Raven Brooks

At the state level there’s been a lot of discussion about the election, including the propositions this year. I really can’t add much there other than three small things:

1. Go download a copy of Courage Campaign’s always excellent progressive voter guide. Make sure to share it with friends and take it with you into the voting booth.
2. Getting out to vote for all the Democrats running for statewide office this year is critical. Make sure you vote and the California Democratic party has also created a tool to get your friends to vote called Friend Out The Vote.
3. Finally, if you’re able to do so please consider volunteering for a local candidate, the CA Democratic Party or OFA on the weekend before election day through November 2nd. We can use all the help we can get to turn out voters. Get started here.

UPDATE: Calitics has some recommendations at the state level to look at as well. The recommendations are the same as you see elsewhere but they add some good detail on the choices for each office. They have a great section on the Supreme Court nominations that I’ll just quote here:

State Supreme Court retention – Tani Cantil-Sakauye: no recommendation Voters are asked every 12 years whether to retain State Supreme Court justices. In this case, voters are being asked whether to confirm Tani Cantil-Sakauye, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s pick to replace Chief Justice Ron George. Cantil-Sakauye is seen as an uncontroversial judge, but then again she IS Arnold Schwarzenegger’s pick, and he is not likely to pick anyone but a judge who shares his views on corporate power. If you think Jerry Brown can pick a better chief justice, vote no; if you think Canti-Sakauye is fine and/or you worry that Meg Whitman will win and pick someone worse, vote yes.

State Supreme Court retention – Ming Chin: NO Chin was in the minority on the 4-3 In re: Marriage Cases decision in 2008, meaning he voted to uphold the state’s ban on marriage equality. Chin again opposed marriage equality in May 2009, joining the majority that upheld Prop 8. Chin has been one of the most right-wing justices on the state Supreme Court. Californians can and should have better justices than this, ones who will uphold the equal rights of ALL Californians.

State Supreme Court retention – Carlos Moreno: YES In contrast to Chin, Justice Carlos Moreno has been a strong advocate for judicial recognition of equal rights. In addition to his vote to overturn the marriage ban in In re: Marriage Cases and he was the only justice to vote to overturn Prop 8 at the State Supreme Court, passionately arguing against enshrining discrimination in the state Constitution. Beyond Prop 8, Moreno has been a reliable vote for equality in other cases in his 9 years on the bench, and deserves to be retained.

There are also a lot of associate justices up for election. I haven’t been able to find very much information on these people from Democratic sources. All of the county parties I’ve seen mailers for haven’t endorsed anyone, and with the unique opportunity here that seems like a big oversight. In fact all I’ve seen are a few crazy Republican sites with information on these people, and I’m just voting the opposite way (see here, here, and here). It seems that pretty much this whole crop of candidates was appointed by and has close ties to Republican governors. If the information is to be trusted some are verified Republicans or have made really bad judicial calls. So to summarize:

Kathleen M Banke: NO
Robert L. Dondero: NO
James R. Lambden: NO
Martin J. Jenkins: NO
Peter J. Siggins: NO
Timothy A. Reardon: NO
Terence L Bruiniers: NO
Henry E. Needham, JR: NO

At the local level there’s always less information about what you’re voting on and who to support. I’m in San Francisco so I wanted to put my thoughts out there on the choices we face locally and compare them to the city’s two editorial boards: The San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

When evaluating your choices locally you’ve really only got three solid sources of information. You can look at the endorsements made by the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Bay Guardian. And you can read what’s in the voter guide. There’s not a whole lot of information if you Google this year’s propositions, and if you find something it was likely written by one of the two aforementioned papers.

You’ve likely gotten mail for various candidates and measures, but those are paid advertisements and you can’t necessarily rely upon them. A lot of groups ranging from the San Francisco Democratic Party to the Sierra Club will send out slates with their recommendations. They can be useful if you fully trust the organization, but what you’re not seeing there is the politics that went into making that endorsement happen.

So I want to look primarily at what the Chronicle and the Guardian said.

Supervisor races

I won’t get into all of these races since my district isn’t up this year, but there are a few I do care about and have been supporting this cycle. In general you’re going to find a slate of very moderate endorsements from the Chronicle and a more progressive crop of candidates from the Guardian. However in the case of the Guardian, their writing shouldn’t be taken as the gospel. They are progressive, but they have an agenda and a set of political relationships like any democratic club. As one small example, they hate Mayor Newsom with the burning passion of 10,000 suns. He could bring about world peace and they’d find a way to make a back handed compliment.

District 6
Jane Kim is the way to go here (check out her web site). I’ve been doing field work for Jane since this summer and really believe in her. She’s currently the president of the SF school board, she’s a civil rights attorney and she’s a community organizer. She’s a smart organizer that’s been able to bring together an interesting constituency in the district to truly represent everyone, and she’s engaging a new group of young people in politics.

The Chronicle of course endorsed Theresa Sparks, who is much more moderate. The Guardian endorsed Debra Walker with Jane Kim as a second choice. But this is an instance where machine politics is at work. Walker has secured most of the endorsements in this race from democratic machinery in the district and she’s had this locked up with the Guardian for a while, before she even ran. Here’s a great piece on Beyond Chron that ran on this the day before the Guardian printed their endorsement titled In District 6, Jane Kim takes on the Machine.

The first paragraph really says a lot, and there’s a whole lot more in that article talking about the history of this race.

On April 30, 2008, more than two years before the November 2010 election, San Francisco Bay Guardian Editor Tim Redmond publicly urged Mark Leno to endorse Debra Walker for District 6 Supervisor. Redmond argued Walker was “going to be the consensus progressive candidate to succeed Chris Daly.” Redmond again promoted Walker’s election on January 29, 2009, but warned “the rumor mill is abuzzin” that School Board member Jane Kim might enter the race.” Rather than challenge Walker, he said, Kim “ought to stay on the school board, where she is doing a great job, and then look for other offices.”

District 8
Rebecca Prozan is the way to go here (check out her web site). I’ve known Rebecca for probably 4 or 5 years now, I first met her due to her work in Kamala Harris’ office. She’s a really smart candidate, a great consensus builder, and one of the hardest working people I know.

The Chronicle has predictably endorsed Scott Wiener in this race, who is really conservative and would be terrible for the district. The Guardian has endorsed Rafael Mandelman. And if you look at the Guardian’s endorsement, it’s again mostly due to their longstanding political battles with one minor issue disagreement. The Guardian has been in a protracted pissing match with the mayor’s office as long as Newsom has been in office and they consistently endorse things that reduce the mayor’s power, create division between the mayor and board of supervisors, or put a stick in the eye of the mayor’s office. Prozan isn’t interested in playing those games and I think that more than anything lost her the endorsement with them. She’s smart enough to realize that kind of politics doesn’t serve the city and help get things done. It just creates tension and lots of things for journalists to write about. There are some minor policy differences but to me they reflect a more realistic position. Mandelman is promising ponies and unicorns and knows he can’t deliver on them, but he’s promising anyway to be “more progressive.”

District 10
DeWitt Lacy (web site). I’ve known Dewitt for several years now. I first met him when he was a fellow at New Leaders Council, where I’m an advisory board member. He’s a smart, young, promising candidate with a bright future ahead of him.

This district is really important. There’s a lot of city money and attention focused here right now. The 3rd street rail line went in a while ago which really gives the neighborhood a chance to develop. And it’s one of those kind of neighborhoods that has a much worse reputation than it deserves. But it needs some smart leadership to guide this development in the right way.

The Guardian’s endorsement gives him second billing and makes a good case for his candidacy.

UPDATE: San Francisco School Board

Adding my picks for SF School Board as well. They mirror those made by current board member, Rachel Norton

• Margaret Brodkin
• Hydra Mendoza
• Emily Murase

Local Propositions

In general I’m supportive of the positions the Guardian has endorsed, you can read them all here. Below are some places where my opinion differs or it’s worth calling out the measure for a little more discussion.

Prop AA: Vote Yes

Prop A: Vote Yes

Prop B – VOTE NO: Prop B is a terrible measure that’s characteristic of attempts to hit public employees, unions and the idea that people should have defined benefit pension plans. Jeff Adachi is no right-wing tax crusader (which is where props like this usually come from), but he does have an agenda. He’s trying to create space in the city budget for his projects and priorities. And for some reason he feels like the way to do that is on the backs of lower income city employees.

Prop C – Vote No: This has been on the ballot during the last several election cycles. I disagree with the Guardian on this and have always felt this was a ridiculous thing to even be voting on. What’s behind this is the long standing pissing match with the mayor’s office. Newsom has had a relationship that’s contentious at times with the board of supervisors, but he’s not going to be mayor by the time this takes effect. And it’s a silly and divisive measure that doesn’t actually solve any problems. So slap it down again.

Prop D – Vote No: Again breaking with the Guardian here. I’m all for extending voting rights to the largest population of people possible. But this is a poorly thought out proposition on a lot of fronts. First, it’s not clear that this would even be legal and like a lot of things that get put on San Francisco’s ballot that may be righteous but deal with constitutional issues, will probably end up in court and ultimately rejected. Secondly the reasoning is that allowing more people to vote in school board elections will get parents involved. I call bullshit on that. If a parent isn’t involved in their child’s school and education then allowing them to vote for school board members every two years, this isn’t going to fix that. Finally, this is a nightmare waiting to happen for elections officials and for candidates trying to get out the vote. If these people aren’t registered then there’s not a good way to target them and reach them.

Prop E – Vote YES: I have no idea why the Chronicle is against this. I think that nationally we should be doing all we can to provide the greatest access to voting possible. Sam day voter registration is an idea that removes another barrier to voting. It’s only for city-wide elections so I guess maybe they feel the corporate/moderate candidates they’ll endorse will be at a disadvantage because they won’t have a grassroots force working for them.

Prop F: Vote No

Prop G – VOTE NO: Yeah Muni is screwed up. And this proposition is rather brilliant for trying to capitalize on that voter anger. But this is a typical union busting proposition. A lot of Muni’s problems lie with its management, with the budget cuts, and with sacred cows and politics around routes and service. I’d much rather see those problems discussed seriously before anyone starts talking about the union making concessions for their workers.

Prop H: Vote No

Prop I: Vote Yes

Prop J – Vote Yes: This proposition closes a loophole that online hotel reservation companies are able to take advantage of allowing them to pay less hotel tax. It also raises the tax by $3. You’re hearing a lot of pro-business interests screaming that this will drive away tourism from the city, which is patently ridiculous. San Francisco is a huge tourism and convention destination. Those people are not going to make other plans simply because the hotel tax is increased by $3 a day, most won’t even notice. Make sure to vote NO, on the competing proposition, Prop K.

Prop K: Vote NO

Prop L – Vote NO: More commonly referred to as “sit / lie”. This is ridiculous and possibly unconstitutional. The backers for this measure are hoping to capitalize on voter anger in some communities about homeless people that lay on sidewalks and urinate and defecate in alleys. This isn’t going to solve that problem and it’s going to cause a whole new slate of problems.

Prop M – Vote YES: This is a smart and important policing proposal. Cops on the street is a good thing for communities and it also establishes policies to focus on high crime areas and work closer with communities to talk about problematic areas.

Prop N – Vote YES: One of California’s biggest problems is we have structural deficits in place due to decades tax cuts at the hands of conservatives. When we have an opportunity to create revenue by allowing taxes or tax increases on the wealthy it’s something voters should approve. Everyone has been smart enough to do this in recent years, but it’s important to reiterate here.

And in closing I just have to say this is quite possibly the most asinine endorsement I’ve ever read, a non-endorsement on the Senate race. The Chronicle really deserves some special hate for this one. The money graf is here: