My endorsements are below. I am fortunate to be surrounded by a community that constantly educates me. The information I share is based on access to my long-standing and personal relationships and resources in the community.
Our democracy cannot thrive without disagreement. So, I ask that you please keep it polite. Please don't reply to this with all caps when you're having an impulsive moment after one too many drinks. If you confront me in public, I reserve the right to tell you that now is not the time, give you a polite smile, and take a long sip from my reusable straw, which is your opportunity for you to compliment how pretty I look.
This voting guide is a tool to help find your way. It's meant to help make an informed, balanced decision. Ultimately, however, that decision is yours. The democracy we, you, all of us want is ours to proclaim. We must vote.
Loads of Love, Juanita
State - CA
Congressional District 11: Connie Chan. I'm voting for Connie Chan because she has focused on real, everyday issues that matter to families: affordable housing, tenant protections, safer streets, and funding community services. She's also shown she can work on long-term solutions, not just talk about them, by supporting housing for seniors, protecting workers and renters, and helping preserve key neighborhood programs. Her plans continue that same approach — more affordable homes, stronger tenant rights, practical public safety, and better support for working people and immigrants.
Congressional District 15: No Endorsement
Board of Supervisors, District 2: No Endorsement
Board of Supervisors, District 4: No Endorsement
Board of Supervisors, District 6: Alex Behrend
Board of Supervisors, District 8: #1 Gary McCoy, #2 Michael "Juicy Liu" Nguyen
Board of Supervisors, District 10: #1 DJ Brookter, #2 J.R. Eppler
SFUSD Board of Education: Virginia Cheung, Reina Tello, Ryan Hazelton
City College Board of Trustees: Bunny McFadden, Leah LeCroix, Jeremy Lee
City College Board of Trustees, Partial Term: No Endorsement
Assessor-Recorder: Joaquin Torres
Public Defender: Manohar Raju
State Assembly, District 17: Matt Haney
State Assembly, District 19: No Endorsement
Local Propositions
Prop A: Charter reform limits oversight committees: Charter reform guts oversight bodies: OH HELL NO - Let's just get into it, shall we? Changes to our City Charter (basically our local constitution) should be made only through careful analysis and a transparent, democratic process so we all understand what's at stake and why. There are four Charter Amendments on this ballot that pay lip service to these democratic values – Prop A is the first.
Pay-to-play tech billionaires have raised well over $8.6 Million dollars for their “Clean Up City Hall” Charter Amendment package. That is a record amount of money for a local ballot measure campaign (for some background, if these tech CEOs paid this amount monthly, we could end child homelessness in San Francisco in 7 months). Instead, they have used the funds to roll out a massive PR campaign that obscures the package's true purpose: stripping citizen oversight and consolidating even more executive branch power in an already mayor-strong system of government.
If you ask most San Franciscans what Prop A's 138 pages of legalese actually does, they wouldn't be able to tell you. I do know that nothing good comes from pouring everything and the kitchen sink into the meatgrinder – in fact, it usually means people are trying to hide something in the fine print instead of explaining how the sausage is actually made!
This is an unnecessary expansion of mayoral power that essentially weakens the vast majority of governance and oversight bodies, removes enforcement functions, and makes city committees decorative props – in some cases, even eliminating voter-approved bodies altogether.
Prop B: SF Public Nonprofit Bank: YES - This community-led proposal has been a long time coming, enabled by state legislation and studied by a working group through the Tax Collector's Office. It would help San Franciscans gain independence from shady, extractive big banks and reinvest our public taxpayer dollars into things that will benefit all of us, like small business loans and affordable housing. SF PROPEL has an excellent video about just one of the things a public bank could unleash for our beautiful city.
Prop C: SF Housing Trust Fund: While I don't agree with how this measure got on the ballot (in exchange for gutting our inclusionary program and attempting to repeal Prop I), it's one steady way to get over $100M annually for low-income affordable housing from 2030-2058. We are way behind our state mandates and have a real affordability crisis, so every little bit helps!
Prop D: Charter reform limits ballot measure submissions: NO - This is the second of the misleadingly named "Clean Up City Hall/Cut Up the City Constitution" package. It would raise the already-challenging and expensive requirements to place citizen initiatives (like 2016 Prop C's "Our City, Our Home", 2018 Prop C's “Free Childcare for All" and… )
Prop E: Charter reform limits contracting oversight: NO - (I love repetition, don't you?)...This is the third in the unnecessary but eye-poppingly expensive package of measures to gut our city constitution. This would raise the threshold for contracts with the city that have to go before the Board of Supervisors, eliminating Budget and Legislative Analyst review, preventing oversight of the Mayor and city departments in public hearings, and allowing corporations and non-profits cozy with the Mayor to cash in more easily, while the public becomes more in the dark. With contracts from Flock to OpenGov wreaking havoc with impunity, we need to require more oversight, not less.
Prop F: Charter reform expands Mayor's power: NO - This City has one of the strongest mayors in the country, yet there's a $9M effort to give the mayor's office more power. This measure would give the mayor almost universal discretion to restructure chartered city departments, legalize London Breed's scandalous policy of extorting commissioners by making them sign preemptive resignation letters, remove any city commissioner without just cause, and pay deputy mayors exorbitant salaries (including childhood friends and business associates). Democracy needs sunshine to thrive. At a time when the Sunshine Task Force has found the mayor's office lacks transparency and willfully practices document destruction, and at a time when the same donors running the City are powering the Trump administration's abhorrent policies, it feels like we should be demanding more checks and balances, more transparency, more accountability, and more public participation. Definitely not less.
Not to be a bitch, but the mayor said he didn't need experience or a basic understanding of governance to govern – and now he says it's too hard to do his job without gutting our City Charter. Whether you are a fan of Lurie and his administration or not, this is a massive rewrite of our city constitution that is justifiably concerning. It's ok to like the politician and disagree with his policies – which will shape the power of every future mayor to follow.
Prop G: Great Highway compromise: NO ENDORSEMENT. Miss Thing, we're tired – how many more times must we vote on this? I imagine the city will vote along the same lines it did two years ago to close the Great Highway to cars 24/7. I have heard all sides of this issue, and while it feels a little like we're all getting caught up in unnecessary drama, I can understand the various points of view – do as you will. As a Lady Who Struts, I have never met a park I didn't like.
That being said, I sure wish Rec & Park would stop grandstanding on prestige projects and show some love to the neighborhoods that have been waiting for a new park for decades: the Greater Tenderloin neighborhood has been in a purgatory waiting game since at least 2011. Finally, the irony is not lost on me that the same people who overwhelmingly voted to make this a daytime drama (recalling Supervisor Engardio, then putting this measure back on) are exactly the same people who just voted to put the mayor's handpicked appointee into power, backed by over half a million dollars of tech billionaire pay-to-play money. (With approximately 39,000 registered voters in District 4, these billionaires bought the Sunset for roughly $14 a head– meanwhile, voters thought they were getting someone who would champion their cause and got... maybe not so much!) Like I said: do as you like. You get what you vote for!
Prop H: Parcel tax to fund Muni: YES - This proposition will prevent public transit in our City from disappearing after being gutted by this administration. While the Transit Riders Union and other groups didn't get everything they wanted in their negotiations with the Mayor – like raising the cap on what mega-corporations have to pay and eliminating the tenant pass-through – it's still a tiered tax, so at least small property owners won't be paying the same as Amazon. Frankly, taxing billionaires should fund Muni, but a parcel tax is more progressive than relying on fares and fines.
Prop I: Affordable Housing Guarantee Act: YES - We all want and need affordable housing, and sometimes it requires bopping clueless politicians over the head and legally requiring them to do their damn jobs! Which is what housing advocates did by putting Prop I on the ballot after City Hall continued to fail us. Prop I dedicates a portion of an existing transfer tax to affordable housing production (including innovative social housing for a wider range of income levels) and preservation and rehab of existing public housing, SROs, and co-ops. It's also the only measure on the ballot to dedicate funds to rental assistance and eviction protections – which are obviously critical as we've watched rents and evictions skyrocket. It’s projected to raise $100m-$200m a year, all without raising or creating new taxes. The Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development would manage the funds, and the Controller would audit them annually to ensure accountability. Most important: it closes a loophole that would allow any future Mayor or Board of Supervisors to repeal the tax without going back to the voters, which the Mayor has already publicly pledged to do. This is a historic opportunity, because the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association raised enough money to get Prop 43 on the ballot – which would limit local jurisdictions' abilities to pass certain local taxes in future elections. So this is really our moment to shoot our shot – say no to even more billionaire tax breaks, and yes to a more affordable future for SF!
Prop J: Close Foreclosure Loophole: YES - Our friend Assessor Recorder Joaquin Torres did an assessment of recent transfer taxes and found that there had been a surge of large real estate sales exempt from the transfer tax because of a loophole that exempted foreclosed properties – literally leaving hundreds of millions of dollars on the table. As I know firsthand from my Tiny Tenderlion Apartment, there have been plenty of foreclosures from Big Real Estate landlords like Veritas – and it makes me triple-chili pissed to think that they got tax breaks as a reward for selling off people's homes. Basically, massive corporations have benefitted from protections meant for vulnerable homeowners. Closing this loophole will net us near-term benefits to help plug our structural budget deficit and level out over time.
Regional Measures
Prop RTM: Regional Transit Sales Tax: YES - This proposition would prevent BART from going over a cliff and further subject us to the mercy of privatized transportation clogging our streets.
State Propositions
Prop 1: Affordable housing bond: YES
Prop 2: Increase the state’s rainy day fund: YES
Prop 3: Extend high-income tax to permanently fund schools and healthcare: YES
Prop 4: Legalize public campaign financing: YES
Prop 5: Changes the recall election process for statewide officers: YES
Prop 37: Creates a loan program for middle-income new home buyers: NO
Prop 38: $8.4B bond for immunology medical research: NO
Prop 39: Requires government-issued ID to vote: NO
Prop 40: Imposes a one-time wealth tax for billionaires: HELL YES!
Prop 41: Requires pre-election audit for voter-passed taxes: NO
Prop 42: Limits the state's ability to raise taxes: NO
Prop 43: Limits local voters' ability to pass local taxes: NO
Prop 44: Requires community health clinics to spend 90% of revenue on program services: NO
Prop 45: Modifies environmental review for certain projects: NO
Statewide Offices
Governor: Xavier Becerra
Lieutenant Governor: No Endorsement
Secretary of State: Shirley Weber
State Controller: Malia Cohen
State Treasurer: No Endorsement
Attorney General: Rob Bonta
Insurance Commissioner: Jane Kim
State Superintendent of Public Instruction:
Board of Equalization, District 2: Sally Lieber
Judges
CA Supreme Court: Retain all (Groban, Evans)
First Court of Appeals: Retain all (Smiley, Banke, Wilson, Desautels, Stewart, Fujisaki, Petrou, Simons, Chou, Burns)