[Ed. Note: 10/31/2015: This “post” was originally a pair of emails (“LIST” & “DETAILS”) I sent to my friends on 06/05/2006. I have posted it today in 2015, and backdated for archival/search purposes]

LIST:
(my apologies if you get this multiple times & if you don’t want to
get this type of stuff from me, just let me know)

Hey folks –
So here is my ‘Deep Slate for the June 2006 elections.
– This email contains the endorsements in a super-simple list – easy
to print!
– The whys & wherefores are in a second email entitled: “DETAILS”.
I’ll send that out shortly.
– Please feel free to forward this far & wide….

To find your polling place:
http://gispubweb.sfgov.org/website/pollingplace/index.htm
OR
554 4375

Go Vote TOMORROW!

The key is as follows:
• the more UPPERCASE – the more strongly I feel
• exclamation = don’t get me started!
• * = I don’t know a lot about it & went with the Guardian or
California League of Conservation Voters

—————————————————
Governor: Phil Angelides
Lieutenant Governor: Jackie Speier*
Secretary of State: Debra Bowen*
Controller: Joe Dunn*
Treasurer: Bill Lockyer*
Attorney General: Jerry Brown*
Insurance Commissioner: Cruz Bustamante*
Member, Board of Equalization, District 1: Betty Yee*

United States Representative: Pelosi
State Senator: 12 – bleagh they all suck. yee
Member, State Assembly: JANET REILLY/MARK LENO
Members, County Central Committee
District 12
Susan Hall, Trevor McNeill, Jane Morrison, Melanie Nutter, Connie
O’Connor, Roy Recio, Jason Wong

District 13

BILL BARNES, ROBERT HAALAND, RAFEL MANDLEMAN, David Campos, Gerry
Crowley, Rick Galbreath, Michael Goldstein, Laura Spanjian, Holli
Thier, Scott Wiener

Green Party
SUSAN KING, John-Marc Chandonia, Kim Knox, Nancy Lewis, Sue Vaughan,
Patrick Villano

NON PARTISAN:
Judge of the Superior Court, Seat #8: Safire
State Superintendent of Public Instruction: JACK O’CONNELL

PROPOSITIONS:
81: Yes
82: Yes

A: no
B : Yes
C : Yes
D : NO

DETAILS:
(my apologies if you get this multiple times & if you don’t want to
get this type of stuff from me, just let me know)

These are the details of my ‘Deep Slate endorsements – to see it in
simple list form see the other email entitled: “LIST”.

Since this is a primary election for state offices mostly, I don’t
presume that I know tons of details about the state issues, as most
of you know most of my political work and activity is at the local,
San Francisco level. Thus some of the endorsements below are taken
from compiling what the California League of Conservation Voters, the
SF Bay Guardian, and the Sierra Club have had to say.

Thanks again to the number of folks who have asked me for my opinions
– I know I say it every time but it is quite true – I really am
honored – any questions or flames can, of course, be addressed to me….

Ok – so to figure out how to value my opinions you should know the
following:

• My opinions come from my experience in local politics over the past
10 years & the tons of candidate interviews I’ve done with the San
Francisco League of Conservation Voters & all the lobbying I’ve done
at City Hall, etc etc…. As you know I don’t get a dime for this,
I’m a software engineer by day, and a political activist in my spare
time.
• The 3 biggest “norths” of my political compass are
environmentalism, social justice issues & good government (reform
type) issues.
• I’m basically an idealist, an optimist, and a humanist.
• In some of these races it is a matter of picking between flawed
options….
• Ballot measures are really a bad way to govern. One reason is that
you have to boil complex issues down to yes/no votes – so remember
there is often a lot of balancing going on…..
• I’m President of the San Francisco League of Conservation Voters &
on the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.
While my views are definitely shaped by my activities in these
organizations, my endorsements do not represent the views of these
organizations.
• 90% of my experience & knowledge is about local issues – so
understand that state issues are a little greyer for me unless I say
otherwise.

—————————————————
Primary Elections
Governor: Phil Angelides
Westly isn’t bad, but Angelides has been consistently smart about a
lot of issues and a really good environmental and other issues.
Particularly impressive to me is the fact that Angelides will
actually talk about raising taxes to fix all the budget woes of our
state. Crazy talk from a politician – using logic and all. He is
big on smart urban development and is actively pushing for clean
energy. Done. Vote for him already. Sierra Club, CLCV, Guardian all
big on him.

To be honest, on all of these I went with the California League of
Conservation Voters & the SF Bay Guardian:
Lieutenant Governor: Jackie Speier*
Secretary of State: Debra Bowen*
Controller: Joe Dunn*
Treasurer: Bill Lockyer*
Attorney General: Jerry Brown*
Insurance Commissioner: Cruz Bustamante*
Member, Board of Equalization, District 1: Betty Yee*
State Superintendent of Public Instruction: Jack O’Connell*

United States Representative: Nancy Pelosi

State Senator: 12 – bleagh they all suck. yee
I find it hard to endorse Leland Yee after all the outright lies he
told during the Central Freeway battles, but from my reading, he is
the best of a weak bunch.

Member, State Assembly: JANET REILLY/MARK LENO
FINALLY two an endorsements I can really get behind. Most of you are
in Mark Leno’s district, and this is a no brainer. Mark has been a
great and consistent progressive voice and leader at the State level
on lots of good environmental and social issues. He’s also very hard
working and a pleasure to work with – I would think even for people
he disagrees with. Done.

As for the other race, I really hope some of you live in the 12th
assembly district because Janet Reilly REALLY needs to win – two
reasons: Fiona Ma is REALLY (one of if not the worst environmental,
tenants rights, social issue votes on the Board of Supes) and Janet
Reilly, while not super experienced, is super progressive for the
West side of town – she’s also got a pretty smart plan for single
payer health care, a really good environmental agenda, and is
generally bright and capable.

NOTE: California League of Conservation Voters (not the SF League of
Conservation Voters) – after a really strong interview by Reilly and
a really weak interview by Ma, bowed to external political pressure &
gave a SUPER LAME dual endorsement. UUUUGH – to one of the WORST
enviro voters in SF no less!

Democratic & Green County Central Committees
The Democratic County Central Committee does 2 important things –
works to register Democratic voters, and decides the official
Democratic Party endorsements. The latter is the more important in a
town that is already 70+ % Democratic. Since so many people vote Dem
in SF, the offical Party endorsements are a big deal.
These are my endorsements based on interviews with almost all of
these folks, and a lot of discussions at the SF League of
Conservation Voters. The Green Party endorsements are similarly
important but I know less about it. I take my cue from my good
friend and activist Susan King who is a long time Green Party
activist and who I trust on Green Party issues entirely (keep up the
great work Susan!)
Democratic County Central Committee
District 12
Susan Hall, Trevor McNeill, Jane Morrison, Melanie Nutter, Connie
O’Connor, Roy Recio, Jason Wong

Democratic County Central Committee
District 13
BILL BARNES, ROBERT HAALAND, RAFEL MANDLEMAN, David Campos, Gerry
Crowley, Rick Galbreath, Michael Goldstein, Laura Spanjian, Holli
Thier, Scott Wiener

Green Party County Central Committee
SUSAN KING, John-Marc Chandonia, Kim Knox, Nancy Lewis, Sue Vaughan,
Patrick Villano

Judge of the Superior Court, Seat #8: Eric Safire*
To be honest I don’t know much about Eric Safire – but i do know that
Lilian Sing is mostly just a political opportunist though perhaps a
decent judge – that being said this damning anti-Safire quote from
the right-wing-for-San-Francisco Save Our City toadie group pretty
much sums up why I’ll vote for Safire “Opposing her [Sing] is a far
left advocate (endorsed by the Tenant’s Union, the Guardian and the
SF Green Party)” – oooooh! Axis of Evil!

PROPOSITIONS:
81: Yes – Library Bonds: Spending bond money to build Libraries – is
um….. what bond money is for – paying for good needed services for
all the people of the state.
82: Yes – Preschool Education & Tax on The Wealthy: Raising taxes on
societies most wealthy to fund universal preschool for everyone?
Yes. Even if you are hesitant about the idea of picking one group to
tax more than others (which I’m not, but i can understand), please
remember that the past 6 years in the US (& then the entire Reagan &
Bush year’s prior) have been ALL about the massive transfer of wealth
from the poor and middle class to the rich! So this is only a SMALL
local, not-even-fair reversal. Vote yes.

A: no. Homicide Prevention Funding in the City Charter: This is an
important idea – spending more money ($10 million) for reducing the
violence and death in SF’s poorest neighborhoods, but is a bad way
(enshrining this funding level in the City charter) to get there.
Basically changing the City Charter to set aside dedicated funding
for one project is rarely a good idea. It means that if you change
your mind later you have to go back to the ballot to do it – you
can’t just do it at the Board of Supervisors like normal
legislation. I don’t like it – even though many of my favorite Supes
are for it.

B : Yes. Eviction Disclosure for Home Sales: All this does is require
people who sell buildings to disclose any evictions that they did to
get the building to market. More information is almost always a good
thing in my book. It is not particularly onerous to sellers to
provide this info (trust me one more tiny document is NO big deal –
I’ve done it).

C : Yes. Transbay Joint Powers Board and the Mayor: This measure is
really designed to do 1 thing. Get Mayor Newsom to pay attention to
the Transbay Building so San Francisco can FINALLY get its one stop
transit hub (BART meets Caltrain meets Muni meets AC Transit) that so
many of us have been working so hard on for so long. It also gives
the Board of Supes a little more say on the project. To be honest,
its not the best from a policy standpoint, but this a purely
political maneuver designed to get out attention-disorder mayor to
actually DO SOMETHING good on environmental stuff rather than talk a
lot and do nothing (or do BAD things like his Saturday-closure-of-JFK
veto)

D : NO Laguna Honda & Public Health Zoning: Hidden underneath the
fairly legitimate concern about the fact that Laguna Honda (allocated
for taking care of the elderly) has increasingly also become used for
treating the violently disturbed, this measure is actually bad
policy. This measure attempts to change the ZONING (that’s a weird
way to change HEALTH POLICY) to force how Laguna Honda is used – so
if we ever change our minds or want to make new uses of Laguna Honda
– we would have to take it to the ballot. This is just DUMB public
policy – that is what the Board of Supes is for! This is why I
dislike Proposition politics.

The other more sinister thing about Prop D is that it also changes
all public zoning for public health care facilities to allow private
health care facilities to be built on those sites… thus potential
getting rid of public health care sites! Why would this be in the
Laguna Honda bill? – to benefit Joe O’Donohue – one of the sleaziest
developers in SF and a big backer of this measure. Yuck.