With a federal holiday appears on the calendar, city hall's motto becomes: "Ask not what your country can do for you, but how much time off you can take from your country".
In this particular case, The supervisors like to celebrate Labor Day by pretending to have labored, while their staff likes to celebrate Labor Day by pretending to rest. (The one exception to this rule is Michela Alioto-Pier and her staff, who celebrate Labor Day by going into labor). The result for both is a three week "vacation" during which government grinds to a halt but politics never stops. It is absolutely the worst of all worlds, provided you don't live in Los Angeles.
SF Government InAction is never more aptly named, or more pointless, than when the supes are in recess -- so I'll be in recess the next two weeks as well (in fact, the Government Audit & Oversight Committee and I will be sharing a camp at Burning Man: "Accountability Camp."). But I thought that this week, while all's quiet on the western front, would be a good time to review the new Board of Supervisors, take stock of what they've accomplished after eight months, and see where we are now.
This will take less time than you think.
The first thing worth noting is that San Franciscans seem to have little buyer's remorse.
By and large, people in the city seem happy with the class of 2008. One member in particular, David Campos, has made good government types go weak in the knees by demanding that best practices and ethical rules actually be followed. SF Gov InAction is not immune from this Campos crush: I've even been writing David a poem. It begins:
"Oh tawny bough of due process,
Who sits in gilded committees
Like Apollo guiding golden ethics
Through the corrupt world's proclivities ..."
It may need to be composted -- or, in this case, Camposted.
Campos is also a constant force behind attempts to modify San Francisco's "Sanctuary City" laws. Say what you will about those laws, and what should be done with them -- there's no question that Campos has emerged as a recognized player in an area he cares about.
Other new supervisors haven't soared to such Olympian heights, but most of them have stood out. While it's safe to say that David Chiu is no Aaron Peskin, it's also fair to remember that Aaron Peskin didn't start out being Aaron Peskin either: He was an experienced legislator before he took on the Board's presidency. While there is still a raging debate as to whether David Chiu has a soul, there is no debate over his basic competence ... and little doubt that he's growing into the role of Board President faster than pot grows in the Sunset.
John Avalos is a bit more controversial, given the number of people who feel that he settled for too little in the budget debate ... including his "best friend" and mentor Chris Daly. But again, it needs to be remembered that this was Avalos' first year -- and that in terms of the nuts and bolts of the budgeting PROCESS (rather than result) there's no question that he did a superb job. Could the results have really been better? That's a tough call -- which we'll revisit shortly -- but Avalos demonstrated absolute mastery of what happened in public, and that's invaluable. Back room negotiating requires another skill set, and people who are too good at it are not to be trusted.
Eric Mar is generally seen as the weakest of the freshman legislators: He's not responsible for any significant pieces of legislation to come up so far, nor has he found his niche as a power-broker on the board. Mostly, he's swung at whatever lefty causes have come his way, from the plight of the Palestinians to the (ahem) "San Francisco Eight," and it's difficult to say whether these Easy-Bake resolutions are most painful when someone does or doesn't notice them. Still, the fact that he mouths the right platitudes is enough to the keep the wacky left happy, and the fact that he's not his predecessor, Jake McGoldrick, is a big plus for everyone else. So Mar's keeping afloat.
This legislative season belongs to the freshmen: Not only do they control most of the key positions on the board, but the more experienced members have seemed ... distracted. And well they might. Ross Mirkarimi just had a new baby (and may run for mayor); Sean Elsbernd just had a new baby; Bevan Dufty is running for mayor; Michela Alioto-Pier is running for state insurance commissioner; Chris Daly (D-Suburbia) has seen his life turned upside-down. It would be a stretch to say that they're just waiting out their terms, but, right now it, seems like "City Supervisor" is a young person's game.
For all this action, the change in generations has changed very little for San Francisco. The progressives may have preserved their majority on the board of supervisors, but they haven't gained any leverage. On every issue that has really mattered to them, they have failed to beg, borrow, or steal the two extra votes needed to kick the mayor's ass. That means that even an absentee Gavin Newsom is still a bigger man on campus than the hard-working progressive student council.
In politics, nobody hears the yearbook editor cry.
There are several reasons for this, one of which is the absurd imbalance of power between San Francisco's executive and legislative branches: The mayor has too much control over appointees, too much command of the bureaucracy, and waaaaay too much power to screw with the budget even after it's been agreed on. Those are tough nuts to crack.
Beyond that, the Mayor's team are experienced back-room brawlers -- while none of the new board leadership is. That's showed in the two biggest tussles between Room 200 and David Chiu and his merry men: the Muni budget and the city budget. In both cases, the board's majority started out with a clear statement of principles and a clearly preferred approach, and in both cases they bargained it all away with the mayor's surrogates. His surrogates, mind you: the fact that the president of the Board of Supervisors has to make an appointment to talk to California's hair-apparent is all you need to know about who has the psychological advantage.
But most importantly, the rigidity of the progressive movement combined with the political climate means that Newsom -- a man whose pragmatism is the conjoined twin of his egotism -- will always have more to offer the swing votes.
The swing votes are Bevan Dufty and Sophie Maxwell, both of whom are, by temperament, sympathetic to the progressives on most of their issues. But what do they want?
Bevan Dufty wants to be mayor. Can the progressives give him that?
Not a chance: Bevan's a moderate who would never pass the ideological purity test of the progressive witch-hunters. He will never be their candidate of choice: Even if the leadership were to try to push their interest groups into his camp, the rank-and-file wouldn't follow. Bevan won't get enough progressive endorsements, progressive money, or progressive volunteers to make it worth his while to play ball.
Gavin Newsom's allies, on the other hand, would be happy to co-opt Bevan if it looks like he's got a chance. Since Newsom (by all accounts) doesn't give a damn what happens to room 200 after he leaves, he can promise Dufty all the access, endorsements, money, and logistical aid he needs. Newsom also has something to take away: Whereas Dufty's no worse off than he was before if he votes against the progressives, Newsom can potentially cut Dufty off from the people he needs to win citywide.
The result could best be seen on the Muni budget: Bevan publicly stated that he thought it was terrible, and originally sided with the progressives to veto it. But by the time the negotiations were through, he was in the mayor's pocket.
Why would it have gone any differently?
The same basic dynamic plays out with Sophie Maxwell, though she's more of an enigma than Dufty. My best guess as to what Sophie wants -- which is no better than anyone else's -- is that she actually wants what she ostensibly wants: development, jobs, and resources for her suffering district.
This puts her at odds with her progressive colleagues in fundamental ways: They're happy to shunt money to poor neighborhoods ... but there is no money. Besides, Sophie wants DEVELOPMENT, something the progressives wouldn't know how to give even if they wanted to. Which they don't. The mayor's allies, on the other hand, are developers who would love to develop, and would be happy to work with Sophie on that, circumstances permitting.
Once again, Gavin Newsom has something to offer a swing vote - while the progressives don't.
Not only is this fundamental dynamic not going to change through 2010, it's going to get worse. If the progressives don't decide that winning legislative fights is worth the possibility of a Mayor Dufty and a built-up Bayview, then both Dufty and Maxwell are going to get more desperate as they get closer to being termed out of office, which will push them closer to the mayor and his downtown allies.
Look for that dynamic to continue until there's a new mayor -- either because Newsom gets the governor's big chair, or is termed out of office. At that point, all bets are off.
