Republicans who attack the Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris as a San Francisco radical who is responsible for the destruction of the city must be unfamiliar with the species. Ms. Harris, who cut her teeth confronting murderers and rapists, left the city at least a decade ago.
What Republicans also don’t understand and perhaps would prefer not to admit is that there have long been two species of San Francisco Democrats. There are those like Ms. Harris, who balance a desire for social change with a practical understanding of what is achievable. And then there are the others, a generation of local politicians who have burrowed themselves into the city and used its resources to execute their devotion to a polarizing ideology that embraces a knee-jerk opposition to progress, a deep-rooted antipathy to many forms of law enforcement and a belief that higher taxes are a cure for all evil.
It is under the thumb of these local politicians that San Francisco became the poster child for much that ails the major cities of the West. And this fight isn’t just about San Francisco. It is increasingly apparent that some of our country’s most intractable problems are rooted in municipalities. It is only by shining a light on what happens in these places, on issues like affordable housing and efficient government, that we can start to design a better future for everyone.
After decades of unilateral rule, the city is undergoing a seismic shift. Democrats like me, fed up with the damage wrought by years of preposterous and overly progressive policies, are fighting to take the city back. And while most Americans will be focused on another election happening this November, many San Franciscans will also be closely watching the results of a bitterly contested mayoral race, on which the city’s future teeters.
One mayoral candidate is Aaron Peskin, one of the city’s two most powerful politicians. If you want to understand how the city got to where it is today and why it is at the center of a struggle over its future, you should take a closer look at Mr. Peskin’s long career.
Changing a deeply entrenched system is tough. As I’ve become increasingly involved in San Francisco, the city I have lived in for more than 40 years, I came to realize that Mr. Peskin and I represent clashing visions for the city’s future. TogetherSF Action, a political advocacy group I co-founded, backs Mark Farrell, one of the moderate rival Democratic mayoral candidates. (I also recently donated $500,000 to a committee that Mr. Farrell started to back a ballot measure.)
Mr. Peskin has attacked my involvement in an ambitious plan to build a large housing development in northern San Francisco, and he supports an effort to squash an initiative, of which I have been the principal financial backer, to halve the city’s roughly 130 commissions. (Los Angeles has about 50.) He also succeeded in his effort to impose housing development restrictions on a swath of the city to prevent a commercial building from being converted into housing, a project in which I am an investor.
Mr. Peskin established his political bona fides by suing his university over its plan to build more student dorms. After moving to San Francisco, he became the president of a neighborhood association that has long worked to block developments and businesses it doesn’t approve of. He first ran for a seat on the city’s Board of Supervisors in 2000 and has managed to be a supervisor for more than 16 nonconsecutive years. He is now serving his third stint as president of the board, a position he has helped transform into an office that, arguably, approaches that of the mayor.
He did this via an impressive command of the arcane legislative and procedural rites of city government and a willingness to endure late-night negotiating sessions. According to The San Francisco Chronicle, he penned and won approval for more than 200 ordinances in his first eight years as a supervisor. A number of the more than 100 amendments to the city’s charter passed since 1996 bear his imprimatur. Such changes have helped the Board of Supervisors accumulate power.
I believe Mr. Peskin has done more than almost anyone else to stop San Francisco from building the housing it desperately needs. He has steadfastly opposed many construction projects; was instrumental in the creation of the Historic Preservation Commission, which has the power to freeze development; obstructed plans for a large development by adroitly employing California’s crippling environmental review process; and recently encouraged the city to sue the state over a housing mandate.
Asked by The Times to respond, Mr. Peskin objected to charges that he is against new development and said that over the course of his career, he has voted to approve over 100,000 housing units in San Francisco, supported rent control and backed efforts to reduce fees and hasten the processing of new development permits.
Beyond housing, Mr. Peskin has blessed a commercial rent tax, an increase on the real estate tax on properties sold for more than $5 million and an executive-pay tax. He also has supported impractical efforts, like a city-run public bank, a pilot program to allow passengers to take public transit fare-free and a plan to empower residents to sue companies that abruptly closed grocery stores.
I don’t harbor any animus toward Mr. Peskin. He has a sharp sense of humor, a devotion to his constituents and a great affection for San Francisco. But I have come to realize that he continues to support a vision that has proved ruinous to the city and detrimental to many of the groups he intends to help, including low-income workers and small-business owners.
There’s little debate that San Francisco is struggling — and its voters are visibly restive. The median sale price per square foot of a home in San Francisco is $980, and the average monthly rent for a three-bedroom apartment is $5,060, forcing low- and middle-income earners to flee. The city’s population fell in the midst of the pandemic, from 882,000 in 2019 to 809,000 last year, while its budget, swollen by an increase in homelessness spending and rising pay for its employees, has ballooned from around $8 billion for the 2013-14 fiscal year to $15.9 billion for 2024-25 fiscal year.
Thousands of homeless people, many addicted to fentanyl, camp on the city’s streets, and few cranes dot its skyline. Frustration with the manner in which the city has been run by a political cabal has spawned more than half a dozen opposition groups that are eager to reform a mangled city government. (I have financially supported two of them.) In addition, several moderate candidates are challenging the incumbent mayor, London Breed. While Mr. Peskin trails several moderates, the city’s complex ranked-choice voting system allows him a chance to become San Francisco’s next leader.
The pragmatism that Ms. Harris embraces needn’t be just a talking point for a national campaign. It could also be a guiding principle for the Democratic Party in cities such as San Francisco. We need local leaders who understand what makes for effective management, particularly of the homelessness problem; who are capable of supporting smart regulation that doesn’t stifle progress; and who understand that the pursuit of excellence can exist alongside the drive for equality.
San Francisco is at a turning point. This November’s elections will show whether its citizens are ready to rebel against a coterie of longstanding political zealots. If they do, the city could become a leader of this new version of the Democratic Party — and Fox News will have to find another scapegoat.
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