this afternoon’s Board of Supervisors meeting, and progressive supervisors tell the Guardian that they have been personally lobbied by Pak to get behind Lee. Some supervisors hold out the hope that Michael Hennessey might still have a shot, or that Ed Harrington might be put back in play, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Lee seems like he’ll be the guy, at least with this board.

In addition, the rumor mill is buzzing that David Chiu will declare his candidacy for mayor in the coming weeks, although other sources indicate he hasn’t made a final decision yet. And given that the new board still has to confirm the current board’s selection, don’t be too surprised if someone makes a play to name Chiu as interim mayor, but that’s a longshot.

Following right on the heels of today’s interim mayor vote will be tomorrow’s swearing in of the new board and vote on president, which Chiu would like to hold onto. But after crossing his progressive colleagues on Tuesday to support Lee over Hennessey, most progressives are expected to push for Sup. John Avalos, while fiscal conservative Sup. Sean Elsbernd is also expected to make a bid for the presidency. None appear to have six votes yet.

Despite media reports about the board’s “progressive majority,” the current political dynamics don’t really give any faction a majority, with identity politics holding heavier sway than ideology right now. So the only prediction that political watchers can make right now is that it’s going to be interesting.

Daly goes down swinging

Sasha Cuttler
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7

The League of Pissed of Voters made a Daly roast video honoring the “biggest asshole in San Francisco politics”

Between last night’s epic Chris Daly Roast and Daly’s crazy-man antics on Tuesday night, Daly is ending his 10-year tenure on the Board of Supervisors in fitting fashion: as a passionate leader of the progressive movement who has also been its – and his own – worst enemy.

A huge crowd packed The Independent to honor and make fun of Daly and other political figures, and it definitely had the feel of an alcohol-fueled progressive love-fest, right down to conservative Chronicle columnist CW Nevius taking a pie in the face after stepping off the stage for the evening’s most tedious session behind the microphone.

Well, at least it was until Daly took the mike, going on and on in often tasteless fashion and resisting efforts by his wife, Sarah Low, and others to get him to give up the spotlight. Daly just isn’t ready to leave the stage yet, despite buying and running the Buck Tavern, soon to be renamed Daly’s Dive. He’s even half seriously talking about running for mayor.

But for all of Daly’s many accomplishments – he is the most productive supervisor of his era and the most passionately progressive – his personal grudges also create problems for the movement. On Tuesday, Daly led the effort to name Sheriff Michael Hennessey as interim mayor, twisting Sup. Eric Mar’s arm to get him to come along, only to fall one vote short.

Even though Hennessey and Ed Lee are similar figures, Daly turned Board President David Chiu’s support for Lee into an act of epic ideological betrayal, aggressively menacing Chiu at the meeting and shouting at him, “I will haunt you! I will politically haunt you! It’s on like Donkey Kong.” He spoke over his colleagues as they had the floor and tried to talk, including repeatedly yelling at Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier, “You are a representative of the rich!” And when the board reconvened after a short recess, Daly remained in the audience, periodically flipping the bird to the board.

But for all Daly’s current ire toward Chiu, it should be noted that Chiu became board president two years ago because Daly led the opposition to Sup. Ross Mirkarimi becoming board president, giving Chiu far more political power than he would otherwise have. Daly has long prided himself on his good political instincts, and at times he has indeed been a masterful political tactician, but his ego sometimes gets the better of him. He’s hyper competitive and just wants to win, even when victory carries an unacceptable price.

When the new Board of Supervisors takes the oath of office at noon on Saturday, the progressive movement will lose a passionate leader in Chris Daly. But as it elects a new president and its political dynamics take shape, someone will need to take Daly’s role as the whip and conscience of the board, a role even his enemies acknowledged that he played.

“Chris, I think San Francisco is better because you served,” Sup. Sophie Maxwell said on Tuesday, gritting her teeth in praising someone who has at times scorned and belittled her. It will be interesting to see how Daly’s role is filled on the new board, and whether we can still have the passion without its pitfalls.

Chiu rejects DA job and defends his support for Lee

Sasha Cuttler
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Amid speculation that he was angling to be appointed district attorney – and questions about whether that goal influenced his support for Ed Lee to be named interim mayor – Board of Supervisors President David Chiu has issued a press release announcing that he’s withdrawing from consideration for the DA’s job.

“Right now my strong belief is that I can best serve San Francisco from City Hall. The challenges ahead of us will require a new level of collaboration between our elected leaders—many of them new to office—and all San Franciscans who care about the future of our incredibly diverse and inclusive City,” Chiu said in the prepared statement, thanking Mayor Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Kamala Harris for their consideration and for recent meetings with Chiu on the appointment.

When I spoke with Chiu yesterday afternoon, he said that he was leaning against taking the job, partly out of concern that Newsom would replace him with a fiscal conservative like Joe Alioto Jr. “I would not want to leave my seat to someone whose perspective on issues is drastically different than mine,” Chiu told me.

He also strongly emphasized that there was no connection at all between his discussion with Newsom over the DA appointment and with Chiu’s pivotal support for Lee, and Chiu said Newsom did not raise the issue during their conversations. On Tuesday, Chiu broke with his progressive colleagues to be the sixth vote in favor of Lee.

Chiu said that he has long been supportive of Lee and Chiu disagrees with the assertion that Lee is a less progressive pick than Sheriff Michael Hennessey, who had the support of five progressive supervisors. “He’s someone who has tremendous progressive roots,” Chiu said of Lee, noting that Chinese-American progressives have long considered him one of their own. “We have been working with Ed Lee for years and we know where his heart is.”

Chiu argued that Lee is experienced in a broad range of city functions and issues while Hennessey’s knowledge of city government issues is limited mainly to law enforcement. While the strong and sudden support for Lee among fiscal conservatives has been worrisome to many progressives, Chiu noted that “unfortunately, the moderates are far more disciplined than we are on the progressive side.”

“We have many competing and diverse constituencies that led us to be unable to get to consensus around one candidate,” Chiu said.

The current Board of Supervisors will convene for a final time at 3 p.m. tomorrow to vote on Lee after progressive supervisors successfully pushed for a delay in the vote on Tuesday. In addition to Chiu and the five supervisors to his ideological right, Sup. Eric Mar has announced that he will also support Lee, and Sups. John Avalos and David Campos said they are open to backing Lee after they get the chance to speak with him.

PG&E’s Nancy McFadden named Brown’s executive secretary

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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Remember when Pacific Gas & Electric Co. embarked on a $46 million political adventure called Proposition 16, the so-called Taxpayers’ Right to Vote Act, which would have rendered it nearly impossible for municipal Community Choice Aggregation electricity programs to compete with the utility giant by requiring a two-thirds majority vote for their implementation?

Remember how the initiative drew scathing criticism from state legislators, including Senate Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, who wrote in a December 2009 letter to PG&E that Prop. 16 “calls into question your company’s integrity,” and Sen. Mark Leno, who called it a “slap in the face to the legislature”?

And how even Michael Peevey, president of the California Public Utilities Commission, wrote in an op-ed in the San Jose Mercury News: “Pure and simple, Proposition 16 is a clever, brazen, buzzword-driven effort by one company to manipulate the California Constitution to protect its current monopoly.”

And how, at the end of that extraordinarily expensive campaign, PG&E lost, primarily because Prop. 16 was rejected by voters in its own service area?

Well, Governor Jerry Brown just appointed the brains behind the operation as one his executive secretaries, a position that’s akin to chief of staff.

Nancy McFadden was senior vice president of PG&E from 2005 to 2010, and she has been publicly credited with dreaming up Prop. 16. Now, she’ll serve in Brown’s administration as an executive secretary along with Jim Humes, who was chief deputy attorney general to Brown. McFadden previously served as deputy chief of staff to Vice President Al Gore, and she also served in the Schwarzenegger and Davis administrations.

Hennessey, Lee and change

Zelda Bronstein
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Hennessey, Lee and change

I’m not surprised that Randy Shaw is defending Ed Lee and arguing that either Lee or Mike Hennessey would be fine as interim mayor:


Ed Lee is not Gavin Newsom. Lee has dedicated his life to public service, spent years as a poverty lawyer, and has proved an outstanding administrator over the past two decades.


Shaw worked with Lee way back in the 1980s, when they were both young, underpaid lawyers doing housing work for some of the poorest San Franciscans. Both of them were doing crucial work that nobody else would handle; both of them were making San Francisco a better place. While I sometimes disagree with Shaw (and he seems to be all about attacking the Guardian these days) we have been close allies over the years on almost all the issues that matter. And I’m not going to attack Ed Lee or suggest that he’s forgotten his roots in immigrant rights and poverty law.


Here’s what I will say: If Ed Lee is interim mayor, you can expect very little change in Room 200. There’s a reason that Newsom wants Lee in office, and it’s not that he was a great progressive lawyer once. Newsom (and Sean Elsbernd, who nominated Lee) don’t want to see the mayor’s staff infrastructure — the people really running the city — dismantled. They don’t want any real changes in how business is done — and how the budget is addressed — from the way things worked the past seven years.


Lee hasn’t survived (and thrived) under so many different mayors by rocking the boat. He would be a cautious administrator who, I suspect, would avoid anything controversial (like tax increases on the wealthy or big cuts in the bloated Fire Department). Ed Lee is not Gavin Newsom — but his staff will be Gavin Newsom’s staff and, through the inertia that is San Francisco bureaucracy, not much will change in the next 11 months.


That’s what the conservatives on the board want, and I understand that. I don’t think Hennessey would make dramatic changes, either — the whole idea of a caretaker mayor is that the person who fills out Newsom’s term won’t try to put his own stamp on city government. (And let’s remember, Hennessey sided with Newsom on privatizing jail health services) But I think Hennessey would bring some new blood into the office and would be more likely to consider an approach to the budget that differs significantly from what Newsom has offered.


Everyone agrees that Lee is a smart, competent manager; that’s why he won unanimous approval as the City Administrator, an office that doesn’t involve major policy initiatives. So if you think things are basically okay in San Francisco, and you don’t want any major policy shifts out of the Mayor’s Office until after the next election, Ed Lee will do a fine job for you. That’s not demonizing him; that’s just explaining the reality here.


Me, I don’t think things are okay in this city at all. I’m looking for dramatic, profound, radical change in the next mayor. I’m not going to get it from either of these interim candidates, but after talking to Hennessey, I think if the supervisors pushed for a better, more progressive budget, he’d go along. I’m not so sure about Lee. And the fact that Newsom and every member of the conservative wing of the board wants Lee over Hennessey says something to me. These people aren’t fools; they don’t want any surprises. That’s why they’re making this move.


I’ve been wrong before. Hope I’m wrong this time. Maybe Mayor Ed Lee will support $250 million worth of new revenue measures, like a city income tax and a business tax overhaul that makes the biggest companies pay more. But if that was part of his agenda, I suspect Elsbernd and Newsom would have a clue — and then he wouldn’t be their choice.


 


 

Is Chiu really set to roll into D.A.’s office?

Mary Magee
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Last month, when I wrote about the game of musical chairs in the D.A.’s office that Kamala Harris’ victory in the Attorney General’s race triggered, Board President David Chiu said he wanted to stay put, “for now.”

But is it possible that Chiu was referring to December 2010, or the first week of January 2011, when he said “now”.

Today, his chief of staff Judson True acknowledged that Chiu’s name “is in the mix” when it comes to the conversation about appointing someone to replace Harris. But True also noted that Chiu’s “focus is still on the Board.”

And if I were Chiu, I’d be biting my nails over the prospect of trading my seat as an elected official for an appointment that only lasts until year’s end. Especially since this trade-off would be happening against the backdrop of the November election in which Harris’ chief of staff Paul Henderson and criminal justice reform advocate David Onek have already filed paperwork.

Either way, True says not to expect any announcement about the D.A. appointment until an interim mayor has been selected, so stay tuned.

And Chiu just told Guardian city editor Steve Jones that the D.A.’s office isn’t where his head right now.

“Chiu told me he doesn’t think he wants it and wouldn’t take it without assurances that someone who didn’t share his values would be appointed to D3,” Jones just told me, as he prepared to head for Daly’s roast at the Independent tonight.

 

Let’s get roasting Chris Daly!

Mary Magee
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Guardian executive editor Tim Redmond, city editor Steve Jones, and publisher Bruce Brugmann recall their fondest Chris Daly moments. Video shot inside the Guardian’s HQ on the winter solstice by the Guardian’s Rebecca Bowe and narrated by the Guardian’s Sarah Phelan. Watch it after the jump! 

 

Chris Daly’s Final Say

Mary Magee
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Chris Daly’s Final Say

As part of my effort to compile a list of most roastable moments of Sup. Chris Daly‘s decade-long career at City Hall, I asked the termed-out D6 supervisor if he would sit down for an exit interview. And shortly before Christmas, when there was still hope the Board would select a progressive interim mayor, and Daly had not yet vowed to politically haunt Board President David Chiu with shouts of, “It’s on like Donkey Kong” , we arranged to meet me at the Buck Tavern on Market Street, which Daly, who now holds the liquor license, is threatening to rename “Daly’s Dive.”

As it happens, the lion’s share of our conversation ended up taking place by cell, since Daly got stuck in late afternoon commuter traffic, as he drove to San Francisco from Fairfield, where his wife and children have lived since April 2009, making him a fitting symbol of the East-Bay-and-beyond migration pattern of couples who live in San Francisco, until they have more than one kid.

Except not all couples with two small kids get to move into one of two foreclosed properties that the in-laws bought with $545,000 cash in spring 2009. At the time, Daly’s critics accused him making such a mess of governing the city that he had decided against raising his own family here. Daly predictably disagreed. “There are few people who think about the future of San Francisco and the health of the city more than me,” Daly told reporters, explaining that his wife wanted family support raising their children, so she had moved to the same cul-de-sac as her parents, as Daly continued to live in a condo in San Francisco with roommates and to see his family on weekends.

Anyways, on the dark and stormy night that I interviewed Daly in mid-December, he acknowledged that he was going to be in for one helluva roast at the Independent on Jan. 5. in the worst possible sense of the tradition.
“Will there be controversial subjects, things that on the face of it, are not very nice? Yes,” Daly said.

And then he claimed he had agreed to this ordeal, because, under the roast’s traditional format , he would get to go last—and thus would get to have the last word.
“Why would I want to end my City Hall career like this? Because I get to go last, and can really say what’s on my mind,” Daly said. “Unless the D.J. wants to say something as he’s spinning.”

Daly’s comment suggests that folks who attend his roast at the Independent will witness a historically vicious verbal drubbing on all sides, since no one has ever accused Daly of holding back from saying what was on his mind. Even if it has led to seemingly counterproductive “We are shocked, SHOCKED!” responses. Like the time Sup. Michela Alioto Pier introduced an ultimately doomed etiquette ordinance, after Daly swore at a constituent during a City Hall meeting, in 2004.

Daly said at the time that he comes from a background as a housing-rights organizer on the streets of Philadelphia and San Francisco, where confrontation was an effective political tool. But he also claimed that he had learned an important lesson.
“In the future it’s going to be better for me personally and politically to focus my energy positively on the people I care about instead of negatively on the people I think are doing them harm,” Daly reportedly said.

Fast forward six years, and Daly is unrepentant about his record of fighting for low-income people, while openly defying City Hall’s unwritten rules of etiquette.
“Etiquette always seemed a little silly, something for the ‘other’ San Francisco, for the prim and the proper and that’s not what I am concerned about,” Daly said. “I’m aware of the turn-the-other-check philosophy, and, if I were religious, I’d be out of the Old Testament. I’d be, if someone pokes you in the eye, I’d poke back.”

Daly says he stopped caring about etiquette towards the end of his first year in office. “When those in power use that power to put down those who are less advantaged, when I see that, I respond quickly and with as much force as I can to prevent them from doing that kind of thing again,” he said. “ If you want to attack homeless people for political advantage, I’m going to attack you right back. That’s not ‘proper,’ but I think it’s just.”

Daly says he also soon realized tthat the truth wasn’t the driver.
“I already knew that money, power and significant forces would be pushing back against me but then I discovered that the actual truth wasn’t what played out there in the world of spin. It’s like when the Examiner’s Josh Sabatini asked me how I want to be remembered, and I said, “Not as the caricature the Examiner created of me.”

Daly, who moved to San Francisco in 1993 to work on homeless and affordable housing issues, was at the heart of the movement around Ammiano’s 1999 write-in campaign for mayor, and part of the progressive sweep onto the Board, in 2000.

“For me, it’s never been about being a ‘good’ vote. I breathe leftist progressive politics,” Daly said. “Where I can make more of a mark is in terms of setting the stage for those votes and holding the line in districts that are not progressive. I’m very proud of my attempts to hold the line on issues, but the work doesn’t make any friends.”

Daly noted that after he made comments about Newsom’s alleged cocaine use during the 2007 Mayor’s race, downtown interests threw everything they had left at him.
‘They got a lot of hits in, but no total blows,” he opines. “Last time I checked, I saved the city $150 million on the Americas Cup deal that they were going to ram rod through.”

And so, as he prepares to begin life as a bar owner, don’t expect Daly to pass up opportunities to launch verbal attacks, if he believes they are warranted, political consequences be damned.

“People want to have the power without any of the negativity they associate with all the shit we have to deal with to build this power,” Daly added. “So, it’s all, Daly and [former Board President Aaron] Peskin took control of the Democratic Party at midnight. Well, how did you want us to take over? “

Daly claims if you take away “negatives” attributed to him, you take away his wins. “People call me a lot of things, but I’m not a loser, I win a lot” Daly added, noting that Democrats being nice to Republicans has led to losses in D.C., not gains. “So, yes, I’ve got a lot of negatives, and they’ve clearly been made into a target, but if I can take the hits, and help people I care about, I’m happy to do it. That’s what I’ve done for ten years.”

Daly says he’s become “pretty desensitized to criticism,” even as he admits to being a sensitive person, deep inside. “I don’t think I’d have quite the visceral response to poverty and oppression, if I wasn’t sensitive,” he said. “I care deeply about people’s struggles. That’s why I’m here, but I also have a pretty solid critique of capitalism and I know how to follow the money, so when I get criticized by some downtown mouthpiece, I know what time it is.”

Daly says he started the Daly Blog several years ago, to push back against what he felt was unfair treatment in the media. And he says he endorsed outgoing mayor Newsom for Lt. Governor, despite their long and antagonistic history, so progressives could have a shot at installing a mayor in Room 200.

“My money now is on the selection of the mayor going to the new Board, and Avalos getting it in the 13th round of voting,” Daly said.

Daly made that prediction three weeks before the progressives on the Board seem poised to hand the keys to R.200 to City Administrator Ed Lee—thereby eliciting Daly’s ballistic “Donkey Kong” outburst.

With the outgoing Board set to meet Friday to make a selection, here’s another Daly roastable moment, this time from Peskin, related to the fall-out that ensued after Daly made two appointments to the SFPUC, while serving as acting mayor for one day, while then Mayor Willie Brown was out of the country, on a trip to Tibet.

“When Mayor Willie Brown left office, Charlotte Schultz had an unveiling ceremony of Brown’s picture. Newsom, who by then was mayor, was presiding. And Charlotte had a beautiful easel with a golden drape over it. When she pulled back the curtain there was a picture of Daly, who was listed as “41st and a half” mayor presiding from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on October 22,” Peskin recalled, noting that under Daly’s picture there was another curtain that contained Brown’s actual portrait.”

And while Daly’s controversial statements and outbursts always make headlines, there is no denying that he helped make the progressive agenda, including establishing mandatory paid sick days, universal healthcare, and forcing developers to contribute in affordable housing or services for poor, an integral part of city policy.
 “The Chronicle used him as the poster child to try and dissuade anyone from supporting a progressive agenda,” former Sup. Jake McGoldrick observed. “He was used to smear any of our good ideas. And Chris never seemed to understand that some of us needed to be a little more sensitive, since we needed to get re-elected and didn’t represent districts that were as progressive as his. Personal attacks make the whole situation smell bad.”

Sup. John Avalos, who served as Daly’s legislative aide until he was elected as D11 supervisor, acknowledged that a lot of folks have accused Daly of doing irreparable harm to the progressive movement and being a gift to Newsom and the moderates at City Hall.
“People try and make hay out of it,” he said. “But his antics have probably hurt him more than anyone,” Avalos added, noting that he ran in 2008 as Daly’s former legislative aide.
‘And it didn’t hurt me, and I made no bones about where I came from.”

And then there’s the fact Daly defeated the Chamber ’s Rob Black in the 2006 election. “We don’t do enough to have better relationships between ourselves,” Avalos added , reflecting on the divided progressive movement. “It’s more than just one person.”
 
Peskin for his part acknowledges that Daly will be missed on the Board.
 “He sucked the oxygen out of the room and made it all super lefty and caustic, and it certainly did not allow a better conversation to evolve,” Peskin said. “But it’s still going to be a pretty profound loss.”

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