SF League of Pissed Off Voters

Hey Leaguers,

While the national attention is on the 2020 Democratic Primary, San Francisco has our own little election coming up November 5, 2019. The League is starting to dig into who and what is on the ballot, and you're invited to join us.

We're having a casual happy hour gathering to go over the ballot, figure out who's researching what, talk about how we do research, what our priorities are, and what we're pissed off about this year. If you're interested in helping with our research process but can't make this event, you can email us back to get involved.

Join us at one of the picnic tables in the back of Thee Parkside. It's all ages, so everyone is welcome.

WHEN: Wednesday, July 17, 6pm to 8:30pm
WHERE: Thee Parkside (map)
1600 17th St at Wisconsin
San Francisco, CA 94107

While most of us have been hibernating from local politics for the holidays, the ever active Democratic Party politicos have been busily gearing up for an election this weekend.

Voters will choose Assembly District Delegates at an obscure meeting called the Assembly District Election Meetings (ADEMs). These delegates help set the policies and priorities for the California Democratic Party. So if you’ve ever been pissed off about sellout Democrats, and you live in David Chiu’s Assembly District, you might want to show up on Saturday (10am-1pm at the Women’s Building) to vote for a bunch of rad progressives who are running against a slate of more middle-of-the-road Dems.

The League’s steering committee has a range of feelings about how involved we should be in ADEMs, absent a formal endorsement process, so we’re not making any official endorsements. We are not a Democratic club and some of us aren’t Democrats. Some of us are turned off by participating in these insider politico machinations and/or question if the ADEMs really matter or if it’s just a popularity contest for politicos. Some of us are excited to see some of our allies and heroes stepping up to run for the ADEMs to reform the state Democratic Party that has been dominated by corporate sellouts for as long as we’ve been around. If this kind of geekery interests you, read on!

Update 11/7:

Huge thanks to everyone who supported the League this election. You passed out voter guides, pub crawled, helped research, voted on our endorsements, and helped push forward an exciting pissed off progressive slate. We couldn't do it without you. Most of the races have been decided, but with 139,000 ballots left to count, we're still going to be watching those 4pm Department of Elections results...at least for a few days.

Election Day 11/6:

You might notice that few local results are on the news Election Night. We've got you covered for that, too.

Links for election results:

SF election results summary
SF Ranked Choice Voting results
California election results

Timing of results:

Tuesday at 8:45pm: The Department of Elections will release the first batch of results. These will be only vote-by-mail ballots received before Tuesday. Typically, these are the most conservative votes. Don’t freak out if the results look bad! Have another drink and wait for….
Tuesday at 9:45, 10:45, and maaaybe midnight: Elections will release the totals from ballots cast at polling places.
Wednesday at 4pm: Elections will release an updated count and tell us how many ballots they still have to count.
Every day after that at 4pm: They'll keep release results until they're all counted.

What to expect?

None of the absentee ballots dropped off at polling places will be counted on Election Night! It might take two weeks for them all to be counted! Also, nobody who registered on Election Day at City Hall will have their ballot counted tonight. Also, none of the provisional ballots will be counted tonight! The drama will play out every day at 4pm in the basement of City Hall when the Department of Elections will release new results. We’ve been watching this process for years, and almost always, the late results swing the results a few percentage points towards progressive causes. 

Keep the faith, Pissed Off Voters, keep the faith!

When we vote for the Board of Supervisors, a key quality we look for is leaders we trust to stand up to the corporations that want to exploit our City for profit. Christine Johnson was tested on this when she was a Planning Commissioner, and she failed. The Commission was considering regulations for AirBnB at a time when thousands of apartments were being taken off the rental market to be converted into full-time AirBnBs. We are 100% fine with people using Airbnb properly to rent out their home when they’re out of town. But we’re 100% Pissed off at people who profit off converting apartments to Airbnbs. The linchpin of the regulations to prevent that is requiring Airbnb to delete listings that aren’t registered with the city.

Johnson was appointed to the Planning Commission by Mayor Ed Lee. She originally voted to support this regulation. But after she did, the Mayor’s staff texted her, upset by her vote. This video shows how Johnson then awkwardly went back and changed her vote to oppose this crucial piece of our Airbnb regulations. (This was all documented by the Examiner and SF Weekly who obtained copies of the text message exchange depicted in our video.)

For us, that’s disqualifying. As a magnet for innovation, San Francisco also attracts some corporations and start-ups that want to exploit us for profit: our housing, our streets, our data. They want to monetize all of it, and we need leaders who will stand up for us.

That’s why we support Matt Haney for District 6 Supervisor. Read our full take on this race in our voter guide: http://www.theleaguesf.org/#d6

Wow! The Board of Supervisors just voted 8-3 to reject the reappointment of Joe Marshall to the Police Commission! Fewer, Peskin, Cohen, Kim, Sheehy, Tang, Yee, Ronen against. Only Safai, Stefani, Breed supported Marshall. Thanks everybody! Your call & emails made a difference!

Can you please take a quick minute to email the Board of Supervisors to tell them to reject the re-appointment of Joe Marshall to the Police Commission? In May, the Board rejected interim Mayor Mark Farrell's re-appointment of Dr. Marshall, but Farrell nominated him again, and today is the last day for the Board to block his re-re-appointment! We're concerned that Mayor-elect London Breed has said she will support Dr. Marshall. If you want to go the extra mile, call her office at (415) 554-7630 and ask her to reconsider.

Here is a sample email:

Please vote against the re-appointment of Dr. Joe Marshall to the Police Commission. Dr. Marhsall is simply too cozy with the Police Officers Association (POA) to implement the police reforms San Francisco needs.

We are especially troubled by his dishonest statements at the Rules Committee yesterday. He tried to deny that his organization, Alive and Free receives funding from the POA, but their annual reports show POA donations of between $1,000 and $10,000 every year for the last six years! Dr. Marshall also tried to deny that he had initially voted to allow police to use the dangerous carotid restraint. And maybe most disturbingly, he said he didn't think the POA had delayed any of our police reforms! We've seen over and over and over how the POA has tried to stall or block Use of Force reform, body cameras, taser policy, etc.

The Board's recent hearing on applicants for the Police Commission demonstrated that there are many well-qualified community members who are interested in serving on the Commission. Please reject this appointment to create the opportunity for new leadership on police reform.

Update 6/25: The Department of Elections concluded their count of ballots on June 21 and found one uncounted card they added to the tally. The final results are expected to be certified this week. Only 53% of the City's registered voters chose to vote. This abysmal showing is considered "high turnout."

When we look at first place ballots cast, here's how the votes shook out on the top three candidates.

After rank choice votes were distributed, the election was decided by 2,546 votes. Damn.

Take a couple of weeks to enjoy your summer. The November election begins....um... already?

Ready for something positive and inclusive and aspirational about the SF Mayor's race? Check out this piece by Rebecca Solnit.

I want a feminist mayor.

I want a mayor who is a champion of human rights.

I want a mayor who knows what it’s like to be a woman, an immigrant, a person of color, an outsider, a newcomer, a beginner, who stands with the dreamers and the old-timers, with the vulnerable and not just the powerful.

I want a mayor who’s passionately committed to keeping this place a sanctuary city.

I want a mayor who will be everyone’s mayor. A mayor who believes that San Francisco is for all of us, poor as well as rich, the baby born last week and the person who’s lived here nine decades, not just those of us in our prime working years. I want a mayor who knows that we need dishwashers and bus drivers and schoolteachers living here. I want the mayor with plans about how to close the widening gulf between rich and poor in in this town (and Jane Kim has them).

There's no debate that Mark Leno was the most progressive member of the state Senate. Whether it was tenant protections, police reform, health care, LGBTQ rights, clean energy . . . you name it, Leno was on the right side. But Leno's super power is his ability to push the envelope on progressive policies while also earning the respect of everyone in the room and charming the pants off his fellow Senators! Check out this video of a bunch of stuffy state Senators gushing about how great Mark is! Drinking game: drink every time they talk about Mark's "grace!" Share this with your more moderate/less firey friends to show them they can feel safe voting for Leno. ;) Wouldn't it be great to have a Mayor who shares our values AND builds political bridges? That's why we're excited to vote for both Jane Kim and Mark Leno. See our voter guide for our full take.

P.S. Did you notice what a sausage fest this video is? Fun fact: there are currently only nine women in California's 40-member state Senate! :/

KALW asked London Breed about the San Francisco Tenants Union's criticism of her record, and it didn't go well. Breed said the SFTU lied when they said she did not support 2014's Prop G, the anti-speculation tax. But then she says she did not take a position. Isn't "not supporting" the same thing as "not taking a position?" That's not a lie. The Tenants Union asked Breed to support Prop G, but she refused to. We were super excited about Prop G to discourage speculators from buying up apartment buildings to evict the tenants and flip the property for a big profit. Unfortunately it lost 46% to 54% after the National Realtors Association parachuted with $2 million against it. Breed could've made a difference on it.

Then Breed said she voted for the ordinance regulating tenant buyouts. But the Board of Supervisors website (page 15) and press reports clearly show she voted against it! We join with the Tenants Union in supporting Jane Kim and Mark Leno as the best choices to protect tenants as our next Mayor.

See our voter guide for our full take on everything on the ballot.