by Brian Leubitz

The concept of Ranked-Choice voting has been around in several major cities in California for over a decade. In San Francisco, it was approved as Prop A in 2002. So, it is far from new. Yet, it still never ceases to provide interesting results, and a fair bit of outrage. Of course, the the most well-known example is the case of Jean Quan’s victory in Oakland over Don Perata. Before the RCV shifted votes around, Perata had over a third of the votes, over 10,000 more than either Quan or Rebecca Kaplan. Kaplan was in third place after the minor candidates were shifted, and most of her votes went to Quan. Many, including Perata, were outraged. There was outrage that the candidate with the most 1st place votes didn’t win. There was outrage that Quan and Kaplan had been stating that their supporters should vote for each other number two, as if they were “ganging up” on another candidate.

Fast forward to 2018, and it appears that the controversy has just moved across the Bay to San Francisco. The Mayoral election to replace Mark Farrell, the interim mayor chosen by the Board of Supervisors after Ed Lee’s sad and surprising passing, has three candidates with a chance of winning. Former Senator Mark Leno, President of the Board of Supervisors London Breed and Supervisor Jane Kim all have met the public financing requirements, and are all polling relatively close. Polling in SF is pretty hard with low response rates, especially considering the recent rash of spam calls, and many of the polls seem to have some sort of bias. But the basic state of the race seems to have London Breed in front, with Leno slightly behind, and Kim in third. The numbers vary from poll to poll, but the basic state of the race seems somewhat stable.

And this brings me to this tweet and video:

Proud to stand together with @janekim — and proud to stand against special-interest Super PAC spending.

When you vote, vote for Mark Leno (#1) and Jane Kim (#2) because we agree: the City belongs to us, not the billionaires. pic.twitter.com/GKe8ie9GM2

— Mark Leno (@MarkLeno) May 10, 2018

The billionaire in question is Ron Conway, an “angel investor” with a lot of money in various tech companies in the Bay Area. He was one of the largest funders of Mayor Lee, Asm. David Chiu and Sen. Scott Wiener through direct contributions as well as PACs and IEs. And now  he and his wife Gayle are supporting Board President Breed, which has become quite controversial.

But putting that part to the side, this is ultimately a direct result of ranked choice voting. On the 2002 ballot arguments in San Francisco, supporters and opponents acknowledge that RCV would reduce negative campaigning so as to not alienate voters who supported other candidates first. This is simply one step further, with campaigns advocating to support one of their rivals second.

But the San Francisco Chronicle is having NONE. OF. IT. In an editorial entitled “Jane Kim, Mark Leno try to game the system in SF mayor’s race”, they argue that this is simply not fair:

The Kim-Leno collaboration shows the continuing determination of the progressive factions to keep Breed out of the mayor’s office. It also projects an element of desperation by Kim and Leno. Their new “stand up to the billionaires” 30-second video shows that no dose of demagoguery or disingenuousness will be spared in trying to stop Breed, who grew up in poverty and has repeatedly demonstrated both her independence and ability to build coalitions as president of the Board of Supervisors.

Oh, did I mention that the Chronicle endorsed Breed? Probably didn’t take too astute of an observer, but they have previously gotten in trouble for some questionable reporting practices. And for my part, I should disclose that I am a supporter of Sen. Leno. (He performed my wedding ceremony, in fact.) My political club, the Alice B Toklas LGBT Democratic Club endorsed Leno first and Breed second. We understand that in a RCV environment, it makes sense to have more than one endorsement. The progressive organizations of which the Chronicle is speaking see this too. Many of these organizations prefer Jane Kim, but they would rather see Mark Leno in office than London Breed, or vice versa. And perhaps that is also true of these two candidates themselves.

If there were a runoff, would anyone begrudge either candidate for endorsing the other? Would the Chronicle accuse them of “gaming the system?” I mean, isn’t this how primaries work? Bernie Sanders endorsed Hillary Clinton. Was he gaming the system?

In San Francisco, and other RCV cities, we only have one election, rather than a primary and general. So the only way to make this type of statement is to state that you prefer one candidate over the other.

This isn’t “gaming the system.” This IS the system that San Francisco voters supported, for better or worse, in 2002. This is precisely what the ballot arguments envisioned. If the Chronicle would like to change San Francisco’s voting, I think you could find a lot of support for that idea.

Until then, don’t hate the players. Hate the game.

Another June poll: in Mark DiCamillo’s (formerly of Field) Berkeley IGS poll, Newsom and Feinstein both retain big leads in their respective races. However, in the gubernatorial race, both of the two Republican gubernatorial candidates are polling ahead of the Democratic pack.

On the Senate side, behind Feinstein (28%), Kevin de Leon (11%) is just narrowly ahead of the Republican pack for the second spot in the November general election. And the anti-Semitic Twitter troll didn’t make it out of the “other candidate section”, so that’s a good thing.

The leading Republican is a man named James P Bradley(10%), likely on the basis of his ballot designation “Chief Financial Officer.” Now, his website is pretty much a stock WordPress theme, complete with the twitter feed of the developer rather than the candidate and a slew of typos. But, he has a website, so that’s something. He’s a Trumpster, and proudly proclaims that he is the “Keep America Great First Candidate,” just to make sure he gets all the Trumpisms in there. (Also note that I didn’t do anything to his photo with the weird 3D effect or whatever is going on. That’s straight from his site.)

Ultimately, the races for the second spot in both contests are rather unsettled. It is entirely possible that there are no Republicans in either race and we have competitive Dem-on-Dem general elections or it could go the other direction and we have two Democrats who are huge favorites to win in November. Of course, having no Republicans on the statewide ballot would help competitive down ballot races.

In other news, Top 2 really is awful.

by Brian Leubitz

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee passed away early this morning. I wanted to process my thoughts before I actually wrote anything about his passing. Of course, my sincere thoughts go out to his wife Anita, his two daughters, and all of his family and friends. It is a sad day for all San Franciscans.

In 2011, I worked for Mayor Edwin Lee’s campaign for Mayor. I’ve heard friends on the campaign talk about the role it had in their political education, but I’ll simply say that it was a campaign in the very real local campaign sense. It was about organizing and getting out the vote.

I can’t say that I have a lot of stories about the Mayor from the campaign, but what I can say is that he was truly a nice man. Not in the way of the politician that is good at glad handling, which he really wasn’t, but in the way of a friendly neighbor or a random guy you sometimes see on the street. He wasn’t a particularly skilled orator or a tactical politician, and you could tell that he would rather be talking to friends than on a stage in front of hundreds. But, he did his duties as Mayor.

Being Mayor of San Francisco right now, and in 2011, is a herculean task. The City faces monumental challenges, particularly around housing and homelessness. Any Mayor could stumble when facing these issues, and maybe this Mayor could have done more, or could have done pursued different policies. But beyond all that, it was clear to see that he deeply cared about the issues. It would be very hard to argue that Mayor Lee didn’t care about San Francisco or San Franciscans, even if you differed on the prescription for what ails the city.

His passing leaves a long legacy of public service, and a tall task for incoming Acting Mayor London Breed to help the City grieve and face its very real challenges.

Ventura County is battling fast moving fires

by Brian Leubitz

While Sonoma and Napa Counties are just beginning to recover from the fires there, a new rash of powerful fires are burning in Southern California. Thousands have been forced to evacuate already, and strong winds are pushing the fires forward at up to 80 miles per hour.

As of earlier this afternoon, the Ventura County Thomas Fire has burned 50,000 acres, destroyed at least 150 structures and forced 27,000 people to evacuate,  click here for an LA Times list of the road closures and evacuation orders.

Meanwhile, a fire in Sylmar has burned over 10,000 acres. An evacuation order for the eastern part of the city is in place, but with the winds, all nearby residents should be ready to leave quickly.

This fire season has already been a hard one, with 43 dying in the North Bay fires. Yet there are some who still argue that climate change isn’t real. Yes, there are cyclical climate patterns, and the heavy rain last year added fuel to burn all across the state. And it is hard to point at any individual fire and say that this is the doing of climate change.

But in aggregate, the worsening of wildfires is due to climate change. A recent report by the Union of Concerned Scientists points out some of these changes:

Wildfire seasons (seasons with higher wildfire potential) in the United States are projected to lengthen, with the southwest’s season of fire potential lengthening from seven months to all year long. Additionally, wildfires themselves are likely to be more severe.

Researchers and modelers project that moist, forested areas are the most likely to face greater threats from wildfires as conditions grow drier and hotter.

Surprisingly, some dry grassland areas may be less at risk, but not because they would be flourishing—the intense aridity is likely to prevent these grasses from growing at all, leaving these areas so barren that they are likely to lack even the fodder for wildfire.  

The governor has already declared a disaster in Ventura County. Be safe out there.

Issa, McClintock and Rohrabacher join Dems in voting NO on House tax proposal

by Brian Leubitz

The House voted on their tax debacle, and 3 of California’s Republicans joined all of the Democrats in voting no. But in the end, the GOP tax bill passed through the House of Representatives with a vote of 227-205.

But, as with the health care “repeal and replace”, this is going to be decided in the Senate. Sen Johnson of WI has already said no. That means they need to get this done while Luther Strange is still in the Senate and the GOP Caucus will have either lost a seat or are dealing with a pedophile in their caucus.

Our own Senators are strongly against the bill, and so we will be left hoping that a couple of the wavering Republicans will opt for a NO. With the health care mandate now thrown into the mix, this bill could be a grenade to our health care system as well as the pocketbooks of the middle class.

	Representative	Party	District	Vote
	Doug LaMalfa	Republican	1	Yes
	Jared Huffman	Democrat	2	No
	John Garamendi	Democrat	3	No
	Tom McClintock	Republican	4	No
	Mike Thompson	Democrat	5	No
	Doris Matsui	Democrat	6	No
	Ami Bera	Democrat	7	No
	Paul Cook	Republican	8	Yes
	Jerry McNerney	Democrat	9	No
	Jeffrey Denham	Republican	10	Yes
	Mark DeSaulnier	Democrat	11	No
	Nancy Pelosi	Democrat	12	No
	Barbara Lee	Democrat	13	No
	Jackie Speier	Democrat	14	No
	Eric Swalwell	Democrat	15	No
	Jim Costa	Democrat	16	No
	Ro Khanna	Democrat	17	No
	Anna Eshoo	Democrat	18	No
	Zoe Lofgren	Democrat	19	No
	Jimmy Panetta	Democrat	20	No
	David Valadao	Republican	21	Yes
	Devin Nunes	Republican	22	Yes
	Kevin McCarthy	Republican	23	Yes
	Salud Carbajal	Democrat	24	No
	Steve Knight	Republican	25	Yes
	Julia Brownley	Democrat	26	No
	Judy Chu	Democrat	27	No
	Adam Schiff	Democrat	28	No
	Tony Cardenas	Democrat	29	No
	Brad Sherman	Democrat	30	No
	Pete Aguilar	Democrat	31	No
	Grace Napolitano	Democrat	32	No
	Ted Lieu	Democrat	33	No
	Jimmy Gomez	Democrat	34	No
	Norma Torres	Democrat	35	No
	Raul Ruiz	Democrat	36	No
	Karen Bass	Democrat	37	No
	Linda Sanchez	Democrat	38	No
	Edward Royce	Republican	39	Yes
	Lucille Roybal-Allard	Democrat	40	No
	Mark Takano	Democrat	41	No
	Ken Calvert	Republican	42	Yes
	Maxine Waters	Democrat	43	No
	Nanette Barragan	Democrat	44	No
	Mimi Walters	Republican	45	Yes
	Lou Correa	Democrat	46	No
	Alan Lowenthal	Democrat	47	No
	Dana Rohrabacher	Republican	48	No
	Darrell Issa	Republican	49	No
	Duncan Hunter	Republican	50	Yes
	Juan Vargas	Democrat	51	No
	Scott Peters	Democrat	52	No
	Susan Davis	Democrat	53	No

Some California Leaders had some thoughts.

Sen. Harris:

Repealing the estate tax is a giveaway to those at the top — not something that will create jobs. We have to oppose this plan.

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) November 2, 2017

Senator Feinstein:

“It’s unbelievable the lengths that Republicans will go to give the richest Americans a huge tax cut. The Republican tax bill will likely increase the deficit by $1.5 trillion and slash key deductions and credits for working families in order to give the richest Americans and large companies a tax cut.

“I’m particularly concerned about limitations on essential tax provisions that benefit working families and the middle class. This bill would harm families and is a non-starter for me, and I’ll fight to defeat it in the Senate.”

Mortgage Interest Deduction

The Republican bill caps the mortgage interest deduction for new home purchases at $500,000. All told, 18 counties in California have median home prices above $500,000 including Alameda, Contra Costa, Los Angeles, Marin, Mono, Monterey, Napa, Orange, San Benito, San Diego, San Francisco, San Luis Obispo, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Sonoma and Ventura.

“Owning a home is an essential part of the American dream. Capping the mortgage interest deduction could create a huge barrier to homeownership and depress existing home values across the country.”

Sales and Income Tax Deductions

The Republican bill eliminates the deduction for state and local income taxes. In California, 5 million households claimed the income tax deduction in 2015.

“Ending this important deduction for the middle-class would mean income could be taxed twice and could lead to the reduction in critical state and local services. Republicans should scrap this one-sided effort and work with Democrats to pass true tax reform that ensures working families aren’t hurt and everyone pays their fair share.”

Minority Leader Pelosi did a Facebook live event. In a previous event, she had this to say of her 14 Republican California colleauges:

“We would hope that our colleagues would use their numbers – 14 – to influence the Republican leadership to take this out of the bill – and a bill that’s a disaster in so many other respects as well,” Pelosi said. “But short of that, we indict them for causing great harm to their constituents, financially, community-wise and to our great state.”

“Are they so weak that 14 of them could not weigh in and say, ‘This is not right for the future of our country’?” she said. “Have they no power? Have they no influence with the Republicans?”

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who apparently forgot to add the caveat, “except for Californians.” He has a twitter video here.

“Every single American is going to keep more of what they earned.”

Speaker Rendon:

“The dangerous Trump-Ryan-McConnell tax plan throws California taxpayers under the limousine. Under the rushed-together Republican tax plan, hardworking Californians could pay up to 22% more to subsidize tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations. Cutting the mortgage deduction in half hurts homebuyers and the housing industry. Proposition 13 lowered California property taxes, but the Republican tax plan effectively raises the property tax for many California homeowners. Adding insult to injury, the Republican tax plan makes Californians pay taxes on taxes we already pay. Whether it is students with loan debt or builders trying to create affordable housing, millions of Californians will be harmed by the Republican tax plan. No member of Congress from California can support this plan and look their constituents in the eye.”

Rep. Mark Takano on Speaker Ryan’s plan – (D-Riverside)

“The House Republican tax plan is a massive transfer of wealth from Californians and middle-class families to wealthy individuals and large corporations. Limiting deductions for state and local taxes, capping the mortgage interest deduction, and eliminating the student-loan-interest and medical-expense deductions are all policies that are specifically designed to hit Californians, who already contribute more to the federal government than they receive.

“The winners in this plan are the small percentage of people who already possess the largest share of our country’s wealth. Repealing the estate tax benefits only those with greater than $5.6 million in assets. Repealing the alternative minimum tax would allow wealthy individuals to avoid paying their fair share, including President Trump, who would save millions of dollars if this provision is passed into law. And permanently cutting the corporate tax rate to 20% from the current 35% would only benefit the corporations that are already enjoying record profits.

“Shifting money from middle-class Californians to the wealthiest individuals and corporations in America is bad policy in any environment. But given the severe inequality in our country and the struggle many working families face every day, this plan is simply indefensible.

“I strongly oppose this legislation and don’t see how any California Republican could support it.”

DNC Spokesperson Vedant Patel ahead of a Mnuchin visit to Corona to shill for this joke:

“Despite widespread agreement that the Trump-Republican tax plan would actually raise taxes on many middle class families, Donald Trump’s loyal puppet Secretary Mnuchin is jetting off to California to pitch his boss’s damaging proposal. As one of the many multimillionaires in Trump’s Cabinet, Secretary Mnuchin stands to profit immensely and can’t – or won’t – comprehend the catastrophic consequences for California’s working families if this tax plan becomes law. While Secretary Mnuchin tries to sell this sham tax bill, we hope that he avoids using any chartered flights that could cost the American taxpayers more in addition to what this disastrous tax plan will.”

California Republicans risk tax increases for their constituents

by Brian Leubitz

The feud over the tax deduction for state and local taxes continues after the recent House vote on the federal budget. Gov. Brown and Rep. Pelosi are mincing no words after all 14 California Republicans supported the budget. Brown went so far as to call the Republican members “like a herd of sheep” for voting for a measure that would increase taxes on Californians by ending the state and local tax(SALT) deduction.

But don’t worry, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) has a plan for that:

“You know how you get to deduct where California continues to raise their rates? I don’t think it’s fair that somebody else subsidize poor management of California or New York policies,” House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) told the California Republican Party convention last weekend.

“No longer can Sacramento say, I’m gonna raise the rates, just cause I’ll have the federal government subsidize it,“ McCarthy added as the crowd of conservative activists cheered him on. “They will have to be held accountable for when they want to raise taxes higher.“ (Capital Public Radio)

In other words, look over there, there’s a bathtub, let’s go hop into it because Grover Norquist told us to!

The California Republicans are hoping that the blame when the tax increases occur in California will be assigned to Democrats in the Legislature. But that seems somewhat of a gamble considering that those increases will be showing up on federal Form 1040 while Republicans control the federal government.

Look, SALT deductions are clearly not perfect, especially with respect to progressivity, but neither are any other of a number of tax expenditures. You know what else isn’t very progressive? Flattening the income tax structure to reduce taxes on the richest of Americans that, as Warren Buffet pointed out, don’t need a tax cut. Zeroing out this one deduction, while reducing taxes on the wealthy isn’t really what the Trump voters were dreaming of in their MAGA hats. And are the people really clamoring for reductions in the corporate tax rates that the Republicans are really focused on?

Pelosi, for her part, is calling on California Democrats to rally against the budget and the end of the SALT on November 3. For what it is worth, Capital Public Radio asked all of the California Republicans where they stand on the SALT deduction, with most not responding, but McCarthy and Rohrabacher said yes. We may get a full answer on how interested they feel in representing California as “tax reform” moves forward.

Is this the fight we want or the fight we need?

by Brian Leubitz

By this point, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you will have heard about Kevin de León’s entry into the Senate race next year. There have been rumblings for a while, and it seemed that he was going to enter the race whether DiFi was retiring or not. He has his shiny new website all ready to go, while she has, um, a spam site at what would be the most logical website, and a site from 2012 that is apparently selling space for google ads. She may want to have somebody look into that.

There are any number of ways to think about this race, and much of it comes from where you stand. Sen Feinstein was never the progressive California Senator, that was Sen. Boxer and now Sen. Harris. She has always been a champion for gun safety legislation, and a leader as chairwoman of the Intelligence Committee. But she has never been a progressive firebrand. According to 538’s “Trump Score”, she is in the middle of the Democratic pack. But, that’s also 12 points more favorable to Trump than would be expected from a California senator.

On the flip side, there will be no end of Democrats announcing that running against an incumbent will bring ruin and the wasting of resources that could be spent in other states defeating actual Republicans. We will have to see where KdL’s money comes from once we see a report, but given the drama surrounding his candidacy, one would suspect that you won’t see many of the usual suspects on the contribution lists.

Now, Kevin de León has a lot of work in front of him convincing Californians that he will be a more representative (probably not so hard) and more effective (probably much harder) Senator that Sen. Feinstein. But the remaining question is whether the election will be decided in the first election or the second. As of yet, there are no serious Republicans in the race. But, if there are only two Democrats, and only one Republican, might we see another Dem-on-Dem general? Add in a third Democrat (Steyer?) that becomes a lot less likely. Add in a second Republican, and it becomes a lot more likely. Of course, this is one of the problems of the top-2 system. It leaves a lot up to gamesmanship and the sheer number of candidates. (For example, had Top-2 applied in the 2010 AG race, we would have missed a Rep on Rep race by a few thousand votes.)

At any rate, this race will certainly be interesting. How defining it is for the California (and national) Democratic Party is still up in the air.

Law would have required release of income taxes in order to be eligible to appear on the California ballot.

by Brian Leubitz

Sometimes you never know with Governor Brown. And so is the case with SB149:

Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed legislation Sunday that would have required presidential candidates to release five years of income tax returns before their names could appear on the California ballot. The bill, SB149 by Sens. Mike McGuire, D-Ukiah, and Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, was approved in the Legislature largely along party lines. Though it does not mention President Trump, it clearly targeted the commander in chief, the first in 40 years to withhold his tax documents from the public. (SF Gate)

With Gavin Newsom, you know how this would have turned out. He’d be all aboard this train, but Jerry gets uncomfortable. He comes up with a slippery slope argument; he questions the constitutionality. In his veto message (PDF), Brown does just that:

Add in the fact that he didn’t release his tax returns for either of his governor’s races, and you have one uneasy guy. I never thought he was *likely* to sign the bill, but I’m not sure I would have been surprised either way.

In other news, the governor made decisions on a number of other notable measures, including signing SB179 which allows the selection of a non-binary gender designation, and vetoing SB649, a telecom-backed measure that would have expedited the approval of cell phone towers.