{"id":428891,"date":"2026-08-10T16:16:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T16:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/428891\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T16:16:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T16:16:19","slug":"will-mayor-luries-coat-tails-remain-long-in-november","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/428891\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Mayor Lurie’s coat tails remain long in November?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In June, we noted that <\/a>Mayor Daniel Lurie\u2019s Brunello Cucinelli<\/a> outerwear did not come equipped with much in the way of coat tails. The question on the eve of June\u2019s primary election was: What about his metaphorical coat tails?\u00a0<\/p>\n

It turns out he had them: Voters gave Lurie everything he could\u2019ve asked for, by gaudy margins to boot<\/a>. If the mayor chooses to match his literal coattails to his metaphorical ones, he\u2019d film his next Instagram video decked out<\/a> like Arturo Toscanini<\/a>.<\/p>\n

(Of note: Lurie\u2019s actual jacket of choice<\/a> at Outside Lands would appear to be this \u201csherpa-lined\u201d overshirt <\/a>from Yves Saint Laurent; what goes with Charli XCX<\/a> better than YSL?).\u00a0<\/p>\n

San Franciscans began reporting happy thoughts on the trajectory of the city to pollsters nanoseconds after Lurie sent London Breed into private life, and continue to do so. San Francisco remains a place with problems to solve, but the right-track wrong-track numbers are the best city politicos have ever seen. Lurie\u2019s appeal is not hard to fathom: He\u2019s an earnest and likable guy promoting \u201ccommon sense\u201d approaches to problems, and he has vast wealth (and access to others\u2019 vast wealth) with which to spread his earnest and likable messaging<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As such, Lurie\u2019s pitch to voters is also not hard to fathom: It\u2019s the Tom Cruise Help me help you<\/a> and Sledge Hammer\u2019s Trust me \u2014\u00a0I know what I\u2019m doing<\/a>. This is working and, logically, will continue to be deployed until it doesn\u2019t.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We have an election coming in November and, among other contests, Lurie has signature-gathered three charter reform measures<\/a> onto the ballot to consolidate and centralize mayoral power. These are promoted as \u201ccommon-sense\u201d reforms but were also boosted by $8.6 million (and counting) <\/a>from the city\u2019s wealthiest individuals and businesses.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSan Franciscans deserve a City Hall that works for them, not for insiders or special interests,\u201d reads Lurie\u2019s pitch<\/a>. It is a testament to his unique earnestness and likability that a scion of generational wealth backed by a murderer\u2019s row of millionaires and billionaires spending eye-watering amounts on these measures could seriously make such a statement. But this is working and, logically, will continue to be deployed until it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur city charter is so bloated that it slows down basic services, breeds corruption, and wastes taxpayer dollars,\u201d Lurie continued. \u201cSan Franciscans elected me to clean up City Hall, and these reforms will strengthen accountability, deliver better results, and end the excuses.\u201d<\/p>\n

The campaign for these measures is, unsubtly, called \u201cClean Up City Hall.\u201d Lurie is telling us that the City Hall he\u2019s overseen for close to two years is still dirty \u2014\u00a0as well as inefficient, wasteful and even corrupt. Separate and apart from the validity of this pitch, it is not appealing to the positive mindset that propelled him into City Hall and has kept him popular.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Which is why it\u2019s a bit discordant for Lurie to also be putting his imprimatur \u2014\u00a0and no small degree of money \u2014 behind appealing to November voters to tax themselves to shower funds upon Muni<\/a> and BART<\/a>. San Franciscans driven to the polls by calls to do away with dirty, disorganized government would not figure to be naturals for the message \u201cplease fund our extant transit services, generously.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s the pitch. And this speaks to the remarkable \u2014\u00a0and, so far, well-earned \u2014\u00a0confidence Team Lurie has in voters simply listening to our mayor and checking his desired boxes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Help me help you. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Trust me \u2014\u00a0I know what I\u2019m doing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AAlas: BART has bigger problems than ill-advised carpeting or trains louder than a Metallica concert. Illustration by Neil Ballard<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s something funny about November\u2019s so-called Muni and BART measures: The Muni measure would bring in an estimated $160 million<\/a> yearly for Muni. The five-county \u201cBART\u201d measure would bring in an estimated $170 million<\/a> yearly for Muni. This is why backers of the \u201cBART\u201d measure would rather you referred to it as the \u201cRegional Transit Measure\u201d \u2014\u00a0BART only gets around one-third of the money.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s something to think about for any San Franciscan considering voting for the local measure and against the regional one because they like Muni but don\u2019t like BART. Calls from San Francisco\u2019s tightfisted closet Republicans to \u201cfix\u201d our transit agencies before funding them do not come from a serious place; you can no more run mass transit on the cheap than you can learn French without learning grammar (on this: Trust me \u2014\u00a0I know what I\u2019m doing<\/a>). \u00a0<\/p>\n

Mission Local cannot tell you how to vote. Regardless, it is fundamentally discordant to rile up voters to \u201cclean up\u201d City Hall while also asking them to tax themselves \u2014\u00a0via a parcel tax for Muni and a sales tax for BART \u2014\u00a0to bail out transit. It\u2019s not a trivial matter: The consequences of failing to pass either or both of these transit taxes is literally existential<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lurie\u2019s campaign spokesperson Max Szabo waved off concerns about discordant messaging.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTo avoid devastating service cuts, prevent gridlock traffic and secure our economic recovery, voters are being asked to support transit agencies across the state,\u201d he wrote. Szabo emphasized that 100 percent of the money is going to Muni \u2014\u00a0the actual buses, trains and cable cars, which voters tell pollsters they like. That\u2019s distinct from the much less popular SFMTA \u2014\u00a0the overarching transit agency, which includes parking control officers and poindexters who make your block into a Slow Street or eliminate the parking spots in front of shopkeepers\u2019 stores that they like to park in all day while feeding the meter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, voters love Muni and want to make it stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n

Every serious vestige of San Francisco political power will join the mayor in calling for the Muni tax. It only needs a bare majority to win. But the BART \u2026 sorry, Regional Transit Measure will be voted on across five counties. To make up for likely poor showings in less transit-friendly corners of the Bay Area, the measure needs to do big numbers in San Francisco and Alameda counties.<\/p>\n

Transit advocates are clear that they need to get every vote they can in San Francisco. They are hoping Lurie\u2019s messaging to voters really will help him help BART.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lurie\u2019s popularity and overflowing war chest bode well for his trio of charter amendments. So does the popular messaging of enabling our popular mayor to do away with bloated, wasteful, redundant vestiges of a byzantine \u2014\u00a0even sinister \u2014 government.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It never hurts to have the rich and powerful spending liberally on your behalf. Meanwhile, organized labor, the only entity with either the resources or the gumption to put up a fight, is monomaniacally focused on getting Connie Chan elected to congress. Labor is also smarting after putting millions into June\u2019s Prop. D \u201cOverpaid CEO Tax<\/a>\u201d \u2014\u00a0which voters spurned, at Lurie\u2019s urging. In November, Lurie can march all the way to the capital virtually untouched.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Two of the charter reform measures<\/a> will likely run unopposed. One would centralize procurement, which is difficult to argue against. Another, weightier measure would allow the mayor to merge or consolidate two dozen city departments and have a more direct hand in hirings and firings. That\u2019s a big deal, but will also probably be conceded even by city entities not thrilled about this.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the third measure, to dramatically curtail the ease of getting items on the ballot, that may draw more than a token fight. It would eliminate provisions allowing the mayor to unilaterally put items on the ballot or a minority of supervisors to do the same \u2014 and it would quadruple the number of signatures required for citizens to qualify a measure. At present, the city requires 2 percent of the electorate; the mayor\u2019s measure would hike it to 8 percent (That\u2019d still be lower than most cities in the state \u2014\u00a0but higher than San Jose\u2019s 5 percent threshold, the percentage recommended by SPUR<\/a> in a report portending these mayoral charter amendments).\u00a0<\/p>\n

This will be an interesting test of just how convincing our well-liked mayor is: San Francisco\u2019s ballot is uniquely chaotic<\/a>. But the optics of a billionaire, backed by a cadre of billionaires, diagnosing our city\u2019s problem as too much democracy are so bad as to veer into evil: Mayor Lurie and his allies are spending handily to gather signatures to enact a ballot measure that will make it harder for all but wealthy groups or individuals to gather signatures to enact a ballot measure. <\/p>\n

When we get past the anodyne help me help you, Team Lurie\u2019s arguments for limiting ballot access grow shakier. The mayor\u2019s campaign notes that, in 2024, San Franciscans voted on 15 ballot measures \u2014\u00a0far more than any other Bay Area municipality. That\u2019s true. But if the mayor\u2019s desired reforms were in effect at the time, we\u2019d have still voted on perhaps 12 or 13 measures.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Team Lurie also noted that 44 percent of items on the last 30 years of ballots could\u2019ve been handled legislatively but were sent to voters anyway. That\u2019s true, too. Yet, if Lurie had legislated these three charter reforms thorugh the Board of Supervisors \u2014 and a fourth, quarterbacked by Board President Rafael Mandelman \u2014 San Franciscans could\u2019ve voted on one measure instead of four.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

But, hey, that\u2019s complicated! And it\u2019s not clear that arguments like these will ever be widely made. Certainly not if the discourse doesn\u2019t advance beyond helping our likable and popular mayor help us.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t