A leadership change at the recall campaign against District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio has put the citywide connections and consequences of the campaign in stark relief. However, what some characterize as a conspiracy is the legacy of a long-standing political coalition against development in San Francisco — one that could now be returned to power at City Hall if Engardio is successfully recalled.
Since district elections were reinstituted in San Francisco in 2000, District 4, which primarily consists of the Sunset and Parkside neighborhoods, has been represented by Chinese American supervisors, such as Fiona Ma, Carmen Chu, and Katy Tang, who presented themselves as consensus-based, good-government centrists. It reflects the district’s population, which is more than half Asian.
The district’s first supervisor, Leland Yee, also represented himself as a centrist. Still, he also maintained connections with the city’s strong antidevelopment coalition, consisting of left-leaning advocacy groups on the east side of town and more conservative homeowner associations on the city’s west side. He’s also one of two District 4 supervisors to end their political careers in jail. Yee would eventually fall to racketeering charges when he moved on to the State Senate. Another, Ed Jew, arguably the district’s most conservative supervisor, went to prison shortly after being elected for election fraud and bribery.
Viewed from this perspective, District 4, which presents itself as a relatively stable community of single-family homes, could instead be seen as a nexus of political instability. That may seem surprising, but then again, look at New York’s 3rd Congressional District — it’s the wealthiest district in the state, with tony coastal suburbs, yet they elected George Santos.
More recently, District 4 elected Gordon Mar, a Chinese American labor progressive. Mar’s brother, Eric, another labor progressive, represented neighboring District 1 for two terms and is perhaps best known for passing a law to ban Happy Meals. Gordon Mar positioned himself as an ethics champion on the board. Instead, he became more well-known for supporting Chesa Boudin, the controversial district attorney who seemed to care far more about the rights of the accused than those of crime victims, or for that matter, the public peace.
Public wrath over Boudin’s unwillingness to aggressively prosecute several criminal suspects arrested for victimizing Asian people in high-profile cases, such as Troy McAlister and Antoine Watson, led to his successful recall. Joel Engardio, at the time a resident of District 7 and a repeat but unsuccessful candidate for supervisor, was a strong advocate of that effort.
It’s not a conspiracy, it’s not a coincidence, it’s what coalitions do.
Fast forward to 2022, and redistricting moves Engardio’s home, along with hundreds of supporters in his Lakeshore neighborhood, to District 4. In the subsequent election, Engardio becomes the district’s first supervisor who is not only gay, but also not Asian (although his partner is). Asian voters, remembering Engardio’s support of the Boudin recall, put their faith in him over Gordon Mar.
Fast forward again to 2024, and in the wake of successful drives to preserve and expand post-Covid car-free spaces in the city two years earlier, Engardio moves to place Proposition K, which permanently closed the upper Great Highway to vehicle traffic, on a citywide ballot.
The result: Proposition K passed with overwhelming support from the east side of town and overwhelming opposition on the west side. It’s an outcome that could’ve easily been foreseen with advance polling. Car-loving westside Asian voters felt betrayed, despite Engardio’s fledgling record as a supervisor working to revitalize business corridors and increase police presence in the district. In addition to the recall, angry residents are now suing the city.
The recall provides an ideal window of opportunity for the coalition of progressive labor activists and no-growth homeowners, which backed Leland Yee and Gordon Mar in District 4, as well as incumbent Connie Chan and her predecessors, such as Eric Mar, in District 1, to try to recapture the district.
In other words, a clique of path-dependent, self-dealing politicians who refused to align on important issues with their constituents will be given the chance to take back the seat they lost, as it’s about to be lost by a politician who failed to recognize the need to align with his constituents on an issue just as important as the issues he won on in the first place.
Who could’ve known this would happen? More to the point, who could not have known? Unfortunately, nobody is telling.
The recall campaign first emerged as a grassroots effort led by Vin Budhai, an Ocean Beach resident and relatively unknown political figure. However, with the campaign on the cusp of reaching the required signatures to send the recall to the ballot, it has now undergone a “professionalization.”
Budhai left the effort over what he described as tactical differences; whether that had anything to do with an apparent whistleblowing over tactics used by signature gatherers has yet to be determined since nobody is willing to comment publicly on the matter (one person who spoke on background told us the whistleblower was disgruntled over something else — like being fired).
The reins are now in the hands of a former staffer from Aaron Peskin’s recent mayoral campaign, and others linked to Peskin are also involved. A lot has been made of the transition due to Peskin’s recent run for mayor, his acerbic personality, and Trump-like affinity for payback. However, the reality is that Peskin is now the leading figure in the progressive no-growth coalition, which now seeks to regain its seat in District 4. It’s not a conspiracy, it’s not a coincidence, it’s what coalitions do.
“It’s completely consistent with Peskin’s policy views and record,” says Prof. Jason McDaniel, associate professor in the Department of Political Science at San Francisco State University. “He opposed Prop. K when he ran for mayor, it’s consistent with the positions his allies have taken in the past regarding car-free spaces, and he’s a master of using whatever process he can to advocate for those interests, to advance the influence and power of his political coalition.”
Moreover, it provides another opportunity for Peskin and his coalition to end the rather tenuous pro-housing, pro-public safety majority on the Board of Supervisors. But does that mean he’s running the campaign directly from behind some sort of curtain? That’s unlikely. For one thing, he’s too busy with his campaign for a North Beach Historic District.
If Engardio is recalled in the coming vote, then Mayor Daniel Lurie will appoint his replacement. That replacement will have to stand for election again in 2026. Additionally, Connie Chan (incidentally, a former Peskin aide) has announced she is exploring another ballot measure to reopen the Great Highway to cars should her colleagues authorize a citywide election to accompany the district-only recall election.
More interesting, however, will be who Lurie appoints. They’ll need a thick skin to withstand multiple votes on their future in the coming months, and the presence of mind to understand that they are, as Walter Lippman said, “always on trial for their political lives, always required to court their restless constituents.”