Janet Reilly to Withdraw Candidacy?

Written by Luke Thomas. Posted in News, Politics

Published on July 22, 2010 with 11 Comments

Candidate for District 2 Supervisor Janet Reilly and husband, Clint Reilly, celebrated Mayor Gavin Newsom's Democratic Party nomination for Lt. Governor at Yoshi's, 6/8/10. Photo by Luke Thomas.

By Luke Thomas

July 22, 2010

Following a court ruling earlier today clearing a path for District 2 Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier to run for re-election, Janet Reilly released a statement suggesting she will withdraw her candidacy.

“Today’s ruling by Judge Peter Busch has allowed incumbent Michela Alioto-Pier to appear on the November ballot,” Reilly said. “I am currently evaluating Judge Busch’s ruling. This issue has clouded the election for District 2 Supervisor for more than two years. As matters are sorted out over the coming weeks, I will be announcing my plans for November.”

Reilly held a campaign kickoff event Saturday, drawing attendances from Mayor Gavin Newsom, Senator Mark Leno, Assemblymember Fiona Ma and former Mayor Frank Jordon.

Insiders are speculating Reilly will withdraw her candidacy in deference to Alioto-Pier, who was appointed to the Board by Newsom in 2004.

Mayor Gavin Newsom and District 2 Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier.

Calls for comment to the Reilly campaign have not been returned at the time of publishing.

Update 5:38 pm: Alioto-Pier will file to run for re-election tomorrow, 10 am, at the San Francisco Department of Elections, according to Alioto-Pier campaign manager Tom Hsieh.

Luke Thomas

Luke Thomas

Luke Thomas is a former software developer and computer consultant who proudly hails from London, England. In 2001, Thomas took a yearlong sabbatical to travel and develop a photographic portfolio. Upon his return to the US, Thomas studied photojournalism to pursue a career in journalism. In 2004, Thomas worked for several neighborhood newspapers in San Francisco before accepting a partnership agreement with the SanFranciscoSentinel.com, a news website formerly covering local, state and national politics. In September 2006, Thomas launched FogCityJournal.com. The BBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, New York Times, Der Spiegel, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Magazine, 7x7, San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Bay Guardian and the San Francisco Weekly, among other publications and news outlets, have published his work. Thomas is a member of the Freelance Unit of the Pacific Media Workers Guild, TNG-CWA Local 39521 and is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.

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  • http://soulpowered.tumblr.com/ Robert B. Livingston

    Stay tuned.

    Or tune out.

    Who cares?

    Who is not surprised?

    You could print it on the cover of The Globe and nothing much would change.

    All that matters is who is “in” and who is “out”.

    Who is in? Those that deliver to The System.

    Who is out?

    Those who wait in the wings, ready to deliver themselves.

  • http://soulpowered.tumblr.com/ Robert B. Livingston

    PS: Where is the will of the people?

    (Everything is decided away from them. Lawyers might rationalize differently– but I hear no cheering.)

  • http://generic1.tumblr.com/ generic

    Maaaaan ….

    I was really looking forward to another campaign managed by Clint Reilly.

  • http://groups.yahoo.com/group/patmonkrn/ Patrick Monk

    A picture is worth a thousand words. Like two peas from the same putrid pod. No more nepotism. Vote the vultures out of City Hall.

  • marc

    There are two trusims which characterize IRV:

    1. Incumbents are always reelected.

    2. The candidate who wins the most first place votes wins the election.

    If a viable candidate like Janet Reilly would withdraw from this race against the weakest member of the Board of Supervisors, after raising the kind of money and garnering the kind of endorsements that Reilly has, then that to me seals the deal for dispensing with RCV.

    I wonder if Tony Kelly would support that?

    -marc

  • greg kamin

    marc,
    That’s a typical smear leveled about IRV, but that’s the first time I’ve heard it described as a “truism.”

    In fact, BOTH of those “truisms” have been proven false many times in other IRV jurisdictions, such as the Australian parliament.

    I know you don’t like IRV. But you’re a smart guy. You know better than to take a dozen or so examples of IRV in one jurisdiction and extrapolate them into “truisms.”

  • marc

    Okay, here are the historical results:

    2004:

    MEMBER, BOARD OF SUPERVISORS DIST. 2
    Vote for 1
    MICHELA ALIOTO-PIER . . . . . . . 21,013 61.25
    STEVE BRACCINI. . . . . . . . . 5,763 16.80
    DAVID PASCAL . . . . . . . . . 4,207 12.26
    ROGER E. SCHULKE . . . . . . . . 1,950 5.68
    JAY R. SHAH. . . . . . . . . . 1,375 4.01
    WRITE-IN. . . . . . . . . . . 0

    2006:

    MEMBER, BOARD OF SUPERVISORS DIST. 2
    VOTE FOR 1
    MICHELA ALIOTO-PIER . . . . . . . 16,393 80.13
    VILMA GUINTO PEORO . . . . . . . 3,353 16.39
    WRITE-IN. . . . . . . . . . . 712 3.48

    It is difficult to make the case that Alioto-Pier has ever faced a significant challenge. Therefore, it is difficult to conclude that she is popular in the district to the extent that a well funded candidate with support like Reilly has should be intimidated running against this particular incumbent.

    If Reilly cannot defeat Alioto-Pier, then it is impossible for a challenger to beat an incumbent under RCV, even if that incumbent is found in bed with a dead adult or a live child.

    -marc

  • marc

    Greg, in partisan elections, where there is a relatively objective, distinct branding associated with a candidate, or where voters vote for party lists rather than candidates, vote transfer can lead to the kind of outcomes that IRV proponents predict.

    But in nonpartisan elections, exhausted ballots have proven to dominate in San Francisco, and as such, IRV in nonpartisan elections is reduced to first past the post in drag.

    In 2000, with runoffs, we saw Brown cronies, two incumbents, who won the primary lose the election: Michael Yaki, Mabel Teng and Linda Richardson.

    Since IRV has been in place, no incumbent has lost their bid for reelection, and no candidate which has won the highest number of first place votes has lost the election.

    That remains is a truism until it becomes a falsism as outcomes dictate.

    I’d also remind you that if there were not runoffs, we’d probably not have met, that the 1999 and 2003 mayoral runoffs paid dividends to progressives and community folks and that we’re seeing the consequences for lack of runoff fusion in the petering out of the progressive movement in San Francisco.

    -marc

  • greg kamin

    Sorry, Marc. Just because it hasn’t happened yet in the course of a dozen elections in this one city, does not elevate it to the level of a “truism.”

    We came within a hair of one of your truisms being proven wrong in the 2008 D1 race, and in the last contested race in D4 as well.

    I’m sure that somewhere IRV has produced a different winner than the largest first place finisher (and kicked out an incumbent) under a nonpartisan election, but it would require a lot of digging through obscure elections the results of which aren’t commonly found on the web. But why even bother? I already mentioned a clearcut example where your “truisms” have been proven wrong many times, so you just added another condition to your truisms -nonpartisan elections. If I find you a nonpartisan election, then you’ll probably say “Ha! But it needs to be an example in a nonpartisan election in a small to medium size city, in a city council race only, where the election is held on a Tuesday!” Or something like that.

    Incumbents win for a whole number of reasons. Demographics, money, name recognition, whatever. Alioto-Pier in particular has won because the moneyed interests have aligned squarely behind her to protect that seat, AND although we may both hate to admit it, because she’s a good ideological fit in that district. Anyone would have a tough time breaking through that combination of money and ideological alignment, which is why she has not attracted strong challengers. Not because of IRV.

    I also strongly disagree that we’re seeing a “petering out” of the progressive movement under IRV. Progressives have now won 4 -count them, FOUR -successive IRV election cycles -resoundingly, against the predictions of all the pundits.

    That’s why the other side is working hard to change the rules -both IRV and district elections. But both are still overwhelmingly popular with city voters, so it’s unlikely that any changes can get shoved through in the near term.

  • marc

    District elections would poll higher than IRV, eyeballing it.

    The fact remains that in 6 years of elections, in each and every case, incumbents are reelected and the candidate who receives the maximum number of first place votes wins.

    In D1 2008 and D4 2006, the only demonstrated reliable mechanism for vote transfer, Chinese surname, was insufficient to overcome the realities of exhausted ballots.

    The fact is that incumbents were known to lose under the runoff system in district elections but have not after IRV.

    That said, this particular instance where a viable candidate has endorsements and money and is afraid to challenge the weak incumbent has more to do with the mechanics of IRV than anything else.

    -marc

  • marc

    Greg, the thinking was that the conservatives would beat progressives in 2008 because downtown ran better campaigns. That didn’t pan out, and I did not believe that it would. But it came close in D11 and D1. Others did, had no faith in the electoral wing of the progressive movement, and folded like chairs on developer give aways like Eastern Neighborhoods.

    That is a touchstone, as since that point, progressives have largely been part and parcel to giving Michael Cohen everything he asked for, including a paycheck, what, holding the power of the purse and all.

    Progressives are not in danger now because the other side is too busy figuring out how to beat us at the ballot, rather we face political exile for the same reason that Obama and the Democrats are in trouble–they’ve ignored at best or fucked at worst the progressive, liberal and neighborhood base and catering to the downtown corporate opposition.

    I can understand how D1 and D11 supervisors might not want to govern like it was a progressive candyland, but there is a populist middle ground there that at least balances between downtown and the neighborhoods instead of tilting by default to downtown. Newsom’s absentee governing style, aside from boosting development, only active to crimp the ideas of others, makes the populist approach a no brainer, but the operating assumption is to give Newsom everything he wants so long as the favored nonprofits get funded.

    That is not sustainable and that is why progressives and liberals are in danger.

    -marc