Mimi Haas, mother of Mayor Daniel Lurie, this week donated $750,000 to the campaign for Proposition 50, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s redistricting ballot measure to bolster Democrats’ odds at retaking the U.S. House next year.
Prop. 50, which Newsom has dubbed the “Election Rigging Response Act,” will appear before voters in a Nov. 4 special election (opens in new tab). The measure asks voters to consider whether to set aside congressional maps drawn by an independent redistricting commission and replace them for the next three election cycles with lines that favor Democrats.
The measure is Newsom’s retaliation against President Donald Trump and Texas Republicans, who have redrawn their congressional maps (opens in new tab) to give the GOP a better chance at maintaining a slim House majority in the 2026 midterms.
While Haas and her late husband, Peter Haas, great-grandnephew of Levi Strauss, spent decades in San Francisco philanthropic circles, (opens in new tab) her Prop. 50 donation marks one of her more significant political contributions in recent years.
Haas donated $1 million to an independent committee supporting Lurie’s 2024 mayoral bid and since 2020 has funneled more than $700,000 to the moderate political group Neighbors for a Better San Francisco Advocacy, according to state campaign finance records.
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She contributed thousands to the successful recalls against former District Attorney Chesa Boudin and three school board members. Haas also spent $100,000 in 2022 to defeat Proposition 30 (opens in new tab), which would have imposed an additional tax on wealthy Californians to support zero-emission vehicle and wildfire prevention programs. (Newsom also opposed Prop. 30 (opens in new tab).)
Haas did not respond to a request for comment.
Lurie’s family has long-standing ties to Newsom. Lurie’s wife, Becca Prowda, works as the governor’s chief of protocol (opens in new tab) and served in Newsom’s administration when he was San Francisco mayor.
But Haas’ financial backing of Prop. 50 stands in contrast to her son’s more muted public support for the measure.
“I’ll be supporting it as a voter,” Lurie said in September. “But as I’ve talked to the governor about this, I’m also going to stay focused on San Francisco.”
Both sides in the battle over Prop. 50 have reported eye-popping fundraising hauls, though proponents have amassed far more donors (opens in new tab). Collectively, both sides have raised more than $100 million in the last two months.
Other high-profile San Franciscans who have supported Prop. 50 include Michael Moritz, the venture capitalist and chairman of The Standard, whose September donation of $2.5 million ranks among the largest so far, and businessman John Pritzker, who has donated $250,000.
Netflix cofounder and Santa Cruz resident Reed Hastings donated $2 million (opens in new tab) to Newsom’s committee in August, while George Soros’ Fund for Policy Reform gave $10 million (opens in new tab) in September.
Groups opposing Prop. 50 have also raised tens of millions, including more than $30 million from Charles Munger Jr., a physicist and Republican donor who backed the ballot measures that created California’s independent redistricting commission (opens in new tab) more than a decade ago.
Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy gave $1 million from his campaign account to block Prop. 50, and another $1 million came from Woodside resident and Republican businessman Thomas Siebel, who is related (opens in new tab) to Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the governor’s wife.