Other Efforts We Support - Archive

GFC supports candidates for important local races when we are asked to do so by people we trust. Recently our friends at Vibrant LA asked us to support four candidates for the Los Angeles City Council: Traci Park, Tim Gaspar, Jose Ugarte and Lou Calanche.

Yesterday many eyes were on New York City’s mayoral primary but ours were also on a special election for the San Jose City Council for which GFC supported Anthony Tordillos against a machine politician.

As you know, GFC supports candidates for important local races when we are asked to do so by people we respect. Recently one of the people we respect most, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, asked us to support Anthony Tordillos…

Please see the note below about a very important contest that could bring Oakland into alignment with San Jose and San Francisco where two pragmatic mayors (Matt Mahan and Daniel Lurie) have been elected. Please help add Loren Taylor to that mix.

Later this month Daniel Lurie will take office as mayor of San Francisco and in April Oakland will hold a special election to elect a new mayor. Both will contend not only with deficits but also with the problem of spending on current services being crowded out by spending on past services.

For years public school families in California have been poorly treated by elected officials. That’s because they haven’t had political muscle. Fortunately that’s changing.

As we reported last month, if you’re an LA voter in search of guidance, we recommend the LA Voter Guide from Thrive LA, which is a fast-growing political philanthropy that we also recommend for your financial support.

We’re always evaluating elected officials and in California no one impresses us more than San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, who leads the Yes on 36 campaign to reform Proposition 47.

Last year I wrote about GFC’s most expensive failure, which is our continuing lack of success in reforming the public-employee retirement system, and earlier this week CalMatters columnist Dan Walters wrote about what I consider to be collectively our most shameful failure, which was the prolonged shutdown of California’s public schools during the pandemic.

When GFC launched in 2011, Republicans held enough seats in the California Legislature that occasionally they could exercise some leverage by joining with pragmatic Democrats to bridge some gaps.

Last month we wrote you about Friends of the University, a muscular addition to California’s political philanthropy ecosystem that advocates for the University of California, which for far too long has been treated like a doormat by elected state officials.

A number of GFC’ers have asked what traits we seek in the next governor. In short, if the next governor is a Democrat, we would like someone like Gina Raimondo when she served as governor of Rhode Island. If a Republican, we’d like someone like Mitt Romney when he served as governor of Massachusetts.

For years the University of California has been treated like a doormat by the state’s elected officials. That’s because UC supporters have not flexed their political muscles. That’s changing.

Inspired by the success of pragmatic political coalitions in San Francisco, two GFC chapters led by Alistair Thornton and Eli Bildner have identified political giving opportunities in the East Bay.

Yesterday San Francisco Mayor London Breed made a gutsy appointment to the presidency of the SF Board of Education when she selected Phil Kim, who served as the national director of STEM education for the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) and is a charter school champion.

Everyone knows the truth. In California it is serious drug addiction that drives homelessness, overdose deaths and retail theft. The solution is mass treatment. Voters took a step in that direction in March by approving Proposition 1, which authorizes Bonds for Mental Health Treatment Facilities. The next step must be taken in November with voter approval of Proposition 36, The Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act that will give judges the tools to require treatment.

A political renaissance is taking place in San Francisco thanks to a robust ecosystem of political philanthropies operating in that city.

As recent election results demonstrate, San Francisco has become ground zero for the effective political philanthropy movement. Next up is the November General Election, which will offer an all-important opportunity to elect a majority of pragmatists to the Board of Supervisors, protect a public-safety-oriented District Attorney, and enact important changes to the city’s charter.

While there wasn’t much on the statewide ballot yesterday, there was plenty on the San Francisco ballot and the results look to be a resounding endorsement of that city’s vibrant ecosystem of political philanthropies.

With the Legislature on recess this month, we thought we would devote an email or two to some other subjects. One about which we occasionally get questions is how GFC Courage Committee Chapters work. We describe that process in some detail here. Authorized by two private letter rulings from the California Fair Political Practices Commission, each chapter is independently governed by two or more chapter co-chairs who participate in monthly GFC briefings to keep them informed on legislative and campaign developments. Chapters are not a new idea in Sacramento. In fact, we got the idea from SEIU, which as you can see on Cal-Access has a whole host of political committees.

As you know, there’s nothing we dislike more than whining about poor governance by people who don’t do the serious work required to fix that governance. But there’s hope on the horizon, both from our own growth and the launch of two other general-interest political organizations, Effective Government California and 21st Century Alliance. You might want to check them out.