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18 CAMPAIGN MAY 1983
OF ROYAMA YAR GRO
NEWS
Electoral politics:
MAYOR Diane Feinstein survived the recall on April.
Five years ago Feinstein was appointed Mayor by the Board of Supervisors after the assassination of George Moscone, and the first openly gay Supervisor Harvey Milk.
The recall attempt against Feinstein will probably not be remembered for the political changes that have flowed from it. More likely it will be analysed, if at all, from the point of view of what it can tell us about how politics works in the West Coast city that is both "everyones' favourite" and a "haven for kooks".
Recall is not a common procedure in the United States. Even in San Francisco the last Mayor to be put through the indignity was Roger Lapham in 1946. In this case the regular election, which will still go ahead, is scheduled for November. Also, the recall has cost the city about $600,000, so all in all Feinstein had strong arguments that those supporting the recall were being irresponsible.
Irresponsible, however, is not a tag that would greatly worry the initiators of the recall the White Panthers. When the Mayor signed in the first ordinance in the United States outlawing handguns, the Panthers began their campaign. A small group of perhaps 30, they are described by Harry Britt as "harmless hippies with a lot of guns". Anyway, they felt that their rights under the Constitution (the right to bear arms, that is) were being stolen, so they started a petition.
The mechanism of the recall is that a petition with the signatures of one fifth of those who voted in the last election is sufficient for the process to begin. The rub is that each signature must be validated as belonging to who actually voted last election.
someone
This sort of petitioning would be near impossible in a city the size of Sydney or Melbourne, but through one of those quirks of geography and politics the San Francisco voting population is only 350,000 people. The Bay Area as a whole has millions.
By March the Panthers, had collected far in excess of the 20,000 names required. The petitions were lodged with the City for checking of signatures. It was then, and only then that the community began weighing into the battle in an organised way.
Politics in the US is dominated by the two major parties. The gay communities are no exception. The electoral and lobbying maneuvers are undertaken by political clubs that are composed of members of the Democrat or Republican Parties.
The Stonewall Gay Democratic Club, a revitalised and generally "radical" group had been critical of the Mayor ever since she vetoed the "live-in-lovers" ordinance, if not before. But it was not just that she exercised the veto, it was the argu-
ments she used.
The legislation may have been sloppy, but Feinstein did not restrict her criticisms to drafting problems. She saw fit to pontificate on the role of marriage and procreation. Homosexuality was alright, she said, but only when not on an equal par with real families.
The gay community, it seemed,
had reach the limit of tolerance with "the friend" who was their Mayor.
San Francisco is the heartland of coalition politics and the Stonewall Club, and its activist President, Paul Boneberg set out on the campaign trail to pull in the maximum support in favour of the recall. The list of gripes was long, for example, Feinstein:
• Threatened to veto any new legislation in which "the city would register and thus validate domestic partnerships."
• Vetoed a ban on condominium conversions.
•
•
Opposed legislation providing rent controls on vacant apartments. Hosted Philippine dictator Marcos. • Vetoed a resolution commemorating the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.
•
Vetoed legislation providing comparable pay for comparable work for women and minority city workers.
• Promoted maximum highrise development.
•
Opposed taxing downtown corporations while allowing Muni fares and parking fines to skyrocket.
Refused to attend the annual lesbian/gay parade because she "does not like open displays of sexuality."
An umbrella organisation was established to allow all disgruntled parties to work against the Mayor without having to associate too directly with "gun happy hippies". Boneberg meanwhile took his stand to the largest Gay Democratic Club in the country, the Harvey Milk
club.
In front of a packed meeting Boneberg, in what Harry Britt called "Paul's finest hour", swayed the rank and file, against the wishes of a cautious leadership, to support the "Anyone but Feinstein" stand.
The next move was made by the only gay Republican club, Concerned Republicans for Individual Rights met and decided to oppose the recall effort. All eyes were therefore turned to the remaining club, the oldest in the country, the Alice B Toklas Democratic Club. How split would the community become?
only
After two large meetings Alice backed Feinstein. When it was all boiled down the big persuader was not any argument in favour of Feinstein, but the uncertainty of not having a credible alternative Mayor.
Feinstein was meanwhile fighting hard. Having recently married the head of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, Richard Blum, she was pulling in large donations for the war chest. Some $400,000 was raised by the time it came to the
vote.
Feinstein has always been well connected with the liberal wing of local business. Her town planning proposals revealed, over a period of time, an accelerated march towards a Manhattan-style city. As a reformer and a liberal she had, managed to keep the many minority and labour interests satisfied. Like an American Bob Hawke she had found consensus and was juggling furiously to keep all the balls in the air.
What the recall represented was the tearing of that consensus a tearing that would not have happened if the gay community had not mobilised around the issue. What was remarkable therefore was the way that the overall picture remained hidden during the entire campaign.
San Francisco for whom? In whose interests is the City run? Who benefits?
Caught in a web of electoral politics the fight presented itself as being about who would be Mayor and who would rule. That question, though never really in doubt, has been settled. What has not been settled is the role of big business in the future of San Francisco.
For whoever is Mayor the conflicting demands of the people in the city and those with money will continue.
Now people are wondering which way Feinstein will jump now that she is firmly back in the harness. She might choose to take revenge on those who opposed her, but that is not really her style she is an appeaser. In the two month run up to the vote she made $330,000 of City funds available for the fight against AIDS and signed into the statute book provisions that would make benefits available to the same-sex partners of City employees.
She did not denounce the gay community, she pleaded with it. When the Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club was in the process of deciding on the recall she placed expensive full page advertisement in their newspaper and, reportedly, paid for 25 new berships.
an
mem-
San Francisco, it would seem, will keep on being San Francisco. There will be no vendetta against oppositional groups. The politically important gay community will not be diminished. Consensus will prevail.