Remarkable Women Running in San Francisco

As we get to the end of this long and arduous election season I’m going to be posting as often as I can both short missives and links that seem relevant, as well as a few more articles about elections big and small in California. Today I’m focusing on two candidates in San Francisco who I think deserve a little bit of the spotlight in the crowded Supervisorial races this Tuesday.
Lately I’ve been traveling back and forth to San Francisco, helping out a candidate running under the City’s new Ranked Choice Voting system. It’s been an interesting experience, and I’ll be posting a more detailed pre-election analysis and a election post-mortem later on.
For now I’d like to focus attention on two candidates who I’d like to spotlight for their efforts. Both are friends of mine whom I believe would make great additions to the city’s Board of Supervisors (similar to a City Council in other major cities, but remember, San Francisco is a City and a county, hence the name difference) this year.
The other candidate who deserves some recognition in the blizzard of mailers, robo-calls, and election year hoopla is Christine Linnenbach who is running in San Francisco’s more conservative District 7. (Yes, you read that right – don’t believe FOX News’ BS – there are conservative and traditional areas of San Francisco, and Republicans have played major roles in City politics for years!)
I met Christine several years ago during a campaign for City office and found her to be one of the smartest people I’ve met when it comes to open-meeting laws, campaign finance disclosure, and neighborhood rights. During some of San Francisco’s most corrupt, special-interest policy-making years in the 1990s, Christine was a crusading attorney who successfully exposed sneaky deals surrounding the development of Sutro Tower.
Even though things got rather heated during that battle, she refused to give in to the pressures of powerful interests, and won significant battles on behalf of residents in the affected area. For her efforts, she was named a Local Hero by the Bay Guardian.
But it would be a mistake to try and pigeonhole Christine’s political agenda with standard political labels. Instead, it’d be more accurate to say that her ultimate goal is to ensure that the public’s interest comes first whenever legislation and regulations are considered at City Hall, instead of automatically defaulting to what well-paid lobbyists think should come first. That sounds simple, but any analysis of San Francisco decision-making in the last ten years indicates that it’s really a rather radical (in a good way) position, and one the City desperately needs in an era of difficult decisions regarding public policy and fiscal responsibility.
That’s why I’m urging people to send whatever support they can to Christine’s campaign in these last few days, so that again, no matter what happens, we’ll be sure to have her, like Susan, stay in the process and continue to move upward. That said, I think that there’s a chance Christine may surprise a lot of the political know-it-alls out there with the strength of her campaign’s message, and how it will play with District 7 voters.
Do your own reading on both candidates if you haven’t voted yet and I think you’ll find that both deserve your respect, if not your support. If you’re not from San Francisco, consider sending something in anyway, since our country needs young people, especially young women, who can start now at the local level so that one day they may be ready to compete for higher office. Either way, have fun with the election and be sure to vote on November 2nd.
© 2003-2006 Greg Dewar | All Rights Reserved | Originally Published at www.schadelmann.com