The fallout from the billionaire takeover of the San Francisco Democratic Party continues, and it’s raised an interesting legal question about the accountability of members of the Democratic County Central Committee.
The DCCC voted unanimously Sunday night to rescind the party’s endorsement of Manny Yekutiel for supervisor and instead endorsed Gary McCoy.
It was a long, heated Zoom meeting, with multiple speakers calling on Chair Nancy Tung to resign and Tung calling her allies to defend her. In the end, she said she won’t step down.
Nobody has been held accountable for this fiasco.
In another era, before Trump made truly terrible behavior acceptable in mainstream politics, Tung might have had to step down. Not so today.
DCCC Member and former Sup. Gordon Mar has had enough: The minute the meeting ended, he resigned. I think others will follow. Some San Francisco Democratic Clubs may withdraw from the official party system.
The party has lost any credibility. But it may be the case that there’s nothing the voters of San Francisco can do about it.
As far as I can tell from interviews and research, members of a county party central committee are the only elected officials in California who are not subject to recall.
State law provides no process to recall an elected party leader. The state Democratic Party’s bylaws provide no process. The local bylaws only allow removal with a two-thirds vote of the DCCC itself. The majority of the members of that body were elected with the support of billionaires who will side with Tung.
So even if the DCCC leadership supported an alleged sex offender, and admits it was a terrible mistake, and is totally controlled by a handful of billionaires … they stay in power and we just have to wait two years until the next election. I’m not a big fan of recalls, but Tung and her allies are, at least when it comes to progressives like former DA Chesa Boudin.
Tung is also a member of the San Francisco Airport Commission, and members of that body, although appointed by the mayor, are subject to a recall vote. From City Charter Section 14.103:
(a) An elected official of the City and County, the City Administrator, the Controller, or any member of the Airports Commission the Board of Education, the governing board of the Community College District, the Ethics Commission or the Public Utilities Commission may be recalled by the voters as provided by this Charter and by the laws of the State of California, except that no recall petitions shall be initiated with respect to any officer who has held office for less than six months.
Sup. Matt Dorsey is also a member of the DCCC, who cast the deciding vote to endorse Yekutiel. But he’s up for election in November, and will easily win.
I have talked to a fair number of people in San Francisco who are ready to leave the Democratic Party. It’s that bad. And nobody has to take any responsibility.
