London Breed's authoritarian impulse, gerrymandering edition

Aside from being transparently in the pocket of commercial landlords, the second most obvious thing about Breed is that her every endorsement is about centralization of power in the Mayor's office. Why did she endorse the school board recall? Because she gets to appoint replacements instead of letting them be elected. Why did she endorse Haney for Assembly, whom she despises? Because if he stops being a supervisor, she gets to appoint a replacement. Why does she endorse this absurd new district map? Because it will eliminate progressives from the Board of Supervisors, removing the only check on the Mayor's power.

She doesn't like that pesky Legislative branch getting in the way of the Executive.

I'd say she's even more dangerous than Wille Brown was. He was just a transparent crook, where every decision could be explained by "it enriches him personally". Whereas Breed has been doing her best to undermine the democratic process itself.

(As well as get us all killed.)

Task Force members say Mayor's Office was calling the shots on redistricting:

"I've been campaigning in district elections since 2000. This is the first ever that we have gone through such a politicized, inside backroom-dealing process ever, in the 20-plus years that we introduced district elections in San Francisco. This cannot stand," said Kwong. [...]

Reporting by 48Hills uncovered an email written by real-estate developer Nick Podell that said that an organization called ConnectedSF "is leading the Redistricting drive to capture moderate majorities in Supervisor Districts which will ensure moderate centrist candidates are elected in the future." [...]

And early Sunday morning, April 10, when the Task Force moved forward with its draft final map, Member Jeremy Lee, who had just walked out in protest, called in to public comment.

"You all disgust me," he said, calling his colleagues "spineless." [...]

Many sources close to the process have told us that the Breed, Phihour, and Elsbernd have been driving the direction of the mapping, seeking to create new lines that would make it easier to elect people allied with her and harder for progressives to win a board majority.

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