Oppose this Problematic and Politically Motivated Redistricting Charter Amendment!

What is happening:

Board President Aaron Peskin is proposing a Charter Amendment for the November 2024 ballot that will dangerously politicize San Francisco’s Redistricting process, which is supposed to be above politics. This legislation is a "sour grapes" reaction to the 2022 SF Redistricting process, which was fair and transparent, eliminated gerrymandering and produced a map that even the SF Chronicle called "equal and balanced."

Why you should OPPOSE this Charter Amendment being added to the ballot:

1. The 2021-2022 Redistricting process was successful, fair and transparent. This unnecessary legislation creates more conflict in an already polarized and crowded election year.

2. This Charter Amendment is being proposed by partisan interests and places inappropriate power in the hands of unelected bureaucrats who are not accountable to voters.

3. The proposed 14-member Task Force is hugely problematic, as an evenly divided group easily could result in a tie, sending the map to judges to finalize. (Past Task Forces have had nine members.)

4. This expanded Task Force, as proposed by the Charter Amendment, will be more expensive to set up, operate and support, and its execution would be heavily dependent on consulting contracts.

5. Eligibility requirements to serve on the new Task Force are subjective, ill-defined and open to manipulation by unelected bureaucrats.

6. This legislation creates a supermajority that could create an impasse under a time-pressured process and potentially send the map to judges to finalize.

If you agree that we should stop this Charter Amendment, make your voice heard!

Send an email to the San Francisco

Board of Supervisors below!

More background information:

Days before the final redistricting map was to be completed in April 2022, the San Francisco Elections Commission dragged their three appointed members to a public hearing in response to false accusations by partisan political actors. This was after nine months of diligent work. This interference threw the redistricting process into chaos and was met with fierce objections from citizens who saw our democracy challenged. The Elections Commission backed down, but not without damage to the integrity of the process. This resulted in the maps being approved late and enflamed divisions in our community. Despite the political meddling, the 2022 process worked; it produced legal and balanced maps and reversed 20 years of gerrymandering.

Not satisfied with these results, the Elections Commission and political activists have hatched a plan to give full control of the Redistricting process to unelected bureaucrats appointed by the San Francisco Elections Department.

Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin recently announced his intention to support this clear power grab in the form of a Charter Amendment. The content of this legislation was developed by the same activist groups that tried to derail redistricting when they didn’t get their way and didn’t support the final legal map for political reasons. This problematic plan will give full control of redistricting to unelected bureaucrats appointed by the Elections Commission and make other unneeded, expensive and ill-advised changes to the process.

Send this email to the San Francisco

Board of Supervisors today!

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Message to the Board of Supervisors and Mayor Breed

Dear Supervisors and Mayor Breed,&#13;&#10;&#13;&#10;The 2021-2022 redistricting process was successful, fair, transparent and most importantly resulted in legal districts for the first time in decades. Despite this, the groups that tried to derail our redistricting process are now hard at work trying to corrupt our process with a “redistricting reform” proposal similar to the one that was just rejected at the state level.&#13;&#10;&#13;&#10;District maps from 2002 and 2012 were objectively illegal with variances reaching up to 18%, far more than the allowable +/- 1% (+/-5% in limited situations).  In a word, prior to 2022 SF districts were gerrymandered. The 2022 process was robust and transparent, and resulted in objectively legal maps for the first time in decades.&#13;&#10;&#13;&#10;The groups that were prevented from gerrymandering now seek to manipulate the process in order to politicize and gerrymander the map again. This unnecessary legislation is inconsistent with transparency and accountability to the public.  It creates more conflict in an already polarized and crowded election year. &#13;&#10;&#13;&#10;The Independent Redistricting Task Force listened to hundreds of individuals and dozens of communities to draw a fair map. In fact that was the reason that votes often occurred late into the night. Then those same individuals who kept them late accused the Task Force of voting in secret. The hypocrisy here is apparent.&#13;&#10;&#13;&#10;This proposed new bureaucracy is unaccountable to the voters and open to manipulation. In San Francisco, we have witnessed issues of corruption on the Ethics Commission, the DPW, the PUC, and a myriad of appointed and unaccountable non-profits. This proposed Charter Amendment will lead to more corruption and more division. Further, it will be expensive to set up, expensive to run, and heavily dependent on consulting contracts to execute.&#13;&#10;&#13;&#10;We need to continue to improve our redistricting process after every census cycle but please reject and vote NO on this ill-conceived proposal.

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STOP the Latest Attempt to Subvert Voters' Rights in San Francisco!

Oppose this Problematic and Politically Motivated Redistricting Charter Amendment!