Election Recap: Residents Are Voting for a Functional Government—But Political Division Is Still in Their Way

2022 has been, in many ways, a referendum on San Francisco’s status quo, and the November election was no exception. Polls (and two high-profile recalls) have been reflecting residents’ dissatisfaction with city government for months. In November, the city’s most pressing issues like housing, educational outcomes for students, public safety, and transit were all on the ballot. So were many of Mayor Breed’s appointees. By and large, San Franciscans voted for elected officials who campaigned on government competency and ballot measures that would help the city work better. In fact, this election was historic in that for the first time in two decades, voters unseated an incumbent supervisor. But in two key areas, education and housing, politics as usual managed to get in the way of meaningful change. Let’s break it down.

Joel Engardio and Matt Dorsey Are Ready to Do the Work on the Board of Supervisors

Voters paying close attention to the voting records of the board of supervisors will notice that supervisors who align on key areas tend to vote and sponsor legislation together. Joel Engardio’s win in District 4 and Matt Dorsey’s win in District 6 mean there are two supes on the board who campaigned on a platform of building more affordable housing, a more robust transit system, and better solutions for San Franciscans suffering from mental health and substance abuse issues. Both Engardio and Dorsey have comprehensive plans for a more robust response to public safety concerns like anti-Asian hate crimes, car break-ins, traffic fatalities, and small business vandalization and robberies—many San Franciscans’ top concerns. If the current board had truly prioritized these issue areas, we would have seen more progress on them. 

Engardio’s win is historic: this is the first time in two decades that San Franciscans have voted an incumbent supervisor out of office. For too long, supervisors have coasted on name recognition and low voter engagement instead of being held accountable to results by an informed electorate. Engardio’s win means that’s changing. Engardio is also the first non-Chinese supervisor to represent District 4 since the district lines were originally drawn. This indicates that voters are prioritizing being represented by a leader who is aligned with them (Gordon Mar, the incumbent, voted against the board of education and district attorney recalls while his district largely supported them).

Supervisor Matt Dorsey’s unique background as someone who has battled with addiction himself, coupled with his successful political career tackling big tobacco and fighting for marriage equality, hold great promise for a future board that is able to confront and solve the fentanyl crisis. We look forward to seeing him continue his work finding solutions to District 6 resident’s top concerns.

District Attorney Brooke Jenkins Will Continue to Address Residents’ Safety Concerns

Voters care about public safety, and they voted like it, too—interim District Attorney Brooke Jenkins’s election to a full term proves that voters are ready for real action. A recent poll by the San Francisco Standard found that half of residents say they feel less safe in San Francisco than they did a year ago. Car break-ins and property crimes are up. The fact that some of the scariest crimes like homicides are down doesn’t change the way that rampant quality of life crimes contribute to a sense of public distrust and division. After District Attorney Chesa Boudin was recalled in June, Jenkins got to work repairing the office’s relationship with the San Francisco Police Department, visiting each police precinct, and reinstating proven methods of deterring crime while also maintaining the office’s focus on criminal justice reform.

Families Emerge as Political Force for a Functional Board of Education and Safer City for Kids

An unexpected side effect of the pandemic? Parents’ renewed involvement in politics—specifically, the decisions of the school board as well as the fight for fewer cars in Golden Gate Park. Watching the previous board of education focus on renaming schools instead of coming up with a plan to stem learning loss led to the parent-led recall of three board of ed commissioners in June. In November, parents were instrumental in electing Lainie Motamedi and Lisa Weissman-Ward, who are laser-focused on outcomes, to the board for full terms. 

Families were also at the forefront of the fight to keep JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park closed to cars, as well as defeating Prop I. That proposition would have reversed the city’s plans to fortify the Great Highway against climate change and halt progress on the plan to turn the Upper Great Highway into a park—and parents weren’t having it.

Parents also care deeply about public safety—the nonprofit group Mothers Against Drug Deaths has been a vocal proponent of District Attorney Jenkins’s efforts to combat the fentanyl crisis.

Political Division Killed Two Good-Faith Efforts at Better Governance—and Added a Superfluous Commission

There were two affordable housing measures on this ballot: Prop D, which was signed onto the ballot by 52,000 voters, and Prop E, which was placed on the ballot by the Board of Supervisors to confuse voters into not passing Prop D. When voters are confused, they tend to vote no, and vote no they did—on both of these measures. This is a sad referendum on the state of both the effort to streamline affordable housing construction in San Francisco but also on the state of politics in the city. Voters are being asked to vote often and vote on a lot—the least elected officials could do is make courageous decisions about what our city needs instead of deliberately manipulating voters into voting down legislation that they’ve overwhelmingly voiced support for. 

Another disappointing loss is the election of only two of the three mayoral appointees to the board of education. Ann Hsu lost narrowly to Alida Fisher, a special education advocate whose positions align more closely with the recalled commissioners than with the mayoral appointees. The idea of electing Motamedi, Weissman-Ward, and Hsu as a slate was that their alignment would help pass common sense solutions on the BOE. With only two-third of their coalition on the board, we could see more political deadlock and less focus on student outcomes. The silver lining here is that we’re paying closer attention to what the school board does now than before the pandemic.

Additionally, the success of Proposition C, which will create a commission to oversee the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, indicates that voters care deeply about homelessness but the city continues to offer only Band-Aid solutions versus fixing the core issues that contribute to rising homelessness. It’s disappointing to see the city continue to layer bureaucracy atop a problem that requires razor-sharp coordination among disparate departments, innovative solutions, and elected leaders being willing to make the hard decisions that compromise often requires. We’ll be closely tracking the activity of this commission to see if it provides the oversight the authors of Proposition C promised that it would.

Too Many Props, But Many of the Right Ones Passed (Or Didn’t) 

Voters bemoaned the long ballot, and rightfully so, but at least they did their research and passed many of the props that they should have. Prop A, which provided a reasonable adjustment to senior retirees’ pensions, and Props F and L, which provide essential funding for the SF Public Library and transit, all passed. Prop H, which will move elections to even years, saving the city money and increasing voter turnout, also passed. And Prop O’s failure demonstrates that voters want to see better financial decision-making at City College.