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News + PoliticsDeclaring the end of progressive San Francisco is a bit premature

Only 20 percent of the votes have been counted. And we have heard this story before.

The San Francisco Chronicle and The San Francisco Standard have both declared that this is no longer a progressive city.

That seems a bit premature to me.

The early results from last nights election do, indeed, mostly favor the wing of the Democratic Party that calls itself moderate but is actually, on economic issues, pretty conservative. (I call neoliberals conservatives.)

Ballot measures supported by the mayor that do things like give the police more authority to spy on us all and require drug screening for welfare recipients are passing easily.

The conservatives are heading for control of the Democratic County Central Committee.

But lets hold on a moment here before we pronounce a dramatic shift in local politics.

These results are based on a turnout of 20.9 percent. Four out of every five registered voters have not had their votes counted. There are, as of Wednesday, more ballots still outstanding (110,000) than have been counted so far.

And according to all the maps I have seen, the early ballots, the ones they count first, are overwhelmingly from the most conservative parts of the city.

Look at the data: 22.5 percent of the Democratic votes have been counted. But almost 29 percent of the Republican votes are in. One out of every ten votes counted so far was cast by a Republicans, who represent 7.4 percent of the registered voters.

The early returns always skew conservative, since the more conservative voters tend to turn their ballots in early.

Im not suggesting that the final results will change dramaticallybut only a few hundred votes separate the winners and losers in the DCCC, and its likely that at least a few more progressives will make the cut.

In the end, though, we will have a fairly conservative outcomelargely because of who voted. The Chron noted that in an update this afternoon. The Department of Elections will release more results Thursday at 4pm.

As I said last night, many of the conservative voters turn out anyway, and the mayors attacks on the poor and promotion of the police brought out more of those voters. And the billionaire money made a huge difference, particularly in the DCCC race.

The biggest problem for the progressives, particularly younger voters, was the lack of anything at the top of the ticket to inspire them to vote.

People on the left in San Francisco, by and large, are not happy with Joe Biden. So, either as a protest or as a matter of disinterest, some of then stayed home.

Check out this chart, from the Department of Elections. Turnout is highest when theres something at the top of the ticketand that is also when progressives do best.

In November, if theres a candidate progressives can support running for mayor, theres a good chance that the presidential race and the mayors race will bring out enough voters on the left to make a big difference in the supes races and on ballot measures.

The impact of the tech workers who have moved to town in the past ten years is becoming real. At first, they werent voting; now, apparently, they are. We all knew this was going to happen; as longtime activist Calvin Welch likes to say, who lives here, votes here, and as displacement forces out the working class and communities of color, the city gets more conservative. The Yimby pro-market approach to issues like housing, and the pro-police approach to social problems, has become more appealing to the wealthier residents.

Maybe wave after wave of gentrification will ultimately usher in a neoliberal majority on the Board of Supes and a more conservative body politic.

But Ive been around a long time. In the 1980s, the city was run almost entirely by economic (and often social) conservatives like Mayor Dianne Feinstein, who had more than six call-up votes on an at-large board. Frank Jordan, a former police chief, was elected mayor in 1991. In the later 1990s, Mayor Willie Brown controlled the supes and his pro-developer politics dominated the city. The left was always in the minority and on the ropes.

Gavin Newsom get elected mayor by attacking poor people with a ballot measure called Care not Cash, which passed with a clear majority.

The DCCC used to be controlled by the old Brown-Burton Machine, which made sure that progressive Harry Britt, the heir to Harvey Milks supervisorial seat, lost a generational, defining Congressional race to machine candidate Nancy Pelosi.

Conservative election outcomes are not new. Neoliberal mayors have run San Francisco for much of past half century.

But recent years have shown a remarkable uprising of progressive candidates and causes. The young, organized, diverse left in this city is as strong as Ive seen it.

So after all this time, Im not ready to write the obituary for the progressive city.

Read more:
Declaring the end of progressive San Francisco is a bit premature - 48 hills - 48 Hills

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), using ruthless tactics belied by his cherubic face and upstanding public persona, has won the California Senate primary, according to the Associated Press.

Steve Garvey, a former professional baseball player, is projected to come in second almost entirely thanks to Schiffs maneuvering. The millions Schiff spent on ads boosting Garveys profile with Republican voters helped edge out Reps. Katie Porter (D-CA) and Barbara Lee (D-CA), both of whom would have posed an actual threat to Schiff in the general election (Californias jungle primary lets two candidates of the same party go through to the general).

Porter Sen. Elizabeth Warrens (D-MA) proteg, who gained a national profile by taking CEOs to task at committee hearings, armed with her omnipresent whiteboard and Lee famous for being the only member of Congress to vote against authorizing military force after 9/11 are both considered more progressive than Schiff. But a lack of left-wing consolidation around either woman, as well as the lack of involvement by key groups like EMILYs List, left the progressive flank of the party split. Schiff got the moderate lane to himself.

Schiff has also been incredibly successful in riding his high-profile role in Donald Trumps impeachment trial to national fame, becoming omnipresent on cable news. It didnt hurt that he won the endorsement of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), a famed fundraiser.

Schiff will virtually certainly win the seat of the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) in the fall, taking over for Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-CA) who was, ironically, appointed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) so a Black woman would again represent the state. The state will now be without a woman in either of its two Senate seats for the first time in over 30 years.

While Schiff lacks the progressive bona fides of Porter and Lee, he does meet what will be a key Democratic litmus test for candidates for the upper chamber from here on out: He supports ending the filibuster, along with more expansive proposals to nix the Electoral College and expand the Supreme Court.

Porters loss may ultimately cost the most: Of the three, shes the only one that gave up a competitive House seat to run, in a cycle where the House majority could come down to the wire. The Cook Political Report currently rates her district leans Democratic.

Follow this link:
Schiff Beats Out Split Progressives On Glide Path To California Senate Seat - TPM

Toplines & Key Facts:

Primary Election

The Texas Democratic Primary election resulted in wins for almost all of our Progress Texas endorsed candidates. Michelle Vallejo took home 75% of the votes and will face incumbent Republican Monica De La Cruz in the November election for Congressional District 15.

State Representative Julie Johnson received 50.1% of the vote winning the Democratic nomination outright, in a crowded field of candidates, for Congressional District 32 (Congressman Colin Allreds seat).

Former math teacher and Dallas ISD high school principal Sam Eppler won the Democratic nomination for U.S. Congressional District 24 with 59% of the votes. He will face incumbent Beth Van Duyne in the November election, an uphill battle in a heavily gerrymandered district.

Labor union organizer Lauren Ashley Simmons received 50% of the votes in Texas House District 146, and will advance to the May 28 runoff election against incumbent State Representative Shawn Thierry. We are proud to continue supporting Lauren as she makes the final stretch to victory.

With just more than 59% of the votes, U.S. Congressman Colin Allred (TX- 32) won the Democratic nomination and will face Ted Cruz for the U.S. Senate this fall. We are extremely proud to have endorsed State Senator Roland Gutierrez, who ran a strong campaign that displayed fiery and steadfast support for the families of Uvalde. We look forward to whats next for Senator Gutierrez as he continues serving constituents in District 19 and pushing progress forward in Texas. We want to congratulate Congressman Allred for his win, and are excited to have a strong challenger for Ted Cruz. Allred is a skilled fundraiser with national Democratic backing who we plan to support to become the first Democratic candidate to win statewide office in Texas since the 90s.

Lastly, we want to thank Texas Railroad Commissioner candidate, Bill Burch, for a great primary election. It was a pleasure to get to know him, and we congratulate winner Katherine Culbert as she took the win as the Democratic nominee.

We congratulate all of the Democratic incumbents who won their elections outright, and look forward to electing more progressives and putting democracy over dictatorship in the general election.

Progress Texas supports a stable democracy, a dependable energy system, health care for all, an end to gun violence, a just immigration system, reproductive freedom, economic opportunity, workers rights, public education, and human decencyalong with democracy and human rights abroad. Its all on your ballot in November 2024.

Read this article:
Progressive Wins and Losses in Texas' Super Tuesday Primary - Progress Texas

In the weeks leading up to Tuesdays primary election, voters in two of Texas most populous counties were bombarded with warnings that their safety hinged on voting down two reformist district attorney candidates.

Incumbent Travis County District Attorney Jos Garza was lenient on rape and child sexual assault and put a political bullseye on police officers, his Democratic primary opponent Jeremy Sylestine alleged without evidence. Mailers sent by a dark money group baselessly accused Garza of filling Austins streets with pedophiles [and] killers.

In Harris County, incumbent District Attorney Kim Ogg, who was elected in 2016 on a reformist platform but later veered right and fought against cash bail reform, claimed she was facing a primary challenge from progressive Sean Teare because she did not agree to open the doors of the jail to violent offenders.

Despite the fearmongering, voters in both counties overwhelmingly chose the candidates promising to reform the criminal justice system. Garza and Teare were declared the winners on Tuesday night after early returns showed Garza with 67% of the vote and Teare with 75%.

Anonymous dark money organizations spent untold dollars promoting lies and peddling misinformation to try to scare voters into turning their backs on progress, Garza said in a Tuesday night victory speech. This community didnt take the bait, and Im so grateful to all of you for that.

Although both candidates will face Republican challengers in the November general election, they are running in counties that lean Democrat.

Garza, a former public defender, and labor and immigrant rights attorney, was elected Travis County district attorney in 2020. In an interview with The Appeal, he promised to prosecute police violence, cease prosecution of low-level drug offenses, oppose the construction of a new jail, work to protect immigrants from deportation, rarely seek prison sentences longer than 20 years, and never seek the death penalty.

Garza has made good on some of those promises. He indicted 19 police officers for assault during Black Lives Matter protests, started a restorative justice program, and expanded pretrial diversion programs to avoid conviction and incarceration for certain offenses. He also joined several prosecutors who pledged not to prosecute people for abortions after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade.

Unsurprisingly, Republicans and law enforcement groups mobilized to oust Garza. Last year, state Republicans passed a law allowing prosecutors to be removed from office for declining to prosecute certain offenses. All prosecutors exercise discretion in choosing which cases to pursue, but this bill was clearly aimed at removing progressive prosecutors. Shortly after the bill passed, the Republican candidate who lost the 2020 district attorney race to Garza wrote a petition for Garzas removal. Harry, who was living in Florida, recruited Travis County residents to file the petition.

Sylestine, who started his career as a public defender and then spent 15 years in the Travis County district attorneys office, was recruited by a group of wealthy business people who insisted, inaccurately, that crime had risen in Austin under Garza and that his reforms were to blame. In fact, incidents of homicide, rape, robbery and burglary have deceased since Garza took office, according to Austin Police Department data. Sylestines campaign attracted support from Austins police union and a group called Save Austin Now, which pushed to reinstate criminal penalties for being homeless in public.

Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla, which is headquartered in Austin, emailed his employees on Tuesday, encouraging them to vote for a new district attorney who will actually prosecute crimes. Musk, who also owns X (formerly Twitter), urged his 175.4 million followers on the platform to vote for a new DA, in a post that was deleted by Wednesday morning.

The truth is, Republicans tried to infiltrate our primary, Garza said during his Tuesday night speech. How did that work out for them?

Ogg, who lost her primary reelection on Tuesday, made history in 2016 when she became Harris Countys first openly gay top prosecutor and the countys first Democratic DA in decades. In a county known as the execution capital of the U.S., Ogg promised to reduce the use of the death penalty, supported misdemeanor bail reform and diversion programs for low-level marijuana possession cases.

Shortly after Ogg took office, a federal judge ruled that Harris Countys bail system was unconstitutional. Initially, Ogg praised the ruling and the class action lawsuit that brought about the decision. But in 2019, she reversed course, and fought against a proposedsettlement, which would largely end the use of cash bail for misdemeanor offenses.

Around that time, Ogg complained that too many dangerous misdemeanor offenders were avoiding pretrial detention, listing people accused of domestic violence, stalking and driving under the influence.

During her time in office, Oggs rhetoric increasingly aligned with the anti-reform camp. She accused the countys mostly Democratic judges of being too lenient in setting bail amounts.

We are fighting those bonds low, insufficient bonds daily in court, Ogg said in 2022. It has become the new battleground for public safety.

That year, Oggs office filed criminal charges in more than 4,500 cases that judges said lacked probable cause. Meanwhile, 28 people died in custody while awaiting trial in the overcrowded Harris County Jail. More than 40% of Oggs January campaign contributions came from the bail bond industry.

Teare, a former prosecutor in Oggs office, told Bolts, a criminal justice and voting rights publication, last month that Ogg fostered a culture of fear in her office where prosecutors are wary of dismissing weak cases, allowing pretrial release or offering plea deals for lower charges. On his website, Teare states his support for misdemeanor bail reform, linking to a study that found it did not lead to increased crime. Unlike Garza, Teare has not pledged to not seek the death penalty.

In an interview with Texas Monthly, Ogg accused Teare of running a campaign of political tricks backed by Jewish billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros, a common talking point among right-wing conspiracy theorists and anti-Semites. Although a Soros-funded PAC contributed ad buys and polling help to Teare, Soros also spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to elect Ogg in 2016, Texas Monthly noted.

Go here to see the original:
Progressives Win Two Texas District Attorney Races - Yahoo! Voices

The Progressive House Squad is demanding more from President Joe Biden in Gaza ahead of his third State of the Union address.

Progressive Democrats, who have long expressed outrage over Bidens support for Israel during the War in Gaza, believe that his latest actions arent enough. The administration has taken several major moves to send aid to starving Palestinians in Gaza, including airdropping supplies, and, as will be announced tonight, opening up a port to facilitate further aid. Despite this, progressives want more.

Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), Cori Bush (D-MO), and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) all told Axios that Biden must do more to alleviate the suffering of the Palestinians, mainly by stopping Israels assault.

If the port brings in hundreds of trucks a day, thats great, but we need a ceasefire now, Bowman told the outlet. Furthermore, Biden should press for the release of the hostages in the West Bank and Gaza, not just in Gaza, and ensure a pathway to peace for the Palestinians.

Omar put it more bluntly, saying that Biden needs to end the onslaught.

Bush said that Biden must push for a lasting ceasefire, rather than a temporary one, and restore funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agencyfor Palestine Refugees in the Near East.

However, they noted that they arent getting their hopes up for those promises in the State of the Union.

Im hoping to hear all of that, Bowman said, but, I probably wont.

Bush also signaled her wider support for Biden, despite not revealing if she voted for him in her states primary.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Right now my focus is making sure that we save lives now, because if we do the work to save lives now then we protect our democracy in November, she told the outlet.

How we save our democracy is by listening to the voters and the more than 70% of Democrats saying they want a ceasefire, Bush added.

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State of the Union 2024: Progressive 'Squad' turns up heat on Biden with demands ahead of speech - Washington Examiner