50 shades of politics in label for Democrats

Naming San Francisco’s political camps has always been a tricky proposition, considering just about everybody in them is a liberal Democrat.

Traditionally, it’s been pretty much agreed — though never universally well-liked — that liberal Democrats in San Francisco are called moderates and the very, very liberal Democrats are called progressives.

But recently, those labels have been flipped.

Take the most recent meeting of the Democratic County Central Committee — please! San Francisco Democrats chartered several new Democratic clubs including — now here’s a sign of the times — the Homesharing Democratic Club and the SF Tech Democratic Club.

Another new club, the Progress Democratic Club, was also chartered and created a bit of a stir. Joel Engardio, a moderate who lost to Supervisor Norman Yee in the last District 7 election, read prepared remarks to the DCCC to announce his new club.

“The dictionary definition of progress is forward movement, continuous improvement,” he

told them. “We need to embrace the future, embrace change and manage it with commonsense solutions.”

Rafael Mandelman, DCCC member and avowed progressive, jokingly shouted, “We want our name back!”

These days, it’s the moderates who support the city’s rapid change, from the sharing-economy companies like Uber and Airbnb to the socalled Twitter tax break. And it’s the progressives who see the rapid change as alarming and wish the city could return to its glory days, when regular people could afford to live here.

Engardio told us after the club meeting, “Moderates are the true progressives now in San Francisco. Looking backward and being stagnant and yelling at history to stop happening isn’t going to solve our present day issues.”

You can imagine that second sentence being used by a liberal to a conservative in regard to same-sex marriage or immigration reform or environmental regulations or any number of other subjects that are divisive throughout the country but widely accepted in San Francisco.

And the weird thing is progressives don’t disagree.

“I think progressives are people who want more social and economic justice, and I think our concern is that San Francisco’s moving in a direction away from that,” Mandelman said. “Some aspects of being a progressive in San Francisco right now are about preserving things, and you might think about that as being kind of classically conservative.”

Wait, progressives are now conservative? Yes, Mandelman said — in the sense of literally wanting to conserve and preserve things like rent control, affordable housing and the ability of the middle class to live here.

“I would definitely say we’re playing defense right now,” he said.

Corey Cook, a political science professor at the University of San Francisco, said political labels in San Francisco are more confusing and less meaningful than ever. Former Supervisor David Chiu, he pointed out, was elected to the state Assembly as both a moderate and a progressive.

“When was the last time the speaker of the House was elected as a Republican and a Democrat?” Cook asked.

“The politics of the city have changed, the voting has changed and the people in office are more pragmatic than anything else,” Cook said.

Well, he won’t live in this odd political landscape for long. This summer, he’s off to become the first-ever dean of Boise State University’s College of Public Service.

“I think there are only Republicans where I’m going!” he quipped.

Another person soon to be leaving San Francisco is John St. Croix, executive director of the Ethics Commission. His resignation letter states that “the time is ripe for me to move on,” but several issues appear to have led him to call it quits after 11 years. Namely? “This is a very difficult job,” he said with a sigh.

The 55-year-old added that he thinks he has “one more chapter” in his life and wants to spend it back in Massachusetts with his elderly mother and his son. He used to teach social studies and government at the highschool and community college level and plans to return to that.

The Ethics Commission is expected to launch a national search to find his replacement.

St. Croix’s summertime departure means he’ll avoid a possible November ballot measure to require that groups trying to influence City Hall file lobbyist reports.

Larry Bush, a member of Friends of Ethics, is one of the supporters of the ballot measure. He said it’s imperative that new groups such as Home Sharers of San Francisco, which opposes heavy city regulations of Airbnb, and the San Francsico Bay Area Renters’ Federation which supports the construction of more housing, reveal how much they’re spending to influence City Hall.

Currently, professional lobbyists must make disclosures with the Ethics Commission but groups such as those don’t have to.

“Who are they? Where’s their money coming from?” Bush asked. “They refuse to disclose it.”

St. Croix gives a big shrug to Bush’s quest, saying that before the recent streamlining of the city’s lobbyist rules, groups like Home Sharers were supposed to report spending but rarely did. Between 2004 and 2010, St. Croix said, there were only about eight such reports to the commission, and some reported the spending of no money.

St. Croix said the Board of Supervisors could make the change if they wanted to, and it doesn’t have to go to voters. Bush is hoping the Ethics Commission votes to put the measure on the ballot at its next meeting.

“It’s a modest, but important change,” he said.

Volunteers on Supervisor Julie Christensen’s November campaign received word via e-mail recently that she had received the powerful endorsement of the Police Officers Association in her fight against former Supervisor Aaron Peskin.

The problem? She hadn’t. The cops haven’t gone through their endorsement process yet, let alone named the winner.

“It was just an error,” said campaign manager Maureen Erwin.

Loyal readers, I’d like to announce that starting next week, my column will run on the front page. Oh wait, it won’t.

My bad!