Did TogetherSF ever really drop its strong-mayor voter measure?

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TogetherSF announced May 1 that it was yanking a charter amendment to enhance mayoral power, legislation that it had spent no small amount of money crafting and then gathering more than 50,000 signatures to place on the ballot.

This was a deeply chastening moment for the political-action group heavily funded by fascinating billionaire Michael Moritz, and it kick-started a truly difficult month for TogetherSF. 

Some of the gleeful enmity directed at TogetherSF may not have been wholly justified, however. The group says that it did not drop the charter amendment because it was uncomfortable with, say, Mayor Aaron Peskin being granted new mayoral superpowers. Rather, explains TogetherSF founder Kanishka Cheng, this was the view expressed by voters, in focus groups and polling. 

In short: TogetherSF says it pulled the measure because it looked like it was going to lose. 

Well, little surprise there. Political professionals who’ve worked up and down the state tell me that “voters generally hate” strong-mayor initiatives, regardless of who the mayor is or may eventually be. 

So, TogetherSF continues to amass signatures on its other charter amendment: “Would you like to reduce the number of San Francisco commissions?” a charming signature gatherer last week asked shoppers heading into and out of Grocery Outlet on South Van Ness Avenue near 23rd Street. This didn’t elicit quite as strong a response as he’d have gotten from “Do you realize the breakfast cereal you just got a deal on is made out of chickpeas?” — but people stopped and signed. Plenty of them. 

Well, little surprise there, either: San Francisco has a nigh-uncountable number of boards and commissions. And, while the complaint is that they render governing more diffuse and sclerotic, they can certainly induce nationwide ridicule with maximum speed and efficiency.

So, while voters may have bristled at the message behind the “make San Francisco’s strong mayor even stronger,” they liked the pitch of “Clean up San Francisco’s rat’s nest of boards and commissions.” Focus groups, polling and common sense say as much.  

And yet, if voters were to actually read the 74-page text of the “Clean up San Francisco’s rat’s nest of boards and commissions” measure, they’d discover that much of the stuff from the “Make San Francisco’s strong mayor even stronger” measure — the measure voters said they didn’t like — is in here, too. 

There’s a line that’s applicable here from the movie “Contact,” uttered by the fascinating billionaire S.R. Hadden: “First rule in government spending: Why build one when you can have two at twice the price?”

Why indeed, especially if money is no object? Voters evidently dislike the notion of making the mayor stronger and like the idea of reducing this city’s clutter of commissions — but many may not realize that by voting for the latter, they’d actually be doing the former. 

Political professionals, meanwhile, laughed upon being told what was actually within the text of the commission-reduction charter amendment. Allusions to wooden horses full of Greek soldiers were made. One politico used a term that any dog or cat owner would be familiar with: Slipping the pill in the salami. 

Cheng, however, denied any subterfuge here. The two charter amendments were “written to be companions” and “there is inherent crossover.” The text is public, for anyone to read (and we’ve made a searchable version for you). 

Part of making mayors stronger, she explains, involves making commissions weaker: “There is this intersection of executive and commission power.” 

So, if you were to vote for a measure sold as a means of reducing, by half, this city’s count of boards and commissions, you’d be doing that. But you’d also be giving the mayor not just a majority of the appointments on the remaining commissions, but a supermajority. You’d also be giving the mayor “sole authority to appoint and remove most City department heads.” And you’d be neutering the Police Commission, reducing it from a policymaking body into a largely advisory one. 

Finally, you’d be giving the mayor the ability to unilaterally dismiss any of their board or commission appointees. If this sounds familiar, in 2022 it was revealed that Mayor London Breed had required dozens of her appointees to submit undated letters of resignation as a term of their appointment, an ethically dubious practice the City Attorney found to be legally untenable. This ballot measure would remedy the latter part, at least, by codifying that power in the city charter. 

In fact, there’s very nearly as much to strengthen the mayor in the commission-reduction measure as there was in the mayoral-strengthening measure. Just about the only elements of the nixed mayoral-strengthening measure left on the cutting-room floor were a proposed reinstatement of “deputy mayors,” and a line specifying that they could be paid more than 70 percent of the mayor’s salary. 

Of note, that’d be $262,206. If there’s anyone arguing that San Francisco’s governing woes would be remedied if only we could reintroduce the semantic term “deputy mayors” and pay a cadre of them more than $262,206 instead of $262,205 — well, they weren’t exactly making that pitch in front of the Grocery Outlet. 

There have been, to put it mildly, some slapstick legislation-drafting scenarios when it comes to TogetherSF’s attempts to enhance mayoral power via the ballot box. Last year it was forced to scuttle an earlier commission-streamlining measure, the “Cut Dysfunctional Bureaucracy” initiative. This came after it turned out that the submitted text for a charter amendment aiming to empower the mayor actually granted vast new executive abilities to the Board of Supervisors — a truly amazing achievement, and the legislative equivalent of an O. Henry short story.

This history does not inspire universal confidence that the commission-reduction charter amendment would work, if ultimately passed. The City Charter is spectacularly arcane and complicated, with ample opportunities for unintended legislative consequences, even from knowledgeable and well-meaning entities. And there are limited opportunities to expediently fix any unintended consequences. It is highly unusual to push for major structural changes to the City Charter with minimal engagement with experts and limited input from our government and the governed. 

(Regardless of the measure’s feasibility, it will work just fine as a vehicle to raise unlimited soft money during the run-up to a mayoral election).

Finally, if you’re wondering if anyone in San Francisco thinks that a preponderance of commissions is this city’s overriding problem, such a person or persons remain difficult to locate. Among longtime government professionals, however, this city’s glacial hiring process, its byzantine contracting process and our dysfunctional permitting process all came up as serious issues in dire need of repair. 

Well, maybe next time. Perhaps a future charter amendment will address one or more of those. God only knows what else will be slipped into the salami. 

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