This March 5th election is critical, for so many reasons—the Republican presidential primary, DCCC and RCCC races, judicial races and bait-and-switch ballot measures. Please don’t sit this one out!
Here are my voting recommendations:
FEDERAL:
Presidential Primary:
If you’re anything short of a fiercely-committed Democrat, PLEASE join the Republican Party to vote for Nikki Haley in the Presidential primary. It’s very easy in CA (and most other Super Tuesday states) and is the most efficient way to stop Trump (many polls show him beating Biden in November!). This requires a little extra effort vs just returning the ballot you got in the mail. You will have to go in person to an early-voting site (or to your local precinct site on March 5th) to request a Republican ballot, but the stakes are SKY HIGH!!!
United States Senator (Full Term):
Steve Garvey (you’ll likely disagree with my choice of a Republican, but I think we suffer from a lack of political competition and I’d love to see Garvey hold Adam Schiff to account by winning the second spot in this top-two primary (over Katie Porter), even though he’s unlikely to win in the general.
United States Senator (to fill remainder of Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s term):
Steve Garvey (see above)
United States Representative, District 11:
Bruce Lou
Nancy Pelosi is 83 years old—two years OLDER than Biden—and has served for 37 years. Do we really want to re-elect another geriatric candidate who might fall prey to dementia? This shouldn’t be a lifetime job; it’s time for fresh, new leadership.
STATE:
State Senator, District 11–Cynthia Cravens
I’m just not that much of a fan of Scott Weiner. 🤷♀️
State Assembly Member, District 19–Catherine Stefani
Super sad that she sold out the SF moderates on the “Cop Tax” to get this job; but might as well have something to show for it by getting the usually-moderate elected.
CITY AND COUNTY:
Democratic County Central Committee—Registered Democrats should vote for the following group of candidates (this is a subset of the SF Dems for Change slate because some of their “moderate” slate isn’t all that moderate).
AD-17:
Matt Dorsey
Nancy Tung
Laurance Lem Lee
Peter Lee
Trevor Chandler
Lily Ho
Cedric Akbar
Michael Lai
AD-19:
Marjan Philhour
Michela Alioto-Pier
Lanier Coles
Catherine Stefani
Jade Tu
Republican County Central Committee—Registered Republicans should vote for the ENTIRE Briones Republicans’ slate (full disclosure, I’m a candidate, as I think this is the starting place for re-taking our party from the Trump extremists, as the DCCC group above can re-take their party from the ultra-progressives, with your help).
AD-17:
Page Chamberlain
David Cuadro
Jennie Feldman
Christian Foster
Bill Jackson
Christopher Lewis
William Shireman
Josh Wolff
Jamie Wong
AD-19:
Nick Berg
Jeremiah Boehner
Martha Conte
Jan Diamond
Jay Donde
Peter Elden
Grazia Monares
Tom Rapkoch
Deah Williams
Jennifer Yan
Other City and Country Central Committee (just kidding, as there isn’t such a thing and your ballot won’t even show this race if you’re currently registered as No Party Preference)—if you’re not currently in either major party, GET IN ONE NOW! You can’t complain about extremists in local or state government or facing another Biden-Trump presidential match-up if you’re not willing to take this small bit of extra effort to make things better! See one of the above for how you should vote once you’ve re-registered in a party. 🙏🏼
JUDICIAL:
If you like the direction of our District Attorney, Brooke Jenkins, then you have to support her efforts to restore public safety by giving her judges who will follow her recommendations; please learn more through Stop Crime Action’s Judge Report Card.
Judge of the Superior Court, Seat #1–Chip Zecher
Judge of the Superior Court, Seat #13–Jean Myungjin Roland
As a small anecdote, Judge Michael Begert (whom Chip is challenging) crashed a private event at my house for Chip and Jean and, after being politely asked to leave, stood outside telling guests, “I can’t possibly incarcerate historically-oppressed people.” To which I would say, “yes you can, if they’ve repeatedly committed crimes and failed to take the many opportunities they’ve already been given to reform without incarceration.” Seriously?!!!
STATE PROPOSITIONS:
Prop 1: Mental Health Bonds
Vote NO
We have already devoted significant funds to both Mental Health services and housing for the homeless. Until we see better results from the funds they have, I’m not inclined to vote to provide additional funding. Perhaps they could instead reallocate funds from the exploding costs of public employee salaries, pensions and health benefits.
CITY AND COUNTY PROPOSITIONS:
Prop A: Affordable Housing Bond
Vote NO
They already have $900 million of affordable housing bonds outstanding and, even if you agree we need more, it doesn’t make sense to borrow now, during a period of higher interest rates, when the estimated cost of repayment is nearly double.
Prop B: Police Officer Staffing Levels
Vote NO
They took what was a great idea from Sup. Matt Dorsey, to again set minimum staffing levels (ours is well below the recommended number, the prior minimum that was repealed by this BOS, and what other cities have per population), but was modified by a “poison pill” by Sup. Ahsha Safaí to require a separate tax for funding. I don’t need to restate the obvious here—that public safety is literally job number one for any government. But clearly the people running our city don’t think that you’re paying enough in taxes yet to warrant an appropriate level of police protection. And even if we did agree with that premise, this measure would result in a significant delay in increasing police staffing.
Prop C: Real Estate Transfer Tax Exemption and Office Space Allocation
Vote NO
This measure is unlikely to have much impact for several reasons—one, it is not an exemption on the purchase of buildings for this purpose, but on the sale, which could be many years in the future; and two, this type of conversion is very costly and likely doesn’t make economic sense even with this perk. Plus, on point number one, since we have no idea when this exemption (or loss of revenue) would occur, it feels risky and like you’re just pushing off the unknown and unpredictable cost for it to later leaders and later generations of taxpayers/citizems. Doesn’t sound like a good idea to me.
Prop D: Changes to Local Ethics Laws
Vote YES
This is a cautious yes because while any move towards greater uniformity of ethics rules across City departments is good, it’s not clear that these new, more centralized guidelines are a step up in accountability across the various departments. Let’s hope so! 🤞🏻
Prop E: Police Department Policies and Procedures
Vote YES!
This one is really a no-brainer. The unelected, anti-police Police Commission holds too much sway over public safety in our city. This measure would provide more power for the SFPD to access technology and reduce paperwork to create a safer, more livable city.
Prop F: Illegal Substance Dependence Screening and Treatment
Vote YES
This is also a cautious yes because, while the theory here is great—use assistance as a carrot to get people into treatment, there could be unintended consequences as to where they redirect funding from to achieve this. Would it come from the already meager availability of treatment beds and services while protecting the “safe-use” policy network that encourages people to stay addicted over choosing to try to get clean? I’m going to hope that this could be the first step towards a treatment-centered policy platform.
Prop G: Offering Algebra 1 to Eighth Graders
Vote YES!
While this measure is non-binding for the SF Unified School District, it’s an important signal that voters want San Francisco’s students to have access to all the educational options they need to be competitive on an increasingly-technological educational and workforce playing field.
I know there are many other ballot guides and explainers out there. I encourage you to test out my positions here with some investigation of your own. Here are some common-sense resources I’d recommend:
Connected SF Voter Guide(coming this week)
Govern for California
Neighbors for a Better San Francisco
And others I wouldn’t:
The official San Francisco Democratic party endorsements
The official San Francisco Republican Party endorsements
The official San Francisco Republican Party endorsements