Matt Gonzalez Bows Out

I was at the Temple Bar Saturday night, where Matt Gonzalez read from the Declaration of Independence to a hushed group of delegates from the Green Party of California's General Assembly. It was an inspiring moment, listening to the rising Green star put the party's efforts into historical context.

Then came the news this morning: Supe walks away, Gonzalez decides against re-election. I was looking at the list of candidates running for Supervisor just a few days ago, and Matt's absence was noteworthy. I figured then that there was no rush, and maybe he just hadn't gotten around to filing his declaration of intent. Obviously that wasn't the case.

Matt's re-election seemed a near certainty, given that he's easily the most popular Supervisor in the City and came damn close to beating Gavin Newsom in the December Mayoral run-off. Why isn't Matt running? He says that he wants to practice law again. Maybe he just wants to take a break before he runs for higher office.

Green Party Locked Out of November Ballot

I believe that the right to vote is one of our most important. ACLU President and New York Law Professor Nadine Strossen has said:

"Our constitutional democracy rests on certain core principles. Every vote should be counted accurately, every vote should be counted equally, and no one should be denied the right to vote based on the color of his or her skin."

In San Francisco's March election, it appears that votes were counted accurately, but then the Department of Elections changed its ruling, effectively moving to keep a third party candidate off of the ballot in November.

Terry Baum, a Green Party candidate for Congress in District 8, ran a write-in campaign to get on the ballot to represent the party against Democratic incumbent Nancy Pelosi in November. State law barred her from being on the ballot EXCEPT as a write-in, because she had been registered as a Democrat in the past 23 months.

She needed 1605 write-in votes from registered Greens to qualify, and on Monday, March 15, after two weeks of counting, John Arntz, head of the Department of Elections, told her that she had succeeded.

Their initial count of write-ins had stood at 1407 on March 10. The DOE then went back to check for votes where Greens had written in Terry Baum's name, but failed to connect the arrow on the ballot. (There were also voters who wrote in her name under the wrong office, but these were not counted.)

On Monday, March 15 at 8 am, Terry received a call from Mr. Arntz with the news that she had received 1651 votes -- putting her over the top by 46 votes. The DOE had worked over the weekend counting all the Green ballots, and 244 had written in her name without connecting the arrow.

That was a week ago. A story came out in today's SF Examiner putting Terry's historic efforts into perspective, "Baum makes write-in history."

Terry reported getting a call from Mr Arntz today, after the story broke, that "the City Attorney says they CANNOT count the votes where people wrote in my name but forgot to connect the arrow. This reverses what the City Attorney said before."

I can see why the City Attorney, as a registered Democrat, might have an interest in keeping a third party candidate off of the ballot, although I am inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

It seems to me that the voting rights of registered Greens are at stake here, although this might seem like a trivial case to members of the two major parties.

The House That Gavin Razed

Last Friday, Mayor Gavin Newsom vetoed an anti-demolition ordinance, passed by the Board of Supervisors, that forbids property owners from demolishing habitable buildings containing 20 or more residential units.

The immediate target of the legislation was Trinity Plaza, a 377-unit, rent-controlled building at Eighth and Market streets that is home to a group of primarily low-income tenants. Owner Angelo Sangiacomo wants to raze the building and replace it with five high-rise buildings containing 1,410 rentals.

Guess who gave money to the Newsom campaign? That's right, Angelo "Father of Rent Control" Sangiacomo.

Newsom said the legislation would "stifle our ability to build new affordable housing.'' That's an argument he's making on behalf of developers, of course. What voters should know is that every time "a rent-controlled building is torn down, the city forever loses units in which rents only can be raised a small percentage annually until a tenant moves out. Housing built after 1979 is not subject to rent control."

It looked like Supervisor Chris Daly had a veto-proof majority of eight supervisors until Bevan Dufty switched his vote to "no" on February 23, joining supervisors Michela Alioto-Pier, Tony Hall and Fiona Ma in opposing the law.

Newsom has been getting a lot of much-deserved attention since he took office January 8, first for appointing women to the posts of police chief and fire chief, and an African-American lesbian to the school board, then for authorizing gay marriages in the City. (Lest we forget, Matt Gonzalez supported gay marriage during the campaign, while Newsom did not. In fact, Gonzalez cited his support for gay marriage as just one of many issues that led him to turn Green in November 2000. "I decided I am not going to vote for candidates who support the death penalty or oppose gay marriage.")

These issues are telling, but ultimately just window-dressing for the house that Newsom will build for himself as mayor. It's on issues like housing, homelessness and big business that Newsom will show himself to be what we were afraid of, just another neo-liberal gentrifier.

Slate for March 2, 2004 Election

// President //
HOWARD DEAN

// US Senator //
BARBARA BOXER

// US Representative, District 8 //
Write-in: TERRY BAUM

// State Senator //
CAROLE MIGDEN

// State Assembly, District 13 //
MARK LENO

// State Propositions //

YES on Prop 55: Education Facilities Bond Act
YES on Prop 56: State Budget, Related Taxes, Penalties
NO on Prop 57: Gov Schwarzenegger's power grab
NO on Prop 58: "Balanced Budget" act

// Regional Proposition //

YES on Regional Measure 2: more funds for mass transit

// City and County Propositions //

YES on A: transfer accrued vacation and sick leave
YES on B: retirement benefits for public defenders and district attorneys
YES on C: reduce police staff, replace with civilians
YES on D: retirement benefits for domestic partners
YES on E: vote of non-compliance for the PATRIOT Act
YES on F: reclassify deputy sheriffs as safety employees
YES on G: supplemental pay for city employees called to military service
YES on I: phase out diesel buses, meet anti-pollution standards
NO on J: gentrification disguised as "workforce housing"

I'm in agreement with the SF Green Party and the SF Bay Guardian on more than 80% of the above ballot items. See for yourself who is endorsing whom.