Three Lurie-backed measures headed to the November ballot seek to "streamline" City Hall, including two that would expand the mayor's authority and one that would significantly raise the minimum number of signatures required for petitions.

Three measures backed by Mayor Daniel Lurie that would overhaul parts of San Francisco's government have officially qualified for the November ballot, including proposals that would expand the mayor's authority over City Hall and make it substantially harder for citizen-led initiatives to reach voters, as the Chronicle reports.

The San Francisco Department of Elections announced this week that all three "Clean Up City Hall" measures met the signature threshold after a random sampling verification, according to a press release by the mayor’s office. The proposals would change how city departments are managed, overhaul contracting rules, and raise the number of signatures needed for most local ballot measures from roughly 10,600 to about 42,500.

According to the Chronicle, Lurie has reportedly pitched the proposals as an effort to cut through bureaucracy that he argues has made it difficult for the city to respond quickly to issues like housing, homelessness, and other longstanding challenges. His campaign has framed the measures as a way to make city government more accountable and reduce the lengthy, often confusing ballots San Franciscans regularly face.

“What we are trying to do is to simplify ballots and actually make supervisors and the mayor work together to come to agreement and stop putting everything in front of the voters,” Lurie said in March, per SF Examiner. “It rewards division.”

The most far-reaching proposal would give the mayor significantly more authority over the executive branch. Under the measure, the mayor could hire and remove most department heads within the executive branch, reorganize departments and reporting structures unless the Board of Supervisors rejects those changes, appoint deputy mayors to oversee city operations, and allow appointing authorities to remove most commissioners they appoint.

Lurie has argued the city's charter leaves the mayor with authority over only a small fraction of department heads and makes reorganizing government unnecessarily difficult, as the Examiner reported. City officials note that roughly 90% of departments currently cannot be reorganized or even renamed without voter approval because they're established in the City Charter.

A second measure would shift greater authority over San Francisco's purchasing rules to the City Administrator while increasing the dollar threshold for contracts requiring Board of Supervisors approval to account for inflation. Lurie has pointed to high-profile examples like the infamous $1.7 million Noe Valley public toilet as evidence that the city's contracting process has become overly cumbersome, per the Chronicle.

The third proposal increasing the number of signatures required for citizen-led initiatives has reportedly generated the strongest opposition. Supporters of the measure argue the change would reduce the number of competing or overlapping measures that end up on San Francisco ballots and encourage policymakers to negotiate legislation at City Hall instead of taking disputes directly to voters.

The measure would also eliminate the mayor's ability to place measures on the ballot unilaterally and require at least six members of the Board of Supervisors, rather than the current four, to send measures to voters. It would also allow initiative proponents to withdraw measures after signatures have been submitted, creating an opportunity for negotiated compromises before Election Day.

Critics, however, argue that raising the signature threshold would make it much harder for grassroots organizations, labor unions, and neighborhood groups to qualify measures, while wealthy interests would still be able to finance large signature-gathering campaigns.

According to the Chronicle, the San Francisco Labor Council voted this week to oppose the proposal, and a group called Fair Ballot Access has formed to fight it. Labor Council Executive Director Kim Tavaglione argued that increasing the signature requirement "only allows billionaires to put something on the ballot" and discourages public participation in city government.

Mission Local reported Tuesday that Fair Ballot Access argues that the measure would erode a long-standing right for residents to place issues directly before voters, regardless of who occupies the mayor's office.

"Our contention will be, this is not about the mayor. This is about removing a right that San Francisco voters have had for a long time," Fair Ballot Access consultant Daniel Anderson told Mission Local. "I think there will be people who like the mayor but still think the measure goes too far."

Supporters of the measure counter that San Francisco's ballots have become unusually long and confusing. City voters weighed in on 15 local measures in 2024, compared with seven in Los Angeles, three in Oakland, and one in San Jose.

As SFist previously reported, Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman is also sponsoring a separate charter reform measure that will appear on the November ballot. His proposal would eliminate or narrow the responsibilities of several City Hall oversight commissions based on recommendations from the charter review task force created by voters in 2024.

The three Lurie-backed measures have attracted support from Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, several labor organizations, and a majority of the Board of Supervisors, though the proposal to raise the signature threshold appears poised to face the most organized opposition ahead of the November election, according to the Chronicle.

Per Mission Local, the Clean Up City Hall campaign has raised about $8.6 million so far, including $2 million from Silicon Valley venture capitalist Michael Moritz.Among the biggest contributors backing Lurie's measures are Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen, Lyna Lam, investor John Pritzker, Laurene Powell Jobs' Emerson Collective, and Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman.

Related: Mayor Lurie, Sup. Mandelman Introduce Ballot Measures Aimed at Reforming City Charter

Image: Daniel Lurie/Facebook