SHOCKER: SF Dem Party Rejects Billionaire Tax

Wednesday night was supposed to be another ritual of progressive piety at the SF DCCC Democrat Party central committee meeting. California’s state party had already bowed. All that remained was for the SF Dems to kiss the ring on Proposition 40, the 5 percent raid on California’s billionaires. Instead, the room did the unthinkable.

Seventeen members voted to oppose it. Four voted yes. Nancy Pelosi (who is a voting SFDCC member) parked herself in the “no endorsement” corner.  Scott Wiener, running to inherit her House seat, abstained.

Let’s clap for the grown-ups.

 SF Dems Chair Nancy Tung said San Francisco Democrats care about inequality, and Prop 40 is still the wrong tool. A one-time tax does not fix a structural budget.

Another member conceded Prop 40 does not land evenly across California. It lands on the Bay Area. It tells startup founders not to build the next company here if they think it might actually succeed. If you tap the well once, you will tap it again. That is not a right-wing talking point. That is how capital works.

 Other voting members refused to pretend out-migration is just a mere fairytale. People actually leave. Their income taxes leave with them. A state billionaire tax is not a long-term healthcare plan and yet some call for federal reform instead of a one-off confiscation. The people targeted can vote with their feet.

Several SF DCCC members put an actual alternative on the table: support for a national wealth tax, a resolution the committee passed unanimously.

Do the SF Dem leaders deserve praise?  These party delegates looked at a measure first as a rally chant and then wondered what happens after the applause dies. They noticed California teachers’ unions, the NAACP, firefighters, Planned Parenthood (!), the state’s budget technicians – and even Gov. Gavin Newsom are not on board. They noticed the war chest against Prop 40 is north of $150 million.

Then those delegates who were in favor of the Prop 40 tax pushed the implication that anyone who doubts Prop 40 has been bought off – influenced by the wealthy. It is a convenient and lazy theory.

There were warnings that opposing the tax would hand Fox News a talking point.

Bernie Sanders flew in earlier this year to label billionaires as oligarchs. Ro Khanna and Maxine Waters treated a Prop 40’s tax a moral destiny.

None of them have to explain why the next tech unicorn decides to incorporate in Austin.

Which brings us to Scott Wiener, the man who so desperately may be congressman. He abstained on Prop 40. Why? Because he is in a race to succeed Pelosi against Connie Chan, (who was conveniently absent) at a Pelosi-hosted fundraiser while this grenade went off.

An abstention lets Wiener tell labor he did not stab them in the back while also telling his donors he did not light the match. It is the oldest move in Sacramento: when a vote has a constituency on both sides, Wiener becomes furniture.

A candidate like Wiener wants to lecture the country about housing supply who suddenly can’t decide yes or a no on the highest-profile tax fight in the state.

Nancy Pelosi at least owned the dodge. “No endorsement” is a veteran’s way of saying she will not die on that hill. Wiener did not even climb it.

The SFDCCC majority of delegates did not become Republicans at 10:43 p.m. They declined to endorse a gimmick that splits labor, spooked the governor, and treats San Francisco’s tax base like a piñata.  They saw the writing on the wall.

Wiener wanted a headline that said nothing. That’s the real scandal.