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San Francisco’s Ultrarich Are Blocking a Zohran-Style Agenda

By
Jen Snyder

For years, democratic socialists in San Francisco have been passing Zohran Mamdani–style policies in the city legislature and through ballot measures, only to see them blocked by Silicon Valley billionaires and powerful real estate interests.

Elon Musk on Capitol Hill on September 13, 2023. (Tom Brenner for the Washington Post via Getty Images)

Zohran Mamdani’s recent victory in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary is no doubt the shot of adrenaline that democratic socialism needs right now. But while his win shocked most of the nation, democratic socialists have always known that Mamdani’s platform was a winning one.

We knew in 2016 that Bernie Sanders could have won. We knew it when COVID-19 hit and the stimulus checks started printing — if the government could provide something like a universal basic income for unemployed people when the economy was flatlining, could they not afford it during boom times? We knew it during the fiasco of the Joe Biden–Kamala Harris campaign while centrist Democrats ignored the economic gasps for breath from working-class America. And although New York’s primary election surprised almost everybody, democratic socialists have been excited, even exuberantly optimistic, about Mamdani’s campaign as a model for other socialists since early 2024. A bold, populist economic platform has massive appeal.

As the Zohran adrenaline courses through our networks, to the soundtrack of Bernie’s latest directive to run for office at every level, it’s no wonder many politicians are trying to jump on this winning bandwagon (and making sure to hit record on their iPhones). But in San Francisco — a city known for its progressivism — some mainstream commentators still don’t seem so sure. As Cal Matters politics reporter Yue Stella Yu asked last month: “Could we have a Zohran in San Francisco?”

The truth is, for years San Francisco voters have tried to pass Mamdani’s agenda — almost to a tee — and it has been as popular as you’d expect, even without his dimples and killer social media. The people of San Francisco have always been fans of a Mamdani-style platform. They’re not the ones opposing such an agenda; it’s the Andrew Cuomos of the city and their ultrarich backers. The political establishment and the economic elites that fund them have worked to block economic prosperity for working people at every turn.

Blocking the Zohran Agenda in San Francisco

Years ago, for instance, Democratic Socialist of America–elected supervisor Dean Preston passed legislation at the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to start a pilot of free public transit for all. It passed with a board majority and broad array of underserved groups, headed by the Filipino-led South of Market Action Committee. But when it hit then mayor London Breed’s desk, she vetoed it.

In 2024, Proposition L, “Fund the Bus,” a measure from transit advocates that taxed rideshare platforms to increase funding for busses and train service and provide fare discounts for youth, seniors, and low-income people, passed handily, but it was poison-pilled by a competing measure, Proposition M — a business tax overhaul that nullified any gross-receipts tax measures that received fewer votes. Prop M was largely funded by Meta, Airbnb, and Google, which supported it because it helped them avoid paying more in taxes. They and their wealthy allies spent nearly $1 million on Prop M, while Prop L received around $300,000 in donations from unions and San Franciscans. Meanwhile Uber and Lyft spent just shy of $1 million opposing Prop L.

In 2020, after banning pandemic evictions, Preston passed Proposition I, a transfer tax doubling the tax on the sale of megamansions and skyscrapers. The intended use of the tax was to fund social housing (state of the art, city-operated housing for all) and pay people’s mounting back rents from COVID. It passed largely thanks to the San Francisco chapter of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which fundraised and canvassed for and managed the measure. But when the money hit the city’s accounts, Mayor Breed refused to spend it on the allotted purposes. The familiar crocodile tears of having to once again balance our budget on the backs of the poor and working class — never mind a ballooning police overtime budget —  won out, and that money has now been absorbed back into the Kafkaesque city budget.

In 2022, alongside Preston, DSA collected signatures to place a measure for a vacancy tax on the ballot and ran a campaign for it. This measure would impose a vacancy tax on buildings with three or more units with the aim of incentivizing landlords to open up the many homes in San Francisco left empty during this decade-long housing crisis. (There are 40,000 empty homes in San Francisco and 10,000 unhoused people.)

We called it “the tax we hope nobody pays,” with the expectation that the homes (the vast majority of which are in towers with fifty-plus units) would be let onto the market. But the monkey’s paw lowered its gnarled finger — it would be the tax no one paid. The corporate landlord lobby sued to block the measure, claiming it violated property owners’ rights to sit on thousands of vacant units or evict people without facing potential penalties. The vacancy tax is still held up in court.

Other elements of Zohran’s platform have also been blocked by wealthy and corporate interests. Popular government-assisted grocery programs like the food bank and meal services for seniors and people with disabilities in San Francisco have been all but defunded by our current and last mayoral administrations. In 2018, a free childcare ballot measure won with voters but was delayed for over four years in a lengthy lawsuit by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, an anti-tax lobbying group that represents wealthy property owners, real estate investors, and big businesses.

When Jackie Fielder, a thirty-year-old Latina/indigenous woman backed by DSA, got 60 percent of the vote for supervisor in District 9, there was no fanfare from the establishment about her economic agenda. She has proposed a housing-first model for addressing homelessness, expanding free public transit services, social housing, and a Public Bank to fund much of it, which her office is currently hard at work on.

Ultimately, there’s an easy answer to the question “Could there be a Zohran of San Francisco?” Most San Franciscans like ideas like Mamdani’s and have for a long time. What’s stopping the city from enacting a Zohran-stye agenda isn’t the voters but the rise in incredible wealth from the corporate real estate and tech industry, which has bankrolled moderate politicians to consolidate control over San Francisco.

Establishment politicians have sold the city fairy tales of economic growth generated by tax breaks to these industries. And now, Bay Area tech billionaires Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, and Garry Tan are desperately trying to curry favor with Donald Trump. (Tan, a founder of Palantir and Y Combinator, recently tweeted a picture of himself wearing a shirt that read “There Should Be More Billionaires” in Mamdani’s blue and orange campaign font.)

Until ordinary San Franciscans overcome the power of these oligarchs and their allies in the political establishment, they will continue to find their votes for Zohran-style policies stymied.