Matier & Ross: Next political drama stars London Breed.
At the conclusion of Willie Brown’s eulogy Sunday for Mayor Ed Lee, the political curtain will go down at San Francisco City Hall for the holidays — but come Jan. 9 at 5 p.m., the curtain will rise again for a new drama that will set the course of the city for years to come.
“That’s the deadline for the June mayoral ballot,” said John Arntz, the city’s Elections Department director.
San Francisco mayoral elections are always a mix of comedy and drama. But this one is coming more than a year earlier than expected and could be the only mayoral race without an elected incumbent that the city will see for the next 10 years.
And the scramble is already on, with potential candidates sizing up their voter base, determining how hard it will be to raise money under the city’s $500 donation limit, and factoring in the mathematics of a ranked-choice system that gives voters three selections.
By all indications, it should be quite a show.
So far, former state Sen. Mark Leno is the only major announced candidate, having committed earlier in the year to running in 2019. He is also the most prepared, having raised $350,000 and put together a campaign team.
“I just didn’t know it was going to come 18 months sooner than expected,” Leno said.
Other potential candidates such as Assemblyman David Chiu, city Assessor-Recorder Carmen Chu, City Attorney Dennis Herrera and Supervisors Mark Farrell and Jane Kim — as well as Tipping Point Community charity chief Daniel Lurie — will have only a few days to make the call and get up and running.
Acting Mayor London Breed hasn’t committed to running, but she does appear to be rehearsing for the role.
“I do feel strongly that I’m qualified and I’m prepared to do this job,” Breed said at her first public appearance, shortly after the Board of Supervisors president took on her new mayoral role as dictated by the City Charter.
If Breed does makes it official and can get six other supervisors to vote her in as interim mayor, she would have a big fundraising advantage over the other candidates. She’d have the power and profile of incumbency during the campaign, and the job title of “interim mayor” on the ballot.
The board’s progressive bloc is motivated to deny Breed those advantages. The left views her as part of the same Willie Brown machine that helped put former Mayor Gavin Newsom and Lee into office, and if she gets the job, it could extend the city’s streak without a progressive mayor — the last one was Art Agnos — to 2028.
Early soundings show that several supervisors are looking to name a nonpolitical caretaker as interim mayor, someone like Controller Ben Rosenfield.
But that would happen only after the Jan. 9 election filing deadline, preventing any possibility of the caretaker developing political ambitions — as Lee did after he got the interim job in 2010.
Another possibility: Supervisors could name Breed the interim mayor in exchange for her help in naming a progressive as the new board president.
The downside for Breed is that she would have to relinquish her own board seat. And with no guarantee of winning the mayor’s race in June, the swap would deprive her of the job security she now enjoys as a board member whose second term extends to 2021.
The city’s moderates could be forced to decide soon whether Breed is their candidate, because as crowded as the field is, it’s the progressive Leno — with his war chest and endorsements — who stands to gain the most if she doesn’t get the interim job.
Chances are the board will wait to make a decision until Supervisors Kim and Farrell declare themselves in or out of the June race.
In the meantime, the countdown clock is ticking louder and louder.
Remembering Ed: Memories of Ed Lee — and his many sides — continue to pour in.
Whether it was baseball, football, basketball or his own golf game, for instance, the mayor was the ultimate sports fan.
“Every Opening Day he would come out to the ballpark,” recalled Giants President Larry Baer.
“And every year he would sit with me, directly behind home plate, in the top seats.
“And every year, he’d sit ... and eat one hot dog, and watch one inning.
“Then, like clockwork, the minute the first inning was over, he’d get up and spend the rest of the game walking and talking with fans in the stands.”
Nathan Ballard, press secretary to former Mayor Gavin Newsom, recalled returning to the office one day in 2007 to find that Newsom’s advisers had canceled a mayoral trip to China at the last minute because of a tiff with its organizer, the late Chinatown powerhouse Rose Pak.
Soon after, Ballard dropped by the office of Lee, then the city administrator and a Pak protege, to say how disappointed he was that none of them would be able to make the trip. “Oh, I’m going,” Lee said. “At that moment, I saw he was very connected everywhere — and not just to Rose, but to all factions,” Ballard said. “He was playing chess his entire career, and was not to be underestimated.”