I performed one of my civic duties today and voted. Actually, the voting part was the easy part. I was mailed a ballot. I filled it out, sealed it, signed the back of it, and walked to the polling place not more than 50 yards across the street from my apartment. There, I said hello to the poll workers and dropped my ballot in a drop box. The civic duty part of the task was in reading the 20 to 30 pages worth of candidate statements and explanations of the various ballot propositions. While voting in San Francisco was easier than in Pennsylvania (access to the polls), it was also harder because there were seven different city ballot measures and one state-wide ballot measure to consider.
Prior to moving here, I began following the news and trying to get up to speed on local issues. For quite some time, there has been the national narrative of a city in decline. Headlines might look like “Is San Francisco the next Detroit?” or “Doom-loop causes doom-loop which causes spin-off doom-loops…” or “There’s poop and drugs everywhere and not the good kind.” Of course, I’m being facetious, but the demise of SF has been a topic of local and national news ever since the start of the pandemic. This is playing out in local politics which seems to be a brawl between the liberal and the very liberal with significant dollars coming in from tech billionaires trying to move the needle in more conservative directions: tough on crime, drug testing for people on public assistance, tax breaks for real estate developers, less police oversight and greater police access to technology like facial recognition, etc.
As a voter and resident, I found it difficult to make heads or tails of the politics here. I received two voter guide booklets, one for the state and one for the city, and I received multiple fliers from “democratic” groups each endorsing slightly different positions on candidates and propositions. For each of the propositions, the city voter guide publishes one argument for and a rebuttal, one argument against and a rebuttal, as well as multiple paid arguments for and against. It’s fairly transparent in so far as it lists the authors and organizations associated with each argument. For the propositions, it also lists a controller’s statement – how will this impact the budget? What makes the city guide book long and intimidating (about 150 pages) is that it includes, along with the synopsis of the propositions, the legal text for each proposition. I did not read the legal texts.
On quite a few of the issues, I felt torn. I’m not opposed to giving the police more latitude in pursuing criminals and I think the police should spend more time on the streets as opposed to doing paperwork… however, those measures are tied in with reducing oversight of the police and with allowing them to use things like facial recognition software (again, with very little oversight). This is one of two measure related to police and policing… the other (which seemed like a mess of a measure) would set a minimum number of officers for the city (great), and would be funded if and only if residents approved a future (yet to be named) shift in tax dollars (wait, what?). My take is that the city needs more police officers – it’s estimated that they are several hundred short. I’d prefer the city to address that issue first before giving existing officers more leeway. City law enforcement, like law enforcement in many cities, has a pretty bad record when it comes to disproportionately targeting minorities, and we’ve had a long-standing issue in this country with the militarization of our police forces. I don’t consider myself a soft on crime guy, but I do believe that crime is routinely used as a scare tactic in elections. When’s the last time we saw a political ad saying a candidate was going to get tough on white collar crime or that we would hire more desk-jockey investigators to pursue tax fraud or corporate malfeasance?
Along the same lines, I saw contradictions in the proposition that would require drug testing for people on public assistance while not requiring any such testing for real estate developers who would qualify for a tax break for converting offices to housing. Why is it that time and time again, “handouts” to people who are struggling come with strings attached, while “handouts” in the form of tax breaks to wealthy corporations never have those strings attached. The city absolutely needs more affordable housing, but I’m not sure why in this capitalist system in which we always purport to let the market work it’s magic we even consider giving tax breaks to companies as a way to entice them to do business here. Either this is a free market or it’s not… “Socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor.”
Generally speaking, I’m not sure how I feel about the proposition system out here. On the one hand, I like the idea of a more participatory government. On the other hand, I can see how it can get carried away, and how it can grind the gears of government to a halt. Voting is a different beast out here – but I suppose that’s what I was expecting.