Next year could be the year of the biggest changes in San Francisco’s governance and politics since the 1900s.
Last week, Mayor Daniel Lurie and Board of Supervisors President Rafael Mandelman kicked off a year-long process to make major changes to the City Charter, culminating in one or more ballot measures for the November 2026 ballot. Proposals to remake governing norms and the way the city “does business” may join an already long ballot with hotly contested races for Congress, five seats on the Board of Supervisors, three seats on the Board of Education, and a currently wide-open race to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom.
San Francisco is just one of 43 charter cities in California — a status that affords greater local control over how city government is organized. San Francisco is unique not only in California but across major cities in the United States (except Denver) that combine municipal and county functions under one government. That means the costs of government are not always accurately compared, and City Hall carries greater responsibilities than local counterparts elsewhere. This feature has led San Francisco to sometimes go its own way on policies and procedures, resulting in outcomes that depart from its identity, earned through the rapid recovery from the 1906 earthquake, as “The City that knows how.”
To carry out the herculean task to review and revise the city charter — at over 500 pages, it’s the longest local government charter in the country — Mayor Lurie and board President Mandelman have called upon 28 other high-profile leaders, including two current supervisors and the city administrator, who together represent government, business, labor, civic, philanthropic, and nonprofit organizations. Virtually all — such as San Francisco Giants President Larry Baer, San Francisco Labor Council Secretary-Treasurer Kim Tavaglione, and San Francisco State University President Lynn Mahoney — have significant “day jobs” so there is widespread speculation on who will do the group’s real work, how it will be organized, and what topics will be on the agenda.
The group will focus on organization of city government, operational efficiency, the impact of initiatives placed on the ballot, and the prevalence of specifically set aside funds within the city budget beyond the control of the mayor and supervisors.
In their announcement of what they describe four times as an “effort” and once as a “comprehensive look at how to modernize and streamline the charter,” the mayor and board president did not state how frequently the group will meet, nor when it plans to submit charter recommendations to the Board of Supervisors. But they are calling it a “working group” and not a “policy body,” so its deliberations are exempt from the Sunshine Ordinance requirements for open meetings and communications. It will accept written public comment.
By comparison, an ongoing Commission Streamlining Task Force, established after last year’s election for the seemingly smaller task of evaluating and reducing the number of existing city commissions, has heard from almost 1,000 public witnesses and organizations in written and oral public comment in making its proposed charter and code recommendations, according to the Westside Observer.
Given their personal busy schedules and the statutory deadlines to place matters on the ballot, it remains to be seen whether the new charter reformers will have the time to involve the public’s reform ideas extensively. They may just, in the words of board President Mandelman, “help us think through the strengths and weaknesses of various reform proposals” from government experts. He and Mayor Lurie identified a grand jury report and three studies by two think tanks — SPUR and the Rose Institute as starting points. They want the reform group to focus on organization of city government, operational efficiency within government, the impact of initiatives placed on the ballot by citizens or elected officials, and the prevalence of specifically set aside funds within the city budget beyond the control of the mayor and supervisors.
The approach taken by Mayor Lurie and board President Mandelman differs markedly from the 1978–80 charter reform. For the same stated purposes of modernizing city government, making it more efficient, and shortening the charter, voters elected 15 charter commissioners from a field of 102 candidates. They served for two years, holding 70 hearings and 50 decision-making meetings and hearing from over 1,000 San Franciscans. While their proposal was defeated in the 1980 election, that commission offers a different model from what appears to be contemplated now. The 1980 recommendations also formed the basis for a series of charter reform proposals ultimately approved by the voters in 1995.
Through this charter reform effort, Mayor Lurie and board President Mandelman join over a century of San Francisco leaders who have pointed to portions of their contemporary city charters as a barrier to carrying out campaign promises and effectively governing. Similarly, San Franciscans debate and criticize many aspects of our city governing structure such as district versus at-large elections of supervisors; ranked choice voting; elections only in even years; and appointed versus elected school board. Over the next months, The Voice of San Francisco will focus closely on the deliberations and recommendations of the charter reformers and elevate ideas coming straight from San Franciscans about how our city is run.