Mobilize and Organize Slate for DCCC

8 min readFeb 27, 2020

(Disclaimer: I’m running for this office and I’m endorsing myself and the folks on my slate.)

This is part of my March 3, 2020 San Francisco election voter guide.

Who’s on the Mobilize Slate?

I support the Mobilize Slate. In the order that they appear on the ballot:

— San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee, Assembly District 17
— — Kristen Asato-Webb
— — Nima Rahimi
— — Mike Chen
— — Austin Hunter
— — Tyra Fennell
— — Victor Olivieri
— — Mick Del Rosario
— — Carole Migden
— — Bivett Brackett
— — Vallie Brown
— — Tami Bryant
— — Steven Buss
— — Nancy Tung

— San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee, Assembly District 19
— — Kat Anderson
— — Nadia Rahman
— — Cyn Wang
— — Suzy Loftus
— — Jane Natoli
— — Ahsha Safai
— — Seeyew Mo
— — Paul Miyamoto
— — Mary Jung
— — Mawuli Tugbenyoh

I’m a candidate for this race, and I’ve written a longer FAQ at this link. Here are the highlights.

The DCCC (pronounced dee-triple-cee) is the Board of Directors for the San Francisco Democratic Party, similar to how the DNC guides the national party.
The Democratic Party registers voters, educates voters, and turns voters out in elections. They decide on the party’s policy platform and priorities.
The DCCC votes on who gets the Democratic Party’s endorsement in city/county election contests. A DCCC endorsement can swing an election by up to 10 percentage points. (55% of San Francisco registered voters are Democrats.)
Each voter can vote for as many candidates as there are seats in their district. For example, if you live in Noe Valley, you are in the 17th Assembly District, and you can vote for up to 14 candidates. The top 14 candidates with the most votes are elected to the DCCC.
The voting system of the DCCC encourages slate voting: candidates team up and encourage their supporters to cross-vote for other candidates on their team. Candidates who team up get more votes than candidates who go it alone.
There are two major slates on the ballot: The Mobilize & Organize Slate and the Social Justice Democrats. I am on the Mobilize & Organize Slate. These roughly reflect two factions of Democrats in the city (only Democrats have held elected office in SF in the past 10 years). In an attempt to simplify, I will discuss some themes that I’ve heard discussed.

Themes:

Should elected supervisors officials be on the DCCC?
Should San Francisco grow?
Is big business the enemy?
Who can lead Democrats to win across the US?

Should elected officials be on the DCCC?

Two arguments against elected officials being on the DCCC: (1) They crowd out grassroots candidates who want to do the work of the party. (2) DCCC races help elected officials raise money and skirt campaign finance rules.

The DCCC is meant to be a body that strengthens the party. However, because the Democratic Party endorsement is so valuable, the DCCC race has become a proxy battle between factions of Democrats. To win seats, people nominate current and former elected officials. Because elected officials have high name recognition, they often win a seat on the DCCC.

Secondly, people use DCCC to skirt campaign finance rules and boost their name appeal in advance of a run for office. This goes doubly true for elected officials who are running for re-election.

Quoting Zoe Dunning in the SF Bay Times from the last election cycle in 2016:

Another benefit to the “double dipper” — someone who runs for DCCC and holds another elected position — is they can use their DCCC campaign funds as a sort of marketing slush fund. It’s no coincidence that many of those running for office in the fall are also running for DCCC. There are no fundraising limits for DCCC campaigns. This means someone running for Supervisor in November can accept a $10,000 check for their DCCC race and use the publicity from the DCCC campaign to help elevate their visibility and name recognition in their district before the Supervisor race. It’s a loophole that should be addressed.

In December the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club’s board established a policy that they would not endorse any elected officials for DCCC, citing these two reasons:

Many talented grassroots activists don’t run for or win the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC) due to the challenges to overcoming the unfair advantage that current or former elected officials have in winning a city-wide race.
We believe those who put in the most time and effort into running the Party are those who do not already have another elected position, such as supervisor.
In addition, those who run for DCCC can also raise unlimited amounts of money, exceeding the contribution limits of races for other elected positions, allowing to further their name recognition and promote themselves before or during an election for an entirely different office.
We find this to be unfair, undemocratic, and ultimately hurtful to the overall mission of the Party, which is to register voters and engage them in the democratic process. We believe this diminishes the overall mission of the Party, which is to register voters and engage them in the democratic process.

14 of the 24 members — over half — of the Social Justice Slate are current and former elected officials. The Mobilize Slate, which I am on, has more grassroots candidates. Only 3 of 23 candidates on the slate are current or former elected officials.

The Mobilize Slate wants to change the incentives so that (1) elected officials don’t crowd out grassroots activists and (2) elected officials don’t use the DCCC races as a piggy bank. Many candidates on the Justice Slate are DCCC incumbents and vowed that they would fix it — but they made no tangible progress in 2016–2020. I think the Mobilize Slate would do better.

One idea from columnist Joe Fitz Rodriguez: “If you recognize a name on your ballot for the Democratic County Central Committee from another campaign, or another election, give them a pass. Pass the torch to someone new.”

Should San Francisco grow?

I think there is a fault line about population growth and economic growth between the two slates. Is San Francisco a place that should welcome growth and newcomers? Or should we focus on helping current residents? In general, the Mobilize Slate believes that abundance increases access to the city for everyone. That means creating jobs and building more homes: we are in a crunch for both office space and living space. The Justice Slate tends to be skeptical of growth, and wants to regulate it so that it is equitable.

One example is approaches to housing. In general, the Mobilize Slate believes that we are in a housing shortage and we need housing at all income levels. Many members of the Mobilize Slate want to liberalize zoning to legalize the construction of new apartments across the city. They view the discretionary process to overly empower wealthy neighbors to stop housing near them. Many members of the Mobilize Slate are endorsed by YIMBY Action. The Justice Slate believes that there should be more barriers to market-rate housing. The Justice Slate wants to focus exclusively on tenant protections and doesn’t believe that we have a shortage of housing in San Francisco. Many members of the Justice Slate are endorsed by the Tenants Union.

Another example where the slates differ is Prop E, which limits new office space growth and ties it to low-income affordable housing development. Most Justice Slate members support it. Most Mobilize Slate members oppose it.

Is big business the enemy?

To the Justice Slate, the priority is a battle between the people and monied/downtown interests: corporations, developers, realtors, and the tech industry. The corporations are held responsible for the displacement and eviction of San Francisco residents.

The Mobilize Slate is less adversarial to big business and treats business as a stakeholder. I think our largest problems around housing, homelessness, and transportation are not caused by business but actually is a disagreement between residents about their vision for the city. For example, I believe the city’s housing shortage is due to decisions that neighborhood groups made 40 years ago that reduced the height and density of new housing in swaths of the city.

I went to a public meeting this week about a proposal to add protected bike lanes on Valencia Street, which would remove parking spaces from the street. People came out in support (bike riders and safety advocates) and in opposition (merchants, disability advocates, religious groups). Neither side (as far as I can tell) was funded or supported by Big Bicycle or Big Car. The conflict was among people who used the street in their everyday lives and who had different priorities on how public street space should be used. In some ways, our greatest enemy is ourselves. But that means that we can be our greatest allies, too.

One article I’ve read that encapsulates this dichotomy is from Scott Lucas of Buzzfeed News: San Francisco Spent A Decade Being Rich, Important, And Hating Itself. “Politics is much less about who your friends are than who your enemies are. And in the last 10 years, the easiest enemies to find were the techies and the nimbys.” Deciding who the enemy is frames your interactions and your world view.

Who can lead Democrats to win across the US?

San Francisco is safely Democratic, but we can use our resources to help Democrats across the country. Both slates have campaigned on aiding Democrats at the national level and taking the White House by marshaling San Francisans to volunteer for races outside the city. In 2018 for example many Democratic groups like Swing Left, Indivisible, and Sister District mobilized city residents to drive two hours to Modesto to canvass for Josh Harder. They also organized phone banks to call voters in critical swing districts across the US. US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has endorsed a number of folks across both slates in recognition of their contribution to the Democrats’ House victory in the 2018 midterms. The Mobilize Slate has more people who were endorsed by the Speaker and I contend that the Mobilize Slate would be more effective at building the infrastructure to build on the party’s recent success.

List of elected officials & former elected officials running, by slate

Social Justice Democrats

Current supervisors:

David Campos
Matt Haney
Rafael Mandelman
Gordon Mar
Hillary Ronen

Other elected officials

Janice Li, BART Board Director
Bevan Dufty, BART Board Director
Faauuga Moliga, Board of Education Commissioner
Mano Raju, Public Defender
Shanell Williams, City College Board Trustee

Former elected officials

John Avalos, former Supervisor (and candidate for Supervisor in November 2020)
David Campos, former Supervisor
Jane Kim, former Supervisor
Sophie Maxwell, former Supervisor

Campaigned but did not win election

Li Miao Lovett, Board of Education

Mobilize & Organize Slate

Elected supervisors

Ahsha Safai