State Sen. Leland Yee (D-SF) is set to announce his candidacy for mayor in just a few minutes at San Francisco City Hall:
State Sen. Leland Yee plans to take out papers today for his likely run for San Francisco mayor.
Forming an “exploratory committee” will allow Yee to start campaigning and raising money for next year’s race. He just got through spending $1.2 million on his all-but-uncontested re-election campaign.
“We needed to keep people informed on what the senator had been doing,” said campaign manager Jim Stearn. (SF Chronicle)
With Gavin Newsom winning election to Lt. Governor, the big question now is who will become Mayor in January when Newsom moves up to Sacramento. Apparently the process will be starting sooner than expected, with the Board of Supervisors already looking around for a replacement.
Going beyond the interim question, there is likely to be a fair bit of identity politics. There will be a few groups looking to make history, first Chinese-American mayor in SF, first gay mayor, etc. Oh, and there’s that lingering progressive – vs – moderate debate. The interim mayor selection is just the beginning.
Ten days ago Leland Yee tells voters in his state senate district to vote for him as he wants to represent them in Sacramento. Nine days ago the voters in his district did just that. Today Yee says “hey, maybe I can be Mayor of SF. That would be neat!”
Over 55% of the voters who just elected him 9 days ago do not live in San Francisco. Yee has some explaining to do to his voters in San Fran but the people in San Mateo County have got to be saying “WTF?, before his election is even certified he already wants another elected job?!?”
Not good Leland, not good to throw a majority of your constituents off the bus.
Independent of how good a Senator or potential SF Mayor, what do you think of his timing?