INTEREST FORM

What You Will Learn

When you leave this class, you will know How SF Government Works. That means you will be able to:

• Explain the building blocks of government—Mayor, Supervisor, Commissioner, Department Head, and more. You’ll know who they are, how they get there, and what they can (and can’t) do.

• Draw a map of the San Francisco political system.

• Understand what law is and how to make it in SF. As part of class, you’ll go to City Hall and watch the law being made!

• Independently research answers to your questions about government. You’ll be comfortable finding public information and using the best available civic tech.

• Draw a basic timeline of SF political history.

• Assess ballot measures, trace how they got to the ballot, and why they were put there. You will no longer vote on things you don’t understand.

• Describe the broader civic ecosystem. You’ll recognize the key players and understand how they all fit together; in SF and beyond.

• Understand political capital, how to get it, and how to use it. You will leave with more than you started with and you will know how to begin practicing permissionless politics.

• List all district supervisors from memory.

Logistics

When: Tuesdays, 6:30-8:30pm, starting April 14 and ending May 26

Where: in person, in SF. Location TBA

Tuition: $650 - Money is not a barrier to entry, you can take a discount if needed

Homework, Witnessing Government, and Final Exam

Weekly homework includes readings to prepare for class and writings to apply what you learned. The posts you produce will jumpstart the process of generating political capital! Plan on 1-2 hours of work outside of class.

One of the best ways to learn how government works is to watch it in action! You’ll attend two public meetings—a Board of Supervisors meeting and a commission meeting of your choice—then debrief on what you saw afterward.

The final exam is taken during the last class. You must score 90% or better to pass, and you can retake the exam once if needed. The course concludes with a graduation reception at an alumni event, and that’s when the real fun begins. Finishing the class is just the start!

Syllabus

Political Theory

• Framework for thinking about government

• Framework for thinking about law

• CivLab political philosophy: how to have fun and make things happen

Political Practice

• SF Government

  • Charter, Municipal Codes, Executive Directives, and more!

  • Elected officials: Mayor, Board of Supervisors, District Attorney, and more!

  • Commissions, Boards, Departments, and more!

  • Legislative process and ballot measures

  • Citizens’ Advisory Committees and other forms of citizen involvement

  • Budget and appropriations

• Case study: policy → implementation

• SF Government: special topics

  • Education

  • Land Use and Housing

  • Public safety

• SF City vs SF County

• What happens when SF gets sued

• SF relationship to regional, state, and federal level

History

• Gold Rush era

  • SF incorporation

  • Corruption and consolidation

• Reconstruction after the earthquake of 1906

• The Greater San Francisco movement

  • Relationship and rivalry with other Bay Area cities

• The Progressive Era and the beginning of city planning

• WWII and urban redevelopment

• 1970s: Political upheaval and aftermath

• 1996: A new city charter

Expectations and Etiquette

We’re here to learn about government and have a good time doing it. Our focus is on what government is, not what it ought to be. Government is a complex system and we will treat it as such. Our exploration will be serious, optimistic, and rigorous. To create this environment, we must commit to the following:

1. No bullshitting; be concrete. Vibes do not build civilizations and they will not help us understand our government. We aim to make contact with reality.

2. “Politics” is a good word. “Government” is a good word. We are studying the mechanisms of self-government; perhaps the most marvelous and important system ever devised by humans. Politics and government are the foundations of this system and they can be powerful forces for good.

3. Find the good time. Do not try to have a bad time. Do not confuse taking an issue seriously with being mad or miserable about it. It’s natural to get mad sometimes but it is not an acceptable default state. Remember that doing citizenship is cool and fun if you do it right.

4. Disagree admirably. We are not here to debate, but disagreements occur often in politics. Should you find yourself in this situation, be rigorous and fair. Always assume and proceed in good faith. Treat your classmate as a partner and your disagreement as a joint inquiry into the system of government.

People Will Notice

I have high hopes and expectations for you. Prior students run for office, work at City Hall, serve on Commissions, and get jobs in civic tech. Many now personally know their supervisors, and all know what civilization asks of them.

This class has gotten enough attention that we now need our very own disclaimer:
THIS PRODUCT OR SERVICE HAS NOT BEEN APPROVED OR ENDORSED BY THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, AND THIS OFFER IS NOT BEING MADE BY THE CITY AND COUNTY.

With Republic, you can track political news, crime, permits, events, community groups, and more across the city and in your neighborhood!

Check it out here.

The city-level view aggregates the top political news stories from across the city, along with summary statistics for events, permits, and crime. Each neighborhood has its own custom news feed and recent data across all categories. For people looking to get involved, we also used AI agents to build a database of community groups in every neighborhood!

What you care about

News stories are classified by topic and relevant government entities are extracted, which lets you filter for the news you care about most.

You can also sign up to receive custom daily or weekly reports about your neighborhood and the latest political news from across the city.

AI coding changes the game

We shipped Republic with both a light and dark theme, and fully supported mobile view. Just six months ago, this wouldn’t have been feasible because of the effort required to develop and maintain them. Claude Code with Opus 4.6 has continually amazed me, and this is just one example of how much it has leveled up what we can do.

What’s next

This app and the Gov Graph are the foundational layers of a much bigger project in preparing government for the age of AI. If you can see where this is going, I want to work with you.

Qualifications: must be good friends with Claude and want to usher in an era of civic excellence unmatched since the founding. Hit me up. The future awaits.

INTEREST FORM

What You Will Learn

When you leave this class, you will know How SF Government Works. That means you will be able to:

• Explain the building blocks of government—Mayor, Supervisor, Commissioner, Department Head, and more. You’ll know who they are, what powers they have, and what they can (and can’t) do.

• Draw a map of the San Francisco political system.

• Understand what law is and how to make it in SF. As part of class, you’ll go to City Hall and watch the law being made!

• Independently research answers to your questions about government. You’ll be comfortable finding public information and using the best available civic tech.

• Draw a basic timeline of SF political history.

• Assess ballot measures, trace how they got to the ballot, and why they were put there. You will no longer vote on things you don’t understand.

• Describe the broader civic ecosystem. You’ll recognize the key players and understand how they all fit together; in SF and beyond.

• Understand political capital, how to get it, and how to use it. You will leave with more than you started with and you will know how to begin practicing permissionless politics.

• List all district supervisors from memory.

Logistics

When: Tuesdays, 6:30-8:30pm, starting September 23 and ending November 18

Where: in person, near Market Street

Tuition: $650 - Money is not a barrier to entry, you can take a discount if needed

Homework, Witnessing Government, and Final Exam

Weekly homework includes readings to prepare for class and writings to apply what you learned. The posts you produce will jumpstart the process of generating political capital! Plan on 1-2 hours of work outside of class.

One of the best ways to learn how government works is to watch it in action! You’ll attend two public meetings—a Board of Supervisors meeting and a commission meeting of your choice—then debrief on what you saw afterward.

The final exam is taken during the last class. You must score 90% or better to pass, and you can retake the exam once if needed. The course concludes with a graduation reception at an alumni event, and that’s when the real fun begins. Finishing the class is just the start!

Syllabus

Political Theory

• Framework for thinking about government

• Framework for thinking about law

• CivLab political philosophy: how to have fun and make things happen

Political Practice

• SF Government

  • Charter, Municipal Codes, Executive Directives, and more!

  • Elected officials: Mayor, Board of Supervisors, District Attorney, and more!

  • Commissions, Boards, Departments, and more!

  • Legislative process and ballot measures

  • Citizens’ Advisory Committees and other forms of citizen involvement

  • Budget and appropriations

• Case study: policy → implementation

• SF Government: special topics

  • Education

  • Land Use and Housing

  • Public safety

• SF City vs SF County

• What happens when SF gets sued

• SF relationship to regional, state, and federal level

History

• Gold Rush era

  • SF incorporation

  • Corruption and consolidation

• Reconstruction after the earthquake of 1906

• The Greater San Francisco movement

  • Relationship and rivalry with other Bay Area cities

• The Progressive Era and the beginning of city planning

• WWII and urban redevelopment

• 1970s: Political upheaval and aftermath

• 1996: A new city charter

Expectations and Etiquette

We’re here to learn about government and have a good time doing it. Our focus is on what government is, not what it ought to be. Government is a complex system and we will treat it as such. Our exploration will be serious, optimistic, and rigorous. To create this environment, we must commit to the following:

1. No bullshitting; be concrete. Vibes do not build civilizations and they will not help us understand our government. We aim to make contact with reality.

2. “Politics” is a good word. “Government” is a good word. We are studying the mechanisms of self-government; perhaps the most marvelous and important system ever devised by humans. Politics and government are the foundations of this system and they can be powerful forces for good.

3. Find the good time. Do not try to have a bad time. Do not confuse taking an issue seriously with being mad or miserable about it. It’s natural to get mad sometimes but it is not an acceptable default state. Remember that doing citizenship is cool and fun if you do it right.

4. Disagree admirably. We are not here to debate, but disagreements occur often in politics. Should you find yourself in this situation, be rigorous and fair. Always assume and proceed in good faith. Treat your classmate as a partner and your disagreement as a joint inquiry into the system of government.

People Will Notice

I have high hopes and expectations for you. Prior students run for office, work at City Hall, and are written about in the news for acts of civic excellence. Many now personally know their supervisors, and all know what civilization asks of them.

This class has gotten enough attention that we now need our very own disclaimer:
THIS PRODUCT OR SERVICE HAS NOT BEEN APPROVED OR ENDORSED BY THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, AND THIS OFFER IS NOT BEING MADE BY THE CITY AND COUNTY.

Check it out here!

I particularly like the latest news summaries, interactive budget donut, and departmental spending breakdowns. This data also includes contracts to non-governmental organizations like nonprofits, which was a highly-requested feature.

We also completely rebuilt the ring rotation mechanism to deliver a sharp mobile experience. I hope you like it!

Using LLMs, our small team was able to aggregate and process an enormous amount of data. We fully intend to bring this platform to every city government. If you want the gov graph where you live, comment below on what you want to see.

One year ago today I launched v1 of the gov graph. That is also how I met Kifah. He cold DM’ed me on Twitter after seeing the launch post and has been working with me ever since. If you like what we’re building and want to help usher in good government in the age of AI, reach out to me here or here. The future is what you make it.

Working with Daniel Golliher’s definition, I propose that political capital = domain knowledge + social relationships. Domain knowledge is what you know about the system and how it works. Social relationships are the people you know and the people who know you; networks of trust and reputation. These two things are related, and their summation is your measure of political capital.

If you want to make something happen, you need enough political capital to spend. Just as financial capital buys assets, political capital buys coordination.

Political capital and the civic industrial base

For this reason, political capital is the currency of the civic industrial base; the means by which governing happens. In my post on the civic industrial base, I explained how police conduct was formally changed. The process required substantial political capital:

It required the domain knowledge to identify the Police Commission as a key lever in the decision-making process, understanding the intricacies of SFPD Department General Orders, and having the legal savvy to recognize this could be done without Board approval. It also required a social graph of advocates working together, finding allies on the Commission, and signaling enough community political support that stakeholders felt comfortable enough to vote it through.

This is how it works. Some changes require much more political capital than this, but many require much less. Concrete examples of how it’s used to effect change make it easier to assess your own activities and political capital.

You’re probably broke

How much political capital do you have? Most people have almost none. But now you can at least measure it. And once you can measure it, you can systematically acquire more. You can get started at any time with permissionless politics, because civics is another realm in which you can just do stuff.

Domain knowledge

It’s hard to fix a system you don’t understand, so domain knowledge is a prerequisite to meaningful political capital. Consider your level of expertise - can you explain each of the layers of the civic industrial base and key members in each? Can you explain the mechanics of your government in detail?

If not, there is a hard limit on the amount of political capital you can acquire. Begin by learning the fundamentals. I teach people How SF Gov Works, and MNY provides the Foundations of NYC. Whatever your path, don’t get stuck in the gap between where you are and what you hope to achieve. A good Substack post about your local park is a more useful starting point than you might expect.

Social relationships

Governing is a human art, which means there are limits to what the law and data can tell you. The best way to test and apply your domain knowledge is out there in the world with your fellow citizens.

Why should anyone care what you think? Who do you trust to inform your own thinking? You can answer both of these by engaging with your neighbors and broader communities of interest. And once again, don’t overlook what’s immediately available to you. In a future post, I’ll explain the surprising string of serendipity that resulted from joining my neighborhood association.

A note on becoming powerful

Acquiring political capital is acquiring power. If you care about your city and your world, you should try to do it. But I suggest you only pursue it in the direction of your legitimate interest. I say this because you can fake it; you can pursue power for its own sake. But people will be able to tell because authenticity has a magic that is hard to fake. You’ll have less fun and it will ultimately hold you back. Luckily, this is easily solved by earnestly going in the direction of whatever calls to you. Identify what you care about and let your curiosity and conviction carry you. I’ll see you out there.

San Francisco just adopted a $15.9 billion budget for the year1, with a deficit of zero dollars. Most people are pleased to learn that SF, like most cities, is required to run a balanced budget by state and local law. It’s a good reminder that government is not universally good or bad, and that scrutinizing it requires precision. It helps to know how the budget is made.

Budget Overview

The budget process is directed by the Mayor, in collaboration with city departments. The Mayor proposes the city budget to the Board of Supervisors, where it is reviewed, tweaked, and then passed into law via ordinance.

SF uses a two-year (biennial) budget process, which means the city plans and approves its budget for two years at a time instead of one. In effect, this means we lock in the spending for the current year and forecast spending for the next. Keep this in mind, because The Discourse will often use the two-year totals.

There are many places throughout the process where citizens can provide useful input, but only if you’re paying attention.

Budget Process

The yearly budget cycle starts in December, but you generally don’t hear about it until the summer. This is the timeline:

1. Mayor issues Budget Instructions to departments - December

The process begins in December (December! Who’s paying attention then??) when the Mayor issues Budget Instructions. These instructions provide guidance to help departments align their budgets with the current fiscal situation and the Mayor’s overall priorities.

You can find the full set of instructions here.

2. Departments gather input and submit their proposals - February 21

Departments receive instructions from the Mayor and submit their proposed budgets to the Mayor by February 21. Budgets are most malleable at this stage, which means it’s one of the highest-leverage windows for public input.

Departments will host workshops or public meetings where they solicit feedback. Most departments have oversight commissions, which must approve the budget before the department submits it to the Mayor. These commissions are made up of appointed citizens, not government employees. (This could be you!)

3. Mayor’s Proposal - June 1

After receiving the budget submissions from each department, the Mayor’s Budget Office works to synthesize them into a unified, balanced proposal. The complete budget is submitted to the Board of Supervisors by June 1.

4. Board of Supervisors Approval - July 31

Once the Mayor sends the proposed budget to the Board of Supervisors, it goes to the Budget and Appropriations Committee2, which holds public hearings to review how money is being allocated and whether any changes should be made, including recommendations from the Budget and Legislative Analyst3.

This is another opportunity for the public to provide input. The review and adjustment process culminates in an amusingly hectic “Budget Day” crunch, where the Supervisors often stay up all night to finalize negotiations. The budget then proceeds to the full Board, where it must be passed by July 31.

5. Final Budget Adopted - August

After the Board of Supervisors passes the budget via ordinance, it is sent back to the Mayor for a signature. Once signed, the legislative process is complete - and that’s how you make a budget, baby.

Resources

• CA Constitution, Article XVI, Section 18 (a)

• CA Government Code, Section 53901

• SF Charter, Sections 9.101, 9.102, 9.103, 9.104

• SF Admin Code, Chapter 3: Budget Procedures

• Official SF budget docs

• SF Standard, budget explainer article

Civilization solves hard problems with ecosystems. You’re reading this on a device that beams thoughts through time and space. That was a hard problem, and the solution is the product of an ecosystem. It was designed by researchers and engineers who were trained in universities. It was tested in labs full of equipment from other vendors. It was manufactured in factories by robots and technicians trained at trade schools. Government works the same way.

The Civic Industrial Base

State capacity doesn’t come from the state because governing is actually the output of an entire ecosystem; a civic industrial base. I propose it looks something like this:

Good government is not created by a vote; it emerges from a rich ecosystem of citizens socializing, organizing into civic groups, and serving in governing institutions. It is the base layers of the civic industrial base that provide the infrastructure to source and elevate politicians and policies.

So if state capacity is decaying everywhere we look, we should trace it to its source at the foundation of the civic ecosystem - local government, political/party organizations, and social groups. It’s not complicated and I’m not the first to say it: American civic culture accidentally forgot what made it excellent. Without the regular contribution of good and smart people, the civic industrial base weakens from the bottom and state capacity eventually decays at the top.

How the Civic Industrial Base Governs San Francisco

But this is an optimistic story. Even though the problems are at the foundation, they’re also more accessible and easier to fix. To get a sense for how we might intervene, consider one example of how governing actually happens.

San Franciscans care a lot about policing, and in 2024, the city banned police officers from conducting pretext stops2. But it wasn’t the Mayor or Board of Supervisors who did this, it was the Police Commission - an appointed body of seven citizens. Most San Franciscans have never heard of the Police Commission, yet in consultation with advocacy groups (political/policy) and neighborhood groups (social), they changed police officer conduct policy. It worked something like this:

Policymaking often works that way - as a substantial collaboration between government and the broader ecosystem. And the fact that this entire process played out below the level of elected officials shows just how much of governing can happen outside the flashy parts of government we tend to focus on.

This ecosystem is always at work. Governing is a process that happens continuously - before and after election day, and across all aspects of the civic industrial base. With just a bit of effort, you can reach out and touch it. You could just as easily imagine a different set of commissioners talking to a different set of advocacy groups and coming to a different conclusion. These are mechanisms of change.

Thinking in Ecosystems

The ecosystem view is useful because it makes it easier to get started. It shows that governing is much more than government, so there is a world of opportunity between “I’m mad that government sucks” and “hopefully voting will fix it”. It also reframes citizenship from a rare, vote-based act, to something more like a ritual; a regular practice. Most importantly, it’s a practice that is available to you right now.

State capacity comes from us

If what I’ve said is true, then healthier and more active social groups will inevitably surface more and better quality people for political/policy groups. More capable political/policy groups will draft better policies. Better candidates will filter up through these groups into office, and along with better bureaucrats, will more effectively implement and administer those policies. All of this depends on getting more good and smart people in at the foundation of the civic industrial base.

The ecosystem is already at work, it’s just that you’re not part of it. And if you’re good and smart and not part of the civic industrial base, then who is? We need you in there. Your city and your country need you in there. Start small and start now. Join your neighborhood association, attend an event at a community space, read a local think tank report, learn how government works.3 Rebuild the civic industrial base and state capacity will follow.

APPLY HERE

We're completely rebuilding the UI and adding 100x more data, including:

1. Budget and spending

2. Key personnel profiles

3. Meeting info and legislative activity

I like to think that v2 was a 10x upgrade to v1, and I believe that v3 will be another 10x better than v2.

This work is too important and too fun to continue doing alone, so I'm excited to spend the next 6ish months working on this with Steven Lu and Kifah Meeran. Civic excellence is more fun with friends!

More announcements coming soon, so stay tuned!

Prerequisites

There are some things you should know before you go. The Board can take three kinds of actions: ordinances, resolutions, and motions. Legislative Committees are subsets of supervisors who review and revise legislation before it comes to the full Board for consideration.2

Logistics

The Board of Supervisors meets weekly on Tuesdays at 2pm in City Hall, Room 250. You can find the schedule here. You can also stream the meetings live or watch recordings, though I highly recommend attending in person when you can.3 Board meetings often take about 2 hours, but they can run longer if a spicy issue brings lots of public comment.

Agenda Summary

The agenda for every Board meeting is posted publicly in advance.4 There’s some variation, but here’s a template for the standard sequence of events:

1. Introduction: procedural stuff to kick off the meeting

2. Consent Agenda: voting on a group of legislation all at once, for non-controversial legislation that requires no further discussion

3. Regular Agenda: this is the normal part of the meeting, it has two parts

   1. Unfinished Business: legislation up for final discussion and vote

   2. New Business: legislation coming before the full Board for the first time for consideration and an initial vote5

4. Special Order 2:30pm - Recognition of Commendations: supervisors shoutout people in the community - good vibes, good politics

5. Committee Reports: procedural “hack” to fast-track legislation, but fundamentally the same type of stuff as the Regular Agenda

6. Roll Call for Introductions: supervisors announce new legislation which then begins the legislative process

7. Public Comment: your results may vary - sometimes brief, sometimes hours, sometimes profound, sometimes unhinged

8. For Adoption Without Committee Reference: certain types of legislation can skip part of the legislative process

9. Adjournment: that’s it, folks

There are other interesting things that can happen at Board meetings but they don’t occur every time:

• Special Order 2:00pm - Mayor’s Appearance Before The Board: monthly guest feature from the Mayor, includes a short speech and Q&A with supervisors

• Closed Sessions: non-public meetings to discuss sensitive matters like lawsuits and labor negotiations

• Special Order 3:00pm - Board of Supervisors Sitting as a Committee of the Whole: the Board acts like one big legislative committee

• Imperative Agenda: some types of legislation can be added to the agenda late - you’ll see it on the agenda just in case, but it’s uncommon

Below are detailed explanations and examples for each type of agenda item.

Agenda References and Examples

Past meeting agendas and minutes here.

1. Introduction

Meetings start with a sequence of procedural items. Fun fact - the supervisors and everyone in the chamber says the pledge of allegiance!

• Call to Order and Roll Call (Board Rule 4.7)

• Pledge of Allegiance (Board Rule 4.9)

• Communications (Board Rule 4.11)

• Approval of Meeting Minutes (Board Rule 4.10)

• Agenda Changes (Board Rule 4.1)

2. Consent Agenda

Board Rule 4.14: Matters of a routine, non-controversial nature which require no further discussion and only six votes may be listed in a section of the Regular Agenda of the Board called Consent Agenda. There will be no separate discussion of these items unless a Supervisor so requests, in which event the matter shall be removed from the Consent Agenda and considered as a separate item. The Consent Agenda will be acted upon by a single roll-call vote of the Board. Items removed from the Consent Agenda may be heard immediately following the vote on the rest of the items.

Context: Most legislation moving through the legislative process is routine and non-controversial. The Consent Agenda speeds the process up by grouping these items together and voting on all of them at the same time. Any supervisor can choose to remove an item from this group for separate consideration, but it’s usually over quickly.

3a. Regular Agenda - Unfinished Business

Board Rule 4.15: This item includes matters which were previously considered by the Board, continued, amended, or were not passed by a unanimous vote of the Board at the previous Board meeting.

Context: Unfinished business is for items that have already appeared before the full Board but require further action. Unlike the Consent Agenda, these items are discussed and voted on one by one, so you’ll get to hear from the Supervisors who sponsor them. In most cases, the legislation is passed and heads to the Mayor to complete the legislative process.

3b. Regular Agenda - New Business

Board Rule 4.16: This item includes legislation reported to the full Board by Board committees prior to 9:00 a.m. on the Thursday preceding the Tuesday Board meeting.

Context: This is stuff just coming out of committee and being considered by the full Board for the first time. You’ll usually get a short spiel from the sponsor(s) about why their colleagues should support them, and you might get some interesting discussion here.

4. Special Order 2:30pm - Recognition of Commendations

Board Rule 4.13: The general recognition of commendations may occur at 2:00 p.m. and should require no more than five minutes per recognition. Group recognitions shall be noted as a Special Order on the Board agenda at an affixed time to be determined by the Clerk of the Board.

Context: Supervisors take the time to shout out members of the community. This could be for public service, community involvement, retirement, in memoriam, etc. Good vibes, good politics. Sometimes takes a while.

5. Committee Reports

Board Rule 4.20: As an exception to the New Business rule, legislation deemed by a committee to be of an urgent nature, which is heard after 9:00 a.m. Thursday may be considered by the Board as a committee report if the chair has anticipated such finding and shall request the Clerk of the Board no later than 11:00 a.m. on that Thursday to include the item(s) on the printed agenda under Committee Reports at the end of New Business.

Context: A bit technical, but essentially just a procedural hack to move legislation forward faster without violating public notice requirements. The legislative committee can send the legislation to the full board for a vote before actually hearing and voting on it in committee. It will still be heard in committee, but they know they will support it.

6. Roll Call for Introductions

Board Rule 4.21: Supervisors will be called alphabetically rotating on a weekly basis to introduce legislation, request the City Attorney to prepare legislation, approve draft ordinances, or issue legal advice, and requests for letters of inquiry during the Roll Call for Introductions and up until the adjournment of the meeting or 5:00 p.m. whichever is later…

Context: Supervisors will announce new legislation, which then begins its journey through the legislative process. They will give a short speech about why it’s important and why they hope their colleagues will support it. This is usually when the public first hears about potential laws, so this segment of the meeting might be the source of headlines you come across “Supervisor wants to do X”. Note that legislation introduced by the Mayor or Departments will not be read out loud, but appears at the end of the agenda in the section “Legislation Introduced at Roll Call”.

7. Public Comment

Board Rule 4.22: This is an opportunity for members of the public to directly address the Board on items of interest to the public that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the Board, including items being considered at this meeting which have not been referred to committee, and excluding items which have been considered by a Board committee. Members of the public may address the Board for up to three minutes. At the conclusion of public comment, the Board may not lawfully take action to approve or disapprove a new proposal which is not on the agenda, but may refer the proposal to a City official for review. During public comment before the full Board, remarks shall be addressed to the Board as a whole, not to individual Supervisors and not to the audience. Supervisors shall not enter into debate or discussion with speakers during public comment. The President may request a City official to investigate an issue raised and later report to a committee or to the Board.

Context: Your results may vary. Sometimes brief, sometimes hours. Sometimes profound, sometimes unhinged. You’ll start to recognize the “regulars” after attending a few meetings. During Covid the Board allowed remote public comment but it was often abused, so they removed in 2023.

8. Adoption Without Committee Reference

Board Rule 4.23: The Board may consider resolutions for immediate, unanimous, adoption without reference to committee which are presented to the Clerk of the Board by a Supervisor or the Mayor at the previous week’s Board meeting or prior to 12 noon the Wednesday before a Board meeting. The President shall inquire whether any Supervisors wish to discuss or object to any of the resolutions presented for immediate adoption. Resolutions to which there is an objection shall be referred to committee unless withdrawn by the sponsor. The roll then shall be called on the resolutions as a group…

Context: Resolutions and motions (not ordinances) can be introduced and adopted at the same meeting without going through the typical legislative process. A unanimous vote is required, so this is only used for low-level, non-controversial matters.

Special Order 2:00pm - Mayor’s Appearance Before The Board

Board Rule 4.12: The second regularly scheduled meeting of the Board shall include an agenda item for the Mayor’s personal appearance before the Board… Questions and discussion shall be limited to the formal policy matters as set forth in Charter Section 3.100 (7) and shall be limited to items within the jurisdiction of the Mayor and Board. Questions must be previously submitted to the Clerk of the Board and the Mayor by 12 noon the Wednesday prior to the Board to the Mayor’s appearance…

Context: A good chance to evaluate the political alignment between the Mayor and the Supervisors asking the questions. Depending on the current climate, the tone can be collaborative or combative.

Closed Sessions

Board Rules 4.24.1-4: Closed sessions are permitted for the Board to meet with the relevant authorities to discuss: Litigation, Labor Negotiations, Emergencies, and Personnel.

Context: Closed sessions truly are closed - the public has to exit the Legislative Chamber and the livestream is turned off. This is the only time the Board can officially meet together in a non-public setting and they use it to discuss matters which require discretion, like ongoing lawsuits or potential personnel disciplinary action. After reconvening, the Board votes whether to disclose what happened, which they usually don’t.

Special Order 3:00pm - Board of Supervisors Sitting as a Committee of the Whole

Mentioned variously in Board Rules 2.18.1, 3.19, 3.25.1, 3.36.

Context: This is when the full Board acts as one big legislative committee. They can consider legislation, hold hearings, and discuss. They might do this to bring greater publicity to a matter because full Board meetings get more attention than committee meetings.

Imperative Agenda

Board Rule 4.25: The Imperative Agenda includes proposed resolutions which are purely commendatory, or resolutions for which failure to approve would result in serious injury to the public interest, and which are not on the printed agenda. Imperative Agenda resolutions shall be filed with the Clerk of the Board prior to the start of the Board meeting…

Context: This is for “last-minute” resolutions or motions added to the meeting after the agenda was already posted. Functionally similar to the “Adoption Without Committee Reference” but with some additional procedural requirements dealing with the lateness. There were only three imperative agenda items in 2024, so it’s pretty uncommon.

Section 1. Purpose.

Here’s the full section text:

This Executive Order establishes the Department of Government Efficiency to implement the President’s DOGE Agenda, by modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.

That’s it. Modernizing federal IT to improve government efficiency is a worthy task, but it’s much narrower in scope than the expansive DOGE discourse aiming at the deficit, corruption, and overregulation.

Section 3. DOGE Structure

There are three subsections. The first interesting note is that DOGE is created as a temporary organization inside an existing one: the United States Digital Service (USDS).1 This makes sense given the relatively narrow scope of the purpose statement. Subsection (a) symbolically renames the United States Digital Service to “United States DOGE Service”.

Subsection (b) explains that this “US DOGE Service Temporary Organization” will expire after 18 months, though lessons from DOGE’s work could be adopted beyond that. While active, the USDS Administrator will lead DOGE. It’s not yet clear who this will be.

Subsection (c) gives us an actual sense of the structure:

(c) DOGE Teams. In consultation with USDS, each Agency Head shall establish within their respective Agencies a DOGE Team of at least four employees, which may include Special Government Employees2, hired or assigned within thirty days of the date of this Order. Agency Heads shall select the DOGE Team members in consultation with the USDS Administrator. Each DOGE Team will typically include one DOGE Team Lead, one engineer, one human resources specialist, and one attorney. Agency Heads shall ensure that DOGE Team Leads coordinate their work with USDS and advise their respective Agency Heads on implementing the President ‘s DOGE Agenda.

It seems each federal agency will have a small DOGE team embedded on site, working in collaboration with a central team back at “headquarters” in USDS. My initial impression is that this sounds a bit like the Palantir organizational model.

Section 4. Modernizing Federal Technology and Software to Maximize Efficiency and Productivity.

The most interesting part of Section 4 is subsection (a), which offers more detail on the kind of work DOGE will do:

(a) The USDS Administrator shall commence a Software Modernization Initiative to improve the quality and efficiency of government-wide software, network infrastructure, and information technology (IT) systems. Among other things, the USDS Administrator shall work with Agency Heads to promote inter-operability between agency networks and systems, ensure data integrity, and facilitate responsible data collection and synchronization.

I’m pleased to see “inter-operability between agency networks and systems” mentioned explicitly. From my work building a data model of the SF government and my experience attending the Congressional Hackathon, it’s clear that government still does not think in systems. A core thesis of the CivLab is that government is a complex system and it must be able to coordinate effectively if we want it to work well. I’m excited to see what comes of this, though that will depend in part on the final section:

Section 5. General Provisions

It’s important to remember that DOGE has little formal power. To the extent that its mission requires legal changes and resources, DOGE will need to get them from Congress:

(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

Things to watch

I’m most interested to see how the scope of the DOGE project changes over time, if at all. Is Elon settling for something more manageable, or are there other threads of this project? How will the agencies react to these DOGE teams? Will they be eager to upgrade or resistant to change? Can DOGE implement both the tech infrastructure and systems-thinking mindset necessary to improve government performance?

I’m not sure, but I hope so. I’ll be watching and providing updates along the way.

APPLY HERE

If we want good changes, it helps to have good tools. That’s why I’m excited to launch v2 of the SF Government Graph - the first complete map of San Francisco’s government:

How to Use the Graph

Like v1, this tool provides a complete catalog of all entities in the city government and the relationships between them. With v2, the interface is prettier and more intuitive. We’ve also added richer information - descriptions, employee counts, links to legal sources, official websites, and more!

It’s also easier to find what you’re looking for; search now includes entity names, descriptions, service areas, and alternate names like “SFPD”.

And there’s more on the way! Several cool features will roll out in the near future.

How We Got Here

When I launched v1 I noted that surprising progress is possible:

It’s worth noting how quickly the world can improve. In July of 2023, the San Francisco city government didn’t even have an org chart. So I made one. Until June of 2024, the San Francisco city government didn’t have a complete list of entities. So I made one! Now I’m bringing that list to life.

We’re moving even faster now and there’s much more to do.

What’s Next

1. Platform automation: We're using LLMs and other software magic to automate the generation and maintenance of the graph.

2. Accountability Applications: We completely rebuilt the v2 data model so we can track legislative activity, budgets/spending, and more.

How You Can Help

I’m always happy to get feedback and feature requests. I’m also raising funds to continue this work. v3 is scoped and ready to go, but I need resources to make it happen. Reach out if you want to support this work!

Even if they both pass2, usually only the one with the most votes will become effective because of a “poison pill”—a legal clause that says “if I win everyone else loses”. Like this one:

Why do ballot measures try to poison each other? Politics, baby.

In some cases, there are legitimately two different ideas about a similar topic and the voters have to sort it out. This is the case with November 2024 Prop M and Prop L.3 These measures have different motivations and did not set out to challenge each other, but they overlap in that they both change business taxes.4

In other cases, competing ballot measures are less about winning and more about making another measure lose. Suppose your political opponent was running a ballot measure you didn’t like. How would you stop it? You could spend a lot of money to run negative ads that some voters will see, or you could put an opposing measure on the ballot that every voter will see.

This is common in SF because it’s easy to get things on the ballot. In addition to citizens’ initiatives, the Mayor and Board of Supervisors routinely put multiple measures on the ballot. In fact, it’s currently easier for Supervisors to send an ordinance to the ballot (4 votes) than to pass it themselves (6 votes).

In this way, ballot measures often end up as proxy battles between political coalitions. We saw it in 2022 with Prop D and E, which featured the political coalition aligned with the Mayor vs that of the Board of Supervisors. Look at how similar the language is:

Competing ballot measures of this sort change the question from “Do I support this policy?” to “Do I support this policy, and if so, which team’s version?”. From previous experience and conversations with wary voters, this often causes confusion and skepticism. Perhaps unsurprisingly, both measures lost:5

In the November 2024 election we have a similar situation. Prop E was put on the ballot to compete against Prop D. For helpful context and a detailed analysis of Prop D, see here:

Prop E Analysis

Prop E is both simpler and harder to analyze because it doesn’t necessarily do anything. Similar to Prop D, it would create a review process to recommend changes to the city’s commission system. But unlike Prop D, it does not make or require any particular type or amount of change. To get a sense of the difference in scale, the legal text for Prop E is 9 pages, while Prop D is 75 pages.

While the political context (discussed below) is the main story with Prop E, the legal mechanisms are still worth review. Here’s the official summary from the voter information pamphlet:

Commission Streamlining Task Force (CSTF)

Similar to Prop D, Prop E would also create a CSTF but with different membership: the City Administrator, Controller, City Attorney, a public sector organized labor representative appointed by the President of the Board, and a person with expertise in open and accountable government appointed by the Mayor.6

The CSTF would then review the city’s commissions and submit a report to the Mayor and Board of Supervisors in early 2026 recommending which commissions, if any, should be added, modified, or deleted.7

Implementation

The legal pathway for implementing the CSTF recommendations depends on the type of commission. If the CSTF recommends changes to Charter commissions or other voter-approved commissions (explained here), that would require a future ballot measure.8

All other commissions can be changed by ordinance via the normal legislative process, and quite interestingly, the CSTF is given legislative power—it can pass an ordinance which automatically takes effect unless rejected by a two-thirds Board of Supervisors vote within 90 days.9 This is quite unusual and was a subject of debate during public hearings on the matter.

Political Context

Ultimately, Prop E is only on the ballot because of Prop D. Introduced by current Board President Aaron Peskin—the leading “progressive” candidate for Mayor—Prop E was specifically created to oppose the “moderate” Democrat-backed Prop D. People involved with the measure have confirmed this to me.

Campaign finance records tell the same story. While Peskin’s mayoral campaign has raised more than $2.5M, the committee supporting Prop E has raised less than $70k. This is not an effort with serious financial or political support behind it, but it’s still there on the ballot!

Conclusion

Identifying competing ballot measures lets you see the political games that shape your ballot. It helps you make sense of why certain issues land on your ballot in the first place and what they're really about.

If you can sort out questions of law from questions of politics, you can avoid voting on things you don’t understand. Your government and your city will be better for it.

Proposition D on the November 2024 ballot is one of the most consequential measures I’ve seen during my time in SF. It proposes to expand the Mayor’s authority, reduce the number of commissions by half, and streamline the relationships between elected officials, commissions, and departments. Although there is widespread agreement across the political spectrum that commission reform is needed, this initiative is the most ambitious effort to date.

It’s worth taking the time to understand. Here’s the official summary from the voter information pamphlet:

This is a good summary but without background information and additional context, no summary is good enough to solidly base a decision on. That’s what we’re here for. We’ll set some context and then break down those bullet points one by one.

Table of Contents

1. What is a Commission?

2. Prop D Analysis

   2a. Limiting the Number of Commissions

   2b. Removing and Restructuring Commissions

   2c. Changing Commission Authority

   2d. Simplifying Commissioner Appointment/Removal Process

   2e. Reducing Police Commission Authority

   2f. Eliminating Commissioner Compensation

   2g. Simplifying Department Head Appointment/Removal Process

3. Political Context

4. Conclusion

1. What is a Commission?

First we need to clarify what we’re talking about. The Mayor and departments are relatively straightforward - elected officials like the Mayor have the most authority and set the overall direction. Departments like Public Works or Police are boots-on-the-ground picking up trash and responding to 911 calls.

“Commission” is a bit tricky because we use the term loosely. In fact, a recent report by the Civil Grand Jury found that we use 25 different names to describe them.1 Regardless of what we call them, they are small groups2 of citizens (not government employees) usually appointed by elected officials like the Mayor and Board of Supervisors. We can bucket them into two categories: decision-making and not-decision-making.

The voter information pamphlet calls them all “commissions”, but in the SF Government Graph, I only call decision-making entities Commissions, and the non-decision-making entities Advisory. I’ll use “commission” generally like Prop D does, and when I need to be specific I’ll use italics Commission or Advisory.

With this in mind, we can think of the SF government as a three-layer stack:

Commissions are like middle management over the departments. The Police Commission sets policies3 for the Police Department, disciplines police officers, and can remove the Chief of Police. Advisory entities like the Behavioral Health Commission issue reports and recommendations but can’t set departmental policy or fire anyone.

As we’ll see below, some commissions are defined in the Charter, which means the voters must approve any changes. The rest are defined in other parts of the Municipal Code, which means that the Board of Supervisors can change them through the normal legislative process.

With these things in mind, let’s take a closer look at the ballot measure digest:

2. Prop D Analysis

2a. Limiting the Number of Commissions

The way it is now:

• There is no limit on how many commissions the City may have.

• The City currently has about 130 appointed boards, commissions and advisory bodies

The proposal:

• Limit the City to a total of 65 commissions.4

Civ Lab Analysis:
Prop D would cut the number of commissions roughly in half. According to the SF Government Graph, 53 are Commissions and 75 are Advisory. For reference, we have about 50 departments.

While it’s hard to say what the “correct” number of commissions is, San Francisco is an outlier. The Civil Grand Jury report found that SF has a disproportionately high number of commissions compared to peer cities and counties, particularly on a per capita basis:

The 65 commission limit is activated 16 months after Prop D becomes effective, and section 2b describes the process for getting under that limit.

2b. Removing and Restructuring Commissions

The way it is now:

• Of the 130 commissions, 44 are established in the Charter and can be changed only by the voters. The rest of the commissions are created by ordinance and typically may be amended or deleted by act of the Board of Supervisors.

The proposal:

• Retain 20 Charter commissions5 and remove 24 Charter commissions6

• Establish a five-member task force that would recommend within nine months which commissions should be reauthorized or restructured or dissolved to stay within the 65-commission limit. This task force would be appointed by the Mayor, the President of the Board, the Controller, the City Administrator and the City Attorney.7

• The Board could by ordinance reauthorize or restructure those commissions within the 16-month period after the measure’s effective date to prevent them from being dissolved. The Board could later reestablish and create new commissions, subject to the 65-commission limit8

Civ Lab Analysis:

This sounds complex but it’s basically a three step process:

1. Move all but 20 commissions out of the Charter

2. Convene a Commission Streamlining Task Force to decide what to do with the remaining 45 spots (of the 65 total)

3. The Board of Supervisors implements the plan by passing a law, which they have the power to do for all entities outside the charter.

So we have a limit of 65 commissions and we know how we’ll reach it; now let’s look at what kind of authority those remaining commissions will have.

2c. Changing Commission Authority

The way it is now:

• Many commissions have decision-making authority. Others are merely advisory. Some decide appeals and other administrative proceedings.

• Some commissions oversee and set policy for City departments.

The proposal:

• Require that any commissions the Board reauthorizes, restructures or creates could only advise the Board and Mayor, and have no decision-making authority except as mandated by state or federal law. Decision-making authority would transfer from commissioners to department heads. Authority to decide appeals and other proceedings would transfer to hearing officers.9

Civ Lab Analysis:

In section 1 we discussed various commission powers, and in section 2b we see that 20 commissions will remain in the Charter and all others will move to other parts of the Municipal Code or be repealed.

This is where our framework (Commission vs Advisory) is quite handy. The 45 entities outside the charter will not have decision-making powers, they will be Advisory. The 20 entities that remain in the charter will have decision-making powers, they are Commissions.

For entities that used to have decision-making power (Commissions) but will become not-decision-making (Advisory), those previous powers will be distributed back down to departments.

2d. Simplifying Commissioner Appointment/Removal Process

The way it is now:

• For many commissions, the Mayor appoints at least a majority of its members and the Board appoints the rest. The Mayor’s appointments are generally subject to Board confirmation or rejection.

• The Mayor and Board may remove members from some commissions only for official misconduct.

The proposal:

• Allow the Mayor to appoint, without Board review, at least two-thirds of the members of reauthorized, restructured or new commissions, and some retained commissions. The Board would have authority to appoint up to one-third of the members of those commissions. The Board and Mayor could each remove the members they appoint for any lawful reason.10

Civ Lab Analysis:

There’s a couple mechanical items here that have a huge impact on the way city politics works:

• The Mayor appoints the majority of commissioners, but Mayoral appointments are subject to Board of Supervisors approval

• Commissioners are appointed to four year terms and can often only be removed for breaking the law

The argument for this is that it checks the power of the Mayor and insulates commissioners from political pressures. The argument against this is that it dilutes authority and leads to conflicting directions for departments.

A good way to understand the implications of Prop D is to look at the Police Commission:

The Mayor appoints four of the seven commissioners, while the Board appoints the other three. But the Board also gets to approve the Mayoral appointments, which means the Mayor can only choose a candidate the Board will approve.

Given that the Mayor and Commissions share oversight authority of departments, when they are politically misaligned, departments face conflicting direction. We would expect Prop D to cause most commissions to be politically aligned with the Mayor.

2e. Reducing Police Commission Authority

The way it is now:

• The Police Commission adopts rules governing police officers’ conduct.

The proposal:

• Give the Police Chief sole authority to adopt rules governing police officers’ conduct. The Police Commission would retain authority to discipline police officers and retain oversight over the Department of Police Accountability11

Civ Lab Analysis:
The relationship between the Police Commission and the Police Department has been a political hotspot in recent years as the city has grappled with police reform and public safety issues. Though the Police Commission will retain investigation and discipline powers, moving authority over police officer policy back down into the department resolves this dispute solidly on the side of the Mayor and Police Department. More on the political context in section 3.

2f. Eliminating Commissioner Compensation

The way it is now:

• The City pays members of some commissions.

• The City provides members of some commissions with health care benefits.

The proposal:

• Prohibit the City from paying commissioners or providing them with health care benefits.12

Civ Lab Analysis:
This is pretty straightforward and less important than the other changes. As the Civil Grand Jury report notes: “As volunteers, members of decision-making bodies generally receive small stipends for attending meetings, and some commissioners are also entitled to San Francisco health insurance benefits, although very few take advantage of it. In the context of the San Francisco budget, these costs are insignificant.”

2g. Simplifying Department Head Appointment/Removal Process

The way it is now:

• Some commissions oversee and set policy for City departments. These commissions generally nominate candidates to serve as department head. The Mayor has authority to appoint the department head solely from the candidates the commission nominates. Generally, only the commission has authority to remove the department head.

The proposal:

• Give the Mayor sole authority to appoint and remove most City department heads.13

Civ Lab Analysis:
So far we have been considering changes to the oversight entities, but departments are affected as well. Across our 50+ city departments, a recent SPUR report documented that we currently have eight different pathways for appointing department heads:

As it stands, the Mayor only has outright authority to appoint four department heads, and in all other cases, requires Board/Commission approval or has no say at all. Standardizing department head appointing/removal power under the Mayor eliminates the conflicting directions discussed in section 2d and increases the power of the Mayor.

3. Political Context

Prop D is backed by Together SF Action, a prominent political group in the “moderate” democrat coalition. It is supported by most of the moderate coalition, including the official Democratic Party. A notable exception is current Mayor London Breed, although I believe she removed support for the measure because of political dynamics in the Mayoral race. The “progressive” democratic coalition is backing a competing ballot measure - Prop E. More on that to come.

4. Conclusion

I hope this information helps you reason about your decision concretely. There are few things I love more than discussing the structure of government, so hit me up and tell me what you think about Prop D!

This absurd game is so familiar it’s hard to imagine it being different. But it’s bad to vote on things you don’t understand. It’s bad because it will never produce a government that does what you want, and if we’re all doing it, it will never produce a government capable of anything useful.

And yet most of the votes I’ve cast so far in my life were on things I didn’t understand. Maybe this sounds familiar:

I have my ballot and my tome of voter information1. I’ve chosen my candidates and now I’m working on the ballot measures. Voting for laws seems kind of weird… isn’t that what the politicians are for? It’s my job to vote so I’ll do it, but I don’t want to get played. I have no reason to trust the government, so I’m default-no on giving them more money or power.
According to the summary, Prop B will create a department specifically for cleaning the streets and add oversight to the Department of Public Works, which is currently under investigation by the FBI for corruption. Accountability sounds good and so do cleaner streets, but I assume there’s more to the story. What am I missing? I flip to the legal text to see for myself… but I can’t make sense of that shit. So I flip to the arguments for and against. Some of the points seem reasonable but the language is kind of lame and off-putting - standard strawmans and partisan bickering. Ultimately I turn to endorsements and voter guides.
I can’t judge the law, but I can judge people. Though I don’t really trust them, at least they say the right things. Most of my votes end up following a disappointingly simple logic - if the Good Guys are for it, I’m for it. If the Bad Guys are for it, I’m against it. Unsatisfying, but job done. Probably won’t make a difference anyways…

This is a reasonable way to navigate a broken process. When I opened my ballot, I was joining a game that started long before I arrived, and would continue long after I left. With basically no training and no one I could trust to teach me, it was my job to help decide the outcome of the game. But this is no game; it’s the law.

Benchwarmers

How many voters are in the same position? How many of us can be in this position and still expect direct democracy to produce good results?

I’ve often heard direct democracy (voting to change laws) proposed as a solution to the problems of representative democracy (voting to elect politicians) but this is exactly backwards. Direct democracy actually requires a higher caliber of civic excellence. It’s one thing to pick someone to make laws for you, it’s another to decide the law for yourself.

“Yeah but nobody reads/understands the ballot measures.”

This is mostly true.2 Just because it’s common doesn’t mean it’s good. Voting on things we don’t understand requires us to simultaneously believe two things: that it’s good for the people to decide the law directly and also okay for those same people not to understand the law they’re deciding.

It’s how we end up with things like the Sanitation and Streets debacle. In short, voters in 2020 wanted cleaner streets so they passed a ballot measure to create a Department of Sanitation and Streets, along with two new oversight commissions to avoid another corruption scandal. Then in 2022, realizing that all they had done was increase administrative costs by splitting the Department of Public Works in two, passed another ballot measure to undo it.3

Voters understandably liked the sound of cleaner streets, but what they got was an extra $6 million per year spent on duplicative administrative staff. This is what happens when we don’t understand what we’re voting on.

“But I have the Official Good Guys Voter Guide.”

It’s essential to have strong political proxies; I have many of my own. But how do you choose who to trust? If you’re unable to reason about government on your own, how can you tell how Good those Guys really are?

Two-thirds of SF voters are registered democrats, and the endorsement of the official Democratic Party can move as much as 10% of the overall vote. They endorsed both the 2020 measure, and the 2022 measure undoing it. Why? To answer that, you’d need understand the social dynamics of the people who decide the official Democrat endorsements - the DCCC. SF democrats get to vote on the DCCC membership, but only 15% of them chose to do so.4 Not only do we outsource our decision-making, we don’t even know who we’re outsourcing it to.

I must also point out that if our decision to make a law comes down to some external expert or group to decide… that’s just representative democracy with extra steps.

“I’m not an expert and I shouldn’t have to be”

This might be true if your role as a citizen were limited to merely showing up at game time to decide on the measures presented to you. But it’s not; you can stay in the game.

There is a long process of crafting legislation, and once passed, implementing it. This is at least as important as the vote, and nearly all parts of the process are open to thoughtful engagement. The devil is in those details, especially if you are not.

The version of Prop B that appeared on the ballot in 2020 was the fourth draft. It was amended multiple times in response to feedback from business and labor groups. But across the the four public meetings where it was considered, only 30 people gave public comment, and of those 30, only two people seriously questioned the added bureaucracy.

We Hardly Knew Ya

The Department of Sanitation and Streets never should have existed. It never should have appeared on the ballot, and it certainly shouldn’t have been passed.5 If the average voter understood the basic difference between a commission and a department, perhaps the redundancy would have been more apparent. If I had known more about where endorsements come from and why, perhaps I could have realized the mistake. And if we had been paying attention earlier, perhaps Prop B never would have been on the ballot.

But we get another chance! A new election means new decisions to make. In fact, there are decisions of far greater consequence on the November 2024 ballot.6 Will we be ready?

Get In The Game

Just like any other game, it takes time to get good. First you need to master the basics. Once you learn the fundamentals of government, you’ll be able to start reasoning about government on your own, and you’ll be able to find sources you can trust - you’ll also know when to defer and when to differ.

If you use that knowledge well, you can gain power beyond your single vote. You can serve as a political proxy for others, and you can even participate in the creation and implementation of the law. Here’s the plan:7

The Civ Lab exists partially to be a useful political proxy. You can get started learning about government by exploring the SF Government Graph, or perusing my favorite government research resources. You can learn more about important ballot measures in my (forthcoming) detailed analysis of Prop D and Prop E in the November 2024 election.

But what I really want is for you to learn how government works so you can decide for yourself. I teach the fundamentals of How SF Gov Works in class, and I’m always happy to get a coffee and chat about whatever you want to know! Let’s get to it.

If you’re just starting out, these resources will likely feel confusing or overwhelming. That’s to be expected, but you can learn. Reach out to me with questions or consider joining How SF Government Works - students leave class knowing how to use all of these resources.

Government Organization

• SF Government Graph - the first complete map of San Francisco’s government1

• Granicus - official list of boards and commissions maintained by the City Administrator, including membership and vacancies

• City Attorney website - official list of boards and commissions maintained by the City Attorney, including legal sources

• Commission Impossible - a Civil Grand Jury report on commission structure

• Designed to Serve - a report on commissions, departments, and appointing authorities from SPUR, a local policy think tank

• Departmental org charts - included in yearly budget docs (usually toward the end)

Law and Lawmaking

• SF Charter - the highest law in San Francisco, outlines gov form and function2

• SF Municipal Codes - local laws in San Francisco, including the Police Code, Planning Code (zoning), and much more

• Board of Supervisors, Rules of Order - comprehensive information about the legislative process, including a helpful index with vote requirements

  • Note: See How SF Makes Laws for a simplified intro

• Legistar - official legislative database

Budget and Finances

• Budget documents. Some of my favs:

  • Official Budget and Appropriation Ordinance (FY24-25) - the overall budget

  • Individual departmental budgets (FY24-25) - includes org charts, staffing, and more detailed spending information

  • Annual Salary Ordinance (FY24-25) - list of every position in every department

• Note: See How the SF Budget is Made for a simplified explainer

• Budget and Legislative Analyst reports - official analysis on all sorts of financial topics

Government Meetings and Agendas

• SFGovTV - a nearly complete archive of all government meetings, including Board of Supervisors meetings, Commission meetings, Mayor’s Press Conferences, and more!

• Board of Supervisors - upcoming full board meetings, upcoming committee meetings, past full board meetings

• Police Commission meetings - upcoming and past, including agendas and minutes

• Planning Commission meetings - upcoming and past, including agendas and minutes

Data

• DataSF - various datasets maintained by the City Administrator

• Civil Grand Jury reports - citizen-led research on various aspects of government and recommendations for improvements

  • CGJ 2023-2024 reports - topics include commission structure, budget processes, and more

Elections

• Ballot Measures - upcoming (November 2024) and past (March 2024)

• Past election results - official data, including candidates and ballot measures

• Signature gathering thresholds - for initiatives and recalls

Official News and Newsletters

• News from the Office of the Mayor and Mayor’s newsletter

• News from the Controller’s Office and Controller’s newsletter

• News from the City Administrator and City Administrator’s newsletter

If you have a good resource that should be included here, let me know! I’d be happy to add it.

There is a direct connection between the quality of your social life and the performance of our democratic institutions. Robert Putnam articulates this in Bowling Alone, and I discovered the same thing by accident.

Bowling Alone in San Francisco

I moved to SF in October 2020. It was mid-pandemic, and I didn’t know anyone. The city was in particularly tough shape. It wasn’t a great time. I had all the overhead of living in a city with none of the magic it was supposed to provide.

When the city began to open up, I started looking for friends and fun activities. Like a good millennial, I turned to Twitter. The Algorithm noticed I was in SF and began showing me SF people and SF events. Eventually, I found out about a group of my neighbors who were working to start a neighborhood association and decided to check it out.

Naturally, local representatives have a vested interest in staying tapped in to community activities. So, one week, our district Supervisor sent one of his staffers to our meeting to see how his office could support us. The meeting went well and the staffer was friendly. We agreed to keep in touch.

Some months later, I found a bug in a local law. In San Francisco, only the supervisors can change the law—and I just happened to know a guy. So I reached out, and now we’re working together to introduce an ordinance to fix that bug.

It’s not a stretch to say I showed up to meet my neighbors and ended up working to change the law.1

Social Capital and Democracy

This is, of course, just one small example. But what might happen if you got to know your neighbors? What might happen if 1,000 San Franciscans did? Or 10,000? I bet we’d have a lot more dinner parties—and a much better democracy.

This is because social capital sits at the foundation of democratic self-government. Putnam defines social capital as “the connections among individuals—social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them.” He details the many ways in which generating social capital is good for you individually, and I highly recommend the book. But for our purposes, let’s focus on government.

Have Fun For Democracy

Putnam argues that the social capital we accumulate by joining groups and attending get-togethers benefits democracy in two ways: through “‘external’ effects on the larger polity and ‘internal’ effects on participants themselves.”

Externally, voluntary associations help political information flow through social networks. They provide a venue for discussion and allow individuals to pool their voices, amplifying their impact.

Internally, groups (like neighborhood associations!) help to “instill in their members habits of cooperation and public-spiritedness, as well as the practical skills necessary to partake in public life.”

It’s wonderful news that making friends and spending time with your neighbors is a step toward better government. I’ve come to experience firsthand what Putnam meant when he riffed on Roosevelt’s famous quote2: “In a community rich in social capital, government is ‘we,’ not ‘they.’”

So if you want good government, get to know your neighbors.

Goverment is a miraculous, complex technology and if we want it to work better, we need to act like it. So starting now, we’re moving past the days where almost nobody outside or inside government even knows how much government there actually is. In this new paradigm, we need the right tools for the job. Here’s one of them.

Introducing the SF Government Graph - the first complete map of San Francisco’s government:

How to Use the Graph

The first and most important use of this graph is to catalog everything there is in government, and to map the relationships between them. Entities are categorzied by type like Commission or Department and linked by relationsips like appoints or oversees. Crucially, every entity is linked to the legal source enabling it.

You can also search for entities you’re interested in, and you can select any node to find more information and to highlight the nodes it’s connected to:

How We Got Here

It’s worth noting how quickly the world can improve. In July of 2023, the San Francisco city government didn’t even have an org chart. So I made one. Until June of 2024, the San Francisco city government didn’t have a complete list of entities. So I made one!1 Now I’m bringing that list to life.

Where We’re Going

Updates in the near future will have two board themes:

1. Improve what we have: add richer data to entities and relationships, enhance with helpful descriptions and summaries, improve data visualization and usability.

2. Look into the future: model potential changes to the structure of government like ballot measures and other laws.

How You Can Help

Feedback of all kinds is highly appreciated.2 If you have a particular use case in mind, I want to hear about it!

I’m looking to fund the next phase of development. If you’re interested in supporting an era of governance unmatched since the founding, reach out: michael@civlab.org.

APPLY HERE

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