A new class of wealthy donors has entered San Francisco's elections and many of them have ties to Mayor Daniel Lurie. That's according to an analysis by Mission Local, which looked at major donors giving at least $250,000 this election cycle.
KALW spoke to Mission Local's data reporter Kelly Waldron about the story.
Kelly Waldron: I reported this story with Brandon Pho and Christina Baris, and we found in our analysis that there's a lot of money going toward Mayor Daniel Lurie's package of charter amendment measures, and those would change mayoral powers and make it more difficult to get things on the ballot.
When we compare our kind of map of big money two years ago, a lot of the same players were there, but things were a little more fragmented because there was a mayoral race with several moderate candidates. This year, Lurie's in charge, and all the major donors are kind of backing behind him. Lurie, of course, is a very successful fundraiser. He's the founder of a nonprofit, Tipping Point, so he has brought in folks who are affiliated with his nonprofit and managed to kind of convert them to political donors to support measures that he's placed on the ballot that would broaden mayoral powers and make it harder for citizens to get initiatives on the ballot.
I would say Proposition D has drawn the most opposition. It would quadruple the current signature requirement to get something on the ballot, and that's creating a much higher barrier to entry. If you're raising the signature threshold from 2% to 8% of the city's voters, you need a lot more money to gather volunteers or get people to collect signatures from across the city. And that's something that perhaps wealthier groups are already able to do.
To read the fill story by Mission Local, click here.
This interview was edited for clarity and length.
