Elections
Upcoming Elections
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Thumbnail Sketch of the upcoming November 8, 2011 Municipal Election
Although it is not known whether there will be a statewide special election this November - Governor Jerry Brown has not yet submitted to the Attorney General's office for title and summary his tax increase initiative, there will be a San Francisco municipal election on November 8th.
On the ballot will be the contests for Mayor, District Attorney, and Sheriff, as well as Charter Amendments, Ordinances, Declarations of Policies, and possibly Bond measures.
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Mayor's Race
With Mayor Newsom having left Room 200 at City Hall for offices across from the Horseshoe in the State Capitol, and his hand-picked successor for the rest of his term, Ed Lee pledging that he will not run for Mayor this November, the field for Mayor is wide open, with 34 candidates (as of 22 April) having formally declared their interest in running.
According to the early polls, there are no clear front runners.
As of the end of 2010, five candidates had reported raising at least $50,000, including City Attorney Dennis Herrera ($265,805), District 8 Supervisor Bevan Dufty ($209,982), State Senator Leland Yee ($164,465); Venture Capitalist Joanna Rees ($154,320), and Assessor Phil Ting ($53,339). Candidates who entered more recently, and had either not gone into the fundraising mode or won't file their financial reports until July 31st include former District 2 Supervisor Michela Alioto Pier; District 11 Supervisor John Avalos; President of the Board of Supervisors David Chiu; and former District 7 Supervisor Tony Hall.
Mike Sugarman, from KCBS, has also taken filed his declaration of intent - although it's unclear whether the canons of journalistic ethics will allow him to actually run, plus there are at least five Republican candidates running - Wilma Pang, Cesar Ascarrunz, Eve Del Castello, and two others who have never run for office, and another 20 largely unknown or non-viable candidates - many of whom will ultimately not run because they have to pay a filing fee.
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District Attorney's Race
With Kamala Harris becoming the State's Attorney General, Mayor Newsom, appointed Police Chief George Gascon as District Attorney with the understanding that he would run for election this November. Paul Henderson, who had been Kamala's Chief Deputy of the Department is said to no longer be interested in running, but there are additional interesting candidates running, including Sharmin Bock - a long-time Alameda County Deputy D.A. (who resides in the City), and David Onek - a member of the Police Commission, former Assistant Director of Criminal Justice Planning for Mayor Newsom, and in charge of a criminal justice think tank in Berkeley. Both challengers to Gascon tout their experience as trial attorneys. As of the end of 2010, Onek had raised $157,000 for his campaign, with Gascon and Bock entering the race after the filing deadline.
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Sheriff's Race
After being in office for nearly 32 years, Sheriff Mike Hennessey chose to not run for re-election. That has contributed to a wide open race, with two veterans of the Department - Sergeant Matthew Haskell and Captain Paul Miyamoto running against District 5 Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi. Mirkarimi's claim to fame was that he worked a few months under Hennessey before becoming an aide to Terence Hallinan in the mid-1990's, and it is unclear that he has any qualifications for the office - not even taking into account his opposition to enforcing quality of life crimes. All of the candidates entered the race after the filing deadline.
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Ballot Measures
The picture here hasn't come into focus yet, as the Mayor and any four members of the Board of Supervisors have until June 21st to notify the Department of Elections that they plan to place Ordinances and Declarations of Policy on the ballot, and for Charter Amendments, Ordinances, Declarations of Policy, and Bond Measures to be placed by a majority of the Board of Supervisors onto the ballot, the deadline for introducing legislation is also late June.
At this point, three measures have qualified for the ballot: A Charter Amendment allowing Interim Mayor Ed Lee to return to his old job as Chief Administrator, a Charter Amendment to increase the salaries of members of the Board of Education from $6,000 annually to $25,000; and Students First Declaration of Policy Initiative in support of Neighborhood Schools. Currently in circulation are the sixth version of Public Defender Jeff Adachi's initiative to reform San Francisco's pension system and an Ordinance to criminalize the circumcision of minors. Adachi's measure needs to be submitted by July 11th for the November ballot, while the Ban on Circumcision measure's deadline is April 26th.
There may be a rival pension reform proposal put together between the Mayor, Supervisors, Business Interests, and Labor, should they reach consensus, plus a host of other topics typical of San Francisco's direct democracy system.
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Turnout
There are currently 457,437 registered voters in San Francisco and that number is expected to grow by another 10,000 to 15,000 before the close of registration on October 24th. In hotly contested municipal elections, we can anticipate a turnout of about 55%, or about 260,000 ballots being cast. About 10,000 voters who cast ballots won't vote for Mayor, meaning that 250,000 ballots will be cast for the voters' first choice for Mayor. About 20% of those voters will not list a second or third choice, effectively disenfranchising themselves if their first choice candidate doesn't make it into the top two or three. Given the dynamics of Rank Choice Voting, unless one or two candidates break out of the pack, it is unlikely that any candidate will get more than 50,000 first place votes, and perhaps another 25,000 second and third place votes. Thus, the winner could receive just 75,000 votes - not majority rule, by any stretch of the imagination.
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Final Note
If 250,000 San Franciscans vote for Mayor, the threshold for qualifying future Ordinances and Declaration of Policies will increase from the current 7,168 valid signatures to 12,500 signatures. Thus, there may be a blessing in all of this, in that there may be fewer measures qualifying for the ballot from 2012-2015, than in the past four years.
