On Sept. 8, 2023, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, then 83, kinda-sorta surprised a gathering of San Francisco politicos at a labor hall by announcing she would run for a 20th congressional term.
An observer recalls the crowd standing and cheering in unison — with the near-solitary exception of a disgruntled hyper-partisan backer of congressional aspirant Scott Wiener. That guy, instead, remained seated while pounding out a furious series of texts.
This year, others would be left to send out messages with a surfeit of exclamation marks. State Senator Wiener jolted the political firmament last month by opting to jump into the race for Pelosi’s seat, whether or not Pelosi cares to keep occupying it.
Pelosi has had this job since 1987, when Wiener was 17. It is unlikely that a high school senior in quasi-rural Turnersville, N.J. dreamed of one day representing California’s 11th congressional district, but he clearly has pined for this post for quite some time.
The man who methodically knocked on 15,000 doors between 2008 and 2010 before blowing the doors off the competition in the District 8 supervisor’s race has been laying the groundwork to succeed Pelosi. Last week, he repurposed his annual beer bash fundraiser into a congressional kickoff.
Pelosi is monomaniacally focused on passing Proposition 50, and has steadfastly refused to comment on her political future until after Tuesday’s election.
Every indication right now is that Prop. 50 will win handily — and that Pelosi will not run for another term. Would it have killed Wiener to wait until after the election portrayed by the Democratic Party as a must-win to preserve democracy?
“The speaker emerita has not said what she’s doing, and there is a race happening. And the filing deadline is in a few months,” Wiener tells Mission Local, offering a wan smile.
In an ostensible sign of respect, Wiener never refers to Pelosi by name, only as “the speaker emerita.” During the course of a 45-minute sit-down, he used this term enough that your humble narrator’s notes are awash with the abbreviation “SE.”
“Yes,” Wiener continues, “you can always say, ‘wait a little longer.’ That becomes a problem. You have to make a choice. You can always criticize or second-guess. People have told me I made a mistake not getting in three months ago. It’s never the right time, or it’s always the right time.”
Would Wiener have elbowed his way into the race if Pelosi was just facing her usual Joe Palooka challenger instead of Saikat Chakrabarti, a young, handsome, charismatic and obscenely wealthy tech bro turned progressive firebrand?
He offers another wan smile. “I don’t want to speculate about that.”
Funny thing about reality: We don’t have to speculate about it. Chakrabarti is running, and so is Wiener, and one needn’t be clairvoyant to know that Chakrabarti, who worked for Bernie Sanders in 2016 and was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign manager in 2018, forced Wiener’s hand.
“I had coffee with him early in the year, right after he got in. He is a smart guy and he knows how to campaign,” Wiener says of Chakrabarti. “He has obviously been in campaigns for a long time. He has hired national talent. He has not limitless, but effectively limitless, resources. He has been doing tons of digital things all year.”
The numbers coming through the grapevine on what Chakrabarti is paying canvassers and staff resemble the sorts of money that Daniel Lurie was able to throw around. And you know how that worked for him.
Chakrabarti’s vast wealth — he is a centimillionaire — and an increasing appetite for change within a Democratic Party defined by its gerontocracy is a potent coupling.
Money may not buy you happiness, but it can buy you a field program: Veteran Bay Area politicos, glancing at photos from Charabarti’s well-attended Oct. 9 kickoff, repurposed a line from cutthroat San Francisco political strategist Jack Davis: “I don’t see a single precinct-walker in that crowd.”
It will be intriguing to see what Chakrabarti’s field campaign looks like. While anyone and everyone left of center would want to liken themselves to New York City mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani, this would appear to be a facile comparison.
Mamdani amassed an army of precinct walkers over the course of years, well before he declared for mayor. The infrastructure that will likely propel Mamdani to victory was assembled in large part by the Democratic Socialists of America.
Chakrabarti, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s former campaign manager and chief of staff, has a curious pedigree for a candidate appealing to San Francisco’s left: He espouses national left-wing positions, but not necessarily local ones.
In fact, he put significant money into unseating former supervisor Dean Preston, at the time the only democratic socialist and DSA member on the Board of Supervisors, and he also donated to fellow tech-dude-turned-politician Michael Lai.
Saikat Chakrabarti’s first name, incidentally, rhymes with “boycott.” It remains to be seen whether that’s just what city lefties do. For them, a race between Chakrabarti and the moderate stalwart Wiener would be like picking sides in a political Stalingrad.
Scott David Wiener is 55 years old. He has been a prominent mover and shaker in San Francisco politics for a generation, and has been overtly angling to succeed the speaker emerita for years.
Voters seem to be desirous of something new: Does Wiener, middle-aged, a seasoned political veteran and a longtime congressional aspirant, fill that bill? He thinks so: Wiener says he’s already courted volunteers who had gravitated to Chakrabarti before coming to him. They just wanted somebody new.
Wiener and Chakrabarti can both beef with Trump and his gang on TV and on the Internet, but only Wiener can also sell himself as a substantive legislator who takes on big issues and gets things done.
Housing is Wiener’s signature topic — but here, believe it or not, Chakrabarti and Wiener, the godfather of the YIMBY movement, are sounding more and more alike.
“The federal government used to play a huge role in housing around what we used to call public housing or social housing,” Wiener says. “We need to get back to that. We need to implement a massive social housing program in this country.”
While Wiener isn’t exactly new to pushing social housing, this isn’t what city lefties likely expcted to hear. But perhaps they’ll take it: It’s bad form to look a gift giraffe in the mouth.
Where Chakrabarti and Wiener figure to differ more, however, is on Israel and Gaza. Just what everyone wanted: Mideast politics may be a consequential factor in a local political race.
At his beer bash kickoff, hecklers repeatedly interrupted Wiener to demand an answer on whether he’d accept money from AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby. They were drowned out by the pro-Wiener crowd. When repeatedly asked in an interview if he would, Wiener declined to directly answer the question.
Wiener, who is Jewish, noted that, beyond AIPAC, much of the scrutiny “gets into a very McCarthyesque situation about Jewish donors.”
“I have some significant differences with AIPAC,” he continued. “I don’t support sending offensive arms to Israel as long as they have a government that’s not committed to peace or democracy, which is the case with this current government. So that’s a pretty significant issue for AIPAC. They are very opposed to conditioning aid to Israel.”
Wiener, for the record, will not take money — hard no — from Big Oil, payday lenders, tobacco companies or the prison-industrial complex (he has long been a voice in the wilderness in the California legislature, willing to oppose the prison-guard union).
But when asked, multiple times, if he’d take AIPAC money, Weiner did not give a hard no. Instead, he replied that he didn’t think they’d give him any: “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
After publication of this article, a Wiener campaign spokesperson sent the following statement:
“Senator Wiener and AIPAC have significant policy differences regarding the current Israeli government and its actions within Israel and toward Gaza and the West Bank. As a result, Senator Wiener is not seeking or accepting AIPAC’s support in this race.”
But that’s still more complicated than “hard no.” Chakrabati has a more straightforward position for the city’s progressives: He called Israel’s actions in Gaza a “genocide” during his campaign kick-off, and vowed to vote against sending Israel weapons if he were elected to congress — period.
So, it’s going to be an interesting race. And, assuming Pelosi does indeed bow out, it will be only more so if Supervisor Connie Chan enters the fray — and does so as Pelosi’s preferred successor.
Chan and Wiener diverged on Prop. K, the 2024 measure that closed the Great Highway and led to the recall of District 4 Supervisor Joel Engardio, a Wiener ally.
Nobody seems to think a ballot measure in 2026 to reopen the highway would pass. But if such a measure were to be put before the electorate, and if a bloc of Chinese voters ran to the polls, and if there were a Chinese candidate running in a high-profile race — well, that would surely be interesting, too.
All of that, and more, may come to pass. Wiener is ready.
“I have learned in life,” he says, “that the only thing I can control is what I do.”
Someone wrote that Wiener fought hard for housing and transit? And yet, public transit in SF is at the brink of destruction, and the housing crisis carries on despite the passage of Wiener’s numerous bills. These have everything to do with deregulation to benefit developers and nothing to do with creating any housing affordability or apparently much housing. And this latest threat of the “Builder’s Remedy,” allowing developers to do whatever they want if we don’t make State mandated housing goals? That’s his fault. He wrote the laws that made those goals impossible.
Wiener’s career needs to end now. It will not benefit working people to send him to DC where he will have even more power to dig the knife even deeper into the backs of San Franciscans. We need federal funds for housing and infrastructure in SF. Will Weiner do better than Pelosi, who never fought for us? Highly unlikely. And don’t forget his latest censorship bill.
Saikat concerns me. He’s another wealthy tech bro whose campaign is fueled by his own money and his ego. He seems to know very little about SF despite living here since 2009. No one involved in progressive politics every saw him until he started running for office as a born again progressive. Actual progressives have kept their distance from him particularly since he endorsed Bilal Mahmood and contributed $10,000 to his DCCC campaign and the max $500 to his Supervisor Campaign. He won’t say this was a mistake and evasively told me recently he was still waiting to see what Bilal does as a Supervisor. Is he even watching?
All that said, ANYONE BUT WIENER. And at least Saikat says he’s against funding genocide and is for other populist causes like universal healthcare.
Quality comment, and answers a lot of good questions.
I don’t like Wiener for the same reasons, he’s like Cuomo with less obvious baggage.
And Saikat looks at best close to tech bro than actual governance for the people, not too far from Lurie with his own blatant favoritism right now regarding commissions and corruption.
I just hope that the info gets clearer as it gets towards election time.
He’s authored so much reactive, knee-jerk legislation. Always seeing his name on the Legislature’s emotionally-driven bill of the day, and never very well thought through. No thanks.
I’d rather have a politician put legislation where his mouth is than say things and do nothing. I disagree with wieners politics more than half the time but 100 percent agree with the way he does things. He does what he says which is a breath of fresh air.
He lies as often as he breathes.
“He does what he says” is not a fact. He says what he expects you to believe what he does, without investigating. FTFY.
Wiener has loudly supported Israel while it commits genocide against Palestinians, and voters have shown they won’t tolerate this. He supports and visits an apartheid state that violently suppresses Palestinians’ rights, and he brings that repression to California by outlawing criticism of Israel in our schools. No way I would ever vote for that.
In fairness, last time Palestinians went to exercise their rights, they knew nothing better than voting Hamas straight into power. But, as others mentioned, we can safely put that kind of political indulgence aside, b/c back home there’s plenty enough that needs fixin’.
Nothing excuses genocide, nor is it political indulgence to care about Wiener spewing genocidal propaganda for Israel.
ACTUALLY it was Nyetanyahu who channeled cash to Hamas in Palestine (multi-millions over a decade) and fought to exclude other groups from governance there precisely so he could later point to them as a terrorist threat and steal their land via genocide.
The pagers and walkie talkie bombs were procured over a DECADE ago, and the government had prior knowledge of the Oct 7 attacks and failed to act within a 12 hour period despite that. Why? Ask yourself, who benefits.
If you think GENOCIDE by a US ally isn’t a problem, you might be signing yourself up for something tacitly. Guess what it is?
If Palestine had Israel’s power, they would have committed genocide as that is what they say they will do. Israel has had the power to commit genocide for decades but hasn’t.
But they don’t. In fact Palestinians have had war crimes committed against them by a (so-called) US ally who then lies to our faces about it.
Wiener supports that without flinching. He’s not trustworthy.
We’re kind of getting down to the chicken vs egg issue at the heart of this, who is actually victimizing whom?
Some believe Israel is the eternally oppressed vestige of WW2’s horrors, which were genuinely horrible and real.
Others note that over the last EIGHTY YEARS Israel has gone on to become the technological and physical oppressor of its neighbors, in fact expanding in contravention of international law and the Geneva Conventions et al. They have waged propaganda wars against both the UN and the ICC, using the USA as a both witting and unwitting pawn in its campaign to remove multinational oversight from its expansionist crimes.
If Palestine had Israel’s power, the US would have destroyed it.
But it never was close, and people who equivocate the two are obviously absent of the study.
Look at it this way: if we send him to Washington he’ll be out of the state, out of our City and perhaps we can roll back the demolition of San Francisco for lux condos.
I remember his first “Big Idea” after being elected solely on his Castro demographic – gay white male of a certain age: nobody allowed into Golden Gate Park after midnight. Or any park. That includes Sunset Dunes Park which includes the beach to the waterline! No walk on the beach for you after midnight you lawbreaker. Get this expletive deleted outta here.
“significant national role” – No – he’ll be relegated to the back benches and doing this “speeches” to an empty chamber.
Palestine freedom is the litmus test for all politicians, since it is a test of everyone’s morality, of our own humanity. Imagine running for local office in Nazi Germany and not taking a stand against extermination of Jews and others. Or in the US during slavery, running for election and not taking a stand against it. In South Africa, against apartheid. Everyone, individually and collectively everywhere is accountable to stand against genocide. And more so right here since we finance the genocide. Scottff is so right- Weiner is a hard core zionist and effectively, pro-genocide. He’s anti Arab and he even opposed the BOS resolution for a ceasefire. None of us should give him our vote.
It’s the litmus test for all HUMAN BEINGS.
To answer Joe’s question, NO Scott Weiner it’s not what we want or what we need. From back when he was a supervisor and voted NO on free MUNI passes for youth in 2012…to them many times since he has put big developers over affordable housing… he’s slippery and an opportunist.
NO way to Weiner
Y’all know how life got so expensive? Think death by a thousand cuts. Off the top of my head, Exhibit A: Unfunded government mandates. Example: Positive Train Control, an unfunded federal mandate. As a result, Caltrain ticket prices shot up way north. Exhibit B, the technocrats at the CPUC in bed with PG&E. And on and on I could go through an Exhibit Z.
Candidate in spe Scott Wiener unfortunately looks very much like a jockey of unfunded mandates, see SB79. And just like one more of those technocrats who will endlessly try to reach into your pockets, when instead the primary task of a Representative to Congress is bringing-home-the-bacon. Therefore my verdict: Pass.
Hard pass.
But if there is phot op, Scotty will be there!
My vote is on Weiner. He has a sharp focus on key issues and knows how to write legislation that is well supported and gets passed. His last package of bills with Buffy on housing Newsom signed were impressive. We haven’t seen Congress fund HUD at the levels it once was in decades. Housing is an issue every major American city is facing. Chakrabarti and Wiener are both amazing candidates to beat any Republican contender for the seat.
“His last package of bills with Buffy on housing Newsom signed were impressive”
Specifically, the giveaway or the toothless sellout or the unfunded mandate?
He’s a tool of Billionaires, not a representative of common people.
Great write, Joe,
Hadn’t read Zhou’s piece on Chokblot and together they have me calling for another horse in this Trifecta.
Of all of Wiener’s sins I think the worst was when he joined with David Chiu to toss out the tenants of 2,300 Rent-Controlled apartments at Park Merced.
And, I still think the Preston race was fixed at the voting machine level as was the Bernie Sanders Super Tuesday result.
Gotta look out for those Proprietary Algorithms.
On the other hand, I think the Gonzalez vs Newsom race in 2003 was the last San Francisco contest to be fixed with paper ballots.
From the stash Willie had printed by Tammy Haygood was it ?
This town is a continual interesting adventure.
go Niners !!
h.
Wiener is an Israel-firster and that should speak volumes about his character, particularly in these dark times when everyone in the world has either questioned their support for Israel or have completely turned against it for the crimes against humanity that it’s been committing.
Sadly, San Franciscans keep electing this guy even as they complain about his politics and no, we don’t want this guy in DC because if you think it’s hard to fight the State and his numerous legislation that he’s passed in the past 7+ years, imagine how hard it would be to fight the Federal government when he gets there to do mo’ for his paymasters in real estate and development industrial complex.
And Chakrabarti is another faux lefty who has the exact same politics as Wiener at the local level. What self-respecting progressive would vote for Bilal Mahmood much less spend money on his campaign?
Run, Connie, run!
Wish him well; however ,
Im not impressed .
Seems to be self promoting.
Something seems off .
He has done nothing in our neighborhood to help despite reaching out to him.
He may mean well but is a climber .
He is out of touch and has contributed to harm .
Sad
Gaza indeed matters to San Franciscans because we live in a “global city” that has a global voice.
Wiener’s impatience to run was curious– did Chakrabarti, especially in light of Zohran Mamdani’s spectacular popularity in New York City’s mayoral race, force his hand?
Voters are desperate for change. Trump exploited that desperation to become president.
Sad to say, though, putting any faith in DSA candidates is a trap. For all their bluster, they simply better represent the left of the capitalist Democratic Party, the graveyard of every progressive social movement.
Like “Yes on Prop 50” winning, Wiener will likely win the position he craves (assuming Pelosi retires). But until voters realize how they are being routinely betrayed, they will continue to lose.
The capitalist parties, and Trump’s flagrant construction of a dictatorship in America, are abandoning any pretense of representing We the People as the international crisis of capitalism escalates.
There are so many reasons to not support Wiener in this, but the most important reason is that our country is in a death spiral because of unregulated capitalism and the lopsided distribution of wealth. We need ‘change agents’ as leaders if our country is to survive. Wiener is a status quo neoliberal.
I may vote for Chan and possibly Chakrabarti, but never Scott Wiener.
Weiner doesn’t need AIPAC money. He’s been fully funded by real estate interests since his first term as SF Supervisor.
Senator Wiener is, hands-down, the most far-sighted and effective legislator in the State today.
He is a once-in-a-generation political talent.
Without a doubt, he would be an outstanding choice as our next representative in Congress — and, eventually, if he so choses, Governor of California.
Chugging the Wiener by the gallon? Wiener will ~ never- be governor of any state, mark my words. His best career move? Obviously, a lobbyist for developers.
Far-sighted by way of promises he doesn’t deliver on?
“Future generations will pay for this on credit… ” – Far-sighted?
I can’t stand Wiener yet at least he’s professional. If Pelosi doesn’t run, there’s a good chance Wiener will be the only grownup in the race. Sigh.
I wonder if redistricting will matter? For the first time we’ll share this district with a big swath of rural Northern California. That’s not going to flip the seat to the GOP, but it might make it harder on progressive candidates.
CA Congressional District 11 is not affected by the Prop 50 map. It will be unchanged regardless of whether Prop 50 passes.
This is not correct. District 11 basically doesn’t change. District 1 and 2, however, do change pretty significantly. District 2 goes from being primarily the coast to incorporating a big part of the northern part of district 1, from coast to the border with Nevada.
The 11th district does not change if Prop 50 passes, so redistricting will not impact the election for the 11th District.
If District 1 or 2 change, that has no effect on District 11.
A “professional” what? Genocide apologist?
Wiener’s fought hard for transit & housing in California and I’ll be sad to lose that champion, but hopefully he can be a force for good at the national level.
Thankfully he won’t stand a chance against Nancy. She’s a pro, he’s a punk.
I wish the people here who are obsessed with Gaza and bring it up when the grownups are talking about something else would get out of their mom’s basement and go over and volunteer in Gaza.
Stop whining: do something.
I would be surprised if Gaza is an important issue for a critical mass of voters in what is essentially a local election. Surely this district’s electorate cares more about jobs, taxes, housing, crime and the homeless than it cares about ideological squabbles between theocracies in a far distant land.
At age 55 Wiener needs to move forward to a significant national role if he is to follow in the footsteps of other San Francisco political alumni like Feinstein, Pelosi, Newsom and Harris. This is his time and his opportunity, and I would bet on him prevailing.
It’s precisely *not* a local election: it’s a federal election. Wiener would have a direct vote on whether, and how much, arms the US sends to Israel funded by our tax dollars.
Scott Wiener also co-authored the censorship bill AB715 which bans statements critical of Israel from appearing in curriculum or being said by educators, conflating them with antisemitism. This plays into the Trump regime’s hands as they look to use the same conflation to attack education and free speech. You can’t stand up to Trump’s attacks and at the same time believe, as Wiener does, that there should be a Palestine exception to academic freedom.
But again, I don’t think that many folks care about Gaza. And the US government is not going to pull its support for Israel anyway, so it is a waste to vote purely on that single issue.
Most Americans support a cease fire in Gaza. One might think they understood a ceasefire to mean that Israel actually stops killing people. 2/3 of Democrats do as well. A majority of Dems support not giving weapons to Israel. Why do you think Harris lost?
Harris did not lose because of Gaza.
Harris lost because of a lot of things and Gaza was one, yes it absolutely was.