SF League of Pissed Off Voters

Wow, things are really heated in the City these days. I mean, we get it. We're pissed off too (obviously). But we've always tried to focus our anger on San Francisco's injustices and corruption, not specific people, and to root that anger in love. We understand that the City's intense politics can make it hard to stay grounded….But yikes it's getting scary out there--particularly on twitter/x ever since Elon Musk unleashed the troll hordes.

Speaking of Elon, last September, he made headlines when he called for Supervisors Dean Preston and Aaron Peskin to be jailed, and pledged to donate $100,000 to GrowSF's anti-Preston PAC.

GrowSF clutched their pearls and said they wouldn't accept Musk's money because they "need to be aligned on values with our donors." Bilal Mahmood, who was preparing to launch his campaign against Preston, dropped an f-bomb on Elon in a (now-deleted) tweet saying, "Elon should keep his fucking money out of our politics."

We appreciated their stances, because we know it can be hard to stand up against political allies who cross a line. That initial courage now looks like hypocrisy after Garry Tan recently tweeted that Supervisors Peskin, Preston, Walton, Melgar, Ronen, Safai, and Chan should "die slow motherfuckers." GrowSF and Mahmood haven't said a word. 

Why not? Because unlike cheapskate Elon, Garry Tan--CEO of tech incubator Y-Combinator and a GrowSF board member--has been a huge funder of moderate campaigns. He’s dropped nearly $200K since 2015, including $50,000 to the anti-Preston PAC and $5,000 to Mahmood's DCCC campaign.

Since Tan's tweet, five of the Supervisors have received threats in the mail at their homes that say, “Garry Tan is right! I wish a slow and painful death for you and your loved ones.”

But still the candidates and PACs that Tan funds refuse to cut ties with him, or even condemn his comments. Tan’s apologists have tried to minimize his comments because they were based on a Tupac diss track. But come on, he’s still telling his political enemies to “die slow!” 

And when we flashback to this wild-pupil Tan video from last summer where he pledged to "wipe out the Preston-Peskin hard left cabal" and says, "Preston, Peskin, Chan, Walton, Melgar, Ronen, your days are numbered," it makes his “die slow” tweet seem less like a drunken mistake and more like a pattern of menacing intimidation. In the context of our federal election climate, these threats are all the more concerning.

What can we do?

1. Sign the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club's petition demanding that campaigns return Garry Tan’s money and condemn his comments, and that Y Combinator condemn Tan’s rhetoric and call for his resignation. 
2. Email the Board of Supervisors and say you support President Peskin's proposed legislation to require a campaign finance disclaimer on political mail and ads linked to anyone who has made credible and documented violent threats. We know this ordinance will need to be narrowly tailored to respect the First Amendment, but we think it’s reasonable to include a disclosure on a political hit ad if it’s paid for by someone who told the ad’s target to “die slow.”
3. Vote with the Pissed Off Voter Guide and share it with your friends!

Don’t feed the trolls!

Garry Tan and GrowSF are seriously trolling progressives. Even when they aren’t actively making death threats, they are continuing a pattern of bullying and fanning the fake news flames. We’ll end this post with what we said the last time we dealt with this bullshit, which coincidentally was during the last DCCC race:

While hater noise sure gets us down, we LOVE talking to SF voters about the issues we care about in the streets, on Muni, on campuses, and in our neighborhoods. Thanks for the love that so many of you send our way every election — we feel it! If you like what we do and want to get involved, get on our email list or check our website or facebook or instagram for pub crawls and other opportunities to volunteer. Donate if you can, help us educate voters on local races before the March primary, and become a member of the League so you can help us with the November guide!

Check out our Pissed Off Voter Guide for the March 5, 2024 primary election — a 6,500 word democracy-bomb of sharp analysis and inside baseball, and if you can, please donate to the League so we can print more voter guides.

Hey! Surely you're looking for our voter guide - this is just our endorsement lists - come back in early 2024 for our full unabridged voter guide!

The San Francisco League of Pissed Off Voters membership voted to endorse the following candidates and ballot measures for the March 2024 election. 

Local Offices

Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC) AD17: Labor & Working Families Slate

• John Avalos
• Patrick Bell
• Gloria Berry
• Vick Chung
• Peter Gallotta
• Kristin Hardy
• Jane Kim
• Jeremy Lee
• Anita Martinez
• Michael Nguyen
• Joshua Rudy Ochoa
• Sal Rosselli
• Sydney Simpson
• Adolfo Velasquez

Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC) AD19: Labor & Working Families Slate

• Connie Chan
• Queena Chen
• Natalie Gee
• Greg Hardeman
• Frances Hsieh
• Hene Kelly
• Leah LaCroix
• Sandra Lee Fewer
• Gordon Mar
• Mano Raju

Judicial Offices

Superior Court Judge, Seat 1: Michael Isaku Begert
Superior Court Judge, Seat 13: Patrick Thompson

Local Propositions

Prop A: $300M Affordable Housing Bond: Yes
Prop B: Police Officer Staffing Levels Conditioned on Amending Existing or Future Tax Funding: No
Prop C: Real Estate Transfer Tax Exemption and Office Space Allocation: No
Prop D: Changes to Local Ethics Laws: Yes
Prop E: Police Department Policies and Procedures: No
Prop F: Illegal Substance Dependence Screening and Treatment for Recipients of City Public Assistance: No
Prop G: Offering Algebra 1 to Eighth Graders: No

State Propositions

Prop 1: Behavioral Health Services & Bond: Yes

Statewide Offices

State Assemblymember, District 17: No Endorsement
State Assemblymember, District 19: No Endorsement
State Senate: No Endorsement

Federal Offices

US Senator: Barbara Lee
US Representative, District 11: No Endorsement
US Representative, District 15: No Endorsement

Prop I on the November 8, 2022 San Francisco ballot would reopen two streets to cars: JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park and the Great Highway south of Sloat. Like everyone else in San Francisco, the League had big feels about whether or not JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park should be (partially) closed to car traffic. But the idea of trying to reopen the Great Highway south of Sloat is foolish in the face of climate change (and the California Coastal Commission), so our members voted for a No on Prop I.

Background: After the Supes voted to keep JFK Drive car-free in April 2022, a coalition largely funded by Republican mega-donor (and Fine Arts/DeYoung Museum trustee) Dede Wilsey gathered signatures for Prop I (fully re-opening the Drive and the Great Highway Promenade to cars again.)

What swayed us to a No on Prop I was the damage it would do to the City’s sensible Ocean Beach Climate Change Adaption Project to address sea-level rise and sandstorms in 2023 by closing the Sloat extension, removing harmful coastal armoring, and restoring habitat. If Prop I passes, the City would have to spend at least $80 million to construct a ridiculous seawall at Ocean Beach– a temporary and destructive attempt to wish away the water.

Here’s some more context if you want to go deep: 

It’s hard to overstate how divorced from reality it would be to try to armor the Great Highway South of Sloat to try to keep it a two-way road for cars.  The City committed to closing the Great Highway South of Sloat back in 2014, when they settled a lawsuit about coastal erosion. In 2018, the SFPUC studied four options for this stretch of road, none of which included full car access because they said the California Coastal Commission wouldn’t allow it. But if somehow we were allowed to build that stupid ugly seawall, the EIR for the Ocean Beach Climate Change Adaption Project says it would require placing 100,000 cubic yards of sand every year to protect the seawall and could “result in accelerated erosion of shore areas to the north and south of the wall,” including "bluff instability at Fort Funston.”  In the interests of all-cars-all-the-time, Prop I would pour huge amounts of money into bad infrastructure, pretending that the sand’s not blowing and the seas aren’t rising. 

We also oppose Prop I because it can only be amended by another ballot measure. That means even if the City implements all the accessibility improvements that SDA and others are asking for, we’d have to beat Dede Wilsey’s money at the ballot to make any changes to JFK in the future.

For all of those reasons, we urge you to vote no on Prop I.

And see our full Pissed Off Voter Guide for our take on everything else on the ballot.

Paid for by the San Francisco League of Pissed Off Voters.
Committee major funding from:
Save John F Kennedy Promenade, Yes on J, No on I. ($5,000) - contributors include Jeremy Stoppelman ($300,000), The Nature Conservancy ($50,000), Emmett Shear ($50,000)
Financial disclosures available at sfethics.org.

Hey! Surely you're looking for our November 2022 Pissed Off Voter Guide - this is just our endorsement lists - click through to read the full thing!

The San Francisco League of Pissed Off Voters membership voted to endorse the following candidates and ballot measures for the November 2022 election. Our full Pissed Off Voter Guide is available now- read it!

Statewide Offices

Governor: No Endorsement
Lt Governor: No Endorsement
Secretary of State: Shirley Weber
Controller: No Endorsement
Treasurer: No Endorsement
Attorney General: Rob Bonta
Insurance Commissioner: No Endorsement 
Superintendent of Public Instruction: Tony Thurmond
Board of Equalization, District 2: Sally Lieber

State Assemblymember, District 17: No Position
State Assemblymember, District 19: No Endorsement

Supreme Court Judges: Yes on Groban, Guerrero, Jenkins, Liu
Appeals Court Judges, First District: Yes on Brown, Burns, Fujisaki, Jackson, Petrou, Rodriguez, Goldman, Stewart, Tucher

Federal Offices

US Senator: Alex Padilla
US Representative, District 11: No Endorsement
US Representative, District 15: David Canepa

Local Offices

Supervisor, District 2: No Endorsement
Supervisor, District 4: Gordon Mar
Supervisor, District 6: #1 Honey Mahogany, #2 Cherelle Jackson
Supervisor, District 8: No Endorsement
Supervisor, District 10: Shamann Walton
City College Board of Trustees, 4 Year Term: Vick Chung, Anita Martinez, Susan Solomon
City College Board of Trustees, 2 Year Term: Adolfo Velasquez
SFUSD Board of Education: Alida Fisher, Karen Fleshman, Gabriela López
Assessor-Recorder: No Endorsement
District Attorney: John Hamasaki
Public Defender: Mano Raju
BART Director, District 8: Janice Li

State Propositions

Prop 1: Protect Abortion Rights: Yes
Prop 26: Legalize Sports Betting in Tribal Casinos: Yes
Prop 27: Legalize Mobile Sports Betting: No
Prop 28: K-12 Art and Music Education: Yes
Prop 29: Dialysis Clinic Regulation: Yes
Prop 30: Wealth Tax for Climate Change: Yes
Prop 31: Ban on Flavored Tobacco: Yes

Local Propositions

Prop A: Retiree Supplemental Cost of Living Adjustment: Yes
Prop B: Sanitation & Streets Public Works Reorg: Yes
Prop C: Homelessness Oversight Commission: Yes
Prop D: Affordable Homes Now: No
Prop E: Homes for Families and Workers: Yes
Prop F: Library Preservation Fund: Yes
Prop G: Student Success Fund: Yes
Prop H: Voter Participation Act: Yes
Prop I: Open JFK Drive + Great Highway to Cars: No
Prop J: Close JFK Drive to Cars: No Position
Prop K: Withdrawn E-Commerce Tax: No
Prop L: Renew Half Cent Sales Tax for Transit: Yes
Prop M: Empty Homes Tax: Yes 
Prop N: City Funding for Golden Gate Park Parking Garage: Yes 
Prop O: City College Parcel Tax: Yes

• Daniel Landry
• Adolfo Velasquez

• Alida Fisher
• Karen Fleshman
• Gabriela Lopez
• Lainie Motamedi
• Lisa Weissman-Ward

The San Francisco League of Pissed Off Voters members voted to endorse the following candidates and ballot measures for the June 2022 Primary election. Our full, unabridged Pissed Off Voter Guide is coming soon!

Statewide Offices

Governor: Luis Rodriguez
Lt Governor: Mohammad Arif
Secretary of State: Shirley Weber
Controller: Ron Galperin
Treasurer: Meghann Adams
Attorney General: Rob Bonta
Insurance Commissioner: Nathalie Hrizi
Superintendent of Public Instruction: Marco Amaral
Board of Equalization, District 2: Sally Lieber

State Assemblymember, District 17: No Endorsement
State Assemblymember, District 19: No Endorsement

Federal Offices

US Senator: Alex Padilla
US Representative, District 11: No Endorsement

Local Offices

City Attorney: No Endorsement

Local Propositions

Prop A: MUNI Bond : No Endorsement
Prop B: Building Inspection Commission : Yes
Prop C: Recall Reform : Yes
Prop D: Victims and Witness Rights City Department : No
Prop E: Behested Payments : Yes
Prop F: Garbage Collection Overcharging : Yes
Prop G: Public Health Emergency Leave : Yes
Prop H: Recall District Attorney : No

The San Francisco League of Pissed Off Voters members met on March 11th and voted on endorsements for the April 2022 runoff election.

After a lot of discussion, no candidates or options received the majority of votes. So we have no endorsement but plenty of thoughts. See our April Pissed Off Voter Guide for our full write up.

State Assembly District 17

• No Position

Did you catch your breath from that bummer of a special election in February? Good, because the April special election is right around the corner!  :/  That means we need to decide our endorsement ASAP.

WHEN: Friday, March 10, 2022, 5:30pm
WHERE: Zoom zoom zoom!
WHAT: League endorsement meeting for the April election
To RSVP, email us at theleaguesf @ gmail.com and tell us one sentence about your experience with the League, and we'll send you the Zoom link.

Hey! Surely you're looking for our February 2022 Pissed Off Voter Guide - this is not it!

The San Francisco League of Pissed Off Voters members voted to endorse the following candidates and ballot measures for the February 2022 election. Our full, unabridged Pissed Off Voter Guide is coming soon! You can see the candidates' responses to our questionnaire here.

State Assembly District 17

• Dual Endorsement: David Campos & Matt Haney

Assessor-Recorder

• No Endorsement

Board of Education Recall

• Alison Collins: No, do not Recall
• Faauuga Moliga: No, do not Recall
• Gabriela Lopez: No, do not Recall