So, Wiener\u2019s campaign has chosen to focus on small gatherings like these, where Wiener can get beyond a short introductory encounter and instead delve into policy details.<\/p>\n
This particular house party consisted of about a dozen millennial parents, most of whom seemed to have children attending the same schools. The vibe was cozy: Coffee, orange juice, bubbles, and bagels were laid out in the apartment\u2019s living room alongside Scott Wiener window signs and campaign literature. Magnetic letters on the fridge spelled out \u201cWELCOME SCOTT.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
As the group settled in, the host lobbed the first question: \u201cCan you tell us your life story?\u201d<\/p>\n
After joking that he\u2019d \u201cfilibuster for two hours,\u201d Wiener laid out a concise narrative: a childhood in a suburbanizing, conservative \u201cfarm town\u201d in southern New Jersey where most of the neighbors \u201chad never met a Jew in their life.\u201d His parents found some other Jewish families and formed their own synagogue.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Wiener admitted to himself that he was gay as a 17-year-old, he continued. It was 1987 and the AIDS epidemic was in full force. \u201cI saw that there was a mass die-off happening in my community,\u201d said Wiener, \u201cand that there was a federal government that not only was not doing anything about it, but wanted us to just die and get it over with, basically.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
That experience \u2014 plus growing up as a Jew \u2014 gave him an understanding of what can happen when the government is hostile to a certain group. \u201cIt\u2019s not just, \u2018Oh, maybe government services will be bad.\u2019 It\u2019s like, \u2018Will you survive?\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The host moved on to policy next. How, she asked, could Wiener use a role in Congress at the federal level to encourage the state of California to shell out more to its public schools?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, first we need to, like, not eliminate the Department of Education,\u201d he said, referring to Trump\u2019s attempts to dismantle the department. The crowd responded with a ripple of woeful chuckles.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Wiener had a plan, he said, to increase federal funding for students who need extra help in school and are on personalized learning plans; make school meals healthier; and expand funding for afterschool programs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIn an era where often both parents are working or you have a single parent, afterschool programs are not an optional nice-to-have,\u201d Wiener said. \u201cThey are completely essential for the functioning of the family.\u201d<\/p>\n
At this, the host smoothly pivoted to Wiener\u2019s best-known policy focus: housing. \u201cYou\u2019ve already done so much,\u201d she said. Wiener is the Chief YIMBY in Sacramento, and laws that streamlined affordable housing approvals and forced cities to upzone<\/a> for more housing have come to redefine the California housing landscape \u2014 and earned him enemies among market-rate housing skeptics. \u201cWhat more are you going to do?\u201d<\/p>\n At the state level, Wiener said, he has been \u201cmethodically working towards automatic permitting,\u201d meaning that if housing developers comply with all the laws about project height, density, and design, they should be able to build a project \u2014 even if neighbors or politicians don\u2019t like it.<\/p>\n Before he helped pass those changes, he continued, \u201cIf someone comes forward and says, I have a project, I checked all 10 boxes, that, before, would have entitled you to go into the political mosh pit for five years.\u201d<\/p>\n If he makes it to Congress, he told the group, his plan is to tackle the economic factors that are making housing unaffordable. That means expanding Section 8 rental assistance programs for low-income renters, boosting the construction workforce, investing in mixed-income housing production, making it easier to finance multi-unit housing, and giving $10,000 to local governments for every new housing unit they build.\u00a0<\/p>\n The goal is that this plan would lead to the construction of 8 million new homes over the next decade.\u00a0<\/p>\n It would also cost $1.2 trillion, he added, but he could raise that by working to reverse some of the tax cuts put in under President Donald Trump and former President George W. Bush.\u00a0<\/p>\n He\u2019s hopeful that he can do this, he told the crowd, because even though Congress is so polarized, housing is a rare area where there is some agreement across the aisle \u2014 a federal bill on housing, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, just passed the Senate<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve had Democratic Socialist members and MAGA members both supporting bills that I passed,\u201d Wiener said of his housing work in the State Senate.\u00a0<\/p>\n What about, asked one attendee, the criticism that Wiener is \u201cin corporations\u2019 pockets\u201d and takes donations from pro-Israel groups and people.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThese are not my concerns, but I didn\u2019t know what to say to these people,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Wiener has pledged not to take money from pro-Israel PACs like AIPAC, United Democracy Project and Democratic Majority for Israel. He hasn\u2019t, but some of the donors to those PACs have given to Wiener: Out of the $3.4 million<\/a> Wiener has raised, about $45,000 comes from some 20 donors who have given to those groups.\u00a0<\/p>\n Wiener said that most of those donors are \u201clocal Jewish community leaders who, frankly, donate to me because of my work in the community and in spite of my views on Israel and Gaza, not because of them.\u201d<\/p>\n Wiener has changed his views on Israel and Gaza. While he has been critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and settler violence in the West Bank, after Oct. 7 he said Israel had a \u201cright to fight back<\/a>\u201d in Gaza and was often critical of pro-Palestine movements: He said<\/a> boycott movements sought the \u201cdestruction of Israel,\u201d and that a Jewish-led protest<\/a> targeting a pro-Israel group in San Francisco was antisemitic<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Wiener declined to call Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza a genocide at a Jan. 7 debate<\/a>, but did so four days later, earning criticism<\/a> from pro-Israel groups. He then stepped down<\/a> as co-chair from the State Senate\u2019s Jewish caucus.<\/p>\n As for the corporate money, said Wiener, he currently has a 98 percent voting record with the California Labor Federation<\/a> and 98 percent with the California Environmental Scorecard<\/a>. At the California Chamber of Commerce<\/a>, which represents business interests, he only votes in alignment with their interests 16 percent of the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve taken on some of the largest corporations on the planet,\u201d Wiener said. \u201cI\u2019m at perpetual war with the oil industry<\/a>. I am yet again<\/a> at war with the big tech companies<\/a> this year. I\u2019ve gone to war with the health insurance industries<\/a> to expand access to mental health treatment<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n After about an hour of talking, Wiener got up and prepared to leave for the next events \u2014 the NorCal Cherry Blossom Festival and a birthday party for San Francisco SPCA. Had he swayed anyone in the crowd? Most seemed to have already planned to vote for him, but were happy that he\u2019d shown up.\u00a0<\/p>\n To be more precise, they were happy that he\u2019d been showing up for a while. \u201cEven though you don\u2019t have kids, we still see you at our McKinley holiday fundraiser right up the block every year,\u201d the host told him. \u201cIt\u2019s very motivational to us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scott Wiener goes to four to five house parties a week in his bid to replace Rep. Nancy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284118,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[35072,101,103,102,1621,104,106,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-284117","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-election-2026","9":"tag-san-francisco","10":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","11":"tag-san-francisco-news","12":"tag-scott-wiener","13":"tag-sf","14":"tag-sf-headlines","15":"tag-sf-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG_0351-853x640.jpg\")
Scott Wiener poses for a photo with attendees of a Castro house party on April 19, 2026. Photo courtesy of Scott Wiener campaign<\/p>\n