This Friday, roughly 75 minutes before the sun rises in San Francisco, locals will gather at Lotta’s Fountain on Market Street for a moment of silence in honor of the victims of the city’s fabled 7.8-magnitude earthquake back in 1906 (although the quake’s last survivor passed away in 2016, the tradition lives on under the premise that the city itself is a survivor).
But there’s another San Francisco landmark on this week’s calendar that merits a reference: the official incorporation of the city on April 15, 1850, some five months before California became America’s 31st state.
About San Francisco in 1850: The city’s first mayor was John White Geary, only 30 years old at the time of his appointment and perhaps better known for things he did beyond both the city and the Golden State. (Geary served as a Union infantry officer in the Civil War—he’s memorialized at Gettysburg—before becoming governor of Pennsylvania, where he holds the distinction of being the tallest governor in Keystone State history.)
Forty-four San Francisco mayors later, the newly installed Daniel Lurie likely won’t be engaged in an American civil war. But his first three months in office (he took office eight days into the new year) suggest that he’s learned a thing or two about the hand-to-hand combat that is city politics.
What’s worked so far for Lurie: focusing on campaign priorities.
Lurie sought the job last year as an outsider (a philanthropist and heir to the Levi Strauss fortune with no prior experience in elected office), who got the four-year gig by tapping into voters’ frustration over crime and urban decline: homelessness, open-air drug use, plus a local economy impacted by outbound job migration due to the pandemic.
Thus, for three months now, San Franciscans have seen their mayor very engaged in the city’s quality-of-life issues (Lurie’s been a frequent visitor to the city’s Mission District to see how his administration’s crackdown on the neighborhood’s open-air drug eyesore is progressing).
Lurie also convinced the city’s Board of Supervisors to support his fentanyl-emergency ordinance giving the mayor a stronger role in drug and homelessness policies. One example: City Hall can now negotiate and sign leases for future new treatment facilities and homeless shelters without the supervisors’ say-so.
Granted, Lurie has enjoyed the luxury of fortuitous timing. According to a San Francisco Chronicle analysis of the Real-Time Crime Index, which gathers data nationwide, violent crime in San Francisco fell by 14% last year (versus 6% in other major US cities on average); and San Francisco saw a 28% decline in property crimes (about triple the number for mid-sized cities).
That said, one of the least MAGA-centric corners of America seems to be experiencing something similar to the “vibe shift” of last year’s national election. Or so the San Francsico Examiner believes: “Those in and around Lurie’s orbit say they believe his arrival in City Hall has brought fresh faces, new perspectives and a distinct vibe to San Francisco.”
As it turns out, Lurie isn’t the only Bay Area mayor who’s turning heads. In San Jose, Mayor Matt Mahan (like Lurie, a Democrat, though a former councilman now in his second mayoral term) seems the benefit of a similar “vibe shift.”
Like Lurie, Mahan isn’t shy about wanting to change his city’s political culture. Last month, for example, he trotted out a “pay for performance” proposal that would tie city leaders’ pay raises to progress in four areas: homelessness, public safety, cleaning up urban blight, and drawing investments in jobs and housing.
And like Lurie, Mahan isn’t shy about butting heads with his party’s establishment.
In February, for example, Mahan reacted to California Governor Gavin Newsom’s executive order instructing local jurisdictions to clear unhoused settlements with this shot across the governor’s bow: “Clearing encampments only works if we have places for people to go, and require that they use them.”
A month later, Mahan again was in news regarding his city’s street population—this time unveiling a proposed “Responsibility to Shelter” ordinance that gives San Jose’s homeless population a choice: enter a shelter or enter jail if they refuse multiple opportunties for housing. In the mayor’s words: “Homelessness can’t be a choice. I’m proposing that after three offers of shelter, we hold people accountable for turning their lives around.”
Newsom didn’t formally respond to Mahan’s proposal—to the extent there’s political intrigue, it’s whether the surrounding Santa Clara County, which adminsters care services, goes along with the plan (San Jose’s city council so far is on board).
Then again, the governor probably doesn’t have a lot of kind words for the mayor given what happened last fall, when the two Democrats parted ways on the anti-crime Proposition 36.
Mahan was one of several Democratic California mayors to support Proposition 36 (another being San Francisco’s London Breed, who’d go on to lose to Lurie in her city’s election). Moreover, Mahan made the two-hour drive to Sacramento to take part in a press conference extolling the ballot measure’s virtues (it sought tougher punishment for property theft and drug crimes).
Newsom’s response? A few days after Mahan’s visit to Sacramento, the governor made the two-hour drive to San Jose—stopping by a local Home Depot outlet where he signed a package of anti-theft bills (part of a strategy to curb the public’s enthusiam for Proposition 36) without offering an invitation to Mahan to join in the event, even though the mayor supported the bills.
The question to be asked, as these two Democratic mayors seek to improve the lives of their cities: Is there a political future beyond their cities’ limits?
Let’s suppose Lurie or Mahan had designs on becoming California’s next governor (recent California governors with big-city mayoral experience include Newsom in San Francisco; Jerry Brown in Oakland; and Pete Wilson in San Diego).
At last glance, eight Democrats already have announced their candidacies to replace the term-limited Newsom in January 2027 (that’s not including former vice president Kamala Harris, who’ll decide by later this summer whether to enter the race and, if so, thus scramble the field of Democrats).
Perhaps a job in Washington might appeal to the two maverick mayors. Becoming a congressman would mean, for Lurie, waiting for the 85-year-old Nancy Pelosi to call it a day (incredibly, two prominent San Francisco families have controlled the city’s congressional seat for the past six decades).
As for one of the mayors making the leap to the US Senate, that would entail unseating a Democratic incumbent who likely won’t step down anytime soon—unless you buy into far-fetched scenarios such as Adam Schiff, now in his first year as California’s junior senator, becoming US attorney general should a Democrat succeed president Trump in 2029 (at one point in his career, Schiff did have interest in becoming California’s state attorney general).
Where that leaves the two mayors: pretty much where Gavin Newsom was in 2010, with no immediate path to the governor’s office (Newsom briefly ran for governor in 2009 but gained little traction, instead turning to state constitutional office—lieutenant governor—before his second mayoral term expired).
A maverick mayor setting up shop in Sacramento? It might require the same eight-year wait that Newsom encountered last decade.
Which might be good news for the vibing residents of San Francisco and San Jose.
