SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – San Francisco Mayor London Breed says a potential ballot measure to move citywide elections to presidential years is a democratic socialist power grab, and the proposal's author is pushing back.
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Breed, a Democrat, characterized Supervisor Dean Preston's proposal to hold the next mayor, sheriff, district attorney, city attorney elections and treasurer in 2024 – and every four years after that – rather than in 2023 as Preston and a "group of democratic socialists" deciding "they want to have more control and power of being able to get their people elected."
Preston, the board's first democratic socialist supervisor in decades, introduced his measure in May, citing turnout disparities – especially among poorer voters and communities of color – between off-year and presidential elections as a reason for the change. He told KCBS Radio in an email that Breed is "the only official" in San Francisco to oppose the measure since then.
"I don't think that's the right way to do things," Breed told KCBS Radio's Patti Reising and Kris Ankarlo when asked about the proposal on Monday afternoon. "No members of the public have had any say in how we shape this policy and what it all means."
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors will vote on Preston’s proposal on Tuesday. A similar measure reached the ballot in 2008, failing to pass after 55% voted against it.
More than 86% of San Franciscans voted in the 2020 presidential election and nearly 75% voted in the midterm election two years prior, during which Californians voted for statewide offices and a U.S. Senate seat.
In the 2019 citywide election in between, 41.6% of registered San Francisco voters cast ballots. A higher percentage of San Franciscans (46.2%) cast ballots in last month’s consolidated election, which included the statewide primary and the successful recall of former District Attorney Chesa Boudin.
Common Cause, a voting advocacy group, published a report last year showing that 54 California cities switching from odd-year to even-year elections last decade increased voter turnout, on average, from 25.5% to 75.8%.
"That's why voting rights groups across the state agree: getting rid of odd year elections means more people participate in electing their local officials, especially lower-income voters and communities of color," Preston said in an emailed statement to KCBS Radio. "San Francisco is behind when it comes to this civil rights issue, and it’s hard to understand why the Mayor wouldn't want more people to participate in local democracy."
Supervisors Connie Chan, Rafael Mandelman and Aaron Peskin all voted last week to advance the measure from the rules committee, which was open to public comment.
The full board will vote on the proposal during Tuesday's 2 p.m. meeting. Participants can provide comments in person, over the phone or online by following these instructions. According to the meeting agenda, the supervisors will not hear additional public comment prior to voting on whether the measure should reach the ballot.
Breed told Reising and Ankarlo that she thought putting the measure "on the ballot without any process or public input" would be "the wrong thing to do for the people of San Francisco." In a letter to Peskin last month, Breed said similar measures in Los Angeles and San Jose followed "thorough, independent and objective accounting of possible solutions" in committee meetings and public hearings.
It's unclear how Preston's proposal would, as Breed argued, give democratic socialists in the city "more control and power of being able to get their people elected."
Breed pointed to San Francisco's overwhelming Democratic majority, with about 63% of voters registered Democrats. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an Independent who caucuses with Democrats and calls himself a democratic socialist, won San Francisco in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary with 34.4% of the vote.
But Preston is the first Democratic Socialists of America member to serve as a San Francisco supervisor since Harry Britt left office in 1993, and the organization said last year it had just shy of 95,000 members nationally. The Democratic Socialists of America San Francisco told KCBS Radio that the group "had no role in directly crafting this legislation," lauding "our member Supervisor Dean Preston in this effort to increase democratic participation in city government – something that Mayor Breed consistently opposes."
"In a time when voting rights are under attack across the country, it's crucial that we take every opportunity to make voting more accessible," the group said in an emailed statement. "The Mayor seems to disagree."
Breed is scheduled to appear in front of the board on Tuesday. Preston, according to the meeting agenda, is not one of the supervisors eligible to submit a question in the meeting.
Correction: A previous version of this article said Preston was one of the supervisors eligible to submit a question to the mayor ahead of Tuesday's meeting. He is not, and supervisors from Districts 1, 2, 3 and 4 are. We regret this error.
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