SF Candidates for State Assembly Defend Their Records on KQED Newsroom

Those living on the east side of San Francisco already are casting their ballots to elect a new Assemblymember to replace David Chiu, who became the new city attorney. The choice can be a tough one.

Candidates David Campos and Matt Haney both have cast themselves as progressive Democrats and support similar measures statewide. Both enjoyed progressive support during their time on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Both tout their records on addressing homelessness and on building affordable housing.

For a voter, finding the distinctions between the candidates can be like divining the differences between brands of laundry detergent — aren’t they all basically the same?

KQED’s Scott Shafer, filling in for host Priya David Clemens, brought the Assembly candidates to last Friday’s KQED Newsroom to help dig into their records. Campos addressed his controversial Mission moratorium effort to halt all housing construction in the Mission District, and Haney answered calls that he doesn’t roll up his sleeves and burn the midnight oil as a legislator.

Both candidates also touted their own leadership styles and how they would pass difficult statewide legislation that has failed previously, including statewide single-payer health care.

Time is short for voters — the last day to vote in this runoff election is April 19, and ballots already are hitting mailboxes. Neither candidate garnered enough votes in a February election to become the clear choice, but this runoff election will decide who goes to Sacramento to represent San Francisco in the Assembly.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. 

SCOTT SHAFER: I think in many ways on many issues, the two of you agree there are different shades of where you land on single-payer. You both support it. But let’s talk about that. There was a bill, AB 1400, by Assemblymember Ash Kalra down in the South Bay to move forward with single-payer health care. It didn’t even come up for a vote in the committee that it was in.

Would you, if you had been on that committee or if that had been your bill, would you have forced a vote? Would you have forced the members to vote even though you knew you didn’t have the votes? 

CAMPOS: Let me say I respect [Assemblymember] Ash Kalra, I think that he should be commended for the work that he has done, but I respectfully and strongly disagree with his decision to not have a vote. And I think that illustrates the problem, right?

That in some respects, that decision was driven by the fact that maybe they didn’t want to put their colleagues on the spot, the very colleagues that promised to their constituents that they would vote for Medicare for All. You have politicians running for office that say the right things, but take money from the people that are against the very things they’re promising. And when they get elected, you know what happens? They vote for their pockets, not for the people.

SHAFER: So if you were to go up to Sacramento, Matt, are you saying, “I’ll get it done, I will get single-payer done”? And how? Why you? This has been voted on up in Sacramento for about 20 years. 

HANEY: Well, Ash Kalra is the author of the bill, he’s been the biggest champion for Medicare for All, and he’s given me his sole endorsement. He believes that I can go up and support him and make sure we get it done next time. I also have the support of the California Nurses Association, who sponsored the bill. And so the reality is that we need to build a broad-based movement all up and down our state and take on the big interests and get this done. We need single-payer. The reality is, we cannot rely on a health care system that relies on profit.

We can build the coalition that can actually move this. And that’s why the author of the bill wants me up there as his partner to actually get this done next time.

SHAFER: I want to ask you both to address what critics say about you, and we’ll start with you, David.

You know, a lot of people say, you know, smart guy, good guy. Too ideological, not practical enough, alienates people by not compromising enough. They mentioned single-payer, blaming Sacramento politicians for not getting it passed. Those are the people you’re going to have to work with if you go up there. So how do you address that criticism that you’re more interested in the ideology of things than the practical side of how things work? 

CAMPOS: Well, I address it by pointing to the things that I accomplished in San Francisco, not only closing the loophole to, meant to make health care universal in San Francisco, but passing CleanPowerSF, 100% renewable energy, passing the legacy business program, protecting our sanctuary policy, things that require supermajorities of the Legislature here in the city that passed because of me. I think the reason why someone like Toni Atkins, who is the president pro tem of the state Senate, is supporting me, is because she has seen my ability to bring people together. The fact that you try to be collegial and work with people doesn’t mean that you stand, that you don’t stand on principle.

SHAFER: Matt Haney, critics of you might say that you’re more of a show horse. Not so much of a workhorse, as David Campos points out. I don’t know if any of your colleagues on the Board of Supervisors are endorsing you. Six are endorsing him. You’re quick to put out a press release, quick to go to a press conference. Maybe not so quick to roll up your sleeves and get hard work done. What’s your response to that?

HANEY: Well, you know, there’s been analyses of this even done by KQED that show that I authored and passed more legislation than all but one of my colleagues. I’ve been very effective on the Board of Supervisors in delivering. Passed some of the biggest, most landmark policies over the last number of years, including co-authoring Mental Health [Association of] SF guaranteeing a right to mental health care in our city, building more housing in my district by far than any other, delivering the big and the small things. Creating a new Department of Sanitation, bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars in new funding for affordable housing. These are results. I represent a very tough district and I have delivered on these big issues. And the reality is I have the support of three of my colleagues plus me. So I have four and he has six. So it’s not that big of a difference.

SHAFER: Let’s move to another issue. A big one for this district is rent, rent control, renters’ rights. Just yesterday, the Legislature passed a bill that would extend renter protections through June 30. It was going to expire today for those who had already applied for rent help. But it also undermined local moratoriums on evictions in San Francisco and in Los Angeles. [State Senator] Scott Wiener and [Assemblymember] Phil Ting, two of the representatives from San Francisco, both voted against it. They were two of the very few. How would you have voted on that bill?

CAMPOS: I would have followed the lead of these two representatives. I think Scott Wiener and Phil Ting are right. I think that we need to protect renters. And I think the reason why Phil Ting is endorsing me in this campaign is because he knows my commitment. And to renters in this race, there is a very clear choice.

SHAFER: Matt, I know you’re backed by the YIMBYs [Yes in My Backyard], you’re backed by the builders as well, some of those unions. But how would you have voted on that bill? Would you have done what David just said [you would do] and just not voted no?

HANEY: I would not have supported that. I would have voted no. I’m the only renter in this race. If you look at Sacramento and you look at representation, about half of households in California, more than half in San Francisco are renters. Yet less than 2%, there are only two out of 120 of our legislators are renters. I would be the third. I live in rent-controlled housing. I’ve defended people in court who are facing evictions. I’ve been a strong champion for and passed just-cause eviction protections for renters here.

CAMPOS: Well, the reality is that if you look at Supervisor Haney’s record, it has changed. You know, the amount Haney of a year ago had, that record had all these pro-tenant organizations supporting him. We supported him for supervisor. And what happened is that the moment he decided to run for Assembly, those positions change. He became the person who ran against a YIMBY candidate to now becoming the NIMBY candidate. And what changed, quite frankly, and the voters can decide for themselves, a lot of money has been going to his campaign. Hundreds of thousands of dollars from realtors, from developers, and that position has changed.

HANEY: I’ve been a tenant champion my entire career, defended people in court. I’ve done that repeatedly. I fought for tenants’ rights and delivered. We extended eviction protections. I authored the law to every tenant in San Francisco and my position on tenants’ rights has not changed. I’ve been consistent. I’ve also been consistently pro-housing, building more housing in my district than any other, including a lot more affordable and supportive housing. And that’s a big reason why I’m running. He’s been against housing, so yes, his position has been consistent. It’s been consistent against housing.

SHAFER: Let me just ask a specific question about that, because when you [David Campos] were on the Board of Supervisors, you promoted a moratorium on building in the Mission District, one of the neighborhoods you represented. And that was a time we needed more housing. So looking back on that, was that the right thing to do?

CAMPOS: Well, as I’ve indicated, you know, I supported that in response to community concerns for the same reason, by the way, then-Supervisor London Breed at the time supported it. And it’s interesting because, again, I’ve said no. That I’ve learned from that.

But what’s interesting here, right, is that Supervisor Haney is attacking me for that very position, even though he himself took that position. But I want to be very clear about housing. The fact that I have said that I am for affordable housing does not make me anti-housing. What the YIMBYs want is to simply give a blank check to developers and to let them build whatever they want. And those of us who want to keep working people and middle-income people in San Francisco are simply saying, yes, we should build all kinds of housing, but we must build housing that is actually affordable for the teachers, for the people who clean our houses, who work at our coffee shops. That’s what I believe. Being for affordable housing, being against simply giving developers a blank check, it’s not against housing, it’s pro-affordable housing. There’s a difference.

SHAFER: Quick response.

HANEY: I’ll put my track record in building affordable housing up against his any day. We are building thousands and thousand of units of affordable housing in my district. Many more than he did during his time. And the reality is we need housing of all types. Projects like the 469 Stevenson Project, 24% affordable, thousand-plus union jobs, 500 units of housing near transit. We need projects like that. I was for it. He was against it.

SHAFER: A lot of issues around homelessness, as we know in the city. You made a proposal to have these safe injection sites in every county. 

CAMPOS: Absolutely.

SHAFER: How are you going to convince somebody in, you know, Trinity County or any other red county, Shasta County, to put in an injection site?

CAMPOS: Well, I think that’s the point is being able to work with people, and some of the measures that I passed successfully, whether it’s protecting universal health care, the sanctuary policy, we worked with, with communities in the different districts to convince those representatives that doing that was in the right. What’s in the interest of their constituents. What I’m saying is that San Francisco, in many respects, has carried too much of the burden when it comes to homelessness and that other jurisdictions need to step in. And that’s why I think that it is fair for us to ask other jurisdictions to do the same now.

HANEY: Every city and county across the state has to do their share, and they’re not right now. They need to have a plan of how many shelter beds they’re going to have, supportive housing they’re going to build, and there has to be an actual plan for accountability and consequences if they didn’t do or don’t do their part. We can’t solve homelessness just in San Francisco or just in one neighborhood of San Francisco. It’s going to take shared responsibility.

That’s true on things like safe injection sites, which I authored the legislation to actually create a process to open those and we finally have a site in my district. But it can’t just be in the Tenderloin. It has to be throughout our city and it has to be around the state. If people are going to take responsibility.

SHAFER: What would accountability look like if a county isn’t building enough housing?

CAMPOS: I think there has to be funding connected to doing the right thing,

SHAFER: Are saying that you would cut off funding if they don’t meet certain criteria? 

CAMPOS: Absolutely. I think that’s, that should be on the table. I think that it’s not just the state. You should also provide incentives, financial incentives, and I have the record showing how to get it done. I opened the first navigation center of anyone in the city. I proposed the first injection site, and in Santa Clara County I helped to build thousands of units of supportive housing to deal with homelessness in that county.