The Board of Supervisors Rules Committee will consider competing proposals for changing how elections are conducted in San Francisco tomorrow (Thu/26) at 2 p.m., taking public testimony and voting on which ideas should go before voters in June.Read more »

With the upcoming anniversary of the Citizens United decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allowed corporations to make unlimited campaign contributions, California Assembly member Julia Brownley (D-Santa Monica) is pushing a bill to ensure that corporate entities making political donations are required to at least disclose those contributions.Read more »

San Francisco Chronicle reporter John Cote's scoop highlighting how Recology executives were working behind the scenes under pressure from Chinatown power broker Rose Pak to encourage Mayor Ed Lee to seek a full term is just the latest development for a committee that's raised eyebrows already, and it may be just the beginning. Read more »

The 4th annual Board of Supervisors holiday treat throw down at City Hall today featured elegant trophies, celebrity judges and fierce competition. The desserts were judged in three categories: Most Tasty, Most Festive and Most Artistic. And the judges seemed to be enjoying themselves as they sampled the goodies and decided on the awards, as the rest of us waited hungrily, dessert forks in hand Read more »

With preliminary ranked choice results showing Mark Farrell ahead by a slim margin in D2 and Malia Cohen leading narrowly in D10, provisional ballots could prove to be of pivotal importance in these two races.

Or as Sharen Hewitt, executive director of the D10-based C.L.A.E.R. project, put it, “Never before has the weight of the provisional ballot counted so much.” Read more »

Right now, D10 watchers are driving themselves crazy trying to predict the ranked choice math in a 22-candidate race. And so far it looks like it’s a toss-up between Tony Kelly, Lynette Sweet and Malia Cohen, with Steve Moss and Marlene Tran trailing in fourth and fifth place in a contest in which race, neighborhood and inter-campaign alliances will likely prove to be the decisive factors.Read more »

Why are the rich people in District 2 so scared of Chris Daly, Aaron Peskin, and other progressives? Just the hint that a supervisorial candidate like Janet Reilly might have some vague, tangential connection to a (gasp!) progressive is enough send trembles of fear through their delicate nervous systems, and to fill mailboxes with alarmist warnings of dark progressive plots.Read more »

In September, shortly after Elliot Kamin placed two political signs in the window of the condo he rents near Ocean Beach in the Richmond District, he received a letter from his property manager saying, “The signs you have posted in your window are a clear violation of the rules and regulations of the association. Please remove the signs immediately.” But now, with help of the American Civil Liberties Union, the signs are back up and Kamin is no longer being threatened with fines.Read more »

I can't stand all the fundraising e-mail blasts that fill my In Box during election season, but this one I liked. Former author and Saturday Night Live writer Al Franken has been pretty low-key since taking his U.S. Senate seat earlier this year following a close and bitter race. Now that he's getting used to the job, hopefully he'll loosen up and write more missives like this one, whose subject line was simply titled “Oatmeal.”

Dear Friend:Read more »