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Woke Tales II: SF Fires its Popular, Competent Elections Administrator. Can You Guess Why?

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  November 28, 2022 1:05 PM

As promised in our post earlier on the lunacy playing out in DC, here's a west coast complement, courtesy of the "progressives" in San Francisco.  The backdrop to this first story is that the city has chosen not to renew its contract with its top elections administrator.  When this man took over the position years ago, San Francisco elections were infamously shambolic.  He's cleaned up the mess -- understanding that California's rules are largely insane -- and has developed admiration and widespread respect for his good, competent work over the course of decades.  So, obviously, he had to go.

Even a good number of liberals are upset with the city's move:

Elections director John Arntz, who oversees one of the few San Francisco departments that unambiguously accomplishes its core mission, has not been renewed for his post by the city’s Elections Commission. By a vote of 4-2 after a lengthy Wednesday closed-session meeting, the commission opted to not re-up Arntz for the position he has held since 2002. The position will come open in May, 2023. In 2021, the Elections Commission wrote to the mayor that “San Francisco runs one of the best elections in the country and we believe this transparent process has allowed us to continue to improve our elections.” In 2020, it wrote Arntz a commendation “for his incredible leadership … The Department successfully ran two elections this year while facing significant challenges, including national threats to election security, mandatory vote-by-mail operations to all registered voters, anticipated increase in voter participation, budget cuts, and the COVID-19 pandemic.” 

The reaction across the city’s political spectrum has been one of disbelief — and anger. “I think some folks have forgotten the history of this department,” said City Attorney David Chiu. “Before Director Arntz, we had five directors in as many years, ballot boxes floating in the bay and an intense lack of confidence in city elections. Many of us are mystified.”  Supervisor Aaron Peskin added, “This is commission malfeasance. It almost becomes a justification for Mayor Breed to have letters of resignation from people who go do things that are completely insane.” Mayor London Breed did not go there, but did say that the Elections Commission’s move was ill-advised.

He was basically universally appreciated as being professional and very good at his job, resulting in commendations and officials citations of praise.  So why, exactly, was Arntz shown the door?  Equity, diversity, and inclusion, of course:

Those who pushed him out acknowledge that he was proficient at his job.  They admit his performance wasn't his problem.  His problem is his genitalia and skin color.  That's it.  He's being let go due exclusively to immutable characteristics.  I'll leave it to employment lawyers to determine whether this situation is as clear-cut an example of illegal discrimination as I can possibly conceive of, but it's unquestionably 'equity'-driven racial and gender discrimination.  No one is hiding it.  His excellent performance doesn't matter.  He's a white male, so he's out.  It's that simple, and it's not under dispute. San Francisco is a basket case of dysfunction and failure in so many ways, and here's the leadership ejecting one of the relatively few competent officials in the city, purely due to toxic identity politics.  Behold, "progress."  Speaking of which, this almost reads like parody:

Anyone who has any remaining doubt regarding the final descent of San Francisco into leftist chaos, though, should look no further than its GIFT program: Guaranteed Income for Transgender People. In other words, taxpayers are giving transgender people in San Francisco $1,200 a month. Under "the Transgender District and Lyon-Martin Community Health Services, in partnership with municipal city departments in the City and County of San Francisco," the program will supposedly “provide economically marginalized transgender people with unrestricted, monthly guaranteed income as a way to combat poverty our most impacted community members face.” In total, 55 transgender residents of San Francisco County will receive $1,200 a month in guaranteed income for a total of 18 months. That amounts to $21,600 per resident and $1,188,000 in total. But not to worry — identity politics apply to transgender people, with GIFT prioritizing those who are black, indigenous, or people of color, as well “monolingual Spanish-speakers” (those who can’t or don’t speak English), those who are “undocumented” (illegal immigrants), and those who are “formerly incarcerated” (criminals).

The Washington Examiner piece notes that, "applicants must be above the age of 18, identify as 'transgender, nonbinary, gender noncomforming, or intersex,' live in the city and county of San Francisco, earn less than $600 per month, be willing to complete a survey every three months during the program, and (best of all) provide valid photo ID."  Photo ID?  Sounds pretty racist, does it not?  Other Bay Area communities have also introduced taxpayer-furnished "universal income" opportunities, exclusively to specific identity groups.  Large swaths of people with the wrong skin color, sex, or other identity factors need not apply.  But they will be required to pay for it, of course.  I suppose this is what you sign up for when you live in certain parts of the country. And on that note, I'll leave you with this, via southern California:

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Challenges to affirmative action are absolutely about ending discrimination.  And it's amazing that this writer decided to grapple with the overwhelming unpopularity of racial preferences in college admissions -- across all races -- by chalking it up to the successful "propaganda" of "white supremacy."  How embarrassing.