Tag Archives: San Francisco politics

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San Francisco Mayor’s race: David Chiu’s candidacy no surprise; he’s readymade for Rank Choice Voting

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I’m not surprised that David Chiu, despite the short resume, has announced his run  for mayor of San Francisco.

I’ve called David Obamaesque in the past. He may not be a rock star yet. But I know he’s Ivy smart and ambitious and likes to work both sides of the street.  That said, his opportunity is really defined by the new rules of the game.

Democracy has become more horse race than ever with Rank Choice voting.

Now it’s like picking a trifecta at Golden Gate Fields,  creating  totally new strategies  for winning. 

Throw mud? Not anymore. Now it’s  time to cozy up and go tandem.  By trading 2nd and 3rd votes, in a non-majority race, an underdog can rise to the top and even win.

It seems like you’d want to be No.1 with your base. But if you can also be No.2 or No.3 with others in alliance, you end up campaigning at others’ events for the subvotes.  It happened to Oakland’s Jean Quan, the first Asian American woman mayor last year.

Running against the big Democratic political operative Don Perata, Quan actually lost the first round of voting by 11 percentage points.

But with no majority, the second ballots were counted. Quan who campaigned with the third place candidate Rebecca Kaplan, surged ahead of Perata simply by being named on more votes as No.2.

The new rules rule. Perata the pernniel Big Dog machine politician was out. Quan, the city councilwoman was in.

The Quan blueprint will be the Chiu strategy across the Bay in San Francisco. And I thought it was the waxed eyebrows.

For Asian Americans in San Francisco, the list now includes David Chiu and two other Asian American candidates: State Senator Leland Yee and City Assessor Phil Ting.  (Interim Mayor Ed Lee may still announce a run as the incumbent, but he  may be odd man out).

It used to be that one Asian American would split the vote. But with rank choice, you want lots of candidates to create a for sure non-majority. And then you want it to go to the 2nd and 3rd ballot. A free-for-all? Could be. Unless strategists are thinking about the new rules.

So the question will be who teams up with whom?

 Will there be an all-Asian 1-2-3? (Unlikely).

Or will there be an effort to leave any Asian Ameican off the top 3?

Hey, politics is interesting again. The big money can’t control it any longer. But that doesn’t mean someone won’t be out there trying to manipulate things with the new election math.

With new rules come new deal making.  Expect to see it in November.

blog, diversity, news, politics, race

Holy pot sticker: First Asian American mayor of San Francisco?

Ed Lee is Mayor of San Francisco.

Or I.M. (interim mayor).

Hooray?

Hold your horses. There’s still lots of process left before it’s final.

And even then. It’s still just “I.M.”

So why doesn’t it feel as exciting as it is historic?

I would have wished it were done in a more heroic and mythic way, perhaps a thrilling campaign with speeches and drama and perhaps a nail-biter ballot count.

And then maybe we could hoist up Ed Lee on the lions at the Grant Ave. gate.

This  was perhaps a bit too political.

 A little like an arranged marriage.  An internal Supes vote with a touch of intrigue for this interm mayor.

The pick was between some retreads (Hennessey, a good guy and a progressive’s progressive, Agnos the former mayor, Peskin the former but still ambitious supe). The vote deadlocked at 5 between Lee and Hennessey.

Then Lee won a subsequent vote, 10-1. ( Chris Daly was the lone dissenter. That’s  enough reason to like Lee if you’re a non-Asian).

But a new board installed Saturday or Sunday could change it all.

A moment in the sun, is what it is.

A campaign for the real mayor in November could begin sooner than Lee can rearrange the pictures on the office wall.

And then we may even see some Asian American candidates  (as well as others) who may challenge Lee for the post.

But if this weekend plays out, Lee was there first and that deserves a firecracker or two.

And he’ll be mayor for the New Year parade!

Still, to use a math analogy, is Lee more than a “placeholder” enjoying his time in the sun? 

We shall see.

This may have been a little symbolic affirmative action.  Asians have been powerful in city politics but no one got the top job, until now. A generation of younger Asian Americans will definitely change  thatnc certainly in the next 5-10 years.  Ed Lee is just the beginning as San Francisco’s official leadership actually begins to look like the city it serves.

blog, diversity, news, politics, race

California nurses call for investigation of alleged discriminatory hiring practices against Filipinos at SF’s St.Luke’s hospital

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If you don’t think racism and discrimination still exists in our era of diversity, consider this:   A  de facto ban against hiring Filipino nurses at the St.Luke’s Campus of Sutter Health’s Calif. Pacific Medical Center (CPMC) appears to be policy in San Francisco.

No Filipinos, as blatant as that.

Just like the old sign that the Filipino National Historical Society displays, the one from the 1920s that reads, “Positively No Filipinos Allowed.”

You can take that sign and stick it on the door at St.Luke’s, right now, says the California Nurses Association, the nurses union.

And now it wants to do something about it.

At a press conference on Thursday, the union will call for the San Francisco Human Rights Commission to investigate the hospital. The union will also announce its intention to file a class action grievance against Sutter and CPMC.

The union provided compelling evidence which included signed statements by former managers and current job stats, that  suggests Filipinos are being unfairly discriminated at the St. Luke’s campus.

From numbers provided by CPMC, the numbers are revealing. Before the take-over of the hospital in 2007 the Filipino RNs at St.Luke’s were 66 percent of the nursing population.

Between 2007 and 2008, just 48 percent of new hires were Filipino.

From Feb. 2008, when the nurses union and the community organized to stop the closure of St.Luke’s, to the present, the percentage of new RN hires who were Filipino dropped dramatically to just 10 percent.

They didn’t all just give up their RN credentials and take jobs as Wal-Mart greeters.

Nato Green, the labor representative who works at St.Luke’s said it’s no coincidence. “I believe this reflects Sutter’s decision to use race to divide workers and stop collective bargaining activity,” Green told me. “ Going from 66 percent to 10 percent (of new hires) is a fairly remarkable coincidence.”

It all comes after the union forced Sutter to keep St.Luke’s open. The nurses union expected some push back, but not this.

“CPMC and Sutter have chosen to retaliate by carrying out a punitive, illegal and immoral campaign of discrimination,” said Zenei Cortz, the California Nurses Association president.  “There is no excuse for racial or ethnic discrimination. A hospital should be a center of therapeutic healing for patients, not a model for bigotry.”

The union also produced affidavits signed under penalty of perjury.  Ronald Rivera, a former nurse manager, who worked there from April 2006 to April 2010 when he resigned on good terms, provided his testimony.

“One day I spoke with Diana Karner (VP of nursing) on the phone about hiring new RNs,” he attested.  “Diana said to me that we probably should not hire any more foreign graduate nurses. She explained that patients complain because “it is hard  to understand them and be understood by them.”

Another signed affidavit came from Ronald Villanueva, who actually was sitting in and overheard the conversation between Karner and Rivera. “I was shocked and I wondered if she knew I was a foreign graduate nurse,” he wrote.

A third declaration came from from Chris Hanks, who was the Director of Critical Care from 2008 to 2009 and reported directly to Karner. Hanks was alarmed when told point blank “you are not to hire any Filipino nurses.”  Hanks challenged Karner at their weekly meetings, until he was Karner told him, “The Filipinos are always related , or know each other, and that’s not good. You’re not to hire them.”

Karner the VP of nursing didn’t return my telephone call.

Kevin McCormack, of CPMC’s media relations said she was out of the office and unavailable. What did he think of a ban on hiring Filipino nurses? “That would be illegal,” he said. “You can’t ban hiring specific groups.”

He called it “ridiculous” and implied it was a stunt by C N A to fan the ongoing labor dispute with CPMC.

“We have a long history of hiring Filipino nurses on all our campuses, including St.Luke’s, and we are still hiring them,” McCormack read from CPMC’s official statement. “We have many RNs at our St. Luke’s campus who are Filipino and know how extraordinary they are. To say we are imposing quotas on them is outrageous.”

It is outrageous, but the numbers don’t lie.

The Filipino nursing staff at St.Luke’s is shrinking and it is such a precipitous drop that it can’t just be by accident or happenstance.