By Randy Shaw : beyondchron – excerpt
Initiatives Have Primarily Helped Tenants
SF also requires by far the lowest amount of signatures for measures to qualify for the ballot. This incentivizes politicians and special interests to overload the ballot with poorly conceived, divisive, and often contradictory measures. The result is a system that forces San Franciscans to fill out lengthy, confusing ballots that often result in unintended consequences.— Press release, MAYOR LURIE FILES CHARTER REFORM MEASURES TO CLEAN UP CITY HALL, March 11, 2026
Does the actual history of San Francisco ballot measures confirm the above account? Not by my research. To the contrary, gathering signatures under the current law has brought enormous benefits to the city’s non-wealthy residents. It’s been the primary strategy keeping the non-wealthy in San Francisco…
Ballot Measures Increase Economic Equity
I encourage other media to investigate which San Francisco constituencies have benefited most from initiatives secured by signature gathering. My research says the answer is obvious: tenants have far and away gained the most.
I have authored and coordinated signature gathering for two tenant campaigns. In 1992, Prop H cut annual rent increases by more than half. Its passage has saved tenants billions of dollars and kept working people in the city. People who would have eventually been priced out by the annual guaranteed 4% rent increase previously in effect.
The organization I head, the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, was the chief funder of Prop H. We could not have afforded to pay for enough signatures to qualify under the proposed new rules (even grassroots campaigns rely heavily on paid signature gatherers).
Had the proposed new signature rules been in effect in 1992, landlords would have continued getting annual rent increases well above inflation. But for Prop H this would have continued for the past 33 years.
In 1994, I authored Prop G, a charter amendment to create a Department of Building Inspection. We had to collect 60,000 signatures because charter amendments have a higher requirement. We spent every campaign dollar we had on qualifying for the ballot. Had the proposed new signature requirements been in effect it would have been impossible for us to qualify.
Thanks to Prop G, San Francisco went from having terrible housing code enforcement to becoming a national model. The Housing Inspection Division was fully funded for the first time ever. The City Attorney went from only filing lawsuits against in=law apartments to targeting landlords who flagrantly violate the housing code.
These two measures alone show tenants have gained enormously from the current system. But there’s even more examples of how tenants benefit from the existing signature rules…
I have an entire chapter in The Activist’s Handbook on the strategies for using ballot initiatives to achieve progressive change. The mayor needs to rethink this part of his charter amendment…(more)
RELATED:
Why Lurie’s Charter reform would hurt tenants
By Tim Redmond : 48hills – excerpt…
Lurie and his allies also want to make it more difficult for citizens to put a measure on the local ballot. The mayor wants to eliminate the rule that allows four supes to sponsor an initiative with their signatures—and want to raise the threshold for community-based signatures… Shaw doesn’t mention it, but the most important progressive land-use measure in San Francisco history, Prop. M in 1986, would never have made the ballot under the new rules. The proponents gathered enough signatures, but the City Attorney’s Office, apparently bowing to Mayor Dianne Feinstein and downtown pressure, produced an utterly bogus argument at the last minute saying the signatures were invalid on a technicality. So the backers found four (and only four) supervisors—Harry Britt, Nancy Walker, Willie Kennedy and Dick Hongisto—willing to put in on the ballot instead…. That would not have happened under the mayor’s proposal… (more)