By Calvin Welch, HANC Board
Haight-Ashbury voters, according to the latest "preliminary" vote count from San Francisco Department of Elections ( Preliminary Report 11) , cast the highest percentage of its vote against recall of any of the 23 "neighborhoods" reported by the Department of Elections: of the 10,177 votes cast in the neighborhood 9,652 (94.85%) were NO on the recall. Just as San Francisco cast the highest percentage of no votes in the state (86.1%) , the Haight-Ashbury cast the highest in San Francisco, showing once again we are the most "San Franciscan" voters in the City.
The Newsom campaign claimed (and the media parroted the claim) a major victory in that it had succeeded in "nationalizing" the recall campaign, that is making voters believe that in voting against the recall they were voting against Trump. That may be true here but that is what not happened in the rest of San Francisco, however.
Trump in 2020 got 56,000 votes in San Francisco while the recall got only 47,000 votes so perhaps even Trumpers voted against the recall. In six of the 11 Supervisorial Districts -1,2,3,4,6,and 7- the recall garnered a higher percentage of the vote than did Trump in 2020. Indeed, in what should be a major concern for Democrats, in communities of color in San Francisco more pro recall votes were cast than the Citywide average, sometimes a lot more:
City Wide Yes Vote.......... 13.9%
Excelsior......................... 18.5%
Ingleside......................... 18.5%
VisValley .........................20.2%
Bayview/HP........................ 16%
Chinatown......................... 15.4%
Tenderloin.......................... 15.3%
Portola................................21.2%
Richmond.......................... 16.2%
But perhaps the most overlooked aspect of the race was the crucial role played by a court decision made just days before the time limit on signature gathering would have disqualified the recall back in November, 2020. A Sacramento Superior Court Judge ruled in favor of the recall petition campaign granting them an extension from the 160 day deadline for gathering signatures to qualify the recall. He added another 120 days, nearly doubling the constitutionally set time limit for recalls. Neither the State, which had opposed the suit, nor the Democratic Party nor the Newsom campaign appealed this decision to the state Supreme Court, totally dominated by Democratic governors’ appointees! Even more stunning was the revelation that the Judge that made the ruling was the former partner of the lawyer representing the recall campaign!
While there has been a hue and cry about California's recall law and a serious amount of ignorant bloviating, especially from the national press, about its need to be repealed, not one national story (and few state stories) have highlighted the political incompetence of Newsom and his advisors in failing to appeal the decision and the outrageous conflict the judge committed. There is no heavy breathing to remove the judge or reform the conflict of interest laws that were clearly ignored in this case. The only concern seems to be to weaken one of California's great "progressive reforms" of the early 20th century: the ability of the people to directly recall elected officials. As was said during the Progressive Era, "The only cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy".