It’s a San Francisco showdown that seems to happen every election season: dueling propositions that are easy to confuse with each other.
At stake in the upcoming election is the very structure of SF’s government, which in recent decades has grown like an invasive South American ice plant. Props D and E both claim a shared goal to clean up the sprawl of committees, commissions, and advisory groups that weigh in on nearly every corner of SF public life, including police conduct, small business rules, homelessness policy, big housing projects (and sometimes small ones like home additions).
An SF Civil Grand Jury report from June, dubbed “Commission Impossible,” tallied up 115 City Hall committees but warns the figure might not be correct. It turns out there’s no official count. “This lack of a single, authoritative list of commissions was the first of the Jury’s several discoveries and indicated to us that the entire commission system suffers from a lack of transparency and structure,” the report says.
To streamline this sprawl, two upcoming ballot measures take two very different approaches – and they expose a fundamental split in opinion about the function of democracy in San Francisco government.
Prop D: Cut in half now
If passed, Prop D would slash the number of committees roughly in half, instituting a cap on committees at 65. It would give the mayor more authority and oversight over appointments. Right now the mayor and the Board of Supervisors share appointments for most of these bodies.
At least 18 commissions are in Prop D’s immediate cross-hairs. The measure would strike language from the city charter that created these bodies:
- Building Inspection Commission
- Citizens’ Advisory Council
- Commission on the Status of Women
- Entertainment Commission
- Health Commission
- Historic Preservation Commission
- Homelessness Oversight Commission
- Human Services Commission
- Human Rights Commission
- Juvenile Probation Commission
- Library Commission
- Our Children Our Families Council
- Public Works Commission
- Sanitation & Streets Commission
- Sheriff’s Department Oversight Board
- Small Business Commission
- Youth Commission
Prop D would also rejigger how surviving committees work. Some would face comparably small changes, like mayoral authority to appoint one additional seat on the Planning Commission. Others would be radically altered, like excising the Police Commission’s authority to discipline officers, deferring to the chief of police instead.
After the cuts, Prop D would form a five-person task force to decide which other committees should stay or go, with the potential to resurrect some that got the initial ax. The mayor, the president of the Board, the controller, the city administrator, and the city attorney would each appoint one task force member.
In an email to The Frisc, Prop D sponsor and TogetherSF CEO Kanishka Cheng promises “a thoughtful, independent approach to decide which [committees] should stay, combine, or dissolve.”
Prop D is the brainchild of TogetherSF, a nonprofit focused on government reform. TogetherSF has deep backing from Michael Moritz, a venture capitalist and founder of the San Francisco Standard.
According to the latest financial reports, Prop D has raised more than $6 million, much of it from Moritz. Opponents have raised about $27,000, much of it from the prominent Swig family. (The anti-D campaign is also stumping for Prop E, the alternative to D, and for Prop C, which would give the city controller stronger investigative powers.)
Prop D also has backing from SF YIMBY, the official SF Democratic Party, and from former interim mayor and current mayoral candidate Mark Farrell. (Lawyers for other campaigns have accused Farrell of improperly mixing funds from his campaign and Prop D’s. Farrell denies any wrongdoing.)
Other City Hall alums, however, were alarmed enough by Prop D that they put forth Prop E to counteract it.
Prop E: Assess and propose
Prop E acknowledges SF’s committee system needs a cleaning, but its backers decry Prop D as a “meat ax” approach. They include the SF Labor Council, SF Tenants Union, SF-based Assemblymember Phil Ting, former Mayor Art Agnos, and most prominently, Board of Supervisors President and mayoral candidate Aaron Peskin.
If passed, Prop E would require hearings and cost-benefit analyses of all SF committees, but it would make no immediate cuts. Instead, the Board of Supervisors would gather the information and create a reform package to put before voters in 2026. Backers dub it “the right way” to do committee reform, with more review and public input.
This lack of a single, authoritative list of commissions was the first of the Jury’s several discoveries and indicated to us that the entire commission system suffers from a lack of transparency and structure.
SF Civil grand jury report, June 2024
One big question facing Prop E backers: If they really believed scrutiny mattered, why did they wait until Prop D came along to propose this? Former city controller Ed Harrington, speaking for Yes On E, says commission reform has percolated for a few years, and “everybody that talked about it said we need to put together a task force,” says Harrington.
But the pro-E side was waiting on two key reports: the “Commission Impossible” civil grand jury report and one from local think tank SPUR, which urged lawmakers to “define the purpose and role of commissions and reduce their overall number.” Both reports were released this summer.
Prop D’s arrival forced the issue.
Dueling props and people
Though both parties agree on the need for a commission cleanup, their different approaches to restructuring may not be entirely clear to voters.
Peskin calls Prop D a “billionaire-funded” bid by conservatives to undermine City Hall and shut the public out of government. (Moritz is indeed a billionaire.)
Firing back, TogetherSF’s Cheng alleges that, given the political nature of most appointments, committee members may be inept or unqualified, and thus vulnerable to cronyism. “Prop D restores authority to elected officials, ensuring unelected commissioners no longer hold unchecked power,” she tells The Frisc via email.
Prop D’s campaign literature also charges that various SF problems, from homelessness to the housing crisis, are due to the “bloat” and “corruption” of city government.
But Prop D’s examples of problematic commissions often provoke more questions. For example, Cheng’s official Yes On D voter guide statement accuses an unnamed Planning Commissioner of accepting money from developers, but Prop D’s fine print leaves the commission intact and nearly unchanged.
Cheng criticizes the Human Services Committee for failing to police spending at the Human Services Agency, but there’s no explanation how eliminating that committee will keep the agency on its best behavior. Cheng doesn’t address how eliminating some commissions, such as the Library Commission, will resolve street-level problems, outside of broad gestures toward government efficiency.
Cheng did not respond to these questions directly, saying in an emailed statement only that Prop D “frees up resources, allowing City staff to focus on issues that impact residents.”
Breeding complications
In case the D versus E alphabet antagonism isn’t enough, Mayor London Breed is proposing her own ballot measure on commission reform for 2026.
Breed previously backed Prop D but rescinded her endorsement in August, alleging the measure was “tainted” by association with Farrell. Instead of switching to Prop E – championed by Peskin, also a mayoral rival — she’s staking out her own position.
Assuming Breed is still mayor and the proposal makes the ballot that year, it could clash with or complicate the efforts that stem from either Prop D or E – that is, if either of them wins next month.
When people are asked about too many things in local government, they can become frustrated and check out of the process.
Mark Baldassare, Public Policy Institute of California
She, too, singles out committees as part of the city’s “dysfunction.” Breed’s mayoral campaign spokesperson Joe Arrellano emailed a long list of possible reforms that could come from an executive directive, including but not limited to “consolidating city departments, overhauling commission structures, [and] improving accountability.”
In comments backing Breed’s 2026 proposal, co-sponsor Sup. Rafael Mandelman noted that “too often, our City government acts more like a collection of loosely affiliated departments than a unified municipal government.”
More specifically, Breed is pitching broad changes to the city charter itself. That’s a lengthy prospect. According to an announcement of the mayor’s program, it will take two years to establish a “thorough outreach and implementation process” to meet with residents, businesses, and others about just what kind of charter changes they want to see.
Asked how that’s distinct from Props D and E, Breed spokesperson Arellano tells The Frisc that Breed’s plan is potentially even more ambitious, as the first wholesale charter reform since the 1990s.
Check boxes, or check out?
If voters approve both D and E, the one with the most “Yes” votes will get the nod. Cheng has accused Peskin of introducing E as a poison pill, knowing that when voters see two confusingly similar propositions their instinct is often to vote “no” on both.
It’s similar to the larger issue of long ballots and voter guides hundreds of pages long, like this fall. Voters consistently say they want to keep voting directly on the way city government functions, but when people are “asked about too many things” in local government, they can become frustrated and check out of the process, says Mark Baldassare, survey director at the Public Policy Institute of California.
Local democracy should include robust representation, transparent public hearings, and consideration of many points of view. But no magic bylaw can produce the right number of commissions, says Baldassare.
If you care about the library, you likely support a library commission, if you care about human rights, you probably want to hang onto the human rights commission, and so on. But too many committees, hearings, and bylaws can overwhelm the public. San Francisco will discover in the next couple of years if there’s a way to agree upon just the right amount of democracy.