Matt’s March 2020 San Francisco Voting Guide

5 min readMar 2, 2020

My 2019 guide opened with this apology: “I know, I know: I’m late to this.” Well, I’m setting a new record this time: the election is on Tuesday and I’m publishing this Sunday night. Dear voter, I promise to do better by you in the future.

Critical Tools: San Francisco Chronicle Voter Guide, YIMBY’s March 2020 Endorsements, and the SPUR Voter Guide.

Primaries

A Brief Explainer on California Open Primaries. In 2010, California voters approved Proposition 14, which amends the California state constitution to create an open primary system. This amendment creates a system where all voters in the state can vote for their preferred candidate, of any party, and the top two get sent to the general election. This system makes it possible (and in California, it’s likely) for two candidates of the same party to face-off for an office in November.

President of the United States: You Decide

I’ve delayed engaging with this ballot because I’m so woefully torn on who should be the Democratic candidate for President. In my first drafts of this guide, I tried to explain my thinking, but I’ve come to the conclusion that doing so is self-involved — you already have more than enough information overload on that decision. I’ll vote for any of the Democratic candidates over the current President.

DCCC, Assembly District 17: A whole list

YIMBY summarizes why this is important. “Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC) members speak for the local Democratic Party and decide who get the Democratic Party’s endorsement. Why are these down-ballot races so important? DCCC endorsements are estimated to be worth 10 percentage points in local elections.”

YIMBY provides guidance on who the pro-housing candidates are; I literally copied who they endorsed. Note that you get to vote for 14 (14!!) people and there are only 10 listed here:

U.S. Rep, District 12: Nancy Pelosi

Look, she’s too old and should pass the torch to the next generation of leadership, but she’s also a complete badass. As long as we’re fighting Trump, I want her in the ring.

State Senator, District 11: Scott Wiener

Senator Wiener is a national leader on housing policy. As YIMBY states in their endorsement, “he authored and passed momentous legislation like SB35, which helps homes get built faster, and is behind SB50, which would legalize millions of new homes near transit and jobs.” He’s my favorite state politician and my hope is that he influences more of our elected representatives to follow his lead.

State Assembly Member, District 17: David Chiu

He’s running unopposed, so you have no choice, but take solace in the fact that he has a solid pro-housing voting record. YIMBY agrees.

SF Judicial Seat #1: Pang Ly

I’ll be honest, I’m just following The Chronicle’s endorsement. She’s endorsed by more than 20 judges, including the incumbent.

SF Judicial Seat #18: Dorothy Chou Proudfoot

Also following The Chronicle’s endorsement: “She is endorsed by 10 judges, including James Robertson, the incumbent, and by state Sen. Scott Wiener.” For what it’s worth, Chesa endorses Michelle Tong, if you’re a big Chesa fan.

SF Judicial Seat #21: Kulvindar “Rani” Singh

Again, endorsed by the Chronicle. She’s also endorsed by most of the court’s judges, including the incumbent, and by Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Ballot Propositions

Good news: there are only a few!

State Prop 13: Yes

A $15 billion state bond to fund facility projects for preschool, K-12 schools, community colleges and UC and CSU campuses. Our schools need this, badly. The Chronicle agrees. Spur and YIMBY don’t weigh in.

State Prop A: Yes

The measure would allow the city college district to sell $845 million in bonds for school building improvements, including seismic retrofits. Spur’s only real complaint is that a better fiscal practice would be to do more frequent, smaller bonds, instead of waiting 14 years for a whopper. But it’s clearly needed.

The Chronicle and Spur agree. YIMBY doesn’t weigh in (notably odd that they don’t).

SF Prop B: Yes

There’s a theme here, this one is for $628.5 million in bonds to finance seismic retrofitting of the city’s emergency management infrastructure, including fire and police facilities and the 911 call center.

The Chronicle, Spur, and YIMBY agree.

SF Prop C: Yes

This is kind of weird one but a no-brainer. It ensures that 25 city employees can continue to access their health benefits after the San Francisco Housing Authority imploded (a more interesting story). It requires an amendment to the city charter, and therefore has to be a voter prop.

The Chronicle and Spur agree. YIMBY doesn’t weigh in.

SF Prop D: Yes

Prop D places a tax on vacant storefronts. The prop is structured to discourage vacancies, not really at raising revenue. Of course, it doesn’t address some of the underlying issues behind commercial vacancies, like SF’s corrupt permitting process and zoning restrictions, but this prop will encourage land owners to fill empty storefronts.

Notably, this requires 2/3 to win, so your “yes” vote is needed.

The Chronicle, Spur, and YIMBY all agree this is the right vote.

SF Prop E: NO, no, no, no.

It seems like every ballot needs at least one cynical prop. This season, it’s Prop E. On it’s face, Prop E sounds like it supports affordable housing, but it provides no funding, no process improvements, no real solutions of any kind. Instead, all it does is limit the construction of office space and add more steps in SF’s already infamous permitting and approval process.

Spur’s run down (including their very, very long list of “cons”) is excellent as always and an interesting read. I’ll use their first “con” as my summary: “On its face, Prop. E promises to bring jobs and affordable housing into balance. While that is a reasonable goal, it would not create resources to produce affordable housing. All it could do is reduce future office development. In fact, reducing office development would also reduce impact fees that pay for affordable housing — precisely the opposite of the measure’s goal.”