Final recommendations
Federal and State Elections
Governor: Xavier Becerra
Lieutenant Governor: Fiona Ma
Secretary of State: Shirley N. Weber
Controller: Malia Cohen
Treasurer: Eleni Kounalakis
Attorney General: Rob Bonta
Insurance Commissioner: Jane Kim
Board of Equalization Member, District 2: John Pimentel
US House of Representatives, District 11: Connie Chan
State Assembly Member, District 17: Matt Haney
State Elections, Nonpartisan
Judicial Section: No recommendation, no vote across the board
Superintendent of Public Instruction: No recommendation, no vote
Local Elections: City of San Francisco
Assessor-Recorder: No recommendation, no vote
Public Defender: No recommendation, no vote
State Propositions
Proposition 1: Housing Affordability Bonds: Yes
Proposition 2: State Rainy Day Adjustments: Yes
Proposition 3: Permanently set 2012 tax increase for education on income above 371k: Yes
Proposition 4: Repeal prohibition against public funds for campaigning: Yes
Proposition 5: Changes to the recall process for state offices: Yes
Proposition 37: Middle income home bonds: No
Proposition 38: Bonds for immunology research: Recommend voting no, personally will not be voting
Proposition 39: Voter IDs for vote by mail: No
Proposition 40: Wealth tax for billionaires: Yes
Proposition 41: Prohibits new state taxes that exclude revenues from spending limits: No
Proposition 42: Prohibits new state personal property taxes: No.
Proposition 43: Limit voters ability to raise revenues for local services: No
Proposition 44: Require community health clinics spend 90% of revenue on program services: No
Proposition 45: CEQA reforms to expedite environmental reviews: No
Regional and City Propositions
Proposition RTM: 1% sales tax in SF, 0.5% sales tax in various other counties, for MUNI, BART, and Caltrain funding: Yes
Proposition A: Charter changes to many current city bureaucracies: No
Proposition B: SF Municipal Finance Corporation and Bank: Yes
Proposition C: Housing trust fund: Yes
Proposition D: Increases to signature requirements to get citizen initiatives on the ballot: No
Proposition E: Relaxed oversight over city contracts with private companies, consolidation of oversight: No
Proposition F: Increase the mayoral ability to replace department heads without cause: No
Proposition G: Reopen the great highway: No
Proposition H: New Tax to help fund MUNI: Yes
Proposition I: Changes to the real property transfer tax to fund social housing: Yes
Proposition J: Removal of foreclosure tax exemption for transfer taxes: Yes
Federal Elections
US House of Representatives, District 11
Vote: Connie Chan
First, I wanna say explicitly that Connie Chan is a good candidate, and I think she deserves your vote on her own merits. I consider her a weaker candidate than Saikat Chakrabarti, who I endorsed in the spring, almost exclusively due to the fact that this is a national election that focuses on charisma and national issues over local ones. To that end, Connie’s time as supervisor in SF has earned her deep local ties, and she’s been a consistent champion for progressive labor, social housing, police reform, all that jazz. I think she’s less good on housing than I’d like, but again, it’s a national race so the impact of that is mitigated.
For a full breakdown of my comparison between Saikat Chakrabarti and Connie Chan, in which I describe more of my positions tied to their actual policies, you can see my primary breakdown here.
However, I’m gonna take this moment to argue against Scott Wiener.
Some context. SF Trans March has a long and storied history of trans people yelling at politicians that show up. Daniel Lurie got it last year, Ed Lee got it in 2016, Mark Leno got it then as well. Hell, Scott Wiener has already been heavily criticized during previous attendances to the SF Trans March. It’s part of the territory to yell at politicians that show up. In fact, it’s so much a part of the culture that the March itself officially banned political speakers from participating in the procession starting in 2016.
On Friday, June 26th, Trans March happened again, and Scott Wiener showed up again. And again, he got shouted at, primarily for his support of Israel in its genocide in Palestine.
It should be noted that this was not the only instance of, let’s say, “tension” that happened during pride this year. Marchers that were spraypainting surveillance cameras established by a Flock competitor were assaulted by police. The next day, an annual unofficial pride event at Stud Alley resulted in 18 people being arrested on charges that were later all thrown out by judges. In the judge’s finding (https://missionlocal.org/2026/09/charges-against-stud-alley-partygoers-tossed-in-the-interest-of-justice/), SFPD did not give enough notice to disperse, despite their claims, and instead directly went for arrests and excessive use of force.
Scott Wiener went to national media, not to condemn this police overreach, but instead to argue that he was the victim of antisemetic harassment and feared for his own safety due to his confrontations at the trans march. At no point did he comment on these police actions that happened afterwords.
Guess which story made national media.
In the days after, Scott got articles on CNN, sent out press releases to the New York Times, used the event as a fundraising pitch in his emails to supporters. Meanwhile, multiple people involved in the Stud Alley arrests lost jobs.
In total, Scott Wiener raised 127k off these fundraisers.
Look, I didn’t like the guy before. Obviously, I found him untenable as a candidate due to his longstanding support of Israel in its genocide (he has since renounced this position). But it was never personal for me.
But everything here in combination says that, to me, this was deliberate. Scott Wiener, knowing how heavily the national conversation focuses on demonizing trans people, took the opportunity to paint the community as a whole as antisemetic. Maybe that wasn’t his intention going into the Trans March, but it sure was his intention coming out of it, and his silence on the arrests at Stud Alley and the police action later that day is deafening.
I don’t like Daniel Lurie. But to his credit, when he was shouted out of the Trans March last year, he didn’t then go to the national media and fundraise off it. The bar is incredibly low, and Wiener dug under it.
Fuck Scott Wiener.
State Elections, Partisan
Governor of California
Vote: Xavier Becerra
Becerra is an awful candidate and life in California will get worse under a leadership that joins “bending to corporate interests” with “populist policies designed to appease octogenarians and nobody else.” I still can’t get over him saying that a number one priority was keeping the film industry in Hollywood.
But Steve Hilton was an ex Fox News commentator and promises to bend to corporate interests even harder.
Coulda had Steyer, coulda had Porter.
Lieutenant Governor
Vote: Fiona Ma
Democrat vs a Republican who will “proudly stand up for women’s sports and Title IX”
Secretary of State
Vote: Shirley N. Weber
Democrat, incumbent, only realistic candidate.
Controller
Vote: Malia Cohen
Cohen is the only realistic candidate and current incumbent.
Treasurer
Vote: Eleni Kounalakis
From my primary guide:
The former lieutenant governor and former gubernatorial candidate dropped out of the governor’s race after Trump won specifically so she wouldn’t have to deal with playing politics. She said she wants the job because she wants to do public service without having to do as much of the showboating. She’s qualified as treasurer.
Good for her. What a wonk.
Attorney General
Vote: Rob Bonta
He’s fine. He’s incumbent. Nobody else is serious.
Insurance Commissioner
Vote: Jane Kim
Holy shit, a race that doesn’t just boil down to “pick the democrat.”
Fortunately for me, I already did my research on this, so here’s my quote from the primary guide:
Former director of the Working Families Party in California, a consumer rights advocate, and a person who has said she wants to establish a single payer home insurance system in California. It’s a novel solution that many consider dead on arrival, but it’s one I think we should support.
Jane Kim is probably the most progressive person in the election. I am all-in on the Working Families Party as a way forward for progressives. This is a chance to build the bench, and Jane Kim has done incredible work in recent years organizing San Francisco’s left-leaning organizations.
Board of Equalization Member, District 2
Vote: John Pimentel
Again, quoting from my primary guide:
This position is responsible for some very narrow tax collection and oversight responsibilities. It’s super weird that it’s elected. It’s super weird that it still exists given how many responsibilities got stripped from it after corruption scandals in 2017.
John Pimentel would support dismantling it and getting it merged into other tax organizations that exist in California.
Super weird election.
State Assembly Member, District 17
Vote: Matt Haney
Well, good news! In an update from the primary, Matt Haney went from “literally zero challengers” to “one challenger.”
Unfortunately, the challenger, Manuel Noris-Barrera is a Republican that seemingly doesn’t even have a campaign website and has earned zero major endorsements. I’m pretty sure he runs to plug his crepe shop.
State Elections, Nonpartisan
Judicial Section
Vote: No recommendation across the board, no vote across the board.
The people on this section of the ballot are all sitting California justices, whether they be California supreme court justices or appeals court justices.
California justices are not appointed for life; they instead serve 12 year terms and are subject to voter approval to retain the position. If a majority votes a judge out, the governor appoints their replacement.
In theory, this is a pretty good idea; imagine being able to do this for the federal supreme court. In practice, California justices have only been booted a single time.
I will not be commenting on these elections. If there was something worth recalling a judge over, we’d probably be seeing more campaigns about it. Super weird practice.
https://calmatters.org/newsletter/why-we-vote-on-judges/
Superintendent of Public Instruction
No vote, no recommendation.
I do not comment on education policy. As such, I also will not be commenting on city school board elections.
City Elections, San Francisco
Assessor-Recorder
Vote: No recommendation
Joaquin Torres is running unopposed.
Public Defender
Vote: No recommendation.
Mano Raju is running unopposed.
State Propositions, California
Proposition 1: Housing affordability bonds
Vote: Yes
Bonds approved by the state legislature needing to go through the voting public is weird as hell, man. Home loan assistance, home building funds, refurbishments, all fine.
Proposition 2: Increase state rainy day fund
Vote: Yes
This doesn’t raise new taxes, it increases the buffer the city can save between budget shortfalls, from 10 to 20% of general revenue.
Proposition 3: Permanently set 2012 tax increase for education on income above 371k
Vote: Yes
This refers to a tax increase approved in 2012 that increases income taxes above the 371k income bracket. It’s already in effect, but is set to expire in 2030. A yes vote would remove the expiration.
Proposition 4: Repeal prohibition against public funds for campaigning
Vote: Yes
Right now, most cities are banned from setting up public campaign finance programs, which prevents them from setting regulations on campaign behavior tied to this money, such as, for example, refusing donations from outside groups.
In practice, this will have little to no effect on larger federal elections. The amount of money involved in those elections far outpaces the amount public backing options can provide. However, for municipal elections (eg, supervisor races and state senate/assembly), where smaller amounts of money can massively drown out less moneyed interests, this could have a huge impact on leveling the playing field and helping underclass interests.
Proposition 5: Changes to the recall process for state offices
Vote: Yes
Current CA recall elections simultaneously vote for if a position should be recalled and who should fill the seat if the vote is “yes.” This is a weird tying of interests and muddies campaign messages, as well as causes recalls to functionally be impromptu campaigns.
This would separate those elections. If a governor is recalled, the lieutenant governor becomes the interim governor. Other seats remain vacant until a snap election is called
Proposition 37: Middle income home bonds
Vote: No.
This prop would authorize CA’s Housing Finance Agency to take on 25B in bonds, then pass those loans on at 17% of a home’s purchase price to certain home buyers. Those home buyers would then repay the loan in installments.
The financing scheme is pretty good; this minimizes state exposure to risk and makes home ownership more accessible to those who might not be able to afford it. It’d have been a great idea if the state actually tried to push this.
Look, home ownership is an admirable goal, but this wouldn’t push costs down; if anything, this functionally increases costs. This doesn’t decrease costs; this just gives another source of loans for the same people who were taking on the loans before.
It’s pretty telling who is financing this prop. So far, this is almost entirely financed by the California Realtor’s association, who would massively benefit by allowing potential homeowners to access more lines of credit and therefore be more likely to be able to purchase the inflated costs. It’s also telling that, of all people, CA YIMBY is not endorsing this.
Demand side assistance isn’t going to help a supply problem, even if Prop 37 only applies to new construction. As CA YIMBY says, “There is no shortage of buyers for newly built ownership housing in California (in fact, bidding wars are quite common).”
https://cayimby.org/blog/proposition-37-2026/
Proposition 38: Bonds for immunology research
Vote: No, personally not voting.
This one puts me in a weird spot. Autoimmune issues are fundamentally too personal an issue for me to be able to take that dispassionate a stance. 4.2B in immunology bonds is probably net positive.
I defer to the SF Chronicle, which illustrate exactly why I’m so against bond measures being put through the ballot box:
The measure requires the California Department of Public Health to give half the bond money — $4.2 billion — to an unnamed nonprofit medical research institute that meets a long and unusual list of criteria, including occupying a minimum 200,000-square-foot space and receiving a $50 million donation for a “microbiome research program.”
These requirements have no bearing on an institution’s ability to conduct high-quality, cutting-edge immunology research. Instead, they’re written so that a lone research center is eligible to receive the lion’s share of taxpayer money: the California Institute for Immunology & Immunotherapy.
California has many established and well-regarded research institutes — including some that have made significant advances in these fields.
But the California Institute for Immunology & Immunotherapy is not among them.
Instead, it’s a brand-new institute, and its founders include the same billionaires who paid to put Prop 38 on the ballot: Surgeon Gary Michelson, businessman Meyer Luskin and financier Michael Milken, who, in addition to his longtime financing of medical research, is also known as the “junk bond king.” He was pardoned by President Donald Trump in 2020 for his 1990 guilty plea to racketeering and securities fraud.
In an endorsement interview, Yes on 38 campaign spokesperson Robin Swanson insisted to us that the institute is “well positioned” to put $4.2 billion to good use, touting initial philanthropic contributions of $250 million and its affiliation with UCLA and its medical center.
But the California Institute for Immunology & Immunotherapy literally has no track record of developing, funding or bringing medical research to market. It isn’t even fully built. Despite already receiving $200 million in taxpayer funds in California’s 2022-2023 budget, construction on a “majority” of the space isn’t expected to be completed until 2028, a spokesperson acknowledged via email.
Even despite that… I can’t feel good about denying any money for immunology, even if scumbags get rich off it. I’m not voting on this one.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/prop-38-money-california-22453646.php
Proposition 39: Voter IDs for vote by mail
Vote: No
“Under the proposal, in-person voters would need to present a government-issued ID, while mail voters would have to supply the last four digits of a selected identification number on their ballot envelope.”
California already asks for social security number on voter registration. What are we doing here, man.
Proposition 40: Wealth tax for billionaires
Vote: Yes
This is a resolution almost custom built to ask if I’m more of a populist or a wonk.
The actual tax is a 5% wealth tax on asset holdings valued in summation over 1b dollars. It is not recurring. 90% of income earned is earmarked for health care, 10% for food assistance and education.
Look, this is bad policy. It’s a one time tax, which is awful policy because it doesn’t redistribute any wealth in the long term and makes the tax very dodge-able. It’s exclusively earmarked, which prevents things like housing construction and infrastructure development. It doesn’t tax a wide enough tax base, as this would only apply to about 200 billionaires in CA. It doesn’t even tax all that much.
This is very unlikely to actually solve any of the problems it proposed to. This burns a lot of political capital pissing billionaires off in California for, in my opinion, policy that does not go far enough.
A income bracket increase would have been better. Prop 13 repeals for corporate properties would have been better (or, and this is spicy… broad prop13 repeals). A recurring wealth tax would have been better. A version without the revenue earmarked would have been better.
But at the end of the day… if we can’t get even the most watered down version of this through, there’s just no hope for any more substantive policies.
Just don’t be surprised if this doesn’t fix anything.
Proposition 41: Prohibits new state taxes that exclude revenues from spending limits
Proposition 42: Prohibits new state personal property taxes
Vote: No.
These are both terrible tax policies and poison pills for prop 40. I get it if you vote no on prop 40, I’m pretty borderline on it myself. But these NEED to fail.
“What if we made Prop 13 housing disasters worse, man” fuck. If billionaires are gonna do poison pill legislation, can they tie the poison pill to something I want to eat?
Proposition 43: Limit voters ability to raise revenues for local services
Vote: No
Currently, local governments must obtain 2/3rds voter approval to impose or increase special taxes. Currently, this requirement does not apply to ballot measures.
This would also subject the special taxes on the ballot to that 2/3rds rule.
The original rule is bullshit, the loophole should expand to all taxes, and having any avenue of getting special taxes through is good.
Proposition 44: Require community health clinics spend 90% of revenue on program services
Vote: No
Currently, that number, the percentage these community clinics spend on patient care, averages 80%. The scheme for enforcement would penalize any spending over that 10% of non-patient care at a 1 to 1 ratio, putting it in a government store. It’s possible to get that penalty back, if you endure more paperwork proving you are in compliance, which you probably can’t do if you can only spend 10% on non-patient care.
Why regulate what largely isn’t broken?
https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/prop-44-california-health-clinic-22433656.php
Proposition 45: CEQA reforms to expedite environmental reviews
Vote: No
I really wanted to vote yes on this. Environmental reviews and the unlimited bureaucracy behind them are an enormous part of why it’s so hard to build anything in California. The CEQA process is almost bespoke in how terrible it is at actually ensuring environmental considerations are considered.
Under current law, if CEQA applies to new construction (and it applies to most large construction), California regulators must do an environmental impact review, then decide if changes are required to the project or if the project can go ahead.
However, after CEQA reviews have been completed, people and organizations are allowed to individually sue the regulators to argue that environmental review was inadequate. On top of that, CEQA mandates a minimum amount of time where the public can solicit opinions that the government has to consider in public hearings. These hearings alone can tie up projects for years.
The proposal does a bunch of things, one of which I have wanted for ages; it sets a maximum for public comments.
If that was all it did, I would probably be for it. Unfortunately, that’s not all it does.
Prop 45 adds several more disastrous changes:
- It creates legal requirements that regulators must specify all information that must be included before it is submitted, and removes avenues to demand additional information.
- It locks environmental considerations in time, so the agencies reviewing proposals cannot adjust to changing data (such as, for example, updated weather models?)
- It limits who is considered a native tribe to those that have been federally recognize, disempowering somewhere around 55 tribes from being offered seats at the table on their land (https://www.aisc.ucla.edu/ca/tribes14.htm).
- It arguably applies these streamlined requirements to data centers, as “broadband internet access” is one of the categories this would apply to. This question alone would cause litigation.
- Most questionably, it exempts high speed rail from this streamlined review process but allows for more freeway construction.
It’s a shame this is what we got.
Regional and City Propositions, San Francisco
Forward
More than a few of the propositions on today’s ballot involve major changes to the city charter in wonkish but sweeping ways. Unfortunately, due to corruption issues with the Lurie administration and issues with the SF Democratic Party and internal party politics that have allowed it to take substantial direct influence from billionaires in the city, we don’t get to evaluate them on their own metrics.
As such, Proposition A, D, E, and F will be evaluated as a whole. I’ll go into detail with respect what each proposition actually does, but my reasoning for recommending a no vote will have less to do with the policies (which largely make the mayor substantially stronger and takes away power from numerous other sources) and more to do with Lurie’s track record as mayor so far.
Proposition RTM: 1% sales tax in SF, 0.5% sales tax in various other counties, for MUNI, BART, and Caltrain funding
Vote: Yes
train good bus good bus take me work give money bus
Proposition A: Charter changes to many current city bureaucracies
Proposition D: Increases to signature requirements to get citizen initiatives on the ballot
Proposition E: Relaxed oversight over city contracts with private companies, consolidation of oversight
Proposition F: Increase the mayoral ability to replace department heads without cause
Vote: NO.
Normally, I handle the propositions in order, but because these props all got on the ballot in the same way, aim to do similar things (consolidate power to the mayor), and are being argued as a block, I’m going to handle this one unconventionally.
I’m going to start with brief summaries of what each proposition does, then continue with some summaries of Lurie’s term in office, then detail the changing local political landscape, then talk about why you should vote no.
This is going to be pretty long.
So what do the props do?
Prop A involves streamlining the number of commissions in the city charter and requiring a task force to meet every 10 years to review existing bodies.
Prop D increases the barrier to get initiatives on the ballot, increasing signature requirements from 2% to 8% of registered voters. This means going from about 10.6k to 42.5k.
Prop E centralizes purchasing authority. The takes the existing City Administrator role and gives it the power to approve contracts that bring in either 4.5m in revenue or contracts that cost 25m or more, up from 1m and 10m respectively. It also allows the role to propose rules for how we contract goods, services, and award construction contracts. It also increases the role’s term from 5 to 10 years. On top of all of that, it allows the administrator to set rules for how the city’s departments must spend money.
Prop F is probably the biggest reason the above rules are so concerning. Prop F consolidates the mayor’s power over chief executives. It makes it so the mayor is able to transfer responsibilities between departments regardless of whether the department was organized by charter or ordinance. It also allows the mayor to transfer responsibilities between the City Administrator, controller, board of appeals, and other boards.
Finally, it allows the mayor to hire and fire these department heads and heads of commissions without Board approval. This does not include the City Administrator, but the Mayor is the one appointing him.
So what does that all mean?
In practice, these propositions in combination mean the mayor gains nearly unlimited unilateral control of the budget and finances of city hall and increases the ability of the city to award contracts up to 25m without board approval. If department heads do not like the Mayor’s budget or contract awards, too bad.
It consolidates all of that power into the City Administrator, who will have enormous, borderline unchecked power over the approval and awarding of contracts.
So should the mayor have that much power?
When I was commenting on the mayoral election, I suggested you rank Aisha Safai, followed by London Breed, followed by Daniel Lurie. My reasoning is that Lurie is functionally unproven as a mayor and will, in practice, have Breed’s same policies, but with less experience and much less corruption.
I was wrong. He’s extremely corrupt; he’s just more efficient at it.
The OpenGov contract
We’ll start with one of the more defensible things. Daniel Lurie has (correctly, in my opinion) made the speed of the permitting office one of the focuses of his campaign. His goal here is to attempt to clean up bureaucratic inefficiencies by trying to get the office off paper documents and as much manual review.
His solution to this has been to award a 5.9 million dollar contract for a tech stack overhaul of the software that runs the office to OpenGov, a “largely untested tech firm with connections to his former nonprofit, Tipping Point”.
Reports from inside the permitting office have not gone great. The private software firm has missed key deadlines and cannot handle the actual workflows that the permitting office has. As a result, permitters are forced to use both workflows, increasing the bureaucratic overhead.
Software rollouts always has problems, but this contract, under the 10m limit that currently exists, was issues unilaterally, “over the objections of of departmental staff,” and with the assertion that only OpenGov could have handled it.
Lurie wanted to extend the contract from 6m to 33M. Supervisors cut that down to 22m, for 3 years instead of 5. If Lurie gets these propositions, he could get the current contract essentially for free, without supervisor approval.
The Flock deals
Hey, remember how Flock cameras were illegally accessed by various agencies all across the country? And how out of state agencies illegally accessed it 1.6 million times? And how hundreds of cities across the country cancelled their contracts with Flock after this news broke? And how SF drones had their feeds from Skydio publicly available?
Guess who renewed their contraaact.
That one fucking toilet
So, why is Lurie pushing for this agenda? Theoretically, this is to reduce waste and corruption. Lurie’s primary argument for these charter changes is that it allows him to better audit and manage bad contracts.
His central campaign point is a specific example of wasteful spending, the so called million dollar toilet.
Lurie has made this inexplicable contract for a public toilet for 1.7 million dollars a center point of his campaign, and on the surface, it makes sense! Hard to imagine a better example of government waste, and he knows it. He’s taken campaign photos in front of the site of the toilet, his supporters have brought it up in campaign ads, it was the first example given by his PAC when they tried to pitch the measures to the Harvey Milk Club.
It’s an interesting example, since this is exactly the kind of deal the reforms do nothing to address.
These wasteful spending measures are already within the 10m limit for the mayor to unilaterally approve or reject. It’s telling that what he’s telling you, essentially, is that in order to finally have the power to do the thing he’s always had the power to do, cancel wasteful contracts, he needs to be able to write even more wasteful contracts.
To quote Joe Eskenazi, “A mayor who wants to do something about substantial toilet overruns needs no ballot measure to plunge this city’s crappy system. They merely need to use their powers as chief executive to plug the leaks. Once more, with feeling: You cannot legislate a solution to a problem that is fundamentally a management problem. It requires good management.“ https://missionlocal.org/2026/10/daniel-lurie-san-francisco-elections/
If the goal here is to address wasteful spending, then maybe start by dealing with the wasteful spending before you ask for godlike financial powers to do what you already could be doing.
The hiding of public records
At this point, it’s also worth looking at the transparency claims this legislation is aimed to promote, because again, this is something currently in Lurie’s power to address, and Lurie has done worse than fail to do so; he has arguably acted in ways violating the law.
The story broke when a local tech worker, Shaun Aukland, filed public records requests to Supervisor Matt Dorsey and Mayor Daniel Lurie. He found that multiple texts that existed in Dorsey’s records were, according to the mayor, either unavailable to discuss or did not exist.
He then took this to the Standard, who followed up in different avenues using the same method.
“In one case, The Standard obtained an email from a city department about the decision to scrap a proposed homeless shelter that had received funding through Breaking the Cycle, Lurie’s $49 million public-private partnership. The email was from one of the mayor’s policy chiefs, who revealed that he made the call to scrap the project even though several hundred thousand dollars in nonprofit funds had already been spent on the site. The mayor’s office said it had no record of the email.”
In another matter, one of the mayor’s policy chiefs started a group text related to Pacific Gas & Electric during the December 2025 citywide blackout. The mayor’s office again said it had no record of the chat, even though The Standard retrieved it through a public records request to a separate city department.
This is a guy who campaigned against a mayor who also did this kind of shit. This is a guy who made transparency the cornerstone of his 2024 campaign.
So, again, this is a guy who has a history of close ties to industries and organizations, and he’s asking to have more unsupervised power to make those deals.
The takeover of the SF Democratic Party by billionaires
Look, I don’t like making a habit of doing “follow the money” commentary, because I don’t consider it especially helpful or convincing. It’s guilt by association.
But it’s important in this case, because it ties to the biggest story in local politics you have not been paying attention to: the takeover of the SF Democratic Party by billionaire monied interests.
In 2024, the SF Democratic party had board elections to determine who would set steering decisions for the party as a whole, including, critically, endorsements. Progressives lost to moderates, and SFDEMs brought on Nancy Tung as chair of the local party.
In that time, she has been intimately tied to a lot of the terrible decisions we’ve talked about today. She’s gotten 10k in funs from Flock itself to help kill discussions about cancelling their contract. Members of her board include public affairs managers from Flock. She notably changed rules in local party proceedings to allow the SFDEMs to endorse differently from the party as a whole specifically to ensure the dems of SF would not endorse prop 40 (the state party has). She spent months failing to investigate sexual assault allegations against Manny Yekutiel, who the party later endorsed (Manny has since dropped out of the District 8 sup election after two more allegations came out).
This has been a long time coming. Moderate groups have been pouring money into city hall to try to buy influence for decades, and Daniel Lurie has opened the door. To quote Mission Local:
Andrew Houston, CEO of Dropbox, gave $100,000. Matthew Sonsini, an investor who is married into the billionaire Sobrato family, also gave $100,000 (Sonsini has never given to past races but family members have).
Tara Schuster, an author in Tennessee, gave $25,000. Meyer Malka, a managing partner at the Palo Alto fintech venture capital firm Ribbit, gave $100,000.
One thing ties these new donors, with the exception of Malka, together: At some point, all of them were financial supporters, partners or board members of the anti-poverty nonprofit Lurie founded, Tipping Point Community.
The list goes on. Per the SF Standard:
According to our analysis, about $164 million has flowed through political, philanthropic and personal channels connected to Lurie since he launched his campaign for mayor in 2023. The total does not include an additional pile of money: a nonprofit set up by his well-heeled circle that has quietly helped push his political accomplishments, with finances that have remained largely undisclosed. The figures reveal a mayor whose dollar footprint dwarfs that of his predecessor, Mayor London Breed.
The reason “He took money from X” allegations matter is because they sometimes imply that decisions about the government, such as who gets awarded contracts and how some policies are set, will be made by those with the money to buy people from City Hall.
Every single connection here ultimately stems from Lurie’s personal network.
Say what you will about the billionaire heir. He cannot be bought. But that seems to be by the virtue of being the one doing the buying.
Bottom line
These resolutions, in combination, will give a historically moneyed man, who is incredibly invested in giving the mayor as much power over the purse as possible, the ability to unilaterally award contracts to his billionaire friends and remake SF in his image. They close the door to supervisor reviews. They close the door to ballot initiatives aimed at curtailing his oversight. They centralize power into his appointees.
This is being put forward by a man who has a history of lawbreaking corruption. A guy who repeatedly lies to you about how he is powerless to stop problems with powers he already has. A guy who has opened the door to billionaires who have already succeeded in buying endorsements against Prop 40.
Every single one of these reforms, in isolation, seems reasonable; the exact sort of boring reorganization and refactoring designed to make your eyes fall asleep a little. All of these reforms are being sold as a way to streamline government, to eliminate waste.
But the picture as a whole is of a mayor who wants to take over the city, and a billionaire class dead set on letting him.
If you hate Flock now, you aren’t ready for what kind of contracts this guy is gonna sign in the future. If you hate the permitting office’s speed now, just wait until he signs more computer overhauls to unqualified cronies. If you hate that million dollar toilet, maybe ask why he made it a campaign point before he just cancelled the damn thing.
This is a guy who sells you wonkishness, and instead gives you the exact same kinds of corruption you think you’re above. This guy has figured out that tech workers like myself are juuuust smart enough to understand that bureaucratic refactoring is a good thing, but not invested enough to see the corruption and too busy to really think through the puzzle in whole.
Vote no.
Proposition B: SF Municipal Finance Corporation and Bank
Vote: Yes
This would allow SF to establish a government controlled nonprofit bank, authorized to issue loans and take deposits. Nonprofit, city controlled banks tend to have substantially different incentive sets than public ones, and as such are much, much, MUCH more able and willing to authorize loans and financing for projects that benefit the public good.
This means things like financing for social housing construction, which otherwise has an incredibly hard time accessing private loans for construction. This also means investment in smaller businesses that turn less profit than large conglomerates but still build the character of the city.
Public banks might sound radical, and in many ways, they are. Currently, only two public banks exist in the country: the Bank of North Dakota, and the Territorial Bank of American Samoa.
We’re going to focus on the Bank of North Dakota, since it’s been going since 1919 and has endured multiple financial crises. In fact, North Dakota started the bank specifically because of one of these crises, in which private lenders would not give farm loans at affordable rates due to the twin economic pressures of price suppression by grain suppliers and droughts.
BND’s express mission is to promote agriculture, commerce, and industry in the state. It is not to enact policies that maximize returns. This frees it to do “economically inefficient” but socially advantageous things like, for example… being much less aggressive with its lending practices, while allowing it to take on loans to support institutions in the community, such as the Elgin Hospital (https://northdakotamonitor.com/2026/06/08/elgin-hospital-is-no-longer-on-life-support-after-bank-of-north-dakota-loan/).
Ironically, this has allowed it to outcompete similarly sized private banks, posting around 1.99% return on average investments, compared to around 1.04% nationally (https://bnd.nd.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025-SP_RatingsDirect_BankofNorthDakota_3497716_Dec-22-2025.pdf).
The lack of obligation to chase every trend possible and maximize short-term returns allows it to help the community in times of crisis. During the great recession in 2008, North Dakota was the only state in the country that did not have to cut its budget, and the Bank of North Dakota was instrumental to reducing foreclosure rates (https://prospect.org/2013/04/01/people-s-bank/).
Obviously, North Dakota’s economy is very different from that of San Francisco; we don’t really need agriculture and oil prospecting loans. But San Francisco has a glut of social housing and affordable housing options that are fundamentally unable to be built because they can’t access lines of credit, as private lenders can make more money with market rate buildings. In the state as a whole, some 45,000 affordable homes stalled without access to funding to break ground (https://www.enterprisecommunity.org/news/nearly-45000-affordable-homes-california-stalled-without-additional-funding). A recent project in the Mission to build more affordable housing went from 465 to 100 units expressly for this reason (https://missionlocal.org/2025/10/massive-465-unit-mission-district-affordable-housing-project-slashed-to-just-100-units/).
This is one of those things that has “bipartisan” (for SF) support. The proposition was put forward by both moderates and progressives.
It’s a tragedy that more of the country does not have public banks, and it’d be an enormous deal to have SF join North Dakota and American Samoa in brining this financing model to the forefront.
Proposition C: Housing trust fund
Vote: Yes
This amends the charter to increase funds to help subsidize affordable housing construction.
Proposition G: Reopen the great highway
Vote: No
man. at this point, it would cost millions to reopen this park and the park is actually good
Proposition H: New Tax to help fund MUNI
Vote: Yes
bus good, muni need money, give money, bus good
Proposition I: Changes to the real property transfer tax
Vote: Yes
This doesn’t actually increase transfer taxes, this just earmarks funds from the existing transfer taxes and mandates that 60% gets spent on affordable housing, 25% gets spent on acquiring new units to turn into affordable housing, and 10% gets used for tenant stabilization/homelessness programs.
I love these programs. I also think transfer taxes are an… adequate way to tax transfers on large assets and increase wealth. I think these spending avenues are good.
I have serious concerns about the fact that this would remove the city’s ability to amend the spending on these programs, and I have extremely serious concerns about the fact that we aren’t increasing taxes to fund these programs, but instead functionally taking it from the general fund. But I dunno, the city can’t be trusted with the ability to adjust those limits, so…
Proposition J: Removal of foreclosure tax exemption for transfer taxes
Vote: Yes
This prop would remove the exemption from paying transfer taxes if a property is foreclosed in some cases; the exception would still exist for single family homes and condos, as well as some other multifamily buildings.
This would mostly apply to commercial properties.
loophole bad close loophole taxes on companies good increase tax yay
Final recommendations
Federal and State Elections
Governor: Xavier Becerra
Lieutenant Governor: Fiona Ma
Secretary of State: Shirley N. Weber
Controller: Malia Cohen
Treasurer: Eleni Kounalakis
Attorney General: Rob Bonta
Insurance Commissioner: Jane Kim
Board of Equalization Member, District 2: John Pimentel
US House of Representatives, District 11: Connie Chan
State Assembly Member, District 17: Matt Haney
State Elections, Nonpartisan
Judicial Section: No recommendation, no vote across the board
Superintendent of Public Instruction: No recommendation, no vote
Local Elections: City of San Francisco
Assessor-Recorder: No recommendation, no vote
Public Defender: No recommendation, no vote
State Propositions
Proposition 1: Housing Affordability Bonds: Yes
Proposition 2: State Rainy Day Adjustments: Yes
Proposition 3: Permanently set 2012 tax increase for education on income above 371k: Yes
Proposition 4: Repeal prohibition against public funds for campaigning: Yes
Proposition 5: Changes to the recall process for state offices: Yes
Proposition 37: Middle income home bonds: No
Proposition 38: Bonds for immunology research: Recommend voting no, personally will not be voting
Proposition 39: Voter IDs for vote by mail: No
Proposition 40: Wealth tax for billionaires: Yes
Proposition 41: Prohibits new state taxes that exclude revenues from spending limits: No
Proposition 42: Prohibits new state personal property taxes: No.
Proposition 43: Limit voters ability to raise revenues for local services: No
Proposition 44: Require community health clinics spend 90% of revenue on program services: No
Proposition 45: CEQA reforms to expedite environmental reviews: No
Regional and City Propositions
Proposition RTM: 1% sales tax in SF, 0.5% sales tax in various other counties, for MUNI, BART, and Caltrain funding: Yes
Proposition A: Charter changes to many current city bureaucracies: No
Proposition B: SF Municipal Finance Corporation and Bank: Yes
Proposition C: Housing trust fund: Yes
Proposition D: Increases to signature requirements to get citizen initiatives on the ballot: No
Proposition E: Relaxed oversight over city contracts with private companies, consolidation of oversight: No
Proposition F: Increase the mayoral ability to replace department heads without cause: No
Proposition G: Reopen the great highway: No
Proposition H: New Tax to help fund MUNI: Yes
Proposition I: Changes to the real property transfer tax to fund social housing: Yes
Proposition J: Removal of foreclosure tax exemption for transfer taxes: Yes