I’m not sure how much it helps the campaign of Manny Yekutiel for supervisor to get the endorsement of the local Democratic Party with these sorts of headlines:
Mission Local: “S.F. Dems endorse Manny Yekutiel in tense meeting despite sexual assault allegation, plea from accuser”
SF Standard: “Manny Yekutiel was accused of sexual assault. The SF Democratic Party just endorsed him”
But I wasn’t a bit surprised. The overwhelming majority of the Democratic County Central Committee won office as part of a slate financed entirely by a handful of tech billionaires who wanted a local party that would promote their interests.
The billionaires clearly think that Yekutiel is the best candidate in District 8. So the DCCC members they funded bowed to their will, and voted for a guy who was credibly accused of sexual assault.
None of the allegations were going to matter. The mayor and his pals want Manny; the DCCC caved. Even Sup. Matt Dorsey, who supported Gary McCoy and who said that McCoy’s role in the recovery community was critical, bowed at the last minute and went with Yekutiel.
Here’s the list of people who think sexual assault allegations don’t matter when the billionaire candidate is up for endorsement:
- Cedric Akbar
- Michaela Alioto-Pier
- Joshua Arce
- Patrick Boileau
- Trevor Chandler
- Lanier Coles
- Lily Ho
- Marjan Philhour
- Joe Sangirardi
- Matt Dorsey
- Fiona Ma
- Nancy Tung
Then the local party went on to do something that hardly ever happens: It broke with the state party to oppose Prop. 40, the billionaire tax on the November ballot. Again, this is no surprise at all: The rich tech bros now completely control San Francisco’s Democratic Party. They paid for it, and they got it.
So let’s not pretend that any “investigation” or party protocol on sexual assault made any difference at all here. I’ve been watching Democratic Party politics in SF for 40 years, and I don’t think I’ve even seen a DCCC majority this bad.
An earlier version of this article mistakingly said Eric Kingsbury voted for Manny. He supported McCoy.
