Election 2020
It’s not over.
As you already know, the results are still up in the air for the national election, and that’s unsettling. But whatever happens, whether the president is re-elected or Joe Biden wins the White House, the nightmare is not over.
With the vote count still going in a few corners of several key states that determine the outcome for a whole country of 330 million people, it’s clear there is very little to cheer about.
One thing to get right out of the way: You could stack sheets of paper containing every piece of journalism on four years of Trumpian bungling and bigotry, and although it would be awesome to behold this monument punching through the atmosphere, half of the electorate will want to walk up and urinate on it. While the popular vote may tilt toward a slight majority in the coming days, it makes no rebuke of mendacity and mediocrity, no strong call for progressive change from the broader electorate.
The other thing, the big thing, is that the pandemic will keep raging. The environment will continue to deteriorate. Families that have been separated will not be reunited. The courts, stacked with hacks and attack dogs, will rubber-stamp the party line. Private groups will be emboldened to game the initiative process and counter established law and legislation, no matter how onerous or draconian to people. Yes, even here in deep blue California, that’s where Prop 22, which would carve out app-based drivers from employment rules, is winning 58% to 42%, or by some 2 million votes statewide at last check. The SF-based companies like Uber, Lyft, and others can say that their $200 million backing it was money well spent. In fact, shares of the two ride-hail companies are up by double digits.
Democrats could still win the White House, but they’ll likely lose the Senate, which means what we’ve been living through here in SF isn’t over. COVID is still running roughshod over our local economy and delaying reopenings. Rents have gone down, but are still nowhere near affordable. Our transit systems, Muni and BART, are scrambling to survive. Our streets and sidewalks are unkempt, just as they were before the pandemic. Then there’s the human catastrophe of homelessness, untreated mental health, and harrowing addiction affecting every neighborhood.
Party housing
So what have SF’s voters said in this election? Local politics might appear petty and quaint against the national backdrop, but the results so far show that voters like their politics leaning far left. Aaron Peskin and Dean Preston will remain supervisors for districts 3 and 5, respectively. Proposition A, a parks bond that bolted on homelessness and mental health funding, is seen passing above its two-thirds vote threshold. Prop L, which would slap additional taxes on companies that pay exorbitant amounts to their senior executives, is also way ahead.
This mix of compassion and progressive partisanship gets a bit convoluted when you try to parse out the impact on housing, for example. Everyone around here agrees that the city is deeply and unfairly unaffordable, but that doesn’t mean they support Mayor London Breed and her push to build more housing of all kinds. In fact, a heavily progressive Board of Supervisors, solidified by Preston’s victory in District 5 last year, came deeply suspicious of new market-rate projects, even as fees from those projects help pay for affordable housing.
In addition, supervisors as a whole have done little to ease restrictions that would allow a boom in housing development significant enough to make a difference. Then COVID hit and scrambled the calculus. The ensuing recession has made new financing of market-rate housing a difficult proposition, which puts those affordable subsidies in jeopardy.
But voters stepped up to support propositions to cut the red tape, raise tax money, and potentially get things going again. Prop H, which would expedite the approval and inspection process for permits in neighborhood commercial districts, and Prop K, which would allow the city to own or develop thousands of low-income units, are sailing toward passage. (These mandates sync perfectly with the recommendations from SF’s COVID-19 Economic Recovery Task Force, championed by Breed and Board of Supervisors president Norman Yee, among others.)
Prop I, which would increase the transfer tax on commercial and residential real estate, and is complementary to Prop K, also has a solid lead. Preston acknowledged in a recent interview with The Frisc that the proposition was something of a pilot: If approved, it could spur more ambitious proposals that wouldn’t have been as palpable to voters before the pandemic.
As for the other contested supervisorial races, District 11’s incumbent Ahsha Safai seems to have fought off a challenge from former supervisor John Avalos. In the open District 1 race, at last check former Breed adviser Marjan Philhour has the slightest of edges over Connie Chan, the ex-Peskin aide. As for the suburban-ish District 7, the marvels of ranked-choice voting have put Joel Engardio and former planning commissioner Myrna Melgar as last candidates standing. When answering The Frisc’s candidate survey in September, both expressed thoughtful and fairly nuanced answers about the city’s housing shortage.
San Franciscans have worked hard and sacrificed together to stave off the worst of COVID-19 so far. Now, with this election, we have made clear that we’re willing to spend money amid a crushing recession. It’s up to the new board, the mayor, and their various allies to spend it wisely and with the most benefit as quickly as possible. Not an easy task, but conservative partisans, especially at the federal level, will look to fight against help for our city — or any city, really.
Just as we thought we were about to see the end credits roll on a four-year national horror movie, the script might not flip. We’ll need to stick together more than ever.
Follow Anthony Lazarus on Twitter: @Sr_Lazarus