But the Nov. 5 election revealed that voters in the region have limits to their compassion.
Motivated by pent-up frustration over property crime and homelessness, and a sense that San Francisco and Oakland have lost control of their streets, Bay Area voters went to the right in last week’s elections, ousting both cities’ mayors and ousting them. Rejected a small number of leftists. Wing candidate. And in a stunning rebuke to the progressive movement for criminal justice reform that the region once championed, a majority of voters in all nine Bay Area counties voted to impose harsher penalties for habitual theft and crime. He voted in favor of Proposition 36, a statewide ballot measure. Fentanyl is involved.
In San Francisco, Mayor London Breed lost her re-election bid against four prominent Democratic Party members, two of whom were moderates. Voters instead chose Daniel Lurie, a political outsider, wealthy philanthropist and Levi’s successor, who promised to shut down outdoor drug markets and that San Francisco would not welcome street encampments.
In the East Bay, voters recalled Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao and Alameda County Dist. Atty. Pamela Price, two progressive leaders elected in 2022;
In their efforts to stay in power, both Breed and Tao emphasized that crime levels in both cities have declined in recent months and called for more time to make changes. But current city and county leaders don’t have a strong answer to the region’s ongoing struggles with homelessness, street crime and an economic downturn that hasn’t yet recovered from COVID-19, merchants say. It was not possible to overcome the widespread perception among the owners and residents. -19 pandemic.
“People are tired of feeling like government can’t solve their toughest problems,” said Keely McBride, a political science professor at the University of San Francisco. “The problem is actually frustration with dysfunction.”
The rightward shift was financed on both sides of the bay by tech giants and wealthy investors relatively new to local politics. In San Francisco, tech executives donated millions of dollars to various local campaigns and organized efforts to elect moderate candidates against progressive incumbents.
Meanwhile, the Oakland recall effort against Tao was heavily funded by Philip Dreyfuss, a hedge fund executive who lives in Piedmont, a picturesque city bordering Oakland.
The tech industry is becoming increasingly involved in Bay Area politics as more executives and employees put down roots. They see their vast wealth as a means to inject centrist leanings into local governance, including mayor’s offices, county boards of supervisors, city councils and school boards.
Their efforts began in earnest in 2022, when a number of political groups funded by the tech industry supported recall elections in the former San Francisco area. Atty. Chesa Boudin and three school board members. Boudin was accused of focusing on reforming the criminal justice system rather than prosecuting crimes. Meanwhile, school leaders came under fire for keeping classrooms closed for months longer than most other school districts in the country during the coronavirus emergency.
Breed, the first Black woman elected mayor of San Francisco, took office in a special election in 2018 following the unexpected death of Mayor Ed Lee. She was hailed as a hero for taking the bold step of locking down the city at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
But she lost political influence as property thefts and retail thefts became more brazen and homeless encampments spread beyond the boundaries of downtown and into every corner of the city.
Over the past year, Mr. Breed has gotten these issues right, pushing for two ballot measures that would strengthen police oversight powers and require drug testing and treatment for county welfare recipients suspected of illegal drug use. succeeded. Since August, she has overseen an aggressive campaign to clear large tent encampments.
But she failed to convince voters that the changes were necessary to get the city back on track.
As of Monday night’s tally, Mr. Breed had received 24.3% of first-choice votes and Mr. Lurie had 26.7% in the city’s ranked-choice system, which allows voters to choose multiple candidates in order of preference. It became. When the race was announced Thursday, Mr. Lurie had received 56% of the total ranked choice vote and Mr. Breed had 44%.
“I intend to declare a fentanyl emergency on the first day of my administration,” Lurie vowed at a news conference Friday. “We’re going to be tough on drug traffickers, and we’re going to be tough but compassionate on the conditions on our streets.”
Lurie, 47, was born in San Francisco, the son of a rabbi. His parents divorced when he was young. His mother, Miriam Haas, was married to billionaire businessman Peter Haas, a great-granddaughter of Levi Strauss and a longtime executive at the denim company founded by Strauss. Peter Haas passed away in 2005, and Lurie and his mother are among the main heirs to the Strauss family fortune.
Philanthropist Daniel Lurie, heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, emphasized his position as an outsider to city hall in his bid to become the next mayor of San Francisco.
(Steven Lamb/Associated Press)
Lurie is the founder of Tipping Point, a San Francisco nonprofit that funds efforts to lift people out of poverty. He had never previously held elected office, and his status as a political outsider resonated with voters tired of politics-as-usual.
Lurie said he believes the election results speak to a hunger for accountability. “They want change, but they just want common sense,” he says.
Mr. Lurie may have less friction than Mr. Breed in getting the county’s powerful Board of Supervisors to support his policies. Tuesday’s election added at least two centrist Democrats to the 11-member board, which has long had a progressive majority.
In the East Bay, nearly 62% of Oakland voters supported recalling Thao, the city’s first Hmong mayor, and 64% voted to recall Price, Alameda County’s first black district attorney.
Mr. Tao defeated the moderate Democratic Party in the election two years ago by less than 700 votes. She took office in the midst of a post-pandemic crime wave and economic recession, and she said the first two years were difficult.
But her detractors had no patience for any failures. And Tao made some mistakes.
In June, just as the recall bill was due for a vote, the FBI searched Tao’s home. On the same day, the home of an employee of a waste company that had a contract with the city and provided campaign funds to Tao and other elected officials was raided. Tao said she was told she was not a target of the investigation, but the FBI has not yet commented on what prompted the search.
The recall campaign against Tao accused her of lacking “competence, judgment and ability to lead what was once a great American city.”
Price, a former civil rights attorney, was elected two years ago on a promise to bring criminal justice reform to the prosecutor’s office. She promised to focus on alternatives to incarceration and prosecute police misconduct.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California said, “Price’s recall is part of a broader conservative strategy in California and across the country to roll back criminal justice reforms aimed at breaking the cycle of mass incarceration of Black and brown people. It should be seen as part of the process.” opposed the recall, said Friday.
But Seneca Scott, a spokeswoman for Tao’s recall campaign, said widespread voter dissatisfaction in the Bay Area should be seen as an indictment of local leaders who prioritize progressive politics over functioning communities. Ta.
“Progressives in Oakland did what they did in San Francisco. They ignored crime. They ignored poverty,” Scott said. “They need to do some soul searching.”