Sup. London Breed wasn’t happy with the stories we did this week, and she sent us a rather harsh response:
So, when I vote one way, the way you disagree with, I’m the mayor’s bitch, but when I vote the way you want me to, it’s because I have a challenger?
So if this is true:
“In the past four years, on the vast majority of contested votes, Breed has been on the side of the mayor’s 6-5 majority (until last year, when the majority shifted and a tenant lawyer, Dean Preston, challenged her from the left).”
then how does this happen?
https://48hills.org/2016/07/20/big-wins-for-progressives-at-key-board-meeting/wow Tim, you are really a piece of work! Honesty? you don’t even fact check your own bullshit ass blog!
As my grandmother used to say “I’m going to pray for you, cause you got the devil in you”
Thank you, Sup. Breed.
Just for the record: I have never suggested that Breed was doing the bidding of the mayor, or that she was doing the bidding of her campaign contributors. I have never ascribed any motives to her. In fact, the last time we had a discussion in person about one of her votes I disagreed with, I put it to her as clearly as I could: “I never said you were corrupt, London. I just said you were wrong.”
(I never questioned her motives in endorsing Julie Christensen for supervisor last fall, but I do question her judgment: Seriously, politics aside, can anyone really argue that Christensen was a better supervisor than Aaron Peskin?)
What I have said is, I think, demonstrably true: For most of the past four years, she has, generally, been part of the 6-5 board majority that, generally, supported the agenda of Mayor Ed Lee. On closely divided votes, she typically sided with the mayor’s allies – Sups. Scott Wiener, Mark Farrell, Katy Tang, Malia Cohen, and David Chiu/Christensen. Sometimes, some of the progressives joined her (for example, when she supported the Google buses). Sometimes, she was a clear swing vote on a critical tenant issue. She appointed the moderate Lee allies to key committee jobs; if there were two “parties” on the board, she was very much part of the one that was more likely to support the mayor.
This election, she is endorsing candidates who tend to be more on the mayor’s side and less on the progressive side (for example, Marjan Philhour over Sandra Fewer in D1, Ahsha Safai over Kimberly Alvarenga in D11, Josh Arce over Hillary Ronen in D9).
In the past eight months or so, the board majority has changed; Peskin won, and the progressives, who tend not to support the mayor’s agenda, have control. Breed is also facing a challenge from the left in a left-leaning district. And Mayor Lee is so unpopular that anyone associated with him is in political trouble — particularly in D5.
For whatever reasons – and I am not suggesting any motive – Breed in the past few months has been more often voting with the progressive majority (note the link she cited above).
Every political observer I know has noticed this. I can’t explain why. I am happy to assume that Breed has become a more regular reader of 48hills — the “bullshit-ass blog” — and has become convinced that the progressive agenda is more effective at solving the city’s problems.
I do suspect that her advisors have told her that the best way to get re-elected is to be as far away from Ed Lee as possible. But there are really two parties, two sides, in the city right now, and she has made clear with her past votes, her committee assignments, and her current endorsements that she’s on the side that is closer to the mayor.
If I’m wrong here, Supervisor, you know how to reach me.
