Two emotions describe how I feel about Election Day finally arriving: Existential dread at the national level. Exhaustion at the local level.
For anyone who hasn’t yet made up their mind about our presidential race, well, I can’t help you. But for the local races and measures, I can empathize with your indecision — or your apathy. It’s hard to get fired up about ballot initiatives on “general obligation bonds” (Prop. B) or credit purchases for public pensions (Prop. I). It’s also difficult to distinguish among mayoral candidates who essentially agree on 98% of the issues, despite acting like they’re foreign adversaries locked in an ideological deathmatch.
Many local organizations and individuals have published comprehensive voter guides in recent weeks. This isn’t one of them. What follows is a sort of last-second voter’s guide to the ballot featuring only the races that I actually care about. These include the mayor’s race, a couple of California voter initiatives, and several San Francisco measures.
You’ll see that there are numerous propositions I am not addressing, either because I haven’t given them much thought or because their passage isn’t in doubt. The truth is, I hate ballot initiatives. This year, there are 10 for the state, the ones with numbers, and 15 for San Francisco, which bear letters. Each, in its own way, is a perversion of how representative democracy is supposed to work.
Our elected officials should be deliberating on these measures, most of which normal voters will never read and aren’t qualified to understand anyway. We have dishonored our Progressive Era legacy, the one that attempted to take power from plutocrats and give it to the people, by embracing a confusing system that is gamed by special interests of various stripes.
Many organizations and individuals have published comprehensive voter guides in recent weeks. The Open Ballot site does a good job of compiling all the meaningful endorsements in one place. If you want guidance on how to vote on all the props, go there.
Enough about how I’d like things to work. Here’s how I’m voting on matters at hand.
President: Kamala Harris
The presidential race is the only tight one this year in which I have absolute certainty. I am voting for Harris less because of my esteem for her work as a senator, attorney general, or district attorney and more because I can’t bear Trump. The thought of a foul-mouthed insurrectionist, con man, and criminal polluting our body politic for four more years makes me nauseous.
My views on the rest of the races this year involve one of two body parts: I’m going with my gut, or I’m holding my nose.
Mayor: Daniel Lurie, Mark Farrell, London Breed, in that order
My gut — and my eyes, for that matter — tell me London Breed doesn’t deserve another term. That’s not to say there’s no merit to her tenure. She handled the pandemic well, has begun to empower a beleaguered police department, and has been hobbled by an often recalcitrant Board of Supervisors. But the city still looks like hell, especially downtown. The mayor has been too reactive: Her belated response to the public schools crisis is an example. It’s time to give someone else a shot.
For me, that someone is Daniel Lurie, who also represents a gut (and heart) vote. So you know, Lurie has been a friend of mine since before he was a mayoral candidate, when I was mostly writing about business and not local government. My hunch — and due to his lack of governing experience, it is only a hunch — is that he’ll be a force for good in City Hall. Putting aside his obvious financial advantages (his mother is a billionaire who has donated prodigiously to his campaign), Lurie has waged a clever battle for mayor. I’m in the camp that believes fresh blood will make a difference at the top. The City Family, which even a critic like me believes is full of competent, well-meaning professionals, would benefit from a new style of leadership at the top. Lurie can be that leader.
As for the rest of my ranked-choice ballot, while I like a lot of what Mark Farrell stands for and his experience, he can’t seem to oversee a clean campaign, making me wonder how he’d do running the city. Aaron Peskin, hands down the ablest candidate in terms of pulling the levers of local government, doesn’t suit me ideologically. So my votes, in this order, are Lurie, Farrell, Breed. (By the way, if you’re still confused by ranked-choice voting, this great, explanatory essay by RCV evangelist John Palmer is a must-read. It offers smart strategies for ranking your votes, no matter your preferences.)
Prop. 33: No
I have no quibble with all the TV ads lamenting that “the rent is too damn high.” Rent control isn’t the answer, though; building housing is.
Prop. 36: Yes
I asked a liberal-minded friend the other day how he was voting on 36. He said, “Is that the lock-’em-up measure?” In fact, it is. This measure, pushed by district attorneys around the state, is designed to amend the decade-old Prop. 47, which raised the threshold for prosecuting shoplifters and the like. If enacted, prosecutors could more easily throw criminals in jail, notably repeat offenders. Like so many ballot initiatives, it is imperfect. It purports to steer drug addicts into treatment but doesn’t fund the treatment programs. This is another gut call, though: Permissive laws encourage lawlessness. The pendulum needs to swing.
Prop A.: A hold-my-nose yes
Will the beleaguered San Francisco Unified School District district spend this $790 million infrastructure bond wisely? That’s questionable. But a vote against it is a vote against kids. I choose to vote for them.
Prop. D: Yes
One of the most consequential ballots in this year’s race, Prop. D would take a hatchet to the city’s roughly 130 commissions and advisory boards (by allowing a maximum of 65), give far more power to the mayor, and strip the Police Commission of its policymaking power. Good-government types don’t like this measure because of how it got on the ballot, and neither do I.
It is funded by TogetherSF Action, an advocacy group funded by Michael Moritz, chairman of The Standard. It’d be better if an initiative that rewrites vast sections of the city charter was blessed and vetted by the elected Board of Supervisors. That’s what Prop. E purports to do, but I’ll vote no on that because it’s a kick-the-can-down-the-road measure at best.
For its part, D acknowledges that San Francisco’s bloated commissions are a governing distraction. It removes a slew of unneeded advisory bodies, placing their administrative functions under the mayor’s control, but gives the Supes the ability to add some back, so long as the total stays under 65. That’s an arbitrary number, but fine by me. It’s almost certain, for instance, that the Sanitation and Streets Commission — which, as I’ve written, is a commission that oversees a department that doesn’t exist anymore — will go away. State-mandated commissions will stay. This process is ugly, but it represents progress.
Prop. E: No
See the explanation above.
Prop. H: No
The beloved San Francisco firefighters have gamed the system to improve their pensions, setting aside a hard-won compromise of more than a decade ago. They’ll likely get their way. They shouldn’t.
Prop. K: Yes
This may be the single most divisive measure on the ballot. It’s a proposal to permanently close a stretch of the Great Highway — the part between Lincoln and Sloat that is currently closed to cars on weekends — to potentially build a park there. K’s passionate supporters, like urbanist Stephen Braitsch, and its opponents, in particular people who live in the Sunset District, can tell you many facts that explain their positions.
I was won over, though, on a recent gorgeous Saturday when I sat on a bench with Supervisor Joel Engardio, a passionate supporter of the measure, who envisioned what this spot could be. “Look at all these people,” he said. Passion, not facts, is what will guide votes on K. I’m more passionate about an oceanfront park, even one that isn’t funded yet, than getting around conveniently in my car. That said, I respect people who passionately disagree on this one.
Prop. L: A hold-my-nose no
I’m against a measure to impose a new fee on rideshare companies for the simple reason that imposing new, arbitrary taxes is a bad idea when the city is trying to attract, not repel, business. I have no sympathy for Uber and Lyft, which throw their weight around when it comes to legislation they don’t like. But this is an arbitrary tax. It is designed to funnel a badly needed $25 million to Muni. If we want to fund Muni, we should dig further into the city’s general fund and enforce rider fares, not impose yet another tax on private business.
Supervisors: No recommendations, one observation
My district supervisor (D10’s Shamann Walton) isn’t up for reelection this year, so I have no vote. But consider what the Board of Supervisors could look like next year. It’s possible that Connie Chan (D1), Dean Preston (D5), and Myrna Melgar (D7) all lose their seats. If they were to depart City Hall alongside Catherine Stefani (D2), a shoo-in for the Assembly, and termed-out Hillary Ronen (D9) and Peskin (D3), we’d be left with one of the least experienced boards in recent memory. Should we also have a mayor holding his first elective office, it’d be a remarkable moment of discovery — or on-the-job training, if you’re less optimistic — for San Francisco.
A new, predominantly moderate team of elected officials overseeing San Francisco would mean a fresh start for a much-criticized city. If that’s appealing, you should vote for moderate challengers in Districts 1, 5, and 7. But if you prefer more experienced hands on the Board, stick with the incumbents. My two cents: Change is good.