Several California gubernatorial candidates attended two forums in Sacramento Tuesday where they discussed issues affecting Latino and Hispanic communities throughout the state. While one forum heavily discussed the Swalwell scandal, the other left him out of the discussion entirely.

Seven Democratic candidates for governor took the stage in Sacramento Tuesday night at Nuestra Voz ’26, just hours after Congressman Eric Swalwell’s official resignation — though his name didn’t come up during the discussion, as KTVU reports. However, the Swalwall scandal was discussed between a panel of six candidates earlier in the day at another event in Sacramento, hosted by the California Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, according to KPIX.

Swalwell’s absence reportedly gave the remaining candidates the opportunity to win over his former supporters Tuesday.

Per KTVU, Nuestra Voz's discussion centered on immigration, voting rights, housing, and the growing role of artificial intelligence. Moderators questioned candidates on cooperation with federal authorities versus state protections, as well as how they would address barriers to voting and prepare younger Californians for an AI-driven workforce.

In response to cooperating with the federal government, ​​​​former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said that the line starts with constitutional protections, arguing warrants should be required for enforcement actions in homes, workplaces, hospitals, and schools.

Former Congresswoman Katie Porter said California must protect voting systems from political interference, while San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan pointed to legal challenges and media pressure as tools to counter federal overreach, according to KTVU.

On affordable housing, former Health and Human Services Secretary Javier Becerra called for expanded homeownership access and stronger rent protections.

Entrepreneur Tom Steyer proposed taxing the AI industry to fund job retraining programs, and former State Controller Betty Yee emphasized introducing students to technology and digital skills at an early age.

As KPIX reports, six of the candidates also attended a panel at the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce earlier in the day in Sacramento, where they discussed California's budget deficit and affordable health care and childcare — in addition to the Swalwall fallout.

Steyer voiced support for a single-payer healthcare system, and Mahan highlighted efforts to expand childcare by helping local workers open home-based daycare centers.

The Swalwall scandal was repeatedly mentioned at the Chamber of Commerce forum in relation to accountability in upper levels of government.

Yee said the moment calls for new leadership, noting that the public is now paying closer attention to the governor’s race due to the scandal, per KPIX.

Becerra called the news of Swalwell's resignation a chance for a new beginning.

"It's really day one, really, for this campaign for everyone," he said.

The trouble is, it isn't day one, and the primary is fast approaching on June 2. Even prior to Swalwell bowing out, state Democratic Party leaders were expressing anxiety at there being too many candidates still in race, dividing the Democrat electorate to the point that the two Republicans in the race could end up getting the most votes in the primary.

State Democratic party chair Rusty Hicks vowed last month to spend money on weekly polling in order to shame the lowest-polling candidates into dropping out of the race. "I would simply say if people are afraid of information, you have to ask why," Hicks said.

Swalwell had been leading the pack in recent polls, but Steyer and Porter were close behind and the only other candidates polling in double digits.

Election officials are set to start mailing out primary ballots in less than three weeks.

Related: SoCal Sheriff Chad Bianco, the Trumper Running for Governor, Seizes 650,000 Ballots From Last November In Concerning Move

Top image: California Immigrant Policy Center/Facebook

Following Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis’s announcement that she's dropping out of the governor's race to run for state  treasurer in the 2026 election, former Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf  announced Friday she’s dropping out of the treasurer's race in support of  Kounalakis.

As the Chronicle reports, Schaaf first announced her bid for treasurer in early 2024 with a platform focusing on public infrastructure, education, housing, and climate change.

“It has been a privilege to share my vision for using the Treasurer’s financing powers to tackle our urgent housing and climate crises, and the potential for the Treasurer’s early wealth-building programs to provide every Californian child with an opportunity-rich future,” Schaaf said on X. “I believe Lieutenant Governor Kounalakis shares this vision.”

The Chronicle reports Kounalakis’s campaign has raised significantly more funds — $4.6 million versus Schaaf’s $427,000.

Schaaf wrote, “I’m grateful to the volunteers and supporters who fueled our grassroots campaign and inspired me every day. I look forward to continuing the work.”

As the Chronicle notes, Schaaf is a faculty member at UC Berkeley and has worked as a program adviser for the Abundance Network since her term ended in January 2023.

As the Bay Area News Group reports, Kounalakis was both the first woman and the first Greek American to be elected as state lieutenant governor.

Image: Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf looks on during an assembly at Edna Brewer Middle School about the U.S. Constitution on January 19, 2018 in Oakland, California. Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.

Previously: Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis Drops Out of Governor's Race, Will Run For Treasurer

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• SFPD seized over 250 grams of fentanyl, heroin, cocaine base, and methamphetamine following the arrests of Jose Espinoza-Santos, 57, and Aaryn Stacy, 31, who were charged with multiple felonies in connection to narcotics trafficking. [Mercury News]
• Pink Pistols is helping local trans and queer folks learn how to arm and protect themselves. [SF Standard]

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

A perceived misstep by the SF Elections Commission last month, saying they were not planning to renew the contract of 20-year veteran director of the Department of Elections John Arntz in favor of conducting an executive search to seek a diverse array of candidates, has now been reversed.

The move was seen by many in City Hall said as baffling because of both the sensitivity of elections in general and Arntz's track record of well organized, scandal-free elections for two decades. Supervisor Aaron Peskin went so far as to call the move "commission malfeasance." But a plurality of commissioners said they felt it was necessary, in adherence with its long-term racial equity plan, not to by-rote renew Arntz's contract and instead allow him to reapply for his job while it considered other candidates as well.

After weeks of uproar, at its Monday meeting, the Elections Commission reversed itself as the Chronicle reports and voted to consider renewing Arntz's contract, saying it would cancel plans for an executive search. The commission did this, at least in part, because the Board of Supervisors had already vowed not to approve the funding necessary for the executive search.

At the meeting, some commissioners hedged to save face. Per the Chronicle, Commissioner Cynthia Dai said, "To me, this was simply about making sure that the city had a look at the full breadth of talent out there." And Commissioner Renita LiVolsi said, "If we are going to have equity, that means we have to do things differently and not continue to do what we’ve always done." LiVolsi added, in a comment to Arntz, that this was "nothing personal" and "I appreciate your service to the city of San Francisco."

The full motives for the move to potentially oust Arntz aren't clear, however there are three new commissioners as of the last two years appointed to five-year terms, and a seventh seat on the commission to be appointment by the Board of Education remains vacant. The vote on November 22, which took place in closed session following public comment, was 4 to 2 in favor of opening up a nationwide search, with commissioners Nancy Hayden Crowley (a mayoral appointee) and Lucy Bernholz in dissent.

Bernholz made her feelings about the situation known on Monday, as the Chronicle reports, saying, "It is incumbent upon this commission to rectify the damage done by the previous decision as quickly as possible. Not only have we inflicted damage on the department, we’ve made ourselves an unreliable, untrustworthy body, and until we fix that, all of the work we’ve done on other issues is out the window."

Activists in favor of open-source voting — a process by which citizens would have greater transparency into votes being tabulated — have been attending Elections Commission meetings in recent months and expressing dissatisfaction with Arntz's favoring of renewing the city's contract with Dominion Voting Systems.

Brent Turner, the communications director for the Open Voting Consortium, is one of those activists and he noted Arntz's "cheerleading against the open-source community," per the minutes to the commission's November 22 meeting. And when it came time for the commissioners to go into closed session to discuss the executive search, Turner was one of those who spoke during public comment suggesting that Arntz's "predisposition" toward Dominion was reason enough to open up the search.

According to the Chronicle, he commissioners have said the decision to conduct an executive search was not related to the issue of open-source voting, only the equity plan.

Update: Arntz tells Mission Local that he'll happily reup his contract, and he says, "I became director of elections because I was interested in operations, and now we have people here who are just fantastic in supporting operations for elections. We have this unbelievable investment toward supporting and helping voters. It’s amazing, and these sorts of situations don’t happen all the time in life. It’s unique to my work life and I think it’s unique for a lot of people.”

Previously: In Baffling Move, SF Elections Director With Impeccable Record Won’t Have Contract Renewed

Top photo: A voter casts a ballot at a polling station in Friends Bar on November 3, 2020 in San Francisco, California. After a record-breaking early voting turnout, Americans head to the polls on the last day to cast their vote for incumbent U.S. President Donald Trump or Democratic nominee Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. (Photo by Stephen Lam/Getty Images)

After 20 years of flawless and scandal-free performance, SF Department of Elections Director John Arntz, one of the most effective and hardest-working people in City Hall, won't have his contract renewed because of a “racial equity plan.”

When San Francisco Department of Elections director John Artz took over his job in 2002, the department was reeling from a series of embarrassing scandals, and had been through five directors in just seven years. In their write-up of (I swear to god I am not making this up) SF ballot boxes found floating in the San Francisco Bay, the Chronicle noted at the time that the department “has been plagued by a seemingly never-ending string of problems in recent years, ranging from slow election returns and misprints in the official ballot book to stacks of uncounted ballots being discovered days after the election.”

In Arntz’s 20 years on the job, there have been no scandals, malfeasances, or embarrassments. He even handled four elections in 2022 alone, without a whiff of criticism of the department. (And no indictments! Which is more than some departments can say.) Yet despite this, Mission Local reported Monday afternoon that Arntz would not have his contract renewed, as the SF Election Commission will not renew him when his current term runs out after this month’s election is certified.  

While some initial reporting stated Arntz had been fired, this is not the case. As the Chronicle explains, the SF Elections Commission “voted 4-2 last week to not renew director John Arntz’s five-year term and instead hire a search firm to consider him, if he wanted to apply, among a pool of other candidates.” So Artnz can apply again, though this is for a job he has clearly been more effective at than any previous director in decades.

The decision to not renew Arntz’s contract has drawn outrage and bafflement from all over the SF political spectrum. Mayor Breed said in a statement to the Chronicle that this was “unfair politicization of a key part of our government that is working well for the voters of this city.” Her frequent adversary Supervisor Aaron Peskin told Mission Local, “This is commission malfeasance,” and added, “This is demoralizing and humiliating to John and to the staff of the department.”

There was a brief controversy last year over the city’s exclusive use of Trump conspiracy punching bag Dominion Voting Systems. An Examiner report at the time raised questions that  “Dominion Voting Systems has won more than $20 million in city contracts while Arntz’s department has become dependent on the company to hold elections.” But as that report also noted, “No other companies bid on San Francisco’s last voting machine contract,” because none of them could handle our ranked-choice voting system.

The Chronicle quotes an email from the Elections Department to Arntz, saying “Our decision wasn’t about your performance, but after twenty years we wanted to take action on the City’s racial equity plan and give people an opportunity to compete for a leadership position.”

Arntz is highly respected at City Hall, so this may be a commission-level faux pas that will be reversed amidst media scrutiny, not unlike the SF school board trying to rename Roosevelt Middle School and then admitting they didn’t know which President Roosevelt it was named after. After all, the Chron notes that the Elections Commission will have to ask for $30,000 to $50,000 for an executive search to find replacement candidates, even though Arntz can still apply for his current job. As Peskin told Mission Local Monday, “I guarantee you that this Board and this mayor aren’t going to give them a damn penny.”

Related: There Could be Four Elections for This Same D-17 State Assembly Seat in 2022 [SFist]

Image: @larrybobsf via Twitter

A committee hearing a week from now, on April 18, will begin the process of deciding whether to radically move up the date of the California Presidential Primary vote in 2020, finally maybe giving our enormous state some influence on the primary season commensurate with our population.

The currently late primary, in June, can dilute the influence of California's massive voter base, some critics argue: 19.4 million Californians are registered to vote, the most of any state in the nation. The bill would reschedule the CA primary for the third Tuesday of March, authorizing the Governor to change it to even earlier if other states move up their primaries.

“A state as populous and diverse as California should not be an afterthought," a press release issued today quotes California Secretary of State Alex Padilla. "Moving up the California primary in 2020 makes sense and will give California voters a more significant role. By holding our primary earlier, we will ensure that issues important to Californians are prioritized by presidential candidates from all political parties,” Padilla said.

Senator Ricardo Lara authored the bill, SB 568, because "Californians’ voices are silenced when it comes to choosing presidential nominees."

Indeed, the difference an earlier primary could make is difficult to discount. "In 2016, the two candidates had nearly sewn up their party’s nomination by the time our state’s primary election was held in June," Assembly Speaker pro Tempore, Kevin Mullin said. As the world’s 6th largest economy with the nation’s largest population, it’s absurd that California had no real say in who the presidential candidates would be.”

Last June, more than twice as many Democrats as Republicans voted in our state primary. 56 percent of those Democrats voted for Hillary Clinton. Of course, plenty of Californians didn't wait until June to cast their ballot — making their decision by mail significantly in advance of others in the state who actually went to the polls.

Related: More Than Twice As Many Democrats As Republicans Voted In The California Primary

Using a sixth sense? SF voters mark their ballots inside Columbarium, among remains of politicians, actors, friends pic.twitter.com/UIrupCsvyH

— Juan Carlos Guerrero (@JuanCarlosABC7) November 8, 2016

Direct democracy is now 105 years old in California, and while many think that legislating at the ballot box has gotten way out of hand — especially with this year's 17 state initiatives and 25 local ones in SF — there is something to be said for laws that the people make themselves. USC law professor Elizabeth Garrett has said, it's empowering for a populace to make change directly, "rather than hoping that lawmakers, who have an interest in the process, will reform [things] themselves." Indeed the ballot initiative system began in California during a period when businessmen and monied interests were having too great an influence on the state legislature, and it was a Republican governor who helped usher in the era of direct democracy in the state in 1911. And you think this year's ballot is long? You should have seen the ballot in 1914.

As The California Report discusses this morning, one of the first years that ballot initiatives became possible in the state, in 1914, there were 48 state measures on the ballot, putting our current 17 to shame.

Reporter Polly Stryker says, at the time, "There was a growing frustration with the power of the Southern Pacific Railroad... and putting the initiative process on the ballot and getting it ratified in the constitution as an amendment was a way to break the power of the railroad." And this first big round of initiatives included a number of populist concerns, including an attempt at alcohol prohibition (which would ultimately pass as a national constitutional amendment five years later, in 1919); the establishment of a state water commission, which passed; the establishment of a minimum wage for women and children, which passed; the establishment of an eight-hour work day, which failed; and a ban on organizing, training for, or betting on prize fights, which had clearly become a widespread public ill at the time, and which passed.

The ballot initiative system was, as Stryker says, "part of the progressive movement, and it's a way to circumvent corruption or untrustworthy politicians." But, of course, huge sums of money have creeped into the system, especially when it comes to corporate interests (like Big Pharma, and Big Soda) buying ad time to shoot down progressive causes like prescription drug price cuts and soda taxes. And it tends to take a ton of money to get anything on the ballot these days, with over 900,000 signatures required.

LA Weekly did a recent piece about the history of direct democracy in California, and we were actually the 10th state in the union to establish such a system during a broader progressive era. The initiative, referendum, and recall systems in the state were largely spurred by a wealthy progressive doctor, John Randolph Haynes, who "moved from Philadelphia to Los Angeles for his health in 1887 and helped found the Christian Socialist Economic League of Los Angeles," as the Weekly explains. Haynes was fond of saying, "The remedy for the evils of democracy is more democracy," and after getting direct democracy established in LA County, he moved on to pushing it at the state level.

Haynes found an ally in Hiram Johnson, a progressive Republican who was elected governor of California in 1910, and their Lincoln-Roosevelt League helped put Proposition 7, which established the initiative, referendum, and recall systems, on the ballot the following year as a state constitutional amendment.

Fast forward to today, Election Day, when you can see the machinations of business and politics all over the ballot, and a somewhat confused and confusing version of direct democracy at work. While the idea remains a nice one in its purest form, there is something absurd, particularly in general election years, in believing that California's 17.9 million registered voters have the inclination, time, or intelligence to parse the complexities of over a dozen new laws they're asked to vote on, especially when monied interests spend hundreds of millions of dollars to sway them with sound bites one way or the other.

Spending on state ballot measure campaigns has reached an all-time high in 2016, approaching $500 million, with $100 million of that being spent on the prescription drug measure, Prop 61, alone.

Next up: A ballot measure to reform the ballot measure process.

Related: Here's What You Need To Know Before Voting For The Dozens Of State And Local Propositions

In what was by early June already the most expensive District 11 State Senate Race ever of all time, political action committee money apparently flowed freely on both sides. Until now, Scott Wiener took most of the heat on the subject from opponent Jane Kim and her camp. Progressives pointed to Wiener's perceived reliance on, for example, a Chevron-supported PAC. "While the money gets passed from committee to committee, the source remains the same - oil giant Chevron," reads the "Follow the Money" attack page of Kim's election website. However, Matier and Ross, the Chronicle's mustachioed investigative team, are flipping the script, pointing out that Kim, who eventually won the primary race, did so following an expensive PAC push on her behalf funded mostly by PG&E.

As election results trickled in this month, progressives like those at the website 48 Hills thrilled to news that Kim was hot behind Wiener, emphasizing her relative funding deficit in relation to his. Kim would go on to surpass Wiener days later, and when her victory was officially announced yesterday — a win by just 370 votes —many found the development meaningful. That's debatable: The primary, which adheres to California'sTop Two Candidate Open Primary system for statewide offices, might more accurately be see as symbolic, a drill or a poll ahead of November.

Nevertheless, whatever significance Kim's upset victory might hold is likely complicated by the Chronicle's reporting. Specifically, that PG&E, a longtime progressive target, funded the largest portion of an 11th hour, $40,000 ad campaign on Kim's behalf. Specifically, PG&E made two donations totaling $39,675 to the Golden State Leadership PAC which added up to be 80 percent of the PAC's June spending budget.

Kim’s chief political consultant, Storefront Political Media founder Eric Jaye, is also a paid PG&E adviser. He denies discussing or coordinating with PG&E in an effort to back Kim, his client. "Any suggestion to the contrary is simply not true,” he told Matier and Ross. “We simply did not, and cannot, coordinate or direct any contribution,” a PG&E spokesperson echoed Jaye.

Previously: Day Around The Bay: Kim Actually Beat Wiener In Primary By 370 Votes
Tight District 11 State Senate Race Gets Tighter, As Kim Surpasses Wiener In SF
Wiener Leads Kim In (Merely Symbolic) State Senate Primary As Both Advance To November Election

In a heated (read: lots of mailers) race for the District 11 State Senate seat currently occupied by Mark Leno, who is due to be termed-out, two Democratic San Francisco Supervisors — Scott Wiener and Jane Kim — edged out Republican Kenneth Loo to face off against one another this November. (Read: Expect more fucking mailers.)

The Examiner puts the difference between them at just 2,800 votes, a lead of 1.65 percent held by Wiener. Bay City News records the tally, via ABC7, as around 46.1 precent for Wiener and 44.4 percent for Kim (with 594 of 645 precinct results in as of publication time). Wiener's narrow lead was wider in early returns, at one point a gap of 11 percent, and in San Mateo he led more clearly with 46.43 percent of the vote over Kim's 37.33 percent.

Bay City News calls Scott Wiener the "widely viewed... favorite to win." Closer to the center than Kim, Wiener got into the race first and secured key endorsements from mainstream Democrats.

Jane Kim, for her part, claimed the endorsement of Bernie Sanders: The two were seen palling around Chinatown days ago.

As far as real policy differences, Kim was first among the Supervisors to call for the resignation of Chief Suhr, whom Wiener appeared to defend. Wiener is sightly softer on Airbnb, having received, in a donations haul that between the two candidates was more than $2 million dollars so far, a small sum from Airbnb's CEO.

Neither really liked the Super Bowl, though Kim was more vocal about the event while Wiener focused his attacks on the safety problems posed by tent cities. Further, Wiener has made a name for himself as a public transit junkie, campaigning for more and better transit options.

Approaching November as the "top-two" candidate in the open primary system for statewide offices, the candidates will likely draw further, more substantive distinctions between themselves. Namely: Who can send more mailers and, eventually, get more votes.

Related: Wiener vs. Kim Already Most Expensive District 11 State Senate Race Ever

In 2010, Mark Farrell won his seat on the Board of Supervisors representing Pacific Heights and the Marina, District 2, by a mere 258 votes. That's Supervisorial elections for you. Previously a political unknown as a lawyer and venture capitalist, now the 42-year-old Supe's work on the budget committee and elsewhere has led some to speculate that he'll run for mayor one day.

Maybe, but for now, a $191,000 fine over his alleged violation of campaign finance laws in that winning election has been coming back to haunt him, somewhat literally in the form of the tax collector. And so, now the Chronicle announces he's suing the City of San Francisco to get the fine off his back.

The Examiner noted in January that he's threatened to sue over the fine before, so it's not a complete surprise he's finally done so — with gusto, calling the Ethics Commission's work a "witch hunt" — though it is a bit counterintuitive for a Supervisor to sue, like, the city he works for.

The fine? It's for this: After his upset victory, Janet Reilly, the 2010 race's frontrunner, filed a complaint with the Fair Political Practices Commission. Farrell and his campaign consultant, she alleged, had coordinated with an independent committee — which would be illegal — called Common Sense Voters that dropped $191,000 (hence the sum of the fine) in the last weeks of the campaign, clinching his win.

Common Sense Voters donations came from two sources: $141,000 from Thomas Coates, a Republican and real estate owner, and $50,000 from "Oh Dear" Dede Wilsey, a socialite and the Board Chair of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Those donations, of course, are far larger than anything that would have been permissible to give Farrell directly, as candidate committees have $500 contribution limits.

After a year spent looking into the matter, the Fair Political Practices Commission determined that Farrell's campaign, but not the now-Supervisor himself, had coordinated with the Common Sense Voters independent committee. Their punishment: Fining Farrell's campaign consultant, Chris Lee, $14,500.

Unsatisfied, Reilly picked up her complaint and brought it to the Ethics Commission, who implicated Farrell himself, asking him in 2014 to give $191,000 to the city. While at one point under an outgoing Ethics Commissioner there was talk of waiving the fee, that plan was scrapped.

But Farrell doesn't want to part with the money, and probably would also like his record untarnished by the scandal (maybe too late). Therefore, the lawsuit, filed in Superior Court. As well as the City of San Francisco, it names the Ethics Commission and the fine collector, which would be the Treasurer.

In the words of his lawsuit, "the Ethics Commission has systematically and blatantly ignored city law, as well as its own procedures, and is guilty of a gross violation of Supervisor Farrell’s rights... This miscarriage of justice must be stopped.”

While the lawsuit admits that campaign consultant Lee "had “minor and unauthorized communications” with the Common Sense Voters independent committee, it maintains that Farrell had no personal knowledge of the matter.

However, Commissioner Keane says that's not exactly how that works. While state law might not hold Farrell responsible for his campaign consultant, city law does, Keane argues.

Related: SF's Last Remaining Gun Shop May Close Over Supervisor's Proposal

Another election day has arrived, and for those who actually read their voter guides carefully, I commend you for your patience and your civic due diligence. I would joke that there are only ten or eleven of you out there, but I acknowledge that we are a town that's chock full of nerds and overachievers, so there are probably a lot of you who by now have noticed the name of Dr. Terence Faulkner, J.D., who uses various titles as he pens his various Opponent's Arguments in the official SF Voter Information Pamphlet. Faulkner, a local Republican who lives in Park Merced, has been around for years, and it looks like some blog attention he got last year from us and others has caused one notable change in his m.o.: He's stopped using ALL CAPS in the arguments he's most passionate about.

At 71, Terence remains a clearly concerned citizen and fiscal conservative who takes it as his burden to submit arguments against virtually every ballot measure during every election year. One imagines his apartment littered with decaying old voter guides, proof of his recent life's work, not to mention signed photos of Ronald Reagan, and there's probably an elderly dog hobbling around too.

We know that he's the son of late Republican State Committeewoman Susan Faulkner, and back in 1980's he was the chairman of the San Francisco Republican Party for a couple of years. Nowadays he's a disgruntled member of the SF United Irish Cultural Center, and he likely doesn't leave the western edges of the city unless Jeb Bush is in town.

This year, Faulkner goes alternately by these titles, many of them well out of date: "United States President's Federal Executive Awards Committeman (1988)," "County Central Committeeman," "Past State of California Certified Farmers Market Advisory Board Member (1999 to 2005)," "Past Member of Regional Citizens Forum Board of Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG)."

Below, a selection of his greatest hits from this year's voter guide, in which his became the official Opponent's Arguments against Props A, B, C, and H.

Prop A
(The affordable housing bond measure.)

"Above all, political officeholders involved with these bonds will run up lots of campaign donations, to pay their always greedy election managers, polling services, electoral mailing houses, and media advisors. Somebody has to pay all those people.

Let’s not discuss the taxpayers of San Francisco—That’s a very sad story: They’ll pay all the bills for the unneeded Proposition A spendingfest. It’s sort of like a modern version of the Vikings of the 9th and 10th Centuries. The dragonships arrived—and the coasts of medieval Europe got plundered and ravished.

At least San Francisco’s so-called 1City Fathers' are a bit more literate and better salesmen than the Vikings."

Prop B
(Extending parental leave to couples who are both city employees.)

"While there is a good case for granting liberal extra leave to mothers having babies, the rest of Proposition B—“parental leave” for male partners and couples adopting children—is outrageous.

It is just taxing away the money needed by other families.

The authors of Proposition B proclaim: “We can do even more for our families.” Indeed they can!

Don’t overtax families of non-City employees to over pay City employees.

The authors of Proposition B want to “allow San Francisco to remain a leader” in overtaxing non-City employees to grant unmerited pay to those who happen to work for the City.

When does tax become theft???"

Prop C
(Regulating expenditure lobbyists and forcing them to register with the Ethics Commission.)

"George Orwell (1903-1950) was born in Bengle, British India, educated at Eton, served in Burma’s Indian Imperial Police, saw the abuses of English colonialism, returned to Europe, fought with anti-Francoists in the Spanish Civil War, and became an author opposing totalitarianism with many of his novels, including 1984 and Animal Farm.

In Animal Farm, England’s Manor Farm is taken over in a barnyard revolution in the name of animal freedom and equality. Soon the pigs take power, their motto becoming: “ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS”.

San Francisco’s Ethics Commission, composed of a flock of appointees of City Hall officeholders, seem to have similar ideas about lobbyists.

Most local lobbyists are required to pay large registration fees, but employees of non-profit organizations unjustly ride for free.

Such abuses are to be expected when the Ethics Commission is not composed of independent citizens—like a civil or criminal grand jury.

The Ethics Commission, with a San Francisco City Charter amendment, needs to be isolated from direct City Hall control."

Prop H*
(Defining clean, renewable energy by the state definition and not PG&E's.)

"Supporters of Proposition H want to cost you money.

...Needless to say, passing Proposition H would also hurt local businesses and industries, damaging jobs, most unions, and helping to drive companies out of San Francisco. Don’t slow City employment.

Individual electrical bill payers would also see major increases in their rates.

Proposition H is bad news for San Francisco."

Vote “NO!” on expensive and selfish Proposition H—which openly hopes to increase your electric bills. Keep utility costs down. Lower is better."

Previously: Meet The Weird Guy From The S.F. Voter's Guide Who Wrote His Dissenting Opinions In All Caps

* Ed. Note: We left it out of our brief voter guide the other day, but it should be noted that Prop H is the one to vote for if you like clean energy, and you should vote NO on Prop G, unless you want PG&E to pull a little trick and compete with CleanPowerSF over the definition of what "clean energy" is.

A lot of you are probably sick of reading stories about affordable housing, moratoriums on building, Airbnb, and a bizarrely contentious fight over something called District 3, wherever that might be. For those new to town, you're probably not even listening, and I probably wouldn't either. But here's the thing: Especially if you're new here, you've come at a somewhat awkward time, and given California's — and especially San Francisco's — penchant for ballot-box lawmaking via propositions, you might want to take a glance at the voter guide you got in the mail and brush up on a few topics, just in case you plan to stay.

Your votes, especially for Props F and I — the short-term rental law revision, and the Mission housing moratorium, respectively — are actually going to be pretty important, especially given how low the voter turnout typically is in these city elections on odd-numbered years.

The last time we had one, in 2013, the turnout was a laughable 29 percent — compare that to the 72 percent turnout for the presidential election the year before. Turnout was a little better in 2014, when two of our supervisors were battling for a seat in the state Assembly, but even then only 53 percent of registered voters turned out in person or by mail — and only about half of SF's population is currently registered to vote (out of 626,000 eligible voters).

As SF Weekly talks about in this week's cover story, voter turnout is generally pretty dismal in local elections, and only 25 to 30 percent of you are expected to turn out on Tuesday, this "despite a slew of voter initiatives on Tuesday's ballot directly related to the city's ongoing housing crisis."

SFist doesn't do endorsements, and we never have. But we do think you should vote this time around if you were thinking about skipping it. Mailing in a ballot is an option if you don't think you'll be able to get to a polling place Tuesday morning or evening.

But here are several reasons why your vote is going to matter.

Prop A
I don't see that many people are likely to oppose this, but Prop A is the Mayor's proposed affordable housing bond measure, allowing the city to borrow up to $310 million in order to finance affordable rental housing construction and rehabilitation. This is all with a goal of having 30,000 new and rehabilitated housing units by 2020, with a third of those below market rate.

Prop D
Those in favor of more housing construction, and the Giants' plan to develop the parking lots of Pier 48 into a huge mixed-use development with almost 1,500 new rental units (40 percent of them affordable), should vote yes on this. It's basically about increasing the height allowed on this waterfront parcel, and opponents echo those who shot down the 8 Washington development in 2013, because they reject allowing private development over a certain height on public, waterfront land. The Sierra Club and the Coalition for SF Neighborhoods oppose, but the Mayor, the Board of Supervisors, and even anti-waterfront development guy Art Agnos are all in favor of this one.

Prop F
Prop F may end up being the one that gets the most campaign money spent on it, especially given Airbnb and No of F spending upwards of $8 million to shoot this one down. The main points here: It cuts the number of short-term rental days on both un-hosted and hosted units to 75, down from 90 (currently there's no limit to how many days you can rent a single room in your house or apartment), increases the possibility of enforcement and increases the reporting burden on hosts, and makes it a misdemeanor for a rental platform to unlawfully list a unit as a short-term rental. It could, also, as the No on F campaign says, encourage more neighbors to go after their neighbors for violations, but they can already do this, and it makes it harder for mom-and-pops to rent spare rooms for extra income. Dianne Feinstein loves this Prop, so do Danny Glover, Mark Leno, and Tom Ammiano, and the Mayor does not. Will the passing of this Prop lead to more available rental housing stock for all? That is hard to say.

Prop I
The so-called Mission moratorium is on the ballot, and it proposes the suspension of all new permits for market rate housing and "business development projects" in the Mission district for 18 to 30 months. Proponents say this is a necessary pause/reset to allow for the city to acquire more sites for affordable housing, and may encourage 100-percent affordable development. Opponents insist that affordable housing only gets built on the back of market-rate development, and this will not only stop the construction of needed housing, it won't create more affordable units in the end, either. It will, effectively, stop the construction of 1,500 units, not to mention the plan to turn the Armory into a concert venue, which will be a casualty of this as well.

Sheriff
The office of Sheriff in SF has long been held by a progressive favorite son, and currently that is former supervisor Ross Mirkarimi. Mirkarimi was caught up in a domestic violence scandal a couple years ago that had a lot of his enemies out for his head, but he weathered that (his conviction was expunged this year), and he has retained the support of many progressives, as well as the Examiner, for his running of our local jail. Meanwhile, the woman who served as interim sheriff while he faced an ethics trial, Vicki Hennessy, is running to replace him, and has the support of the Mayor, London Breed, and the San Francisco Deputy Sheriff's Association. This could get interesting.

District 3 Supervisor
If you don't live in District 3, this won't matter. But for newcomers, this supervisory district covers North Beach, Telegraph Hill, Chinatown, Fisherman's Wharf, the Embarcadero, Financial District, and Union Square. Long ago, before the age of unicorns, it was ruled over by Aaron Peskin, a progressive local politician who eventually became President of the Board of Supervisors. He was termed out, and most recently the district has been led by a mayoral appointee, Julie Christensen, whom progressives now paint as being in the pocket of the Mayor and developers, etc. The campaign to elect Christensen to the seat has been as aggressive and expensive as it's been because the Mayor has enjoyed a fairly business-friendly climate on the Board the last few years, and a vote to bring Peskin back could shift the balance of power back in a more far-left, anti-development direction. A lot of people want to see that happen, though, and long for the days when Board of Supervisor meetings were more contentious and fun.

Community College Board of Trustees
There's one seat coming available, and this elected office has long been seen as a stepping stone to other roles in local politics. Running for the seat are incumbent trustee Alex Randolph, who has endorsements from the Mayor, former mayor Newsom, and others; Virgil's Sea Room owner, Harvey Milk Democratic Club President, and local DJ (Hard French), Tom Temprano, who has endorsements from the progressive bloc of supervisors as well as Tom Ammiano; a data analyst named Jason Zeng; and Wendy Aragon, a construction project manager who has the endorsement of the SF Tenants Union, and others.

Mayor
Hey, if you want to make things interesting and vote for everyone but Ed Lee in the ranked choice thing, be our guest. But he's all but guaranteed to win unless a whole ton of you do that.

All previous coverage of the 2015 election on SFist.

Even though in my opinion it ought to cost $200,000, the state has thankfully raised the fee for filing a ballot initiative from $200 to $2,000, making it slightly more difficult for the fanatical and insane to have us vote on insane things. This move comes in the wake of the ballot measure filed earlier this year by a bigoted Orange County attorney that called for all LGBT people to "be put to death by bullets to the head or by any other convenient method." Attorney General Kamala Harris, thankfully, got the thing thrown out by a judge for being patently unconstitutional and a "waste public resources."

Originally, a new bill was proposed that would have raised the filing fee to $8,000, but as the Chron reports, the state Senate was apparently reluctant to set the bar that high (!!!!), and brought it down to $2,000.

As the co-author of the bill, Assemblyman Evan Low (D-Campbell), pointed out, "It has been over 72 years since this aspect of the initiative process has been updated." Yes, that $200 figure has been unchanged since 1943!

$2,000 is kind of in keeping with inflation since 1943, but it's actually less — $200 would be more like $2,779 in 2015 — and just raising it this much does nothing to address the frivolousness with which ballot initiatives get launched all the time.

After the filing fee, of course, initiative sponsors still have to gather 365,880 signatures to get a measure on the ballot.

Anyway, props to the SoCal lady who paid to file the “Intolerant Jackass Act,” which required people who propose measures to murder gays and lesbians to "attend sensitivity training" and to "donate $5,000 to a pro-gay or pro-lesbian organization."

Just in case you were wondering, it looks like Oakland voters didn't take troll-candidate Peter Liu's candidacy too seriously in Tuesday's election. The gun-toting, gay-hating, horseriding advocate garnered only 246 votes for his armed militia-based campaign that would have established a Community Empowered Safety Plan in Oakland, in preparation for the next terrorist attack, and/or just to combat neighborhood crime.

Compare that to new Mayor-Elect Libby Schaaf, who earned 16,243 first-choice votes — and incumbent Mayor Jean Quan, who only got half that, at 8,819 first-choice votes.

Liu was probably mocking the mayor's race more than he was actually, seriously running, however it's unclear how much of what he said in his bizarre campaign video is actually close to his true beliefs. Regardless, it got him some late-night TV attention from Jimmy Kimmel, who was especially a fan of Liu's prominent earlobes.

Liu is a 33-year-old Iraq War veteran and (allegedly) a self-made multi-millionaire who's married with kids, and he claimed he spent $0 on his campaign.

Previously: Guy Running For Oakland Mayor Hates Bicycles, Gays, Thinks We Should All Carry Guns

And, wrapping up today's election coverage, I bring you news from across the Bay, where Oakland ousted its incumbent mayor, Richmond elected a progressive candidate despite Chevron's million-dollar campaign against him, and a certain former news anchor failed in her bid to get on the Oakland City Council.

Oakland Mayor - Libby Schaaf Wins In Instant Runoff
Unlike the 2010 election, which saw Jean Quan take a surprise lead due to ranked-choice voting, the frontrunner here, Councilmember Libby Schaaf, prevailed almost immediately and was able to declare victory at 2:15 a.m. today, as the Chron reports. In second place was the more progressive Councilmember at Large, Rebecca Kaplan, who also ran in 2010 (and came in third), but after Quan voters were knocked out, more of her votes went to Schaaf, giving her 63 percent of the vote — and beating out all 14 other candidates. Schaaf has been serving on the Council for three years, having been elected in 2010. She was born and raised in Oakland, attended Skyline High School, and previously served as legislative aide to Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente, and then as an aide to then Mayor Jerry Brown. Governor Brown may have helped a bit with her win, having endorsed her last month.

Richmond Mayor and City Council - Tom Butt and Other Chevron Antagonists Sweep
The anger against Chevron apparently runs deep over in Richmond, and/or you can't win an election with $1 million in campaign mailers, ads, and billboards alone. As we told you yesterday, the oil behemoth sank at least $1.3 million supporting the campaign of Nat Bates, who presumably would be more allied with Chevron's wishes going forward. But, in an obvious fuck-you to Chevron, the citizenry elected Councilman Tom Butt, who campaigned with a fraction of that sum (approximately $22,000), as well as the whole slate backed by the Richmond Progressive Alliance for Council, including outgoing mayor Gayle McLaughlin, as the Contra Costa Times reports.

Berkeley Soda Tax Passes
Berkeley elected some new council members too, but the interesting race there was their own version of a tax on sugary beverages, which was being watched nationally along with San Francisco's (which failed). Leave it to good old Berkeley to pass the first such measure in the nation, despite the beverage industry spending $2.1 million to defeat it in this small town. The city will now tax soda one penny per ounce starting January 1.

Oakland City Council District 2 - Dana King Defeated By Union Candidate Abel Guillen
Former KPIX news anchor and noted penis sculptress Dana King will not, after all, be getting to serve on the City Council next year. Despite her notoriety, a candidate backed by a bunch of union dollars, and the overall Democratic machine, managed to defeat her. The race was close, as the Contra Costa Times reports, but Peralta Community College Trustee Guillen took the lead after the ranked-choice instant runoff, likely thanks to huge union support from city workers, the SEIU, and the Oakland Police Officers Association. Look for Ms. King, however, to likely try her hand at politics again. She seems to have the bug now.

All other Election 2014 coverage on SFist.