San Francisco Green Party

These are the SF Green Party's final endorsements for the November 2020 election. We have mailed a postcard with our endorsements to all our members. If you can donate to help cover our printing and mailing costs, please use the "donate" link to the left!

 

Our complete Green Voter Guide is now posted. Click "read more" to see full explanations of the reasons behind our endorsements.

 

President and Vice President: Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker (nominated at our national convention in July)

 

SF Board of Supervisors:

• D1: no endorsement
• D3: no endorsement
• D5: Dean Preston (#1 ranked choice), Daniel Landry (#2 ranked choice)
• D7: no endorsement
• D9: no endorsement
• D11: John Avalos

School Board: Matt Alexander, Kevine Boggess, Mark Sanchez

 

College Board: Aliya Chisti, Anita Martinez, Geramye Teeter

 

BART Board: no endorsement

 

Local Ballot Measures:

• NO on A: bond to fund Mayor's slush fund
• YES on B: split Sanitation and Streets department off from Public Works
• YES on C: Allow non-citizens to serve on City commissions
• YES on D: Sheriff oversight
• NO on E: ineffective police staffing proposal
• YES on F: makes business taxes more progressive
• YES on G: Youth voting (16 year olds in local elections)
• NO on H: Neighborhood gentrification districts
• YES on I: Increase real estate transfer tax on most expensive properties
• NO on J: repeal and replace parcel tax for SFUSD (we like the current parcel tax for teachers)
• YES on K: Permit 10,000 units of social housing
• YES on L: tax on companies where executives make 100x as much as workers
• NO on RR: regressive sales tax for Caltrain (should be free to riders, paid for by state or local budgets)

 

State Ballot Measures:

• NO on 14: regressive bonds for stem cell research (should be part of state budget)
• YES on 15: Split tax rolls for commercial and residential property
• YES on 16: Repeal prop 209; allow affirmative action
• YES on 17: Voting rights for people on parole
• YES on 18: Youth voting (17 year olds to vote in primaries if they will be 18 by the general election)
• no position on Prop 19: Allows transfer of property tax basis to all counties in CA, changes taxes on inherited properties
• NO on 20: fascist proposal to lock up more people and collect DNA from people convicted of misdemeanors
• YES on 21: More rent control
• NO on 22: Allows Uber and Lyft to continue classifying their drivers as "contractors" in order to avoid taxes and regulations
• YES on 23: dialysis regulation, to help SEIU-UHW West
• NO on 24: water down consumer privacy laws
• YES on 25: keep laws eliminating cash bail (but we call on Democrats in the CA legislature to do this in a less racist way)

 

 

Other Contests:

• US Congress: no endorsement
• State Senate: no endorsement

 

Click below to read our complete Green Voter Guide.

 

 

President/VP - Hawkins/Walker

 

Howie Hawkins is a retired Teamster and a founding member of the Green Party of the United States, having participated in the first national Green organizing meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota in August 1984. He's been an active member of the New York Greens, and his runs for NY Governor in 2010, 2014, and 2018 each earned Greens enough votes to maintain ballot status in the state. Hawkins has also been very involved in social justice movements outside of electoral politics, including the anti-nuclear Clamshell Alliance and anti-apartheid movements in the 1970s and 80s. In addition to his work in organized labor, Hawkins also helped organize worker cooperatives that promote democratic ownership and control of businesses.

 

Hawkins is best known as the original author of the Green New Deal, which has been a signature issue for the Green Party since Hawkins' run for NY Governor in 2010. His current plan is an ambitious 10-year $27.5 trillion program to achieve negative carbon emissions and 100% clean energy (no nuclear power or fossil fuels) by 2030. It also includes an additional $1.4 trillion a year for an Economic Bill of Rights: guaranteed jobs, a guaranteed income above poverty, affordable housing, Medicare for All, lifelong tuition-free public education, and a secure retirement by doubling Social Security benefits. It would be paid for by deep cuts to the military budget, which currently accounts for over half of discretionary spending in the US budget.

 

In August, Hawkins chose Angela Walker as his running mate. Walker is an independent socialist who describes herself as "a Fred Hampton, Assata Shakur socialist." She was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to a working-class Black family. She has experience in both socialist activism (primarily in support of public schools and public transit), as well as electoral politics. She ran as a Socialist candidate for Sheriff against the Democrat (now turned Trump supporter) David Clarke, earning 20% of the vote. She also ran for Vice President on the Socialist ticket in 2016. Walker now works as a truck driver in South Carolina, and agreed to join Hawkins in a "Left Unity" run for President.

 

Hawkins is running against a right-wing Democratic Party ticket of loyal Wall Street flunky Joe Biden and Kamala "the Cop" Harris, and the far-right Trump Party ticket, a diverse coalition of white nationalists, billionaires who don't like Biden, and deluded working class people who were cast aside by the Democratic Party elites. US politics have never been more polarized, with almost all Democrats and Republicans voting to stop the opposing party, rather than because they like their own candidate. Few Democrats and Republicans even tolerate friends who do not share their political preferences.

 

Intense political polarization in the US, and the "race to the bottom" in the Democratic and Republican parties make it more critical than ever to build the Green Party as an alternative. Progressives who shun the Green Party in favor of building an alternative progressive party some time in the future are ignoring the incredible amount of work required to start a new party. That work has already been done by Green activists, and we need everybody who shares Green Party's values to help us transform the US into a true multi-party democracy. A vote for the Green Party will send a message to sellout Democrats in favor of policies like the Green New Deal (which neither Biden nor Trump support) and against endless war (where Trump and Biden also agree). For those people determined to stop Trump above all other priorities, the Electoral College means that all of California's votes will go to Biden. Since this will happen no matter who we vote for, voting Green is a minimal step in a positive direction.

 

 

Local Endorsements -

 

SF government was already failing long before the COVID crisis hit us. With "moderate" Democrats firmly in control of the most powerful offices in SF Government for over two decades, corruption has continued unabated since Willie Brown's last term as Mayor. Although "progressive" Democrats are in control of the Board of Supervisors, they're unwilling to rock the boat. This is because the Mayor controls all City services, both directly through City departments run by her appointees, and indirectly via control of the funding of nonprofits that provide services that the City chooses to outsource. Any Supervisor who fails to toe the line faces angry constituents, whose streets are no longer cleaned or repaired (see our discussion of Prop B) and whose sidewalks are turned by the SF Police Department into "containment zones" for unhoused people and drug sales.

 

The problem of municipal corruption funneled through nonprofits has, if anything, gotten even worse since Willie Brown's time as Mayor. Brown mostly gave money to his "moderate" friends. His hand-picked successors, Gavin Newsom, Ed Lee, and London Breed, have learned to use non-profit funding as a leash on their "progressive" opponents. They do this by directing City funding to non-profits run by supporters of progressive Democrats, with the threat of withdrawing funding used to ensure Party unity. This progressive bloc, who we call the "non-profit industrial complex," grounds activist energy and prevents real change (see our discussions of Prop E, D7, and D9). The SF Green Party didn't bother to write a legislative report card for the 2019 Board of Supervisors, since everybody seemed to just be "going along to get along" with the Mayor. Instead of progressive Supervisors rising to challenge corruption in the City (Crime) Family, it took Trump's FBI to step in to indict the most entrenched members of the Willie Brown Machine.

 

The COVID crisis has exposed failures at the national, state, local levels of government. Trump deserves the majority of the blame for his PR attempt to minimize the seriousness of the crisis, and his failure to ramp up production of tests and PPE, or enact national lockdown standards. However, California, with the 5th largest economy in the world, might have weathered the storm if it had not been led by an airhead who is focused more on PR than on policy, backed by a supermajority of Democrats who are laser-focused on giving developers and landlords everything they want (see our discussion of State Senate).

 

Newsom's failures mostly mirrored Trump's - along with Governor Brown, he ended Governor Schwarzenegger's pandemic emergency program, and allowed construction and other Democrat-friendly businesses (including his own winery) to continue to stay open while other businesses were locked down. State Democrats also declined to use their authority to enact a rent and mortgage moratorium, or to keep locked-down small businesses afloat by paying them to keep their quarantined workers on the payroll (as was commonly done in Europe).

 

Mayor Breed's handling of the COVID crisis was no better. Rather than taking advantage of local universities to rapidly scale up testing and contact tracing to the level needed to control COVID, she enacted a minimal lockdown and then complained about people engaged in non-risky behavior, such as visiting beaches and parks. As Newsom did at the state level, Breed allowed all condo construction to continue, despite evidence that the Latinx community was disproportionately bearing the effects of COVID. Although SF looks like it hasn't been as badly hit by COVID as other places, this is largely because our service workers who get sick can't afford to live here, and thus aren't counted in our statistics. Breed has avoided criticism from her "progressive" colleagues by funneling COVID testing money through the nonprofit industrial complex. In our interviews, we couldn't find a single candidate who suggested she'd mishandled things.

 

 

D1 - no endorsement

 

The San Francisco Green Party chose not to endorse a candidate for District 1 Supervisor. The San Francisco Democratic Party (DCCC) largely determines whether candidates have the preferred pedigree for political office in our highly partisan, supposedly non-partisan, local elections. The progressive/moderate labels applied by largely corporate media outlets identify the bland fare at the machine party's table. McPolitics SF-style is deeply disturbing and the 2020 D1 Supe race is truly emblematic. Only two of the seven candidates sought our endorsement. Neither were worthy.

 

Connie Chan is the anointed faux-gressive in the race. Chan checks the identity politics box as she and her family immigrated from Hong Kong when she was a young teen. Sadly, her intersectionality consists of a decade and a half as an obedient servant of the SF political machine. As a member of the City Family, she has polished turds running PR for sell-outs (Supe Maxwell), cops (then-DA Kamala Harris), hacks (Supe Peskin), and petty tyrants (#SFWreckinParks Phil Ginsburg). Most notably, as Deputy Director of Public Affairs for #WreckinPark, she helped run the PR campaign for privatization and construction of hazmat dumps for kids, the toxic tire waste-filled playgrounds and playfields that are a cancer on our greenwashed City's green spaces.

 

Veronika Shinzato missed what might have been a low bar for endorsement. On our questionnaire she presented herself as a grassroots candidate who would fight for the rights of her constituents, but indicated that she'd previously supported London Breed and Ed Lee for mayor in 2019 and 2015, respectively. #RecallEdLee.

 

D1 voters should take the opportunity in this District election to spoil their ballots by writing in three of their favorite people/pets to see how our Department of Elections deals with the results.

 

 

D3 - no endorsement

 

We did not endorse a candidate for District 3 Supervisor. Aaron Peskin, the current incumbent, did not provide any contact information for his campaign to the Department of elections. Had he sought the Green Party's endorsement, he would have been very unlikely to receive it due to his close ties to Uber and Lyft. As we wrote in our No on D endorsement in 2019:

• According to a Matier and Ross column from this March, D3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin was taken to dinner by Uber and Lyft representatives, including Peskin's former aide who now has a job at Uber. They all agreed to a tax that Uber and Lyft both supported. This was bribery.

 

One of Peksin's opponents, Danny Sauter, sought our endorsement. Sauter is endorsed by YIMBY Action, and appears to have little knowledge of how the City government works. For example, he attacked Peskin for not providing district services, which only Mayor Breed has control over (see our discussion at the beginning of Local Endorsements).

 

We hope that a real grassroots activist will run for this seat in the next election.

 

 

D5 - #1 Dean Preston, #2 Daniel Landry

 

Dean Preston is a long-time tenant activist and attorney, who we've endorsed twice before, in 2016 and 2019. Last year, we urged voters to rank him over Mayor Breed's appointed incumbent, Vallie Brown, because:

• We think Dean Preston is better on the key issues of housing and tenants' rights, and would better represent a very progressive district.

Preston's lived up to our expectations in his first year in office. In response to COVID, he led the Board in passing legislation to create a moratorium on evictions. The Board also unanimously passed his legislation requiring the Mayor to house homeless people in hotel rooms for the duration of the COVID crisis. However, when Mayor Breed refused to follow this law, the Board of Supervisors chose not to pursue legal action to force her to do so. Although it is likely that Preston did not have the votes to win this fight, putting the other Supervisors on record would have been illuminating. As we expected, Preston is also good on housing, sponsoring Prop K in order to legalize 10,000 units of social housing (see our discussion of Prop K, below).

 

Due to the need to focus on COVID, we're giving Preston a pass on not being able to move legislation in areas other than housing, such as his promise to work on fare-free Muni. We like that he's one of the only Supervisors willing to challenge the Mayor, and we'd like to see what he can accomplish with a full term in office.

 

Daniel Landry has earned our #2 endorsement after Dean Preston. On our questionnaire, Landry noted that Preston is the current Supervisor whose votes most reflect his values. Like Preston, his other answers to our questionnaire show their values are closely aligned with each other, and with the 10 Key Values of the Green party. In fact, Landry says he was previously registered Green. We also like his track record of activism - he was previously a member of the Justice for Mario Woods coalition, as well as the Stop Lennar Action Movement. We disagree on some issues most notably Prop 22 (see our discussion, below), but Landry merits a second choice vote.

 

We awarded Vallie Brown our second choice endorsement in 2019, but we can't endorse her this time. She's come out strongly against fare-free Muni, as well as social housing. She's also against Preston's eviction ban, because the tenants will have to pay back their landlords eventually or risk eviction. That's true (unless Democrats at the state level pass a law to forgive back rent and mortgage payments), but Preston's eviction ban moves unpaid rent into a legal category similar to consumer debt, which will make it more difficult for landlords to evict people.

 

In summary, rank Dean Preston #1, Daniel Landry #2, and don't vote for Vallie Brown.

 

 

D7 - no endorsement

 

Several candidates sought our endorsement for D7 Supe. None met the bar for endorsement, even though we had low expectations in a fairly conservative district.

 

Vilaska Nguyen is supported by many "progressive" groups and politicians, and is currently doing good work as a Public Defender. On his questionnaire, we see that he supports many policies in common with the Green Party. But there are great areas of disagreement as well, especially in his support of the HOME-SF law, which accelerates the building of luxury condos. HOME-SF is rarely applied in wealthy parts of the City, such as D7. Instead, it's a tool for gentrification of working class neighborhoods elsewhere. Nguyen appears a little naive about politics, and although he'd vote the right way on most issues, we don't see him really being willing to challenge the Mayor. We hope Nguyen will keep up his good work at the Public Defender's office.

 

Myrna Melgar's questionnaire makes her appear to be well aligned with us on the issues, but her past actions are a textbook example of how the "nonprofit industrial complex" works. Until recently, Melgar served on the Board of Directors of Jamestown, a non-profit that the City uses to outsource services to youth and families in the Mission. In 2014, Mayor Ed Lee leaned on City-funded nonprofits to oppose Prop H, a Green-led initiative to require natural grass on soccer fields in Golden Gate Park. Melgar went along with the scheme, and Rec and Park was allowed to build a massive soccer complex behind the Beach Chalet using toxic tire waste as infill. Heavy metals from the tire waste are currently leaching into our water supply. In exchange for Melgar's support, Jamestown was rewarded with a new, non-toxic soccer field at one of the program sites. The corporate-funded field was presented in a ceremony featuring Nancy Pelosi. As Supervisor, we wouldn't expect Melgar to show any further backbone in opposing Mayor Breed.

 

Stephen Martin-Pinto is a Republican who disagrees with most of the Green Party's positions on issues. We did find areas of agreement with regards to the corruption and mismanagement of the City. However, like many SF Republicans, Martin-Pinto mistakenly places the blame on the most convenient target, members of the Board of Supervisors, rather than on "moderates" like Mayor Breed who actually run the City. In response to our questionnaire, Martin-Pinto said he was unfamiliar with the City Charter, written in 1996, which centralizes the vast majority of power with the Mayor's office. We find this lack of civic education to be disqualifying, even before our disagreement on other issues.

 

D9 - no endorsement

 

Hillary Ronen is running unopposed for re-election as D9 Supe. Although Greens previously endorsed her in 2016, her track record does not merit our support this time.

 

Active Greens who live in the Mission expressed concerns that Ronen has done a poor job in representing her constituents. Like previous D9 Supervisors, Ronen lives in Bernal Heights, the wealthier part of D9. Her interactions with Mission residents are buffered through a number of Latinx-focused nonprofits. From the perspective of those nonprofits, Ronen has done a good job: by playing ball with the Mayor, she has secured funding for some City services, as well as a few concessions such as blocking a luxury condo project at 16th and Mission. However, the nonprofits themselves have a track record of soaking up grassroots activist energy, and channeling it into internal Democratic Party politics.

 

The nonprofit industrial complex has a track record of defusing local activism going back more than 20 years. Grassroots activists have tried to change City law to divest from fossil fuels, create a public bank, stop gentrification, and defund the police. In every case, nonprofits led by professional Democrats have grounded this grassroots energy into their groups. This has resulted in laws that are good PR, but don't actually effect the necessary changes - instead, issues are kicked up to the state level to die in Sacramento, or pushed off in a series of endless "studies." At worst, the nonprofits are willing to sacrifice other areas of the City in exchange for local crumbs, as when the "Monster in the Mission" was blocked but luxury condos a few blocks away at the "Hub" were given the green light (also see our discussion of D7 and Jamestown, above). And when activists defy this trend and don't go through channels (as some "Defund the Police" activists did at a protest outside Ronen's house), they are blacklisted from these "professional Democrat" jobs.

 

We expect that when Ronen is termed out in 4 years, her anointed Democratic Party successor will be a board member of one of her allied nonprofits. We hope a real grassroots neighborhood activist will step up to run instead.

 

 

D11 - John Avalos

 

In D11, Greens have endorsed the former district Supervisor, community and SEIU union organizer extraordinaire John Avalos.

 

We know what Avalos stands for, and like his track record. Avalos has thrown his hat in the ring once again to lead the district and City through increasingly tumultuous times that may top the last recession, when he was also at the helm. When he previously held office, Avalos served on the Budget Committee, preserving the social safety net during a tough recession. He also enacted a strong local hiring law, which has brought much needed work for people in the underserved South & SE parts of town, revitalizing the economy in his district. He also helped bring in more City funding by sponsoring the 2010 Real Estate Transfer Tax, and he voiced his opposition to the infamous Twitter Tax Break supported by many of his colleagues.

 

Avalos' votes during his prior terms show him to be well aligned with Green values. In our legislative report cards between 2012 and 2016, he voted the Green position on 48/54 major votes (89% of the time), among the best of his colleagues. Like Preston, Avalos will be a strong advocate for tenants. He was instrumental in establishing Just Cause eviction protection during the Housing Bubble Crisis. He also has a good track record on charter reform measures that decentralize power away from the Mayor - exactly what we think is needed in response to the corruption crisis.

 

In contrast to the current Board of Supervisors members, who voted for a budget that didn't eliminate a single police officer's job, Avalos may be our best bet for defunding the police. He had some success at that last time around, by eliminating a police academy class. We hope that in light of recent social movements, he will be even more aggressive this time.

 

Avalos's strong track record has earned him our sole endorsement. His experience will be needed in the next 4 years to guide D11, and the City, through the economic and social fallout of this conflagrated cesspool we call 2020!

 

 

School Board - Matt Alexander, Kevine Boggess, Mark Sanchez

 

Four seats are up for election on the School Board. Two of the incumbents, Mark Sanchez and Jenny Lam, are running for re-election and sought our endorsement. The biggest issue facing the School Board over the next year will be when, and how, to safely reopen SF's public schools. Zoom classes don't work for young children, and keeping kids at home has had a serious impact on parents, especially on women, who disproportionately provide for childcare and homeschooling.

 

In July, Greens were encouraged by news from a UCSF Grand Rounds (on video here, and reported here), in which UCSF Professor of Pediatrics Naomi Bardach discussed the risks of re-opening schools, and concluded that elementary schools could safely reopen. Dr. Bardach found that although elementary school-aged children can get (usually mild) COVID from adults, they are very unlikely to spread the disease further - either to other children and to adults. This is not true of teenagers, who spread the disease as easily as adults. Therefore, the School Board should focus on re-opening our elementary schools, while keeping middle and high schools closed.

 

Until schools are open, many parents have attempted to organize younger children into "pandemic pods" for in-person learning. Greens have concerns about equity issues in pods - when parents have to hire a tutor for pods, this effectively substitutes private education for public. But when some public school parents at Rooftop Elementary tried to organize pods in an equitable way (economically diverse groups of kids, and still taught by SFUSD teachers over Zoom), the SFUSD administrators shut it down and threatened the principal. Greens support pods as as a bridge to full school reopening, to ensure public school students don't fall too far behind their private school counterparts, who are already back in school. We also note that SF's summer camps, which were organized into "pods" of 12 kids, did not result in any COVID outbreaks.

 

Greens therefore endorsed three candidates who we think will reach consensus to follow the science in reopening elementary schools, and supporting safe and innovative alternatives to distance learning, such as equitable, public learning pods. We also agree with them on a broad range of other issues, such as opposition to standardized testing and JROTC. Those candidates are Matt Alexander, Kevine Boggess, and Mark Sanchez.

 

Kevine Boggess is a policy director for Coleman Advocates, although he is staff, not a board member. Like Alexander, he's supportive of learning pods, and opposed to standardized testing. Boggess' background at Coleman gives him extensive experience working with underprivileged families, so we trust him to organize pods in an equitable way. He's not as opposed to JROTC as we'd like, but he believes the decision should be made on a decentralized, school by school basis.

 

Mark Sanchez is a former Green who we've enthusiastically endorsed in the past. We'll endorse him again, even though he supports a very conservative approach to re-opening elementary schools. Sanchez would prioritize a subset of most underprivileged kids for re-opening, rather than all elementary school kids at once. We fear this may lead to private school kids getting ahead of public school kids, and otherwise harm our youngest students. However, Sanchez' approach shows he'll be an effective advocate for the health and safety of the teachers, which is also a key factor in reopening. Sanchez' history shows he's clearly in line with our other values - he is strongly opposed to both JROTC and standardized testing. We've been somewhat concerned about his leadership as Board President, in which decisions seem to drag on rather than proceeding decisively. However, we think that on balance Sanchez deserves another term.

 

Several other candidates sought our endorsement, but didn't make the cut. Alida Fisher is supportive of JROTC, saying it prevents bullying, and has an unclear position on standardized testing, instead choosing to talk about the Common Core curriculum when we asked about testing. And incumbent Jenny Lam, although very knowledgeable about SFUSD, has an inherent conflict of interest that we discussed in 2019:

 

• Our biggest concern with Lam is not the policies she supports, but rather her close ties to the Mayor's office. The School Board is supposed to be an independent body from the rest of SF government, so having a Board member who directly reports to the Mayor is very problematic. The School Board is a part-time job, and some of its members struggle to balance their full time careers with this position. Lam, on the other hand, is paid full time merely to advise the Mayor. Because she can spend all her time working on the Mayor's education priorities, this gives her an unfair advantage over the other Board members, who only serve part time.

 

We strongly recommend a vote for Matt Alexander, Kevine Boggess, and Mark Sanchez.

 

 

College Board - Aliya Chisti, Anita Martinez, Geramye Teeter

 

Four seats are up for election on the CCSF Board of Trustees (College Board). The two incumbents running for re-election, Tom Temprano and Shanell Williams, did not seek our endorsement. The most important issue for us when interviewing College Board candidates was not COVID (because in-person classes cannot yet be safely resumed for adults, other than those taught outside), but rather the renewed threat of privatization. Since the accreditation crisis, private interests have salivated at the thought of driving City College into financial insolvency and then taking it over. And although SF voters enthusiastically endorsed Prop W in 2016, most of the funds raised by the real estate transfer tax have been captured by our corrupt City government, rather than being sent along to the college as voters intended.

 

Aliya Chisti currently oversees the Free City College program at the City's Department of Children, Youth, and their Families. She has previous political experience as an aide to Malia Cohen. We believe she'll be effective at extending the program, expanding it to cover more costs for low-income students (such as books and supplies), and will be able to get the City to turn over more Prop W funds in order to avoid a financial collapse. We also agree with her on limiting military recruiting on campus, and replacing campus police with more alternative personnel to cover necessary services without criminalizing students. She also promises to ensure the public will have adequate time to review CCSF's budget.

 

Anita Martinez is a former Dean of Students at CCSF. She has great institutional knowledge, from 28 years of work experience starting as a teacher at the College. We believe that Martinez' skills and knowledge will be necessary to prevent privatization of the College. She will also stand up for labor, and not let the College go into a "death spiral" in which teachers are laid off leading, to more class reductions, leading to less funding and further layoffs. She's a little conservative on some issues; e.g., she does not want to eliminate campus police. However, we strongly support her proposal to extend Free City College to people who work in SF, but no longer live here due to displacement.

 

Geramye Teeter is an environmental activist with a background in sustainable building. He is opposed to the Balboa Reservoir project, noting that it is a gift of public resources to private developers. He's skeptical of other private-public partnerships - when we asked if he thought there were any good examples, he said none came to mind. Teeter is also opposed to military recruiting on campus. He's also a strong advocate for Free City College. We think he'll bring an important perspective and background to the College Board.

 

Greens interviewed three other candidates who did not meet the bar for endorsement. Two of them, Han Zou and Alan Wong, are currently legislative aides, to Matt Haney and Gordon Mar respectively. We cannot support them holding both positions (College Board Trustee and Aide) simultaneously, even though Trustee is not a full time job. This is similar to our reason for not endorsing Jenny Lam for School Board (see above). Greens value Decentralization, and think that other grassroots activists should run for these seats, rather turning them into stepping stones to higher office within SF's Democratic Party machine. We also interviewed Jeanette Quick, but did not endorse her due to policy differences.

 

We therefore recommend a vote for Aliya Chisti, Anita Martinez, and Geramye Teeter.

 

 

BART Board - no endorsement

 

Two challengers are running against Bevan Dufty for the seat he currently holds on the BART Board. Greens did not make an endorsement in this contest. Bevan Dufty has been a poor representative, as we expected. In 2016, when Dufty won his seat on the BART Board, we noted that he's a career Machine politician who had not taken any public position on the Oakland Airport Connector boondoggle.

 

Only one candidate, Patrick Mortiere, sought the Greens' endorsement. Mortiere wants to develop the land currently used by BART parking lots. We agree that parking should be eliminated, but think that public land is a valuable and limited resource that should be prioritized for social housing (see Prop K), and not used for private development. Mortiere hadn't considered the distinction between private housing development and building publicly-owned social housing, so we don't think he's sufficiently knowledgeable to be a serious contender for the office.

 

 

NO on Prop A:

 

Prop A is a $490 million bond to fund a variety of services. The planned spending breaks down as:

• 210 million for homeless/substance use/mental health facilities
• 240 million for #WreckinPark
• 40 million for street repair / curb ramps

 

Prop A was put on the ballot before a recent CA Supreme Court decision ruled that 2018's Prop C homeless services measure (which we endorsed) was legal. This decision freed up $492 million already in escrow.

 

Greens probably would not have supported this bond even before Prop C was ruled legal. We generally only support bonds for particular public works projects (see our Statement on Bond Funding, below). This list of miscellaneous projects reads like a slush fund for Mayor Breed. In fact, repeatedly replacing curb ramps was a well-known contracting scam under previous Mayors. Most of the items supposedly funded by this bond are already covered by other funds, or (like street maintenance) should be paid for out of the regular budget.

 

Until the City does something to clean up rampant corruption, we can't support slush funds like Prop A. Vote NO.

 

 

YES on Prop B:

 

Prop B will split off a new "Department of Sanitation and Streets" from the Department of Public Works. Both departments would be overseen by new 5-member commissions. In each commission, 2 members would be appointed by the Mayor, 2 by the Board of Supes,and 1 by the City Controller.

 

Prop B is a great idea for two reasons. First, street cleaning is a service long used to punish Supervisors (or even constituents) who fail to back the Mayor. After Mayor Newsom narrowly beat Matt Gonzalez in the 2003 Mayor's race, some precincts that voted overwhelmingly for Gonzalez weren't cleaned for years, other than when Newsom needed to drop by for a PR stunt. Despite the fact that Supervisors have no control over City services like street cleaning, a lack of services in a neighborhood will inevitably result in voters blaming their district Supervisor. Most voters (and even some of the candidates for Supe that we interviewed) don't understand how this works. Splitting street cleaning into a separate department will prevent deliberate "oversights" such as forgetting to clean a precinct for a few years - these things will stand out more in a smaller department, rather than being lost in the massive Department of Public Works.

 

Second, the 5-member commissions for both departments will decentralize power, because not all the members (or even the majority) are appointed by the Mayor. A balance of members from different groups will help to keep the other "sides" honest. This is in keeping with the Greens' Key Value of Decentralization.

 

Vote YES on B.

 

 

YES on Prop C:

 

Prop C would allow non-citizens to serve on City commissions. Greens believe non-citizen residents should be allowed full participation in local government decisions that affect them. This is why we also support non-citizen voting in local elections, and have provisions in our own bylaws to allow non-citizens to fully participate in our internal decisions.

 

Prop C is another step in the right direction. Vote YES.

 

 

YES on Prop D:

 

Prop D would create more oversight for the Sheriff's department, in two ways. First, it would establish a civilian oversight board for the department, similar to the Police Commission. Second, it would create an independent Inspector General's office to investigate misconduct by Sheriff's deputies.

 

Although Sheriff is an elected position, Prop D would decentralize power further, because the oversight board would have 4 appointees from the Board of Supes and 3 from the Mayor. Therefore, we'd have more people to potentially notice misconduct and blow the whistle.

 

Having an Inspector General who is independent of the Sheriff (not reporting to the Sheriff, and with a separate budget) would also help ensure a more fair process for investigating misconduct.

 

Greens support full civilian control over law enforcement, and Prop D is a step in the right direction. Vote YES.

 

 

NO on Prop E:

 

Prop E would remove the minimum police staffing requirement from the City Charter. Instead of having the number of police officers written in the Charter, the Police department would recommend their own staffing levels to the Police Commission.

 

Prop E also removes the requirement that new police officers be dedicated to "neighborhood community policing, patrol, and investigations."

 

Prop E looks like police reform, but doesn't actually do anything real. There are currently 1,869 officers, out of 1,971 required by the City Charter. The section, enacted as a Charter Amendment written by the SFPD themselves, is unenforceable because it does not require any particular budget amount to be spent on the Police Department. The SFPD budget has been reduced in the past when Supervisor Avalos chaired the Budget Committee, without a lawsuit by the SFPD.

 

Greens support making large budget reductions (i.e., "defunding") to the SFPD. Although some trained officers are required to respond to serious or violent crimes, most of the duties currently performed by the SFPD can and should be taken over by civilians. That would both save the City enormous amounts of money, and also make our residents safer, as they would be at less risk of being harassed or shot by armed police.

 

Greens see Prop E as harmful, because it would convince the voting public that they've "done something" in response to recent activist demands to Defund Police. Like Prop G in 2016, it would burnish the liberal credentials of its authors as "police reformers" and allow them to become credible candidates for law enforcement oversight boards, without ever having done anything to defund police. And putting "do-nothing" measures to the ballot undermines the validity of the proposition system, taking voters' attention away from truly bad proposals like Prop 22 (see below).

 

We recommend Greens vote NO on Prop E, and continue to protest (including at elected officials' houses) to demand significant cuts to the SFPD budget.

 

 

YES on Prop F:

 

Prop F is a change to business taxes that makes them more progressive: it lowers taxes on smaller businesses (those making less than $1 million / year in gross receipts), and raises them for larger businesses. It also decreases business registration fees on the same small businesses, and increases the "small business" tax exemption for businesses earning up to $2 million / year in gross receipts. Overall, these changes will result in an additional $100 million per year in revenue for the City.

 

Prop F has a few other tweaks as well. It eliminates the payroll tax (which is a giveaway to tech companies that have no gross receipts), and prevents any of these changes from affecting set-asides in the City budget.

 

Greens support Prop F because of the lowered tax on smaller businesses. It's also a good way to raise City revenues without regressive measures such as sales taxes (see NO on RR argument below) or bonds (see our NO on Prop A argument above). Vote YES.

 

 

YES on Prop G:

 

Prop G would allow 16 and 17 year olds to vote in all municipal elections. This policy has been part of the Green Party platform for many years. It's a re-run of 2016's Prop F, for which we wrote in support:

 

• Young people are as well informed as other voters on policy and candidates, and in many cases are more affected by the outcome of the elections. Beginning to vote while still in high school also establishes a habit of good citizenship that should last a lifetime.

   

  Our current cutoff age of 18 means that many people first become eligible to vote while away at college, so there are often questions about whether students should register at their college address or their parents' home address. This results in lower voting participation among students. Lowering the cutoff age to 16 would give students some experience at voting before transitioning to college.

   

 

We strongly support a YES vote on Prop G.

 

 

NO on Prop H:

 

Prop H would overhaul the permitting process for neighborhood commercial districts. It would make it easier to open new cafes and restaurants by requiring permits to be processed within 30 days, eliminating the requirement to notify neighbors about new permit applications, and not allowing neighbors to testify at the Planning Commission. It would also allow new restaurants and cafes to have many things, such as outdoor patios, co-working spaces, and privatized parklets, that currently are not permitted, require separate permits, or are only temporarily allowed under COVID emergency regulations. Greens are strongly opposed.

 

Mayor Breed is selling Prop H as a way to keep small businesses open in the face of COVID. However, the biggest problem for small businesses is not permits, but other COVID-related health measures that require them to limit capacity or close altogether. More businesses need to be closed to allow essential services like elementary schools to re-open. Until businesses can re-open, federal and state governments should pay workers so that these businesses do not close permanently. Prop H does not help these businesses, and in fact, many of the things Prop H would allow businesses to do (such as sidewalk seating) are currently allowed under COVID emergency rules.

 

Greens agree that permitting is currently too difficult, and the difficult and lengthy process encourages municipal corruption. New businesses that don't hire "fixers" end up in limbo, losing all their savings. However, some public process is necessary, in order to strike a balance between business owners and the public's right to weigh in on what businesses open in their neighborhood.

 

Prop H does not sunset when the COVID emergency ends. Therefore we believe it is a vehicle for railroading a bunch of unvetted permanent changes to our permit laws through, using the COVID emergency as an excuse.

 

Greens recommend voting NO on Prop H, and re-visiting the permitting issue more thoughtfully once COVID is behind us.

 

 

YES on Prop I:

 

Prop I would raise the real estate transfer tax that is collected by the City when very expensive properties (over $10 million) are sold. Prop I would raise approximately $200 million each year.

 

Prop I is an excellent means of taxing the rich, and even Donald Trump could not avoid paying the tax when he sells a building in San Francisco. Greens primarily support Prop I as a disincentive for corporations and rich people to "flip" properties by buying buildings, evicting the tenants, and re-selling them to another real estate speculator.

 

Greens strongly support a YES vote on Prop I.

 

 

NO on Prop J:

 

Prop J is do-over of 2018's Prop G, a parcel tax to pay SF teachers. In 2018, Greens strongly supported Prop G, a similar tax that passed with 61% of the vote. However, Prop G has been tied up in court, with the collected tax held in escrow, because of a lawsuit by conservatives over which voting threshold was necessary to pass it. Greens think Prop J is unnecessary because Prop G should win in court soon, and Prop J would repeal Prop G and replace it with a lower tax that brings in less money for teachers. We're therefore recommending a NO vote on Prop J.

 

Prop J would replace Prop G's parcel tax to pay teachers ($320/year) with a smaller parcel tax ($288/year). If either tax goes into effect, the amount would increase annually with inflation.

 

The purpose of re-doing Prop G is supposedly to ensure that it passes with 66% of the vote. However, it was put on the ballot before the CA Supreme Court ruled in the Prop C case that voters can enact taxes with 50% thresholds, when those taxes are placed on the ballot by signature gathering. Because Prop C was ruled legal, we expect that this will serve as precedent to make Prop G (which was also placed on the ballot by signature) legal as well.

 

Another reason to oppose Prop J is that it's a flat tax per parcel: the owner of a modest home will be charged the same amount as a giant corporate headquarters. We were impressed that the SF Berniecrats members who developed the original version of the Community Housing Act discovered that parcel taxes can also be charged based on the square footage of property, and that some parcels (e.g., less expensive ones) can be exempted. This would allow more progressive parcel taxes to be proposed in the future.

 

Greens recommend a NO vote on Prop J, because it lowers the funding raised for teachers relative to Prop G's standards, and teachers deserve to be paid more! And if Prop G eventually loses in court, we think that a more progressive parcel tax (based on square footage) should be brought back to the ballot to raise even more money for teachers.

 

 

YES on Prop K:

 

Prop K would allow 10,000 units of social housing (publicly owned housing for people of all income levels) to be built or purchased in San Francisco. It's a start on the SF Community Housing Act, which we couldn't put on the ballot this year due to COVID making it impossible to gather signatures.

 

Due to zoning regulations added to our state Constitution in the 1950s, no new public housing can be created without voter approval. Prop K takes care of the "voter approval" part, so that we can move towards a full-blown social housing program in the future without having to jump through this hoop again.

 

The SF Community Housing Act is a much more ambitious plan, which is part of our Green New Deal for San Francisco. This Act would create democratically-run, publicly owned rental housing, for people of all income levels, with rents capped at 25% of income. Social Housing is the primary way that European cities have avoided the complete gentrification disaster that is occurring in San Francisco.

 

Greens strongly support a YES vote on Prop K. Let's get Social Housing off the ground before it's too late.

 

 

YES on Prop L:

 

Prop L is a tax increase on businesses that pay their executives at least 100 times the median salary of their workers. This idea has worked well in Europe to control executive pay, and Greens support bringing it to the US.

 

Prop L would charge a tax of 0.1% of gross receipts on companies that pay their executives at least 100 times as much as the median salary of their workers in SF. For pandemic purposes, telecommuting employees are counted as "in the City" if they would normally work in SF without COVID restrictions. Prop L's tax would increase to 0.2% for companies with a 200-1 pay ratio, and continue to progressively increase all the way up to 0.6% for companies with a 600-1 pay ratio.

 

The calculated executive salary would be based on their highest paid managerial employee (i.e., typically the CEO), and would include the value of all stock options and bonuses.

 

To get around the problem of businesses avoiding this tax by outsourcing their lowest paid workers to shell companies (as many tech companies do with janitors, bus drivers, and other service workers), Prop L includes in its "average worker" calculations the salaries of contracted employees. Salaries for part time workers are extrapolated out to what they would make if employed full time for the entire year.

 

Greens support a move towards more worker control and equal pay in large corporations, and Prop L is a step in the right direction. Vote YES.

 

 

NO on Prop RR:

 

Prop RR is a 1/8 percent sales tax increase to fund Caltrain. It is on the ballot in San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara counties, and if passed, will raise $100 million per year in total between the three counties. We like public transit, but sales taxes are absolutely the wrong way to fund it! Vote NO.

 

Caltrain is an important part of the regional public transit network. Greens believe all public transit should be free to its riders, and paid for by progressive taxation. Rather than this sales tax, which will fall mainly on poor people who cannot afford to pay them, Caltrain should be funded by the state at sufficient levels to increase service and operate without cost to riders.

 

The total operating budget of Caltrain is currently only around $150 million, with about 2/3 of that revenue coming from passenger fares. Prop RR will not lower fares for most people, but will instead be used to expand the operating budget, with electric trains and increased service. Instead of Prop RR, Greens recommend that Caltrain be budgeted the $200 or $300 million that would be needed to both eliminate fares and increase service. With supermajority control of the CA legislature, Democrats could easily budget this money, if they actually wanted to do anything about the climate crisis. We've also been promised electric Caltrain trains before, back in 2008 when voters passed $10 billion in bonds for high speed rail.

 

Prop RR's backers have threatened that Caltrain will be shut down if the measure fails. This is nonsense. San Francisco could easily contribute the $50 million or so that's our share of the projected Prop RR revenue, by redirecting a little money from our bloated $700 million police budget. If the Democrats who run SF really believed that the climate crisis is real, they could easily make Muni fare-free as well.

 

Vote NO on RR, and make Democrats come back to us with a progressive funding solution.

 

 

NO on Prop 14:

 

Prop 14 would issue $5.5 billion in bonds for stem cell research. Although Greens support stem cell research, we are strongly opposed to funding this research using regressive bonds (see our Statement on Bond Funding, below).

 

In 2004, after President Bush made federal funding of most stem cell research illegal, CA voters responded by passing Prop 71, which authorized $3 billion in bonds to fund this research in CA. Greens were opposed at the time for the same reasons we oppose Prop 14 today.

 

In 2019, funding from the original set of bonds ran out. Laws have changed, and stem cell research funding is now available from the National Institutes of Health. If such research is a higher state priority for legislators than improving public transit and public education, than it should be part of our regular state budget. But we shouldn't issue more bonds.

 

Vote NO on Prop 14.

 

 

YES on Prop 15:

 

Prop 15 would change CA's tax structure to make large corporations pay more property taxes on commercial, non-residential property. It reforms 1978's Prop 13, which required that the tax value of both commercial and residential property is only reassessed when the property is sold. If Prop 15 passes, Prop 13's benefits will only apply to residential properties such as homes and apartments, farms, and smaller businesses (buildings worth under $3 million), but not to large commercial or industrial properties. Prop 15 would raise around $10 billion annually, which would be a huge benefit for schools and cities whose budgets have been destroyed by COVID lockdowns.

 

Before Prop 13 passed in 1978, corporations paid roughly half of all property taxes collected in CA, with homeowners paying the rest. But because corporate property is rarely sold, many corporations are still paying 1978 rates on their property. This has resulted in a huge shift in taxes - corporations pay less than 1/4 of all property taxes, and homeowners now pay more than 3/4.

 

Prop 15 will raise a lot of money for the state, and would do it by taxing the wealthiest corporations. It has our enthusiastic support!

 

 

YES on Prop 16:

 

Prop 16 would repeal 1996's Prop 209, which banned affirmative action in CA. Greens strongly support it.

 

Prop 209 prohibited CA universities from actively trying to recruit minority students, which led to the number of Black, Indigenous, and Latinx students in the University of California falling by more than 12 percent. In the top public schools like UC Berkeley and UCLA, enrollment of underrepresented minorities fell by more than 60%.

 

Prop 16 would not require racial quotas, as its opponents claim, but it would allow active outreach to underrepresented groups in an attempt to address the systematic racism and sexism in our society.

 

Vote YES on Prop 16.

 

 

YES on Prop 17:

 

Prop 17 would restore voting rights to parolees. Greens urge a YES vote.

 

Under current CA law, prisoners lose their right to vote when incarcerated, and do not have their voting rights restored until they complete their parole period.

 

Full participation in society, including voting, has been successful in preventing recidivism. 18 other states already restore voting rights when people are released from prison, and two other states along with Washington, DC allow voting while in prison.

 

Because Greens value Grassroots Democracy, we believe voting rights should apply to everybody, including people in prison. Because Black, Native, and Latinx people are disproportionately incarcerated, this is a Social Justice issue as well. Prop 17 is a small step in the right direction.

 

 

YES on Prop 18:

 

Prop 18 would allow 17 year old who would turn 18 by the time of a general election to also vote in the preceding primary election.

 

It's common sense that if somebody is allowed to vote in an election, they should also have a say in which candidates will be on the ballot. Around 20 other states already allow this.

 

Greens believe that 16-17 year olds should be allowed to vote in all elections, so that the generation that will be most impacted by the climate crisis can't be dismissed by politicians. Prop 18 is a small step towards that goal. Vote YES.

 

 

no position on Prop 19:

 

Prop 19 would allow homeowners to transfer tax assessments when they move. It would only apply to primary residences - second homes would be reassessed at their full value.

 

Prop 19 is similar to 2018's Prop 5, which Greens opposed. Prop 5 would have allowed "downward adjustment" for people moving to cheaper homes. Prop 19 does not do this. However, we think Prop 19 would still encourage people to move to counties with low property values, because homeowners could move to a much bigger residence and still keep the same tax rate.

 

Prop 19 also requires vacation homes to be reassessed when inherited. Currently, the child or grandchild keeps the tax rate the parents were paying. Greens support this provision in the proposition.

 

Finally, Prop 19 dedicates revenue to wildfire agencies, and sets up a fund to reimburse counties whose overall property tax income would otherwise go down as a result of Prop 19.

 

Greens were split on whether to endorse Prop 19, and ultimately reached consensus to not endorse for or against it. We like the increased tax on inherited properties, and the freedom this gives homeowners to retire to different parts of the state. However, we are concerned about the gentrifying effects on rural counties, because people moving from coastal cities will be able to afford more expensive houses if tax rates are lower than they are currently. We are also concerned that Prop 19 will encourage a "land rush" of retirees to more rural counties, resulting in more deforestation and wildfire risk. On balance, we decided not to take a position on Prop 19.

 

 

NO on Prop 20:

 

Prop 20 is a completely fascist proposal to restrict parole rights for non-violent offenders, turn some current misdemeanors into felonies, and require DNA collection from people convicted of even minor misdemeanors. Greens are strongly opposed.

 

Prop 20 was sponsored by an ex-cop Democratic legislator, Jim Cooper from Sacramento. It is sponsored by other cops, prison guards, and Albertsons/Safeway.

 

Just say NO.

 

 

YES on Prop 21:

 

Prop 21 would allow local governments to enact rent control on housing that's at least 15 years old, if the housing is owned by a landlord who owns at least three units in total. It would also allow local governments to enact "vacancy control" - meaning that the legal limit on rent increases applies even if a unit is vacant. Greens are in strong support.

 

Prop 21 is a good, decentralized solution to allow different cities to craft their own solutions to protect rental prices. Until enough social housing is built, the majority of tenants will be subject to private landlords. Prop 21 would allow cities to keep rents from rising too quickly during boom years, and vacancy control would eliminate the major incentive landlords have to force out long-term tenants.

 

Vote YES.

 

 

NO on Prop 22:

 

Prop 22 would allow "gig economy" companies such as Uber, Lyft, and Doordash to rewrite state law AB5, which classifies their drivers as employees. Prop 22 would move gig workers in a serf-like legal status, in which they could be fired at will. Worse, Prop 22 would require a super-duper-majority of 7/8ths of both chambers of the state legislature to make any changes at all to "gig economy" regulations.

 

Gig economy companies like Uber, Lyft, Doordash, InstaCart, and Postmates treat their workers like crap, and in many cases pay them less than minimum wage after expenses. The companies contribute nothing to the state's unemployment insurance fund, but the state still had to pay people laid off due to COVID from the funds that everybody else put in. This means that even people who followed the Green Party's advice to #deleteUber, #deleteLyft, and #delete all the other gig economy apps from our phones is still forced to subsidize these corporate lawbreakers.

 

Even though Uber and Lyft have bought off an impressive number of Democratic Party politicians (including ex-Senator Barbara Boxer, Obama-era staff, and washed-up former legislative aides), they couldn't get the Democrats to give them enough exemptions from the taxi regulations that they openly flout. So instead, they've spent over $200 million to try to trick voters into putting them completely above the law.

 

Prop 22 would represent a new nadir in corporate control of government. Vote NO, and remember to #delete all these apps that still may be infecting your phone.

 

 

YES on Prop 23:

 

Prop 23 is a re-run of Prop 8 from 2018, which we supported, but voters rejected. Like Prop 8, Prop 23 would create new regulations requiring minimum staffing at dialysis clinics. Unlike Prop 8, Prop 23 doesn't limit the profits of these companies.

 

In 2018, we wrote:

 

• (Prop 8) was put on the ballot by SEIU-UHW (Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West), as part of a campaign against several large, rabidly anti-union, medical corporations. We'll continue to fight for universal health care for all. In the meantime, we're happy to stand in solidarity with SEIU-UHW in supporting Prop 8.

The same holds true today. Vote YES on Prop 23.

 

 

NO on Prop 24:

 

Prop 24 would water down the CA privacy laws passed by legislators in 2018 (CCPA, the California Consumer Privacy Act). The CCPA isn't great, and Prop 24 claims to fix problems with it. Instead, it makes things worse. Vote NO.

 

Prop 24 was written almost single-handedly by a real estate multimillionaire, who took advice from tech companies and ignored suggested amendments from privacy advocates. As you might expect, Prop 24 creates a number of crazy loopholes, such as allowing tech companies to access private data on your cell phone or laptop if residents travel outside of the state.

 

The ACLU and other privacy groups are opposed. Greens recommend joining them in opposition.

 

 

YES on Prop 25:

 

Prop 25 is a veto referendum on the 2018 law SB-10, which replaces cash bail with algorithm-based assessments of the risk of releasing people from jail prior to trial. It was put on the ballot by bail bonds companies. As a result, Greens are reluctantly in support.

 

SB-10 started with a good idea: eliminate cash bail. Letting rich people buy their way out of jail while awaiting trial, while making poor people stay there, is incredibly unjust. However, SB-10 has a major flaw. Because SB-10 uses algorithms to recommend who is most risky to the public, and these algorithms are inherently racist because of the data they were trained on, the resulting system is also unjust.

 

Greens don't think corporations should be writing state law, particularly in cases like this one where there's a clear conflict of interest. And unfortunately, if Prop 25 loses, the legislature might take that as a message that Californians like the old "cash bail" system, with all of its systemic racism.

 

We recommend voting YES in order to send a message that cash bail should be eliminated. However, we should also demand that legislators fix the racist flaws in SB-10, without going back to cash bail.

 

 

Congress:

 

It's a daunting task to find a dynamic candidate to run against the most powerful Democrat in the House of Representatives. Green Party voices have been shut out by the "Top Two" system in an election where San Franciscans will determine which candidate has the necessary progressive platform to differentiate themselves from the moderate stances of Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

 

During the March primary season, Greens met with two such candidates, Tom Gallagher and Shahid Buttar, who hold relatively progressive stances that resonate with the 10 Key Values of the Green Party. However, at our endorsement meeting, both gave painfully detailed explanations as to why they won't, or can't, switch parties. Neither candidate tried to build a unified progressive alliance (including Greens) in order to reach consensus on who might lead the progressive cause against Pelosi. This begs the question as to how much the political establishment values the perspective of Greens and other third party progressives. SF's "progressives" act like they're open to more diverse political views than they actually are.

 

The ongoing dilemma about whether Greens should support such Democrats must be considered in light of two candidates who aren't intrepid enough to do the party switchover, even when such candidates might bring over their supporters and create a more vibrant Green party in this election and beyond.

 

So in 2020, Greens have once again been shut out of having a stake in the Congressional election. Perhaps with Pelosi apparently not running again next time, 2022 might bring a more open and transparent attitude to the process, and the healing that is long overdue.

 

We therefore did not endorse any candidate this time around.

 

 

State Senate:

 

Unlike our famously partisan "non-partisan" City elections, candidates for state offices are identified on the ballot by party affiliation or non-affiliation. Voters were tricked into rigging elections by passing a legislatively referred constitutional amendment that established a "Top Two" primary system in 2010. In San Francisco, this usually means two Democrats, or only a Democrat and a Republican, can now advance to the November election after the March primary.

 

Active members of the SF Green Party have expressed significant concerns about endorsing any member of either corporate party for partisan contests, and we wish that the crippling effects of the "Top Two" system on our already crippled democracy could be remedied by unrigging our elections. We did not endorse either of the candidates in this election.

 

Incumbent Scott Wiener (Democrat) has stood in direct opposition to the Green Party's 10 Key Values since he served the corporatocracy as a SF Supervisor. He consistently earned among our lowest grades on Green Report Cards for 6 years before shuffling off to Sacramento as a reward for community disservice and servitude to his deep-pocketed donors. He sided against Green Party activists on issues regarding the environment, public education, privatization, corporate hegemony, government and police accountability, rent control, gentrification, sanctuary city policy, black lives matter, and transparency in government. Now, installed in Sacto, he is making a career out of a ham-fisted attempt to turn over the state's housing stock to corporate investors via a fake grassroots, free-market fundamentalist, propagandized legislative campaign that incorporates a trickle-down model similar to 1980's Reaganomics, SB827/SB50. Wiener is the epitome of a corporate tool run amok in the state capitol. He is fully-funded by the tech/real estate cabal in this contest.

 

Jackie Fielder (Democrat) is Weiner's opponent. We appreciate that she took the time to meet with SF Green Party members at our March endorsement meeting, but we were in consensus that no candidate earned our endorsement.

 

SF Green Party Statement on Bond Funding

 

The SF Green Party has often been hesitant to embrace bond financing. In addition to being environmentally and socially responsible, we are also fiscally responsible. Bond funding requires payments totaling about twice the actual cost of whatever improvements are made, and passes costs on to future generations. Because people who buy bonds are almost exclusively the wealthy, as investors are paid back over the 20-30 year life of the bond, wealth is transferred from middle and low income taxpayers to rich bondholders.

 

Bond funding also helps rich people avoid paying their fair share of taxes, since interest on municipal bonds is exempt from both state and federal tax. As noted in the California Voter Guide in 1992, over 35,000 U.S. millionaires supplemented their income with tax exempt state and local bond checks averaging over $2,500 per week (that's over $130,000 per year tax free). They avoided paying federal and state taxes on over $5 billion, which must be made up by the rest of us. The SF Green Party calls on the public to join us in working to phase out this regressive and unfair subsidy of the rich and their investment bankers (who take millions of dollars off the top when the bonds are issued).

 

There are a few cases in which Greens have supported bond measures. In general, we are willing to support bonds that are issued in order to build urgently needed, publicly-owned infrastructure, such as a public hospital or high speed rail. We generally oppose bonds that fund ongoing maintenance projects; these should be paid for using City revenues (which should be increased by raising taxes on the wealthy).