One SF basic income benefiting Black and Pacific Islander residents appears doomed, and another benefiting trans people has already been shot down, as Trumpworld lawsuits against SF are shutting down programs that don’t benefit straight white men.

The City of San Francisco has a very noble program that gives pregnant Black and Pacific Islander mothers $1,000 per month during their pregnancies, and their first six months of post-partum period, in hopes of reversing the disproportionately high maternal death rates in those demographics. But the Chronicle reports that program is in serious legal peril because of a lawsuit from a right-wing legal group.

A simiilar right-wing legal group also successfully sued to end a San Francisco guaranteed income for transgender people program earlier this year, their argument being that it discriminates against people who aren’t trans.

That Chronicle report is an investigation of conservative lawsuits against San Francisco and other California cities that seek to halt programs that benefit disenfranchised communities. And the lawsuits are largely funded by the leaership of the Heritage Foundation, the group behind the notorious Project 2025 blueprint for a second Trump administration.

And very curiously, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the pregnancy assistance program is local wingnut gadfly Ellen Lee Zhou, the serial failed SF mayoral candidate who was seen at the January 6 rallies and is perhaps best known for a racist attack billboard caricaturing Mayor London Breed in 2019.

But Ellen Lee Zhou is just some Starchild-caliber fringe candidate who can barely get five people to show up for her rallies. How is this woman able to be involved in significant legal cases? Is she some pawn plaintiff whom more powerful backers are using to hide the true funding of these lawsuits?

That appears to be the case! Per the Chronicle, the lawsuit was filed by an outfit called the Californians for Equal Rights Foundation. That organization has among its executive board and advisers Michael Gonzalez, a former W. Bush administration speechwriter and current senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation of Project 2025 fame.

“Our board members are the big donors,” Californians for Equal Rights Foundation president Frank Xu admitted to the Chronicle. And of the lawsuits, he says, “Racial preferential policies — including critical race theory, and diversity, equity inclusion — are lowering standards for our next generation.”

The Chron notes that the Californians for Equal Rights Foundation has three other active lawsuits against California municipalities or the state: one challenging middle-income housing grants for people of color in San Diego, another challenging contracts for minority-owned enterprises in San Diego, and another challenging the state’s ethnic studies curriculum.

Related: Right-Wingers File Lawsuit Against SF’s Transgender Guaranteed-Income Program [SFist]

ROME, GEORGIA - MARCH 09: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) puts on her Make America Great Again hat while addressing a campaign rally with Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump at the Forum River Center March 09, 2024 in Rome, Georgia. Both Trump and President Joe Biden are holding campaign events on Saturday in Georgia, a critical battleground state two days before its primary elections. A city of about 38,000, Rome is in the heart of conservative northwest Georgia and the center of Greene's district. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)