Olague Explains her Support for RCV Repeal Measure

Written by Luke Thomas. Posted in News, Politics

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Published on March 10, 2012 with 6 Comments

District 5 Supervisor Christina Olague. File photo by Luke Thomas.

By Luke Thomas, first published by the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

March 10, 2012

Sup. Christina Olague has drawn ire from progressive circles over her pivotal co-sponsorship of a proposed charter amendment that aims to eliminate Ranked Choice Voting in all citywide races. It takes six members of the Board of Supervisors to place the repeal measure on the November ballot and she is the sixth co-sponsor.

Olague has long ties to the progressive community and was appointed by Mayor Ed Lee to the District 5 seat, one of the city’s most progressive, in January after Ross Mirkarimi was elected Sheriff. This week, she joined Sean Elsbernd, Carmen Chu, Scott Wiener, and Malia Cohen – all considered moderate/conservative supervisors – in supporting Sup. Mark Farrell’s proposal to replace RCV with runoff elections for the mayor’s race and other citywide offices.

Continue reading Olague Explains her Support for RCV Repeal Measure

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://www.linkedin.com/myprofile?trk=hb_tab_pro Ann Garrison

    Is this six signatures rule new? When I attempted to get a proposition to cancel the City’s invitation to the Blue Angels Air Show on the ballot, way back in 2008, I thought the number of signatures required was four.

    But, that was such a bust that I might be remembering it wrong. Chris Daly was the only one I could get to respond to the calls and messages and say he’d sign. Aaron Peskin actually picked up the phone himself, said he’d think about it, then let one of his aides say no a week later.

  • DavidinSF

    Progressive, not.

  • chard

    I guess we can assume the other shoe has fallen.

  • http://www.linkedin.com/myprofile?trk=hb_tab_pro Ann Garrison

    Ed Lee’s not even supporting her in the D5 race.

  • Ralph

    Shouldn’t Ranked Choice Voting be debated along with the public financing of campaigns. Each candidate can get up to $900,000 in public matching funds. As a result, nine mayoral candidates together obtained $4.97 million from the city under the program. Lee and public defender Jeff Adachi, the sixth-place finisher, didn’t take public funds, relying solely on private donors. While the system was intended to encourage more candidates to run for office, allow candidates to spend more time discussing the issues and spend less time fundraising, and encourage candidates to limit their spending, doesn’t public financing encourage non-serious candidates to run because the public money encourages them so. Does public financing skew RCV? Just asking.

  • http://www.linkedin.com/myprofile?trk=hb_tab_pro Ann Garrison

    @Ralph: Unlike most of my fellow Greens, I’m not altogether sold on RCV, particularly in the mayor’s race. In the last mayor’s race, I saw a raft of viable and remotely viable candidates, from John Avalos to even the Green Party’s Terry Baum, who were distinguished by their support of public banking and public power.

    On the other side, in my mind, was Ed Lee, who came out for neither. I called his office a number of times about the public banking and they kept promising an answer till some gal finally apologized and said Ed Lee was not going to answer that one either way.

    But I don’t think a distinction this sharp emerged with such a large field.

    Course we can talk about it.