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Politics Blog

Now what with this power plant, Mayor?

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By Amanda Witherell

The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously against Mayor Gavin Newsom’s proposal to retrofit Mirant Potrero power plant at their Nov. 25 meeting.

Everyone’s been calling this political theatre, as the legislation was originally tabled, then dragged off the table at the last moment by Sup. Aaron Peskin. At the Board’s Nov. 18 meeting Peskin and Sup. Sean Elsbernd rattled sabers over whether or not tabling equaled death to the legislation and all it contains. The supervisors agreed with Peskin to take it off the table and vote it down properly, in a 7-4 vote (sans Elsbernd, Carmen Chu, Michela Alioto-Pier, and Chris Daly, who, in an aside to the press box, said he voted ‘no’ on everything related to the power plant. “If I keep voting ‘no’ there will be no power plant.”)

Anyway, the big, bad ‘no’ vote happened yesterday. But that doesn’t mean the issue is dead as the Mayor will still need board approval for a contract or any kind of deal with Mirant.

The other political undercurrent is the mayor’s introducing of the legislation in the first place. If you read the actual language [PDF], it would have given him, his staff, and the SFPUC sole authority to negotiate a retrofit with Mirant. If it had passed it would have essentially given the mayor pre-approval for what ever crackpot plan they come.

And, as Peskin and Maxwell uncovered in committee hearings on the issue, retrofitting Mirant is pretty crackpot. It’s something that’s never been done to any similar power plant and may actually be technologically impossible.

So. they moved the Mayor’s legislation forward in order to forcefully kill it. It was Alioto-Pier who called for tabling it. The board went along with the idea, thinking that tabling is effectively killing legislation. but, as Maxwell said yesterday at the hearing, “Originally on this item, I asked for a no vote. Sup. Alioto-Pier asked for a table, and it was tabled. This is just an assurance that no is no. This is not about the Mayor. I’m voting no on this issue, not the Mayor.”

The other day I spoke with Elsbernd about a different issue, but he mentioned the tabling thing and told me, “You can only pull it off the table the week after it’s been tabled.”

Mary Red, clerk for the Rules Committee, told me this is true, but also said tabled legislation can be brought back for up to 12 months — but if more than a week lapses after the tabling, then it has to go back to committee and all the way through the legislative process again.

This is really a minor legislative distinction and its very likely we’ll see a new proposal to retrofit Mirant at some point, but there is a certain kind of message that gets out there when a piece of controversial legislation gets voted down unanimously. For example, the SF Chronicle headline on the story reads, “S.F. supervisors kill mayor’s power plant plan.”

Sounds like a done deal, right?

Eastern Neighborhoods moving forward

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by Amanda Witherell

The Board of Supervisors, at their Nov. 25 meeting, moved the Eastern Neighborhoods plan a little farther along in the legislative process. The political peregrinations that occurred at the previous meeting, during which the legislation was splintered into several pieces for political reasons, were resolved and the entire package is once again unified

As we reported in this week’s issue, Sup. Aaron Peskin had made some last minute amendments to add more accountability to parts of the plan. Sup. Sean Elsbernd didn’t like the move and severed them – effectively making them their own individual pieces of the legislation and vulnerable to line-item vetos from Mayor Gavin Newsom. Why would Newsom veto them? Why would speculating developers want to be required to start building within three years? Right.

Additionally, with Sup. Tom Ammiano outbound for Sacto and Sup. Chris Daly recused from voting because he owns property in the plan area, the board majority on this issue withers to six, with already suspicious intentions coming out of Sup. Gerardo Sandoval.

Anyway, yesterday the Board agreed to mend fences and move forward by rolling all the amendments back into the original legislation, which no longer allows Newsom to target specific parts of it. Most of the amendments still weren’t favored by Elsbernd, Chu, and Alioto-Pier, and Sandoval was the sole vote against a “use it or lose it” provision to reduce speculation (See above link, and our story that details his own precious amendment designed to benefit one developer in particular.)

The legislation will get its last read and vote at the Dec. 9 meeting.

New member of the SFPUC?

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by Amanda Witherell

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From left, Juliet Ellis with Manuel Pastor from UC Santa Cruz and Lori Reese-Brown with the city of Richmond

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission has had two empty seats for months, but Mayor Gavin Newsom has finally made another appointment to the body that oversees the city’s water and power infrastructures. Juliet Ellis has been offered the “advocacy” seat on the five-member board.

For the past seven years she’s been executive director of Oakland-based Urban Habitat, a non-profit social and environmental justice organization that works on affordable housing, transportation, and land use planning issues throughout the Bay Area, though mostly in the East Bay. The organization has been around since 2004, and receives most of its funding from grants. [PDF of its most recent 990.] (A quick check of grants made by Pacific Gas & Electric since then showed none to Urban Habitat, unlike other purported community groups.)

Ellis told the Guardian she’s interested in joining the SFPUC because it will bring her focus back toward San Francisco, where she’s been living since 1995. She currently resides in Bernal Heights.

When asked how her experiences have prepared her to be a public utilities commissioner, she said, “I have a long track record of working with folks who are often the most left out of the process,” she said, and that would continue at the SFPUC. If appointed, she plans to keep her job at Urban Habitat.

“Our organization is really interested in justice components,” she said, and in particular, climate justice. “What are the implications for low income communities if sea levels rise? If air pollution increases?” And, she pointed out, what kinds of mitigations can protect more vulnerable communities when it comes taxation through congestion pricing or the continual siting of power plants in areas where people live, with their pollution and carbon offsets occurring elsewhere?

That relates intimately to long term water and power issues under discussion in San Francisco, like the 51 percent renewable energy projections for the Community Choice Aggregation plan and what to do about the Mirant Power Plant that’s still operating in the mostly black, mostly low-income, and, consequently, most cancerous part of town, as well as how to move the city toward more affordable energy bills.

Ellis didn’t have much to say on specific issues like Mirant or CCA, admitting that she hasn’t “gone deep enough, I haven’t learned all the information” about these heavily nuanced and political issues.

But, her thinking seemed to fall along the right lines of public accountability and control, citing “the more obvious benefits of having more control than when it’s privatized. It seems like CCA would provide more clean energy and control and that in and of itself makes it something that’s attractive.”

Ellis said she sees real opportunities to connect the SFPUC with the communities she’s been helping at Urban Habitat. “The main issues I’m excited about are job opportunities and thinking through how to position those,” she said, pointing out that the SFPUC is projecting 24,000 jobs through the Water System Improvement Plan. She would like to see some of those jobs go to people who are low-income and jobless now. She’s also interested in “out of the box thinking for mitigating impacts for communities like Bayview Hunters Point and Potrero on water and energy issues.” She said most people don’t understand the scale of work undertaken by the SFPUC and she’d like to build a better relationship between it and low income and communities of color.

She said the recommendation to join the SFPUC came from Fred Blackwell, a former Urban Habitat board member who was appointed by Newsom to head the Redevelopment Agency in 2007. So far she’s met with several members of the Board of Supervisors and her appointment will be heard by the Rules Committee during their Dec. 4 meeting.

“The Board without Ammiano is like the Vatican without the Pope.”

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“The man. The myth. The legend.”

That’s how Board President Aaron Peskin introduced Sup. Tom Ammiano, as he bid farewell to the longest serving member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors at today’s Board meeting.

Headed to Sacramento to serve in the State Assembly, Ammiano has a 14-year record as SF supervisor that simply can’t be beat now that 8-year term limits have been introduced at the Board. And it will be difficult for other supes to touch his record in terms of legislation, service, attitude, wit and, of course, stark raving popularity.

Recalling Ammiano’s arrival at the Board a decade and a half ago, Peskin said, “Tom was a voice in the wilderness.”

“He managed to got living wage and domestic partnership legislation passed, long before either concept was popular. He succeeded in prevailing on district elections,” Peskin said. “He gave voice to the modern Board of Supervisors—for which I’ll never forgive you, Tom.”

“We love you, we miss you and I’ll come volunteer in your district office, now that I’m not going to have a job come December 8,” Peskin added.

Then it was the turn of Sup. Bevan Dufty, who has sat elbow to elbow with Ammiano for the past two years, to explain why he believes that he had “the best seat in the house.”

According to Dufty, this close proximity helped prevent Ammiano, who also happens to be a wickedly biting stand-up comic, from making jokes about him to the reporters that are corraled directly behind Ammiano in the press box.

Sup. Chris Daly praised Ammiano for ushering in district elections, bringing in a progressive Board and making a historic run for mayor in 1999.

“‘When you get termed out in Sacramento, we’ll be waiting for your return,” Daly promised.

Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier explained why she is going to miss Ammiano a lot.

“We never ever vote together on anything,” Alioto-Pier admitted, describing Ammiano as a “people come first” type.

“You always listen to me, and you’ve given me some of the best advice I’ve gotten since I got here,” Alioto-Pier said, further recalling how Ammiano once screamed at someone, something about, “When you walk a mile in my pumps,” an incident that inspired her to admire this famously flamboyant supervisor even more than ever.

Sup. Mirkarimi recalled how he was working as aide to Sup. Terence Hallinan, when Ammiano was first elected

“Tom really changed the entire climate of this instituion,” Mirkarimi said. “He swifty became the archangel, if you will, of the progressive movement. He is a rain maker, a king maker, a visionary.”

Acknowledging that it’ll be impossible to replace Ammiano’s wit, Mirkarimi suggested that he consider providing courses for would-be politicians.

Sup. Jake McGoldrick said “ Tom Ammiano has changed the world.”

Sup. Carmen Chu found it fitting that Ammiano is going to the State Assembly, since ” he’s such a statesman.”

The wittiest line of the afternoon belonged to Sup. Sean Elsbernd.

“The Board of Supervisors without Tom Ammiano is like the Vatican without the Pope,” Elsbernd said.

And the best warning belonged to Sup. Sophie Maxwell.

Recalling Ammiano’s grace and integrity, his ability to get testy and angry one minute, to lash out and then let matters drop the next, Maxwell said, “Look out Sacramento, they just don’t know what’s coming.”

Then it was Ammiano’s turn to say goodbye.

“It’s been a great time,” he said, recalling how district elections heralded a return to populism and admitting how he has only recently been getting in touch with how much Harvey Milk inspired the city, and how “terrifically special and strong” Milk was.

Calling San Francisco “a crazy indefinable city,” Ammiano said, “Elvis may have left the building, but never the City.” Then, turning to the press box, tears in his eyes, he said, “And thank you, press.”

And then he was gone in a blaze of bouquets and flowery accolades, leaving the running dogs of the press wondering just exactly how we are going to survive Board meetings, without those joking asides that Dufty rightly feared and that Ammiano frequently tossed out for us, like biscuits for naughty puppies that he somehow still manages to love, no matter how many times we chew on his favorite slippers.

“Traditional marriage”

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Kristof, this Sunday, in the New York Times, writing about Pakistan:

“One new cabinet member, Israr Ullah Zehri, defended the torture-murder of five women and girls who were buried alive (three girls wanted to choose their own husbands, and two women tried to protect them). ‘These are centuries-old traditions, and I will continue to defend them,” Mr. Zehri said of the practice of burying independent-minded girls alive.'”

Just putting that out there for both sides of the Prop 8 divide. Are these kinds of traditions something we really want to fight for — either to “defend the definition of” or to be a part of? As for me: Of course queers should have the same rights and access under the law as straights. But from a broader perspective, not only do I think that single people shouldn’t be ostracized (or taxed more, in some cases) and that religion should have nothing whatsoever to do with a civil contract, but also that, you know, maybe this whole marriage thing is kind of ridiculous to begin with … but that’s just me, and I have a severe case of he radical vapors.

CA nuke plant on two fault lines

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by Amanda Witherell

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photo by Jim Zim
zimfamilycockers.com/DiabloCanyon.html

Ahh, a Friday afternoon toast to science. PG&E announced today that its Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power plant is actually situated on two seismically sensitive faults, not just the one previously identified in the 1970s when the plant was sited and built.

“The new fault is thought to be smaller than the other fault off the plant’s coastline, the Hosgri fault, but it is closer to shore. The new fault is less than a mile offshore while the Hosgri fault is about three miles offshore,” according to a story in the San Luis Obispo Tribune.

The geologists are calling it a vertical strike-slip fault with a potential magnitude of 6.5. The California Energy Commission has recommended more seismic mapping and studies and may require them before PG&E can apply for a license to renew the plant in 2025.

“The first fault was discovered before the nuclear plant was licensed, and retrofitting resulted in billions of dollars in cost overruns,” said Rochelle Becker in an Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility newsletter. “While the utility downplayed the significance of the fault on safe plant operations, the new fault is not good news for PG&E and may not be good news for San Onofre.”

In 2006 state legislators passed AB 1632, authored by Rep. Sam Blakeslee, that directs the CEC to assess the potential vulnerability of Diablo Canyon and the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in Riverside to a major disruption due to a seismic event, as well as the role these older plants play in the state’s overall energy portfolio.

Diablo Canyon serves a key role in what PG&E calls its “emissions free” power mix, a statistic it routinely cites as it tries to kill more progressive renewable energy proposals like Community Choice Aggregation in Marin County and San Francisco. PG&E uses 24 percent nuclear power, which is not renewable, but nattily names it “emissions free.” It doesn’t routinely mention the thousands of pounds of nuclear waste that are also housed at the power plant.

Obamas choose private school

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By Tim Redmond

It should come as no surprise, but the Obamas have decided to send their kids to Sidwell Friends, a $21,000-a-year private school in DC.

It shouldn’t bother me, but it does.

And I can’t believe how many comments and letters I’ve gotten about my last column on this. Most of the people writing in say that (a) it’s the Obamas own damn business and I shouldn’t criticize them for where they choose to educate their kids and (b) only a private school like Sidwell, which is used to handling the children of celebrities, could provide the security necessary for the daughters of the president.

The first point is true, as far as it goes. It’s their business. But Barack Obama is also the (incoming) president of the United States, and what he does has major implications. Imagine the message he would have sent if he’d decided that his own kids should go to public schools, just like the kids of most of his (less fortunate) constituents. The school he chose would instantly become the most desirable school in DC — and imagine, a public school becoming the most desirable school in the nation’s capitol.

It would also instantly become the safest school — in fact, that public school would probably be about the safest place in the entire city. The Secret Service pays for security for the president’s family, so there would be no cost to the district. And while it’s always a challenge protecting presidential kids, the secret service is pretty good at its job. I don’t buy the safety and security argument.

(The argument also assumes that rich people are necessarily less dangerous than poor people. Osama Bin Laden, for one, comes from a very wealthy family.)

Anyway, I’m still sorry he shafted the public schools. You’d expect that from a Bush but not from someone who has promised a new way of doing business.

Oh and by the way: Am I really the only person who’s bothered by this?

Progressive Victory Party in SF

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Sup. Chris Daly displays finger puppets that look like supervisors-elect John Avalos, Eric Mar, and David Chiu, mocking efforts during the campaign to assert that they would be nothing but his puppets.

By Steven T. Jones

San Francisco progressives celebrated the movement’s election night victories and set their sights on the mayor’s office during a party last night at The Independent sponsored by the San Francisco Democratic Party, San Francisco Labor Council, and the SF Tenants Union.
“The progressives in San Francisco still need the real prize and that’s Room 200,” said Aaron Peskin, who will continue in his role as chair of the local Democratic Party after leaving the Board of Supervisors at the end of the year.
He wasn’t the only one looking forward. John Avalos, who won the Dist. 11 seat on the Board of Supervisor, praised the unified movement’s ability to withstand withering attacks by downtown-funded groups and said, “Together, we can take the mayor’s race in 2011.”

John Garamendi, born-again populist

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By Tim Redmond

You know things are getting bad when John Garamendi starts talking about raising taxes.

Garamendi, the lieutenant governor, has never been known as a tax-and-spend liberal; in fact, he’s run for high office in the past on a platform of law-and-order and no new taxes. But he’s now on the Board of Regents of the University of California, and on the California State University Board of Trustees, and he sees first hand how horrible the budget situation for higher education is. And when I talked to him today at the Regents meeting, he was sounding downright populist.

“In this current budget year, the only significant tax increase has been a quarter-billion tax increase on UC students,” he said. “That’s what these higher fees are, a tax on students.”

He’s not happy with the next round of proposed cuts:

“We need to make the argument that education is the most crucial infrastructure investment the public sector can make,” he told me in an interview outside the meeting hall at the new Mission Bay campus. “California has a $2 trillion dollar economy. We can find the money for education.”

He’s right, of course.

So where would he look for that money? He told me he would support restoring the motor vehicle fee that Gov. Schwarzenegger disdainfully calls the “car tax.” He’s willing to look for a broader sales tax. He wants an oil severance tax (“Gov. Palin has it right, she taxes the oil companies.”) He’s even talking about raising the marginal tax rate on big corporations: “Chevron pays 8.5 percent, and so does a mom-and-pop outfit,” he said. “Let’s raise the taxes on Chevron.” (He did not mention raising income taxes on the rich.)

And the guy whose first campaign for governor was marked by a loud call for harsh Marine-style boot camps for prisoners is now sounding almost – almost – like a compassionate liberal. He acknowledged that the state is spending more on prisons than on education, and that the balance ought to shift. “Should we be keeping aged, blind, disabled people in prison at a cost of $100,000 a year?” he asked, and even admitted that “there are a lot of problems with the prison guards’ union contract.”

This is all interesting because Garamendi – who has served as a state senator and insurance commissioner, was a senior Clinton administration official and has twice run for governor and lost – is a fair judge of the state’s political winds. He’s running again for the top job – and clearly thinks that in 2010, the old world of no-tax rhetoric that has dominated the state for so long will have run its course.

Remember, in 2006, Phil Angelides ran for governor on a platform that included higher taxes on the rich. He got hammered, both by his primary opponent, Steve Westly, and by Schwarzenegger, and he wound up losing badly.

But the budget crisis is so bad that even Schwarzenegger is willing to raise (some) taxes – not on cars or the oil companies, but still, it’s a step. And if a candidate like Garamendi sees that the people of California are going to be open to new taxes instead of further bloody cuts, then there may be some hope for the state after all.

It’s now about equal protection, not gay marriage

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By Steven T. Jones

The California Supreme Court’s decision to hear legal challenges to Proposition 8 moves the debate about same-sex marriage toward a more basic legal question: Can a majority vote to take away the constitutional rights of a minority? “The passage of Prop. 8 has pushed California to the brink of a constitutional crisis,” San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera, whose office began preparing this legal challenge even before election day, just said at a hastily called news conference, where he appeared with his deputy Terry Stewart and Santa Clara County Attorney Anne Ravel.
“Equal protection is what separates constitutional democracy from mob rule tyranny,” Herrera said, noting that the measure “trounced upon the independence of our judicial branch.” For that reason, he expects the issues and arguments that San Francisco and its 12 co-plaintiffs (and counting) make to be very different than those his office argued for same-sex marriage. Briefs will be filed by Jan. 5 and oral arguments could come as early as March.
“They’re going to decide a question that goes to the very foundation of our democracy,” Ravel said. “A majority of voters can’t undercut the court’s role in protecting the rights of minorities.”

Supreme Court takes Prop. 8 challenge

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Breaking news: The California Supreme Court has agreed to hear the challenge to Prop. 8 and to directly decide the question of whether a simple majority of Californians may use the initiative process to take away marriage rights from same-sex couples.

More soon…

Bill O’Reilly’s San Francisco

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By Tim Redmond

This is special.

High-speed derailment?

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By Steven T. Jones

After navigating a political gauntlet on the way to the momentous Nov. 4 voter approval of the California high-speed train project that he set in motion 14 years ago, you might think Quentin Kopp would savor a moment of conflict-free peace. You’d be wrong.

Instead, he decided to kick a hornet’s nest in his native San Francisco by voicing opposition to plans to bring the trains all the way into downtown San Francisco’s new Transbay Terminal – a proposed Grand Central Station-style multi-modal hub that would also include affordable housing and several towers, including the tallest one of the West Coast — suggesting the current Caltrain terminus at 4th and Townsend streets would do just fine.

In addition to raising issues of cost (almost $3 billion to tunnel the bullet trains that final 1.4 miles into downtown), Kopp also blasted Transbay Joint Powers Authority director Maria Ayerdi-Kaplan – a one-time protégé of Kopp’s old nemesis Willie Brown – for bungling the project and relying too heavily on Singer and Associates, the brash crisis communications firm now being sued for slandering and blaming the victims of the Christmas Day tiger attack at the SF Zoo.

The myriad San Francisco supporters of high-speed rail – from business community backers downtown to the alternative transportation geeks – are quietly scrambling to try to heal the rift and ensure that the trains reach Transbay, the terminus envisioned in the proposal approved by voters.

Race and Prop 8: What’s next? Plus: Transgender Remembrance Day

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The fight against Prop 8 continues — and here’s some touching and empowering video of fierce comedian Wanda Sykes stepping up to the lesbian plate in LA last weekend (via Ta-Nahesi Coates):

(Not in attendance: Prince)

And the somewhat-exhausting dialogue about what role race played in the passage of Prop 8 also continues (um, see funny black dyke above) — and there’s sure to be some intelligent voices included at the below forum on this Wednesday (11/19) at the LGBT Center, sponsored by StopAIDS.

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Prop 8 and Race: What’s Next
A community forum
Wed/19, 7pm-9pm
SF LGBT Community Center
1800 Market, SF
www.sfcenter.org

Also, just a reminder: Thursday November 20 is Transgender Day of Remembrance, commemorating our transgender brothers and sisters who’ve lost their lives to live their lives — a surprising number of which are non-white. There will be a rally with community speakers followed by a march through the Tenderloin to City Hall this Thursday evening:

Transgender Remembrance rally and march
11/20, 6pm-8pm, free
Beginning at the TRANS:THRIVE offices
815 Hyde Street, 2nd Floor, SF
info@sfcenter.org

Plus, the fabulous LGBT synagogue Congregation Shaar Zahev will be holding a special Transgender Remembrance Shabbat at 7:30pm in Friday, November 21. (You don’t have to be Jewish to attend, trust me.)

If you can’t make it, at least light a mental candle for these recently passed-on TG warriors.

Daly and Mirkarimi need to talk

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By Tim Redmond

The new board will have, if anything, a stronger progressive presence than the outgoing board. For the past four years, Tom Ammiano, Chris Daly and Ross Mirkarimi have held down the left flank, with Board President Aaron Peskin on the right side most of the time (and leading the way some of the time). Jake McGoldrick, from District One, wasn’t always there, and Gerardo Sandoval, from District 11, couldn’t always be counted on. On some issues, the more centrist Sophie Maxwell and Bevan Dufty joined the progressives to override the mayor’s vetos.

This time around, with Eric Mar, John Avalos and David Chiu replacing McGoldrick, Sandoval and Peskin, David Campos replacing Ammiano, Mirkarimi coming back for a second term and Daly in his final two years, the progressives ought to have a solid six-vote majority.

But they can’t start off with the two veterans, Mirkarimi and Daly, fighting.

Mirkarimi wants to be board president. Daly wants somebody — anybody — else. He told me he wouldn’t under any circumstances vote for Mirkarimi. The two agree on almost every important issue, and yet they’re squabbling over the board’s new leadership. (And Daly doesn’t even want the job.)

Look, Mirkarimi can’t claim the board presidency by right. He has to reach out, make alliances, and line up six votes. A board president needs the support and confidence of his colleagues. If Ross can’t count to four or five, even Daly’s support won’t get him across the line.

Still, this doesn’t have to be, and shouldn’t be, a nasty fight that leaves the left divided and its leaders on the board bitter. Ross, Chris — you guys need to talk.

AG urges Supreme Court to review Prop 8

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California Attorney General Jerry Brown has urged the California Supreme Court to accept review of the legal challenges to Proposition 8 and promptly resolve “this matter of widespread concern.”

“Review by this Court is necessary to ensure uniformity of decision, finality and certainty for the citizens of California,” Brown wrote in a set of briefs that were filed with the Court today.

The AG’s recommendation comes on the heels of a weekend of anti-Prop. 8 protests nationwide, and less than two weeks after the City and County of San Francisco, the County of Santa Clara and the City of Los Angeles sued to invalidate Proposition 8, arguing that it“ intends to deprive gay and lesbian citizens of their fundamental right to marry in California.”

The speed of the AG’s response is further evidence that Prop. 8’s passage has brought the state to the brink of a constitutional crisis.

Typically, such matters are brought to lower courts before the Supreme Court hears the case. But as Brown argues, a stay, “would increase uncertainty related to marriages performed in California.”

“The constitutionality of the change created by Proposition 8 impacts whether same-sex marriages may issue in California and whether same-sex marriages from other states will be recognized here,” Brown wrote. “There is significant public interest in prompt resolution of the legality of Proposition 8.”

Brown also continues to maintain that “same-sex marriages performed between June 17 and November 4, 2008, remain valid and will be upheld by the Court,” according to a press release issued by his office today.

Brown’s request means the Supreme Court will consider taking up the matter at its Nov.19 closed session.

Legal insiders predict good news for same-sex marriage proponents if the Supreme Court decides to review Prop. 8, since this is the same Court that ruled on May 15, 2008 that banning same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.

If the state Supreme Court decides not to review the case, same-sex marriage supporters could pursue the case with the U.S. Supreme Court, or head back to the ballot box.

But, for now, all eyes are focused on the State Supreme Court and SF City Attorney Dennis Herrera.

As Herrera wrote the day after the November election, “If allowed to stand, Prop 8 so devastates the principle of equal protection that it endangers the fundamental rights of any potential electoral minority — even for protected classes based on race, religion, national origin and gender.”

With only 52 percent of voters supporting Prop. 8, Herrera further argued that the state Constitution’s equal protection provisions, “do not allow a bare majority of voters to use the amendment process to divest politically disfavored groups of constitutional rights.”

The old Chris Daly line again

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By Tim Redmond

The Chron’s piece on the upcoming battle for board of supervisors president was fairly accurate and well-balanced, as far as it went, except for this:

the presidency appears to be guaranteed to a bloc led by the board’s most controversial member, Supervisor Chris Daly.

Daly may or may not be the board’s “most controversial member,” but he clearly isn’t the leader of the progressive bloc. He has his allies — incoming Sup John Avalos used to work for him — but the other three newcomers have other alliances. David Campos ran with the support of Tom Ammiano; Daly backed Eric Quezada. David Chiu is way closer to current Board President Aaron Peskin than to Daly. Eric Mar, former School Board member, is friendly with Daly but also with others on the board and is far too independent to just do what Daly says. And of course, Sup. Ross Mirkarimi isn’t going to follow Daly’s lead.

Daly has made it clear that he shouldn’t and won’t be board president. And with Peskin and Ammiano leaving, there’s no clear “leader” of the “progressive bloc.” That’s why the race will be so interesting.

Pics: No on 8 Impact rally brings chills, tears

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Text by Marke B., photos by David Schnur

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Some thousands of amped-up queers hit the streets last Saturday for the huge No on 8 “Join the Impact” rally in the Civic Center, and subsequent march up Market Street. “Join the Impact” — started by a lowly viral email from one friend to another in Seattle — fabulously grew to encompass hundreds more cities, and brought out the crem de la creme of queer intelligentsia. Several speakers highlighted the diversity of the movement, including the controversial Rev. Amos Brown, who brought the crowd to tears and chills with an incredibly stirring call to solidarity between the gay and African American communities — and Carole Migden who, in a slightly insane rant, called for California to be split in two, one part for queers and the other for bigots. I think she was joking, but who the hell knows? Anyway, it was a beautiful day. The next “Join the Impact” action will be Wednesday, December 10’s “Day Without a Gay” — call in “gay” to work to show the world the biggest bad hair day EVER.

Also, there were lots of hot boys there. You really need to go to the next rally if you missed this one. Total radical yummy. Another also: I know we’re angry, and I’m the last one to say chill out when christianist freaks come into the neighborhood, but the alleged violence in the Castro this weekend, if it happened (I wasn’t there), isn’t very helpful.

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“Jesus was a homo!”

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By Marke B.

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OK, now that I’ve got your attention by yelling the above, like the group Bash Back did in a sleepy Lansing, MI church last weekend — minus the giant upside-down pink cross — please join me at this amazingly huge international thingie below.

Join the Impact!
Protest Prop 8 at SF City Hall
(and at City Halls around the country and world)
10:30am – 1:30pm
Saturday, November 15, 2008
http://protest8sf.wordpress.com/
http://jointheimpact.com/

(Note to Bash Back — although I love my colorfully radical gay sisterhood, I’m not sure that screaming about Jesus penis in a Midwestern church is going to help us queers gain something as conservative as marriage in California or adoption in Arkansas. I could be wrong. Plus the whole us vs. religion-in-general thing is kind of unfashionable, sigh. )

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I just want to say here that currently the LGBTIQQLMNOP world is in delicious turmoil — as any community as diverse as ours should be. As of yesterday, we have legalized, available same sex marriage in Connecticut — and a new porn movie called Farts. We have silly conservative gays once again telling us that we’d be more acceptable to mainstream America if only we’d expunge those weird drag queens and writhing leathermen from our Pride parades — and a horrifyingly unrepentant new interview from underage-page-baiting conservative jerk Mark Foley (It’s ironic because he says he was abused by a Catholic priest! Prop 8 connections!).

There is an almost-unfabulous radical black dyke telling gay marriage supporters to go stuff it up their white asses in the Chronicle, and an almost-fabulous (yet disturbingly quasi-gynophobic) cheeky new ad campaign from the Gay Times in London intended to make straight men gay.

And just to add more heavens-to-betsy to everything, the “Join the Impact” No on Prop 8 protest listed above was organized by a furtive little e-mail in Seattle from one brave, beautiful soul. An e-mail is our international organizer!

Queers — always so viral.

Read this quick

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Click on it now, Before the New York Times can take it down.

The Democratic Party and SF’s progressives

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By Tim Redmond

Steve Jones and I had a lot to say about the election, but in retrospect, we left something out.

The progressive victories owed a lot to labor and tenant organizers, but also to the Democratic Party — and since I haven’t in the past been prone to praise the local party, I think it’s worth special mention.

The progressives took over the Democratic County Central Commitee this year, and elected Aaron Peskin chair, and you can see the results: The party raised money and put out slate mailers in the key districts, supporting Eric Mar, John Avalos and David Chiu. With the barrage of downtown attacks in those districts — and the close margin of victory in District 1 — the party, by linking Mar, Avalos and Chiu to the Obama campaign, helped make the difference.

It’s a new Democratic Party in this town, and that’s one more thing to celebrate.

Sarah fatigue

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Tired of hearing about Sarah Palin’s plans to run in 2012?

Read this blog post.

It’ll make it easier to bear the media’s constant Sarah craving.

Politicians look beyond SF

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By Steven T. Jones

Is it too much to ask that our top elected officials focus on San Francisco rather than their political careers? Perhaps so. After all, if they can make it here, in this rough and tumble city, they can probably make it anywhere, or so their thinking goes. Yet that’s not entirely true, as a pair of front page stories in today’s Chronicle shows.

Most notably, new polling data shows that Mayor Gavin Newsom’s favorable ratings of just 25 percent statewide are below even perennial gubernatorial candidate John Garamendi, and that an astounding 41 percent of voters have unfavorable view of our slick celebrity mayor. Sure, his bungled approach to Prop. 8 is a factor, but an even bigger one is that Team Newsom’s ambitions have gotten ahead of political reality. Sure, he’s got charisma, but not much substance yet (unless you count claiming credit for other people’s initiatives). And even Newsom’s big personality, arguably his greatest asset, is often tinged with a thin-skinned defensiveness and smirky arrogance that turned him into the Yes of 8 poster boy. Rather than looking past San Francisco, as he’s been doing for so long, he’d do well to just try to be a good mayor and more actively engage with progressives here — win a few and lose a few, and mature in the process. Instead, he’s simply trying to shore up his conservative credentials.

District Attorney Kamala Harris has also been looking past San Francisco, similarly trying to get tough on lawbreakers and other poor souls, and she’s now announced her intention to run for attorney general. She made that trial balloon official just after noon today, sending out press releases in which she said, “I will fight for all Californians – from distressed homeowners to families whose neighborhoods are under siege. In the coming months, I will detail new ideas on how we can fight street gangs, go after subprime lenders and others responsible for the financial crisis, and fundamentally reform our prison system. We have to shut the revolving door that simply recycles criminals in and out of our neighborhoods.”

So get ready, San Franciscans, we’re about to once again be turned into guinea pigs for programs intended for a larger audience than us, as our current crime wave takes a back seat to more important concerns.

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