Son of immigrants fought for civil rights as S.F. mayor
“Ed Lee understood that the strength of a community is measured by its success in meeting the needs of all of its people.”
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
SAN FRANCISCO – San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee, a champion of housing, civil rights and immigration, died Tuesday at 65.
Lee and his wife were shopping at a Safeway supermarket just blocks from their home in San Francisco’s Glen Park neighborhood when he collapsed from a heart attack about 10:30 p.m. Monday, the San Francisco
Chronicle reported. Lee was taken to San Francisco General Hospital and died early Tuesday, his family said.
“It is with profound sadness and terrible grief that we confirm that Mayor Edwin M. Lee passed away,” a statement from the mayor’s office said. “Family, friends and colleagues were at his side. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife Anita, his two daughters, Brianna and Tania, and his family.”
San Francisco Board of Supervisors President London Breed steps in as acting mayor. The city’s Board of Supervisors will vote on a new mayor in the coming weeks.
Lee was appointed in January 2011 to replace Gavin Newsom, who won election as the state’s lieutenant governor. Lee won a full term that November and was re-elected in 2015. California congresswoman Nancy Pelosi said Lee’s focus always was the people of his city.
“As a community organizer, civil rights lawyer and hardworking son of an immigrant family of modest means, Ed Lee understood that the strength of a community is measured by its success in meeting the needs of all of its people. He knew the rhythms and the workings of San Francisco at the most granular level, and dedicated decades to improving the lives of all San Franciscans,” she said.
Lee was a longtime advocate of lowincome housing and also was a civil rights lawyer.
Lee was born in Seattle to immigrant parents from China. His father was a cook and his mother was a seamstress and waitress. Lee and his five brothers and sisters lived in public housing. He went to Bowdoin College in Maine, where he graduated summa cum laude and went on to the University of California Berkeley law school.
His wife, Anita, is from Hong Kong. The two met when Lee was studying there and she was his Mandarin tutor. A few of Lee’s contributions:
In a city that is 35% Asian American, Lee was the first Asian American to be mayor.
Lee’s first job was fighting the city later came to lead. While in law school at the University of California-Berkeley and then as an intern, Lee worked with the Asian Law Caucus, aiding residents of a public housing complex in San Francisco’s Chinatown who were holding a rent strike to demand better conditions in their dilapidated and unsafe buildings.
Lee was known for pushing through San Francisco’s 2011 “Twitter tax.” This legislation cut payroll taxes for firms that set up shop in a gritty area near City Hall known as the mid-Market district. The aim was to keep tech firms in San Francisco from moving to Silicon Valley. The area is now home to a growing collection of tech companies.
Before he died, Lee had been working on an initiative that would have made San Francisco one of the first large cities in the United States to divest its pension fund of fossil fuel stocks.
Lee fought to bring the Golden State Warriors basketball team back to San Francisco from Oakland. The $1 billion Chase Center in the city’s Mission Bay district is to be finished by October 2019.