[SFGP] Greenzine: Help get out the vote!

[Announcement list for SF Green Party, updated weekly]

November 1
GREENZINE
SF Green Party Weekly News and Events

www.sfgreenparty.org
twitter.com/sfgreenparty
mastodon.sfgreens.org/@sfgreenparty
www.facebook.com/groups/SFGreenParty/

Dear Greens,

    Our complete Green Voter Guide to the November 2019 election,
which explains all our endorsements, is on our website:
http://sfgreenparty.org/endorsements/90-november-2019-endorsements
The complete text is also included in this newsletter.  Please forward
to anybody interested!

    Let's help our endorsed candidates to win!  Some big "get out
the vote" events this weekend are below.

*===========================*

What:  Rally for Chesa Boudin with Jane Kim and Mark Leno
Where:  Noe Valley Courts, 4320 24th St, SF
When:  Sat, Nov 2, 11 am - 3 pm

Join Jane Kim and Mark Leno to rally for Chesa!  For our last District
8 mobilization, meet at the Noe Valley Courts to knock on doors and
give out valuable voter information.

*===========================*

What:  Rally for Medicare for All!
Where:  UN Plaza, Hyde and Market St, SF
When:  Sat, Nov 2, 2-4 pm

Join us in San Francisco for a statewide rally in support of Medicare
for All!  Featuring speakers from the California Nurses Association /
National Nurses United and other movement leaders.

More info: bit.ly/sfrally

*===========================*

What:  Rally for Chesa Boudin and Dean Preston
Where:  Alamo Square, SF
When:  Sun, Nov 3, 11 am

On Sunday, November 3rd, the Green Party is co-hosting a GIGANTIC
rally with everyone that's endorsed Dean and Chesa.  Please join
us to get out the vote!

*===========================*

What:  Run for Green County Council
Where:  Department of Elections, City Hall
When:  Now through Dec 6

Are you interested in helping to lead the SF Green Party?  Any SF
Green can run for our County Council by picking up nomination papers
from the Department of Elections in City Hall.  This election isn't
until March 2020, but you only have until this Dec 6 to turn in your
paperwork with 20 signatures from registered Greens.  To qualify,
you must have been registered Green for at least 1 year.

*===========================*

Green Voter Guide for November 5, 2019

Ventresca for Mayor

Joel Ventresca is a longtime neighborhood activist and environmental
commissioner.  He was very active in the fight for public power back
in the early 2000s.  The Green Party previously endorsed him in his
campaign for a board seat on the Municipal Utility District, which
never got created due to a narrow campaign loss for Prop I in 2001.

Ventresca is the only candidate in the contest who's running a
populist campaign with positions to the left of Mayor Breed.  In
response to the Green Party's questionnaire, he supported much of the
Green Party's agenda, including support for public power, social
housing (democratically-run, publicly owned rental housing, for people
of all income levels, with rents capped based on income -
https://prospect.org/infrastructure/america-needs-social-housing/),
commercial rent control, a ban on Airbnb, more democratic oversight of
the Housing Authority, and free Muni.  He's not perfect: like nearly
every other Democratic Party candidate, he's endorsed the
Uber-sponsored Prop D, which will allow Uber and Lyft to continue to
cause traffic congestion and drive people away from Muni.

As we expected, Mayor Breed has continued the same pro-corporate,
anti-neighborhood policies as her predecessors Ed Lee, Gavin Newsom,
and Willie Brown.  Ventresca is not running much of a campaign, but
San Franciscans should vote for him as a signal that we're not happy
with business as usual.


Boudin for District Attorney

In the contest for DA, our endorsement was an easy decision: we
enthusiastically awarded our sole endorsement to Chesa Boudin.  We
believe that this race could present a unique opportunity for San
Franciscans.  It was refreshing to read Boudin's questionnaire
(http://sfgreens.org/questionnaires/2019/boudin_da.html) about how he
would involve the community in the decisions his office makes.  We are
weary of prosecutors who make decisions based solely on the likelihood
of getting a conviction.  We believe they should be made in the
interests of justice.  It would be exciting to have both a District
Attorney and a Public Defender who believe strongly in restorative
justice.

His opponents have criticized Boudin for his current work in the
Public Defender's office, and don't believe an attorney can make the
transition from Public Defender to DA.  This is nonsense.  Public
Defenders make great DAs (and vice versa) because they know the
strategy of the other side.  This is why rich criminals nearly always
hire former prosecutors as their defense attorneys.

Boudin would greatly improve public safety in SF by focusing DA
resources on serious and violent crimes, not victimless crimes that
are easy to prosecute and "run up the stats." In response to our
question about police shootings of numerous victims (Alex Nieto, Alice
Brown, Amilcar Perez-Lopez, Giovany Contreras Sandoval, Herbert
Benitez, Javier Lopez Garcia, Jessica Williams, Luis Góngora Pat,
Mario Woods, Matthew Hoffman, Nicholas McWherter, and O’Shaine Evans),
he stated that it is "hard to imagine why not even a single officer in
any of these shootings was charged." In contrast to our last couple of
DAs (Gascon and Harris), who essentially turned a blind eye to these
shootings, Boudin would do the right thing and bring in an outside
agency to investigate.

We are pleased that Boudin is not the only candidate in the race
running on progressive values.  Leif Dautch
(http://sfgreens.org/questionnaires/2019/dautch_da.html), like Boudin,
is against the death penalty, and supports restorative justice.
However, he gave less direct answers to our questions about police
staffing levels and investigating shootings by police officers.  We
therefore chose to only award our endorsement to Boudin.

We wish we could support a woman for this office; however, the leading
female candidate, Suzy Loftus, has shown she's unfit for the job.  In
2012, she allegedly helped cover up the SFPD's failure to test rape
kits, and even went so far as to personally mislead one of the victims
about the situation (https://www.ebar.com/news/news//279898).  As a
result, both Loftus and the City are being sued in a case that's
currently being petitioned at the US Supreme Court.  Loftus is also
being disingenuous in her promise to prosecute car break-ins, since
the cases would have to be investigated first by the SFPD.  Loftus
declined to participate in our candidate interviews, so we were unable
to have her address these serious concerns in person.

Nancy Tung, the other candidate running for DA, stated that she would
not have charged any of the police officers who shot civilians
(http://sfgreens.org/questionnaires/2019/tung_da.html).  She also
supports increasing the size of the already bloated SFPD, and keeping
Juvenile Hall open.  Although she is opposed to the death penalty, she
does not agree with us on enough other issues for us to consider
endorsing her.


Raju for Public Defender

Mano Raju was appointed Public Defender after the tragic death of Jeff
Adachi.  He is currently running unopposed to finish Adachi's term.

Raju is endorsed by Matt Gonzalez, Adachi's former lieutenant at the
Public Defender's office, and a former Green Party Mayoral candidate.
Raju shares many values with the Green Party: he is strongly opposed
to the Death Penalty and gang injunctions, and he will fight to have
the Public Defender's office funded at levels similar to the SFPD.

Greens strongly supported Adachi for Public Defender, not only because
he shared many of our values, but because he was willing to fight the
Mayor and other conservative Democrats in City Hall on behalf of his
clients.  We hope that once elected, Raju can live up to Adachi's
legacy.


Preston #1, Brown #2 for D5 Supervisor

Dean Preston is a long-time tenant activist and attorney.  In
endorsing him for Supervisor over London Breed in 2016, we wrote:

  He is especially good on issues of rent control and tenants' rights,
  and his answers to our questionnaire show that he agrees with us on
  enough other policy issues that he really should be registered Green
  instead of Democrat.

We have a few policy differences with Preston
(http://sfgreens.org/questionnaires/2019/preston_d5.html).  He
supports Uber's Prop D, which will allow fake taxi companies like Uber
and Lyft to continue to cause traffic congestion and drive people away
from Muni.  And the political club he is heavily involved with,
Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), generally does not endorse
Greens.  When Greens joined SF Berniecrats last year in gathering
signatures to put a social housing initiative
(https://www.sfcommunityhousingact.com/) on the ballot, Preston did
not support the initiative, and several DSA members petitioning for
Prop C actively discouraged voters from signing petitions for social
housing.  However, Preston now says that he supports social housing in
principle.

The appointed incumbent Supervisor, Vallie Brown, is a former aide to
Ross Mirkarimi.  Mirkarimi and Brown passed a groundbreaking plastic
bag ban, as well as CleanPowerSF.  Brown continues to support public
power and municipalizing PG&E's private distribution system in SF.

Although she was appointed Supervisor by Mayor Breed, Brown has
maintained her credibility as an environmentalist: she recently passed
legislation to start phasing out the use of natural gas in City-owned
buildings, as well as requiring large buildings to purchase 100%
renewable energy.  Brown agrees with the Green Party on many more
political positions than her predecessor, Mayor Breed.  In our
legislative scorecard
(http://www.sfgreenparty.org/issues/88-sf-supervisors-report-card-2018),
Breed scored 16/71 (23%) over 6 years as a Supervisor, while Brown has
gone 3 for 5 (60%) since being appointed last year.

However, Greens have strong policy differences with Brown with regards
to building market rate housing.  Although Brown claims that building
more million dollar condos will lower housing prices for everybody,
evidence shows that this instead leads to gentrification and
displacement.  This in turn exacerbates the climate crisis, as
low-wage workers displaced to distant suburbs often must commute long
distances by car in order to keep their jobs in SF.

In the end, both leading candidates in this contest share many key
values with Greens, but both also have serious flaws.  We ultimately
decided to endorse both, and to rank our endorsement in the order we
suggest voters rank them using RCV.  In the end, the choice comes down
to a free market fundamentalist who wants to put 'stack and pack'
housing all over the neighborhood, vs a non-profiteer who has his own
political club.

We support many of Supervisor Brown's efforts, and her track record is
good enough to award her our #2 endorsement.  However, we think Dean
Preston is better on the key issues of housing and tenants' rights,
and would better represent a very progressive district.  We therefore
endorse him in our #1 spot.


No endorsement for School Board

After former School Board President Matt Haney won the District 6
Supervisor's seat, Mayor Breed got to fill the resulting vacancy on
the School Board.  Breed chose her Education Advisor, Jenny Lam.  Lam
is currently running to finish Haney's term, while still holding her
full time job of advising Mayor Breed.

We have some major policy differences with Lam
(http://sfgreens.org/questionnaires/2019/lam_boe.html).  She is very
supportive of JROTC, the purpose of which is to recruit young students
to join the military.  Greens support developing non-military
leadership programs, such as one based on NERT emergency response
training, led by the SF Fire Department.  Lam is also very supportive
of standardized testing.  Standardized testing wastes both time and
money: it eats up nearly two months of class time in the SF public
schools, and money that should be spent in the classroom is diverted
to private (politically connected) testing corporations.  Lam's
politics aren't all bad: we supported her efforts to legalize
non-citizen voting for the School Board.  And among all the candidates
in the race, Lam is clearly the most knowledgeable about our schools.
She has two kids in the public schools herself, and has been involved
for years.

However, our biggest concern with Lam is not the policies she
supports, but rather her close ties to the Mayor's office.  The School
Board is supposed to be an independent body from the rest of SF
government, so having a Board member who directly reports to the Mayor
is very problematic.  The School Board is a part-time job, and some of
its members struggle to balance their full time careers with this
position.  Lam, on the other hand, is paid full time merely to advise
the Mayor.  Because she can spend all her time working on the Mayor's
education priorities, this gives her an unfair advantage over the
other Board members, who only serve part time.

Two other candidates joined the race at the last minute to challenge
Lam: Kirsten Strobel, who has experience working with the school
district through the Legal Services for Children non-profit, and
Robert Coleman, who has been involved in various arts and poetry
programs in the schools.  Both seem to have been inspired to run by
the fight over whether to remove racist, but historic, murals at
Washington High School.

Robert Coleman shares many Green values, and was briefly registered
Green in the aftermath of the Matt Gonzalez for Mayor campaign.  He
agrees with us on many key issues
(http://sfgreens.org/questionnaires/2019/coleman_boe.html), including
JROTC, standardized testing, and non-citizen voting.  However, his
knowledge of the myriad of challenges facing the San Francisco Unified
School District appears to be limited.  He was able to identify some
of the problems with the school assignment system, but does not have a
plan to fix it.

Kirsten Strobel is a development director at SF FILM.  She seems more
knowledgeable than Coleman about the SF schools, based on her answers
to our questionnaire
(http://sfgreens.org/questionnaires/2019/strobel_boe.html), and she
has worked with SFUSD students through her work at Legal Services for
Children.  However, she doesn't have much direct involvement in the
schools.  She also supports JROTC, and opposes non-citizen voting,
stating that it may lead to election fraud.  That's a non-starter for
us.

It's great that the SF arts community is getting involved and running
candidates for the School Board.  However, we've met some SFUSD art
teachers who have found mouse droppings
(https://readymag.com/u93736640/1433226/) and other major problems
(https://missionlocal.org/2019/06/rat-droppings-crumbling-ceilings-and-broken-equipment-buena-vista-horace-mann-parents-say-district-allowing-school-to-fester/)
in their school classrooms.  Artists should care more about these
everyday problems than about preserving racist murals.

The decision to not endorse in the school board race was a tough one.
We like to support citizen candidates, and we like to see competitive
elections.  And Jenny Lam's conflict of interest is far too large for
us to seriously consider endorsing her.

But the problems that plague SFUSD are complicated: segregated
schools, a misunderstood assignment system, widespread shortages of
teachers and staff, major facilities problems, and lack of
transparency in bond spending.  We need citizen candidates to step
forward who have both a direct interest in our schools, and enough
knowledge and experience to tackle these problems.


No endorsement for College Board

Ivy Lee is running unopposed for college board.  She declined to
answer our endorsement questionnaire, so we did not make any
endorsement.


No endorsement for City Attorney

City Attorney Dennis Herrera is running unopposed again.  Once again
he has earned our non-endorsement.  Herrera seeks, and will extend
into a second decade, his service to the elite interests that operate
SF’s political machine.  Herrera is effectively the head of the
neoliberal legal apparatus that shovels money into the treasure troves
of the super-rich, members-only SF socialite club that funds
politicians and the non-profit industrial complex.  This City Attorney
works for the City establishment.  Since 2001, he’s written the
agreements and has had a hand in the crafting and non-oversight of the
City’s crony contracts.  Herrera has cost the city millions in
settlements, wasted tens of millions, and enabled fleecing taxpayers
(https://www.courthousenews.com/s-f-city-attorney-whistleblower-gets-2-million/)
out of hundreds of millions of dollars more.

Dennis Herrera should be shown the door, or, at the very least, forced
to look out it at the destitution he has helped bring about.  Don’t
vote for him, ever, for any elected position.


No endorsement for Sheriff

Paul Miyamoto, long-time veteran of the SF Sheriff's Deptartment, is
running unopposed.  He's running on an "experience, not politics"
platform.  Greens believe that law enforcement, like the military,
needs careful civilian oversight in order to avoid getting out of
control.  The Sheriff's Department is no exception, and it thrived
under three decades of management by Mike Hennessey.  After the
deposition of Sheriff Mirkarimi in 2015 by Mayor Lee and his allies,
the department has gone downhill.

Miyamoto has the endorsement of the the DSA (Deputy Sheriffs
Association) and he doesn’t need ours.


No endorsement for Treasurer

City Treasurer Jose Cisneros was a crony appointee, stuck in place by
our erstwhile Mayor Gavin Newsom.  At a past Green endorsement
meeting, Cisneros claimed not to know the difference between a bank
and a credit union.  He was, however, up to snuff on the difference
between a payroll tax and a gross receipts tax, which he was proud to
help implement in order to facilitate the tech/real estate takeover of
the City.

The Treasurer directs the Office of the Tax Collector and works with
the Assessor-Recorder's Office to ensure that residential property
taxes are collected routinely at the maximum rate, and commercial
property taxes are, in theory, fairly administered without showing any
political favoritism.

Cisneros is running unopposed, and will continue enjoy making $206,424
per year and putting in a good 20 years at a post that should be
replaced by an algorithm and staff at a public bank.  He doesn’t
deserve a vote.


No on A

Prop A is a $600 million bond to pay for the construction,
acquisition, and repair of "affordable housing" projects.  Although
about 1/4 of the bond would go to public housing, and a small amount
would go to worthwhile projects like the SF Community Land Trust, the
vast majority would subsidize private developers to build private
"affordable housing." As with most such project, only a fraction of
"affordable housing" is actually affordable to people who currently
live here.

Prop A is a re-run of 2015's Prop A, a $310 million bond to do the
same thing.  In 2015, we endorsed "No on A" and wrote in our Voter
Guide that Prop A would be:

  ...  a slush fund with little oversight that the local Democratic
  Party Machine will use to pay off politically connected developers
  and nonprofits.

A report online
(https://sfmohcd.org/2015-affordable-housing-general-obligation-bond)
details how the 2015 money was actually spent.  As we expected, some
of the worst developers in the City, including John Stewart Co
(https://sfbayview.com/2017/02/my-constitutional-and-tenants-rights-were-violated-in-john-stewart-co-s-subsidized-hud-housing-on-treasure-island/),
received funding.

Did SF taxpayers get our money's worth?  In the detailed reports (PDFs
linked from the site above), we see that the City paid between one
quarter and one half of the total cost of various private housing
projects, but got none of the equity.  The City's portion of the costs
were roughly $200,000 - $300,000 for each unit, before bond interest.
With interest, the cost to taxpayers approximately doubles (see our
Statement on Bond Funding, below).  Therefore, Prop A pays private
developers to build "affordable housing" at nearly the same price as
it would cost to build new public or social housing ($600,000 -
$700,000 per unit).

Although some of the Prop A money would be spent on worthy projects,
we recommend a NO vote on Prop A.  We hope others will join us instead
in working towards directing City resources towards real public
investments in such as social housing.


No position on B

San Francisco's commissions have a big problem.  For almost all
commissions, the Mayor appoints a majority (and often all) of the
commissioners, who vote on very serious matters that profoundly impact
the lives of San Franciscans.  This system (known as a 'strong Mayor'
system) is deeply undemocratic and gives one lone elected official far
too much power.  Furthermore, because the Mayor's race is such an
expensive election, powerful wealthy and corporate interests often
have so much influence on the Mayor that they strongly impact the
Mayor's appointment decisions.

San Francisco needs put a stop to this by ensuring that the 11 member
Board of Supervisors, which is San Francisco's local legislature,
appoints more of the members of each commission than the Mayor does.
On the most important commissions, members should be directly elected
by voters.

Prop B does not address this problem.  It changes some of the
qualifications for three of the seven members of the Aging and Adult
Services Commission, but still unacceptably leaves the Mayor in charge
of appointing all seven commissioners.  This leaves San Francisco with
a fundamental lack of democracy on that commission.

Prop B is a slight improvement over the status quo, by requiring
representation from some groups, such as veterans, who may have
previously been under-represented.  But Green Party members also
believe that passing Prop B would give the public a false sense of
reform, when not much is really changing at all.

Because of this, we decided not to take a position for or against Prop
B.


No on C

Prop C is a measure sponsored by tobacco companies that would overturn
regulations approved by SF voters and the Board of Supervisors, and
replace them with new regulations written by the tobacco industry.

Prop C would repeal the ban on the sale of vaping products passed by
the Board in June 2019.  It would also repeal the voter-approved ban
on the sale of flavored tobacco (Prop E, from June 2018).  Prop C
would also enact some minor changes in the way tobacco products are
regulated in SF.

In 2018, we wrote:

  We continue to be concerned that flavored tobacco and other vaping
  products, such as JUUL, are marketed to kids.  We strongly oppose
  corporate-sponsored ballot measures to overturn prior elections.
  Corporations should be prohibited from spending money to put
  measures on the ballot.  Only humans, not corporations, should be
  allowed to spend money and otherwise participate in democracy.

There are other good reasons to oppose Prop C.  There is no regulation
on the so-called "inert" chemical ingredients of vaping products, so
we have no idea what is in vaping products or what their health
effects are.  Based on the precautionary principle, we think such
ingredients should be tested and proven safe before they are sold.  We
also have environmental concerns about the single-use plastic that
vaping cartridges are made from.


No on D

Uber and Lyft are responsible for the huge increase in traffic
congestion in San Francisco
(https://sf.curbed.com/2019/8/21/20826611/tnc-uber-lyft-san-francisco-traffic-studies-fehr-peers).
A 2019 study showed that these companies caused 2/3 of a 62% rise in
congestion between 2010 and 2016
(https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Uber-Lyft-account-for-of-traffic-increase-in-13830608.php).
Traffic has only gotten worse since then.  Traffic slows Muni buses
and taxis.  It causes dangerous air quality, increased greenhouse gas
emissions, injuries and deaths for pedestrians and bicyclists, and
lost time and increased stress for everybody.

To "mitigate" these impacts, Prop D would add a token 15 - 33 cent
increase to the cost of a typical $10 Uber or Lyft ride.  It is
projected to raise $35 million per year, supposedly to relieve traffic
congestion.

We oppose Prop D because the tax is far too small compared to the size
of the problem.  $35 million is tiny on the scale of our City budget,
and will have almost no impact on traffic.

What is really needed?  A USF report estimated that making Muni free to
all riders would cost less than $200 million per year
(https://sf.curbed.com/2019/5/20/18632249/usf-students-san-francisco-muni-lyft-uber-fares).
A tax rate just five to ten times higher than proposed in Prop D could
pay for free Muni, along with increased and better service.  Good,
reliable, free public transit, along with a tax of a few bucks on each
Uber and Lyft ride, might actually get some people out of cars and
onto Muni.

Uber and Lyft run totally counter to San Francisco's strong labor and
environmental values: not only do their drivers not have unions, labor
rights, or normal employee benefits, but the companies create massive
carbon emissions by incentivizing drivers to commute long distances.
Revenue flows up to their executives, while all the social and climate
costs are passed down to us.

When it comes to the climate crisis, we can’t keep kicking the can
down the road.  If we want a viable future for our children, we need
real change, not photo ops for politicians and their corporate
buddies.

In response to those who think a 15 cent tax is "a start" or "the best
we can get," remember that raising the tax further, to the 5-10x
higher levels that would be needed to actually improve traffic, would
require a whole new ballot measure with another 2/3 threshold.  If
Prop D passes, and the voters see that it doesn't do what it claims to
do, namely "mitigate traffic," they won't support an increase.  So we
need to get this right the first time.

According to a Matier and Ross column from this March
(https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/philmatier/article/Things-look-good-for-SF-Supervisor-Peskin-s-13693183.php),
D3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin was taken to dinner by Uber and Lyft
representatives, including Peskin's former aide who now has a job at
Uber.  They all agreed to a tax that Uber and Lyft both supported.
This was bribery.  And the fact that Uber and Lyft both wrote and
endorse Prop D is evidence that these corporations agree with us that
the Prop D tax will be too small to cause any decrease in their
ridership.

In the middle ages, wealthy sinners could buy "indulgences" from the
Catholic Church in order to keep right on sinning.  Let's not let the
public officials from the Church of City Hall sell us out in the same
way.  Please join us in voting NO on D!


No on E

Prop E is a misleading initiative that claims it will streamline
"housing for educators." If that's all that it did, we'd be 100% in
favor.  Unfortunately, Prop E also contains a loophole that will open
up public lands zoned as "open space" to private housing development.
Because of that, we can't support it.

Prop E creates a new, streamlined process for private developers who
are building housing that is classified as either "100% affordable" or
"educator housing." The "100% affordable" category includes housing
that is supposed to be affordable to families making 80% of Bay Area
median income ($98,500 per year).  Unfortunately, most working class
families who currently live in SF don't make anything close to that!
The "educator" category includes housing for families making up to
160% of the Bay Area median income ($197,000 per year), so long as at
least one resident is an employee of the SF public schools or the
Community College of San Francisco.

Prop E also removes the restriction against developing housing on land
currently zoned "open space" - a category that includes parks,
shorelines, and the tops of hills.  Prop E does not allow building
housing on land that is being used as a park; however, the Rec and
Parks Department could make parks eligible for development by
transferring the land to a different City department.

Greens believe that what little public land we have should be used
exclusively for public benefit - including in many cases, publicly
owned social housing.  Private development of public open space should
not be allowed, even if well-intentioned.  And unfortunately, Prop E
will do little to help current SF teachers and other residents, who
will struggle to afford new housing that's misleadingly described as
"affordable."

Therefore, we support a NO vote on Prop E.


Yes on F

Prop F, called the "Sunshine on Dark Money" initiative, would prohibit
some corporate contributions to candidates running for local office,
prohibit personal contributions (for some offices) from people with
pending or recently resolved land use matters, and expand the
requirements for disclosing the true source of funds for PAC spending.

It is already illegal for most corporations to donate directly to
candidates in local races.  Prop F would close a loophole that allows
limited liability company (LLC) and partnerships to give money.  In
our view, these are basically the same as corporations, and only
actual human beings should be allowed to contribute to candidates.

Prop F would also prohibit "pay to play" contributions from people
with land use issues pending or recently resolved by the City.  This
regulation was proposed in 2018 at the Board of Supervisors, but was
shot down by Supervisors Breed, Cohen, Safai, Sheehy, Stefani, and
Tang.  As we wrote in our 2018 report card
(http://sfgreenparty.org/issues/88-sf-supervisors-report-card-2018),
these contributions are basically legalized bribery.

Finally Prop F would make it easier to find out the true source of
funds for "independent expenditures" (PAC spending), which is the main
way in which corporations currently influence our elections.

Greens support all 3 of these reforms and enthusiastically recommend a
YES vote on Prop F.


SF Green Party Statement on Bond Funding

The SF Green Party has often been hesitant to embrace bond financing.
In addition to being environmentally and socially responsible, we are
also fiscally responsible.  Bond funding requires payments totaling
about twice the actual cost of whatever improvements are made, and
passes costs on to future generations.  Because people who buy bonds
are almost exclusively the wealthy, as investors are paid back over
the 20-30 year life of the bond, wealth is transferred from middle and
low income taxpayers to rich bondholders.

Bond funding also helps rich people avoid paying their fair share of
taxes, since interest on municipal bonds is exempt from both state and
federal tax.  As noted in the California Voter Guide in 1992, over
35,000 U.S.  millionaires supplemented their income with tax exempt
state and local bond checks averaging over $2,500 per week (that's
over $130,000 per year tax free).  They avoided paying federal and
state taxes on over $5 billion, which must be made up by the rest of
us.  The SF Green Party calls on the public to join us in working to
phase out this regressive and unfair subsidy of the rich and their
investment bankers (who take millions of dollars off the top when the
bonds are issued).

There are a few cases in which Greens have supported bond measures.
In general, we are willing to support bonds that are issued to in
order to build urgently needed, publicly-owned infrastructure, such as
a public hospital or high speed rail.  We generally oppose bonds that
fund ongoing maintenance projects; these should be paid for using City
revenues (which should be increased by raising taxes on the wealthy).

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