Last night, the Elections Commission provisionally approved a 62-page report packed with recommendations on how to improve the city’s redistricting process, in a 6-0 vote with one commissioner absent.
Chief among the proposals: Increasing the number of task-force members from nine to 14, eliminating political appointments and giving the task force at least a year to meet before the final map deadline. These ideas are an attempt to bring San Francisco in line with best practices, and avoid the accusations of gerrymandering prompted by last year’s redistricting drama.
In the report, the task force is also rebranded as the “Independent Redistricting Commission.”
“It’s about making sure that every San Franciscan is fairly represented,” said Cynthia Dai, head of the now-dissolved Fair, Independent, and Effective Redistricting for Community Engagement — or FIERCE — committee. Alongside commissioners Renita LiVolsi and Michelle Parker, Dai has been studying reforms for more than a year.
Redistricting is the process of redrawing district boundaries every 10 years to reflect changes in the city’s population. During last year’s district-map updates, accusations of political bias were rife. The redistricting task force chair acknowledged that he felt pressured to vote a certain way because of his relationship with the mayor, and task-force members publicly accused their colleagues of “selling out.” In April 2022, the task force blew through its legal deadline to finalize district lines, and ended up recommending a much-disputed map in a contentious 5-4 vote.
Summary of proposed redistricting changes
The commission is not a legislative body, so yesterday’s vote does not change any laws. But, pending minor copy edits and a review from the City Attorney, the report will be sent to the Board of Supervisors for its consideration. Dai said that she hopes the recommendations will be put to voters as a charter amendment in November 2024.
Board President Aaron Peskin said in text messages that he supports the recommendations, although he added that it is too early to say if he would sponsor the legislation himself.
Why now?
The next round of redistricting is not set to begin until 2030, but the Elections Commission’s report suggests that it would likely take several years to fully implement its proposals.
“Realistically we need these passed by 2026 at the latest if we want them to be implemented in the next redistricting process,” said Dai, citing the need to staff up and tweak the city budget, among other logistical considerations.
It is not only San Francisco that is currently finessing its redistricting process. Several other California jurisdictions experienced difficulties with redistricting in 2021-22, including Los Angeles County and Oakland, and the state has begun to pass new legislation as well.
In October, an expansion of the state Fair Maps Act was signed into law. Among other things, the act specifies that the local superior court must step in if the final map deadline is missed; in 2022, no such guidance was in place in San Francisco, leading to uncertainty and a lawsuit. The act also mandates a minimum number of public meetings between map drafts, and requires that final decisions are explained in writing.
As a charter city, San Francisco can make its own laws about redistricting — but, where no equivalent local laws exist, these state laws would apply.
Who is in favor and who is against?
Representatives from the League of Women Voters, California Common Cause and the Asian Law Caucus all praised the Election Commission's recommendations.
“We really see this as an important step forward for building a stronger, more inclusive democracy in San Francisco,” said Sietse Goffard, voting-rights coordinator with the Asian Law Caucus. “One that all residents can trust and have faith in.”
Former task force member Jeremy Lee expressed his support in public comment.
Raynell Cooper, also a former task force member, said that he is broadly supportive of the recommendations. He said that giving task-force members additional time is a particularly important change, given how tight the process became in 2022.
However, he expressed some reservations over limiting discussion of the task force outside of public meetings: “I understand the intent, but I think it is difficult to enforce, and could make it harder for people without so much experience to understand the processes,” he said.
Local resident and Trump-supporter-turned-Democrat Alan Burradell was the only public commenter opposed to the recommendations at last night’s meeting. He said that the commission was “rolling over” to “political operators,” referencing the League of Women Voters, California Common Cause and the Asian Law Caucus.
Marie Hurabiell, a Trump appointee to the Presidio Trust board, led a campaign against the report over the past several months. She encouraged members of the public to send the board form letters rejecting “bogus and politically motivated redistricting ‘reform’ recommendations made by the very organizations that meddled in our most recently sworn redistricting task force’s redistricting process.” The commission has received almost 300 form letters from this campaign since May.
Hurabiell has been involved in the redistricting process for some time. In 2021, she received a $120,000 salary from her 501(c)(4) organization, Connected SF, which played a significant role in advocating for maps favored by San Francisco’s moderate factions. Connected SF was, in turn, funded by Neighbors for a Better San Francisco Advocacy, a moderate money group funded by a handful of extremely wealthy donors, to the tune of at least $535,000.
Feedback from the public has been included in the report: “I feel really good about the commission’s process,” said Commissioner Nancy Hayden Crowley. “All voices were heard and I think that is good for democracy.”
Other changes since redistricting?
The Elections Commission is not the only body that felt compelled to suggest changes following last year’s contentious redistricting process.
The Sunshine Ordinance Task Force, which is intended to improve government transparency and to hear complaints about public-records requests, encountered difficulties chasing down records from some task force members — in part because some members, including Vice-Chair Ditka Reiner, used their personal emails to conduct official business.
“When a commissioner uses their personal email and then leaves, all of their records are no longer available to the city,” said Sunshine Task Force member Matt Yankee. “That is a problem.”
Yankee said that the redistricting process was one of many in which the failure to use official email accounts had been an issue. Some commissioners and board members — including Sunshine Task Force members themselves — are not even assigned an “sfgov” email, he said.
In November, the Sunshine task force sent the Board of Supervisors a letter proposing a new ordinance requiring government emails to be issued and used. It has not yet been acted upon.
More details about the proposed changes to the redistricting task force can be found in the Election Commission’s report.
Hurabiell and Burradwell. Hmmm so Pro Trump and the two talking about anti democracy. They need to get discarded out of SF politics.
Friends,
We are living with a gerrymandered BOS now with Matt Dorsey in 6 and Joel Engardio in 4 there due to the Mayor’s people moving just a few lines on a few maps to move the Tenderloin and its Poor and their advocates from D-6 to D-5 and to include more White voters in the new D-4 which pushed Joel over with his Moderate vote. D-1 is set to go Moderate in the same fashion next year with Wealthy Sea Cliffers moved in to provide the thin margin needed to unseat Supervisor Connie Chan who may be the smartest person on the present Board.
Open-Source Vote Counting,
This is all meaningless if it is possible that our votes could be compromised by a Proprietary Counting Algorithm that, like Enigma, can be hacked.
San Francisco needs Open Source Voting Machines, Dominion or other.
12/13/2023
Please consider another option!
Create four political Districts and three at-large seats. Eliminate rank-choice voting.
Let’s make the Board of Supervisors functional and reduce the toxic political atmosphere at City Hall.
San Francisco residents deserve a better functioning, accountable, performance-oriented, and trustworthy government.
As always, the proposed “solution” is to add more government. More task force members. More nonprofits. More commissions.
Anyone who has ever worked anywhere can tell you that too many cooks in the kitchen is a recipe for gridlock and stagnation. This is exactly why San Francisco is failing.
When will San Franciscans realize that more of the same will just make things worse?
I think we have already tried the proposed solution of Real Estate Capital: just letting one person (Mayor Breed) set the district lines.
It seems like this powerful mayor system is failing us, so let’s avoid “more of the same” and get rid of the Mayor and have a Board-appointed Administrator run the city.
I think we should meet them halfway: let’s remove the entire section on redistricting from the Charter and let the state Fair Maps Act take over.
Or is a state takeover only good if it’s compensating them for their real estate investment losses?