— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
San Francisco, have you decided whom you're voting for today?
Trick question! All the candidates are unopposed, even the ones appointed by the mayor.
That's right, the 2013 election is another sad excuse for democracy in the city's ever-growing string of sad excuses for democracy. Just marvel at the slate of distinguished front runners in this year's non-contests:
- We have Katy Tang running to represent District 4 on the Board of Supervisors. She was appointed by the Mayor earlier this year to represent the Inner Sunset on behalf of the Mayor, and she's been a reliable backer of Ed Lee's agenda ever since. Don't like Ed Lee's agenda, you say? Bummer, she's all you got.
- There's Carmen Chu running for Assessor-Recorder. She too was appointed by the Mayor to the position, tasked with the responsibility of assessing property taxes on buildings both tall and small. Of course, she's so cronied up with developers and property owners that there are serious doubts she can perform this basic duty objectively. Have a problem with this? I hear Mickey Mouse is a reliable write-in.
- Bonus bullshit!: We have City Attorney and Treasurer races, but what's the point?
This might be excusable if this was an isolated problem in an off-year election, but it's far from it. Supervisors David Campos and John Avalos were both re-elected in uncontested races last year, and Board President David Chiu's opposition was flimsy enough that he still got over 75% of the vote.
So now we have three Supervisors and one asterisk sitting on the Board who were answerable to no one. And this problem only looks to get worse when Malia Cohen, Mark Farrell, Jane Kim, and Scott Wiener are up for re-election next year.
Look, everyone knows it's easily to shit on politicians and wax cynical about our doomed democracy, even if it makes for good sport. At best, our political class are oafish hucksters and conceited dreamers, but mostly they're well-fed opportunists. So it's no wonder human beings aren't stepping up to grind out four-plus years with our fucked crop of leaders. (And the Power of Incumbency doesn't help anything, either—especially with Ron Conway and the Merry Wanksters showering every lapdog incumbent with endless cash.)
But having a choice is important, even if it's an futile one.
How is this okay?
Comments (16)
Weren’t you planning a run for office?
I love you!
Kevin! Read your fucking VIP. There’s 2 D4 candidates and a qualified write-in. You wanna talk shit on a “sad excuse for democracy” your site is a poor excuse for reporting. Please run for office I’d love to see that!
Both the opponent on the ballot and the write-in candidate don’t have real websites or much of a platform to speak of. Also, write-in candidates rarely win election (or register any sort of threat to incumbents), so it’s hardly worth mentioning.
This isn’t a minority position on the election. Take The League of Pissed Off Voter’s statement in their election guide: “All of the candidates running for office this year are unopposed incumbents (technically Katy Tang has an opponent, but he has no website, campaign, or platform).”
SFist similarly declared Katy Tang “unopposed.”
But, yes, technically you’re correct. But I fail to see how your point signals a thriving democracy.
(And, FWIW, Campos also had a write-in challenger but, again, write-in challenges don’t amount to much.)
Well there were the 4 city propositions
Two of which are about a single condo development in a neighborhood I don’t even live in.
“Government by the people and for the people” is neither.
Gotta say one of the more frustrating things is voters complaining about shit they haven’t bothered to spend a moment researching….
Yeah, I wrote in names for all three of the uncontested seats in my district. *shrug*
but B & C were important to vote NO on. They’ll probably pass anyway, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles.
Agreed, this is something wrong and extreme that there are no candidates. And it used to not be this way.
Makes one wonder why this is happening now.
China is less of a one party state than the the so-called free state of S.F.
Gavin ran unopposed for his second term for mayor after it came out that he had an affair with the wife of his SUBORDINATE, an action that would have gotten you fired in most companies in the private sector. But City Hall, under the rule of Central Committee of the Democratic Party, takes care of it’s own. And then they just appointed his successor. Thank you Willie and Rose Pak, a modern Abe Ruef
Maybe we need a new Committee of Vigilance?
There’s a reason many aren’t contested. Because they’re pretty decent. I’m far left, but I do have the capability of looking at how MORE corrupt and unresponsive other municipalities are to their population. Take the parking meter sell off in Chicago. Or the sell out in so many
other cities of public assets. Yes, our politics are run by developer scum, but it is so much worse in other cities. Anyway, we shouldn’t
be wasting money on these small elections. All offices should be voted on with congressional and presidential elections. Something
conservatives always battle.
So the reason we shouldn’t have/don’t need to have competitive elections is because we’re relatively less awful and corrupt than other cities?
and anyway, real democracy has nothing to do with waiting for elections and who you are offered to vote for. That’s passive. Democracy is
participation and education and bottom up peoples’ participation. Not sitting on your ass and getting ‘served’.
Machine politics can work well, actually. None of these people is crazy or completely reprehensible. I fail to see what subjecting them to the cleansing fire of a contested race is really going to get anyone. Especially for these jobs.
It would be all very thrilling I’m sure, but if they can do a reasonably competent job then fine. Have at it.
Kevin, reelection rates in the US (for congress for example) are always above 90% (as high as 98%). The point of having other people on a ballot isn’t to create the illusion of choice. What good does that serve? If there is an opposition, or even oppositional ideas, then the hard work of organizing and educating must happen. Those are things guaranteed to us in our constitution. But if your fellow masshole and midwest transplants can’t be bothered to do that work, then the entrenched people will obviously win.