Candidates Respond to Daly’s Progressive Primary

By Luke Thomas

May 24, 2010

Following on the heels of Supervisor Chris Daly’s letter last week inviting all District 6 candidates to participate in a special Progressive Primary Election in July, Fog City Journal emailed the candidates asking them to weigh in on the special election.

Of the twenty-five candidates solicited for comment, eleven candidates have responded expressing a collective thumbs down on the primary.  Robert Jordon is the only candidate to express a willingness to endorse a winner of the primary.

FCJ will publish any additional candidate responses to this post when and if we receive them.  Though Jane Kim and Debra Walker have not responded, Kim recently told FCJ she is “undecided” on whether she will participate in the primary.  Walker said she will provide FCJ a response “in a day or two.”

Only those candidates who agree to sign a Progressive Pledge; who have been certified as eligible to receive public funds by the San Francisco Ethics Commission; who agree to comply with the City’s Individual Expenditure Ceiling; and who agree to endorse the winner of the primary, are eligible to participate in the primary.

Kim, Walker, and Elaine Zamora are the only D6 candidates (to date) to have been certified eligible to receive public funds.  Glendon Anna Conda Hyde submitted an initial application for public funds, May 18.  His application is currently being reviewed.

Given that there does not appear to be a groundswell of support for the primary, FCJ asked Supervisor Daly if he should give up on his quest.  A defiant Daly, responded: “I look forward to endorsing the winner of the Progressive Primary and doing everything that I can to help that candidate win in November.”

Update, 8:55 am: James Keys said today he will respond “as soon as possible.”

Update, 1:13 pm: Dean Clark responds (see below).

Update, 9:16 pm: James Keys responds (see below).

Harold Brown:

How much does it cost to rent the War Memorial? Gotta be more than a few bucks. Expensive digs for the most well-heeled candidates?  I wouldn’t expect that from a ‘man of the people’ like Chris.  But, it will make a good backdrop for photos.

Of me picketing it along with every other cash strapped candidate who will join me.  Any voter who crosses our picket line is thumbing their nose at grassroots democracy.

Chris used to join picket lines like this.

Go Gigantes!

h.

Renato Casarez:

I do not agree with Supervisor Daly’s special election format and decision to weigh in on the process. Organizations like the Sierra Club send candidates a list of questions and invite them to an interview or hold forums. Daly should meet us, prospective supervisors, to discuss each of our stance on issues pertaining to District 6; then, deciding whom he will support.

Past special elections don’t turn out good results, including Gov. Schwarzenegger’s win in 2003. The constituents of the district and residents of San Francisco should sponsor official neighborhood forums or debates to learn about the candidates and their views. The recent forums that private organizations have held and sponsored have allowed us to understand each others’ respective positions on issues, affecting the candidates who will become the next supervisor of the district.

Dean Clark:

As a district 6 candidate I have to refuse. I think it is unfair for the candidates like myself who do not seek public funds or donations from the public. These are difficult financial times for many in San Francisco and during my run for District 6 supervisor have no plans to drum up contributions and will only run a grass roots campaign. I think it is unfair to ask us to participate in such a primary election.

Sincerely,

Dean Clark

Matt Drake:

I will not participate in the Progressive Primary.  In fact, I think the very idea of a ‘Progressive Primary’ is unnecessarily divisive.  I reject the artificial grouping of San Francisco political society into “Progressives” and “Moderates.”  Supervisorial races are nonpartisan for a reason.  For instance, making MUNI reliable and efficient is neither Moderate nor Progressive.  It is just good government.  Real people, who do not pay close attention to the insider political machinations, want the Board of Supervisors to make our streets safe, they want an effective city government, and they don’t care about labels.

One of the key reasons I’m running is to change the tone of the debate at City Hall.  Perpetuating the idea that we are divided into two competing camps is not good for the city.

Elihu Hernandez:

Dear Supervisor Daly,

When you made your announcement about having your very own Progressive Primary, I was intrigued. I started to think, is an elected official taking away the rights of the undecided voters? Just a different way of telling someone, ‘when you vote in my Primary, you have 4 less months in order to decide.’ Why would you include a statement of concession?

In order to participate, we must sign the endorsement form stating “I hereby endorse the eventual winner of the Progressive Primary to be held on July 17, 2010, as my 1st, 2nd or 3rd place endorsed candidate for Member, San Francisco Board of Supervisors, District 6 for the November 2, 2010 election.” So, let me see if I can fully understand your intention, Supervisor Daly:

You are looking for a replacement and decided to have a “pre-election” in which every candidate who wishes to participate and get your endorsement, sign a form declaring that we will concede the election and support the “winner” before the official election in November, totally undermining the undecided voters rights to decide on THEIR OWN and chooses THEMSELVES???

You are also looking for a candidate who has met the requirements of qualifying for public financing of $5000?? Supervisor, as a representative of District 6 for the past two terms, you know more than I, that District 6 is considered one of the most povish Districts in our Fair City and I will not be asking someone for money that they can hardly spend to help me with my election in this current economy. All I am asking for is votes.

The only way a Dollar bill can cast a vote if the candidate is Bribery. The residents of Fairfield can help you if you’re looking for contributions for an election Sir.

The reason I love District Elections is because I don’t believe in spending thousands of Dollars just to talk to my neighbors. Having the largest contributions from an election doesn’t not automatically guarantee you the victory. An election, Supervisor, is decided when a voter uses their own Constitutional Rights and chooses for themselves who they feel would be the most qualified candidate to represent them.

Progressives in San Francisco have fought long and hard to minimize the influence of special interest groups and I will continue to maintain the Progressive values that I will bring to Office, if I am elected.

Supervisor, since you have been elected into office, you have always fought for the rights of the under classed residents, such as our seniors, the homeless and even our Vets who were returning from the Middle East. But such an inconceivable move is beyond reason as to why you believe that the Undecided voter’s minds will be made up as to who to vote for in the November election, since the other candidates have declared to concede to the winner of the Primary?

I will not be participating in your Primary if you continue to undermine the voters of San Francisco.

Sincerely,

Elihu Hernandez

Glendon Anna Conda Hyde:

We will not be participating in this primary. This does not fit into our campaigns plans and we are not fully supportive of Daly’s plans for this Progressive Primary Elections.

Our team has worked hard to become involved in the community, eschew the traditional mudslinging tactics, and we wish to continue on with our plans. We have met all the requirements but feel that this is a divisive measure in many ways and are glad to be part of a district race that has so many involved and capable people running. We feel the more people involved in the political process the more likely we are to see the concerns of the D6 Community arise and take precedence in this race. The very fact that so many people want to be involved we feel is a great sign that the apathy towards the disenfranchised in our district will soon be a thing of the past.

Robert Jordon:

I have given this a lot of thought, and as to the first part of my answer, I believe that the challenge of me raising or borrowing the sum of $5,000.00 would in itself make me a viable candidate. And in answering the second part of the question, I would have no problem of supporting the winner of the debate on July 17, 2010 even if it is not myself. I am ready to debate and work hard on my campaign for the next 5+ months.

Respectively submitted,

Robert L. Jordan, Jr.

James Keys:

In reading the requirements to enter the “Progressive Primary,” I was reminded of the other questionnaires I have been asked to answer and then submit. Daly’s primary is no more or less like the others who are seeking to maintain their “ideas” of what life in San Francisco should resemble. So if you vilify him, criticize the others also. At least he is trying to make sure that those residents of our fair city have every opportunity to continue to live here.

James Keys

Katie Mallory:

Dear Chris Daly:

I am writing in response to your broadcast email that you sent to all of the candidates for district 6.  Your email essentially says that in order for the candidates to appear on the ballot in the upcoming Progressive Primary special election on July 17th, they must raise $5,000 in qualified campaign money by June 17th and be eligible to receive public funds by the SF Ethics Commission.

Last March you posted an article on the Internet to explain the reason you are holding this special election.  Everyone should read it.

I am livid about this.  You are deliberately attempting to eliminate the candidates whom do not have $5,000 of campaign funds in order to reduce the overall number of candidates to just a few.  I have more points about this:

– It is not your job to eliminate candidates, and by doing it you are interfering with the November election.

– If there is a candidate who wants to buy an elected office, than do it somewhere else because this is a democracy.

– Having more money does not qualify candidates as better representatives.

– Most of the residents in District 6 cannot contribute any money.  It is our duty to care for them regardless of their ability to pay us.  When we are focused on fundraising in order to meet your criteria, than it robs them of the time and attention that their matters deserve.

– Each candidate has unique contributions, all 25 of us, and as we continue to make public appearances together we learn from each other, and the cumulative total of our creative output will be passed down to the candidate whom will fill the position.

– It is not an officially sanctioned election, and it will confuse the voters.

Jim Meko:

I agree with the basic premise of Chris’s idea. We do not want to split votes and end up electing a rubber stamp for Gavin Newsom. I also resent the carpet bagger opportunists thrust upon us who move here every four years just to run for Supervisor without knowing squat about the nuances of our neighborhoods. I’ve spent the last 33 years living and working in District 6.

I am mildly annoyed by this handful of citywide organizations who think they can play puppeteer with the office of District 6 Supervisor. I’m running for Supervisor to unite District 6 (my website address being www.MekoUnites.com should make that abundantly clear) and to represent the interests of a majority of the District’s residents, not to make the Bay Guardian happy.

I may or may not agree with all the positions required on the litmus test to qualify for the District 6 Progressive Primary. I am not going to pretend that all 30 edicts have a simplistic yes or no answer just for the sake of getting my name on Chris’s ballot. That would be disingenuous to all the long-time friends and neighbors who are supporting my candidacy.

I will make my decision in June.

Theresa Sparks:

It’s not a progressive primary, it’s a Daly/Peskin primary. And who are they to decide who is progressive? I would rather leave it to the judgment of ALL the voters in district 6 to decide. The real question is which of their chosen candidates, Jane or Debra, is going to get thrown under the bus.

David J.Villa-Lobos:

Well, Chris Daly is up to his dirty tricks-bullshit. To qualify, a candidate must first sell his or her soul to the devil. And because I and several other candidates are moderates, we are prohibited from participating. This whole thing is nothing more than a Debra Walker promotion tactic; and I hope San Franciscans are not so easily duped.

Elaine Zamora:

It is not an inclusive process.

More Info

Daly’s invitation letter to all D6 candidates:

Date: Wednesday, May 19, 2010, 2:44 PM

May 19, 2010

Dear Candidate for District 6 Supervisor,

On Saturday, July 17th, the District 6 Progressive Primary will be held at the San Francisco War Memorial, 401 Van Ness Avenue, between 10AM and 2PM. The Primary is open to all District 6 residents who are registered to vote. District 6 residents who register to vote on the day of the event will also be able to participate.

As a declared candidate for District 6 Supervisor, you are invited to compete in the Progressive Primary. In order to qualify your name for the Progressive Primary ballot, you are required to:

1) Become certified as eligible to receive public funds by the SF Ethics Commission and agree to comply with the City’s Individual Expenditure Ceiling;

2) Sign the Progressive Pledge; and

3) Agree to endorse the winner of the Progressive Primary as your first, second, or third choice for the November election for District 6 Supervisor.

The filing deadline for qualifying your name for the Progressive Primary ballot is 12:00pm on Thursday, June 17th.

In addition to the above requirements, you will be required to declare your legal name, name in Chinese characters, and a ballot designation as they would appear on November’s ballot. You may also submit a candidate statement of no more than 200 words. For more information on these requirements, please reference the Department of Elections’ Candidate Guide for Local Elective Offices for the November 2010 election.

The order in which candidate names will appear on the ballot will be determined by a “random alphabet” drawing, which will be held at 12:00pm on Thursday, June 17th, outside of the Department on Elections in the basement of City Hall. This random alphabet applies to the surname, or last name, of the candidate. If two candidates have surnames beginning with the same letter, their order on the ballot will depend on the order in which the next distinctive letters in their names were drawn in the randomized alphabet drawing.

Candidates who are unable to qualify their name for the ballot by June 17th may file a statement of write-in candidacy by 12:00pm on Tuesday, July 13th.

The Progressive Primary will use the City’s ranked-choice voting (RCV) system to determine the winner of the Primary. District 6 voters participating in the Progressive Primary will be able to select a first-choice candidate in the first column on the ballot, and different second and third-choice candidates in the second and third columns on the ballot.

The counting of the ballots will proceed similarly to the City’s November election. To start, every first-choice vote is counted. Any candidate who receives a majority (more than 50%) of the first-choice votes is declared the winner. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the first-choice votes, a process of eliminating candidates and transferring votes begins. First, the candidate who received the fewest number of first-choice votes is eliminated from the race. Second, voters who selected the eliminated candidate as their first choice will have their vote transferred to their second choice. Third, all the votes are recounted. Once the votes are recounted, if any candidate has received more than 50% of the votes, he or she is declared the winner. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the votes, the process of eliminating candidates and transferring votes is repeated until one candidate has a winning majority.

All participating candidates will be allowed to have one designated observer present during the counting of the ballots.

Please complete all the enclosed forms and return to:

Progressive Primary
PO Box 410686
San Francisco, CA 94141-0686

Alternately, you can submit your paperwork to me before the alphabet drawing at 12:00pm on June 17th. Feel free to email me back at this address or call or text me on my cell phone (redacted).

Thank you,

Chris Daly

The Progressive Pledge:

The Progressive Pledge is an amalgamation of baseline progressive positions on important San Francisco issues identified by the progressive stakeholder organizations: SF Bay Guardian, SF Tenants Union, Sierra Club, Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, and SEIU Local 1021. (To complete the pledge, candidates need to agree to at least 28 of the following 30 progressive positions. Strike-through any position with which you do not agree.)

I hereby pledge to…

support the current system of 11 district elections for Supervisor and would oppose any effort to repeal or amend district elections;

support the Clean Power SF program, a community choice aggregation program which would contract with an energy service provider to supply half of the program’s energy from renewable sources;

oppose Mayor Newsom’s proposed sit-lie ordinance and support adequate funding for homeless services;

support the general legalization of immigrants currently living in this country and the protection of due process for immigrant youth accused of a crime;

support rent control on vacant units and support extending rent control to “new” (built after 1979) construction;

oppose “means testing” of rent control whereby only tenants whose income or assets were below a certain level would be able to get rent control protection;

support changing the Rent Board’s composition to 3 tenants, 2 landlords, and 2 homeowners and split the appointments between the Mayor and Board of Supervisors;

oppose raising the annual condo conversion cap of 200 units per year, even if existing TICs can convert by paying a fee as a revenue raising measure to help balance the budget;

protect our rental housing stock threatened by “tenant buyouts” and would support legislation to protect these rental units;

oppose the privatization of public parks through the lease or sale of park land or facilities to private entities, including selling off land in Candlestick State Park to a private developer;

support the city’s Natural Areas Program (NAP), which sets aside small portions of city parks to dedicate to restoration of native plant species;

support creating revenues for MUNI by increasing revenue from parking fees and fines, implementation of congestion pricing for vehicles, or transit assessment fees for downtown businesses;

never cross a picket line sanctioned by the SF Labor Council;

oppose contracting out work currently performed by City workers;

prioritize services for the most vulnerable San Franciscans during budget deliberations;

oppose mass-scale lay-offs of specific job classifications and re-offering the same job duties with a new title and less pay;

oppose the creation of new business tax breaks or holidays;

support the creation of new revenue sources for improved public services;

support San Francisco’s Healthy SF program including the employer mandate;

support the allocation of local resources to provide benefits for homecare workers, such as healthcare, retirement benefits, and sick pay;

support the position that all buildings owned by the county and leased to private entities should use unionized janitors and security officers;

publicly support card check recognition and neutrality agreements;

publicly support and actively encourage workers who are organizing a union and discourage the intimidating effects of any employer interference;

oppose capital punishment;

support a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion;

support safe medical cannabis cultivation, permitting, distribution, and use;

support the decriminalization of sex work;

support an inclusive version of ENDA;

publicly oppose Propositions 16, June 2010, which would require a two-thirds vote of the electorate before a public agency could enter the retail power business;

publicly support Proposition F, June 2010, a measure to let tenants postpone new rent increases if the tenant is unemployed or had wages cut or did not get a COLA benefit for government benefits.

In signing this Progressive Pledge, I agree to the letter and spirit of the Pledge and will work to implement the progressive positions above as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Progressive Endorsement Form:

I hereby endorse the eventual winner of the Progressive Primary to be held on July 17, 2010, as my 1^st, 2^nd, or 3^rd place endorsed candidate for Member, San Francisco Board of Supervisors, District 6 for the November 2, 2010 election.

Progressive Primary Filing Form:

Legal Name:

A candidate’s legal name is the name given at birth or established by marriage, general usage or habit, or by decree of any court of competent jurisdiction. (SF MEC § 210 (b).) A candidate’s legal name may include a nickname, or combination of initials, full names, or individual letters or numerals (SF MEC § 210 (b).)

The candidate may:

• Use only the initials of the given name with the last name.

• Use a nickname, provided the given name or initials are shown.

• Use a shortened familiar form of the given name (example: “Bill” for “William”).

• Omit the middle name.

A candidate may not use titles or degrees such as “Miss”, “Mrs.”, “Dr.”, “Col.”, “Rev.”. (CAEC § 13106.)

Name in Chinese characters:

Please submit an electronic version of your name in Chinese character if possible.

Ballot designation:

Each candidate may choose ONE of the following types of designations (or no designation):

• Elective Office Title

The office title is the word or words designating the office (federal, state, county, city or district), which the candidate holds at the time of filing nomination papers and to which the candidate was elected by a vote of the people. (CAEC § 13107 (a) (1).)

• Principal Professions, Vocations or Occupations of No More than Three Words

The candidate may use up to three words to describe the principal professions, vocations or occupations which he or she currently holds or held during the preceding calendar year. California geographical names shall be considered to be one word (for example, “City & County of San Francisco” shall be counted as one word). Hyphenated words that appear in a standard English dictionary shall also be considered as one word. Each part of all other hyphenated words shall be counted as a separate word. (CAEC § 13107 (a) (3).) If a candidate has more than one principal profession, vocation or occupation, the candidate may use slashes or commas to separate them. Dashes may only be used if required in the spelling. Example: “Attorney/Accountant” or “Teacher, Mother”

• Community Volunteer

If a candidate’s ballot designation is “Community Volunteer” it shall constitute a valid principal vocation or occupation, for purposes of subdivision (a) of CAEC §13107. Candidates who use “Community Volunteer” may not be engaged concurrently in another principal profession, and this designation cannot be used in combination with another principal profession, vocation, or occupation. (CAEC §13107.5.) “Community Volunteer” means a person who engages in an activity or performs a service for or on behalf of, without profiting monetarily, one or more of the following:

(1) A charitable, education, or religious organization as defined by the United States Internal Revenue code section 501(c)(3); (2) A governmental agency; or (3) An education institution.

The activity or service must constitute substantial involvement of the candidate’s time and effort such that the activity or services is the sole, primary, main or leading professional, vocation or occupation endeavor of the candidate within the meaning above. (CAEC § 20714.5)