Elections Commissioner Cynthia Dai working with political allies to reshape redistricting maps

Documents show close ties to League of Women Voters, Supervisor Aaron Peskin and others who supported removal of three members of redistricting task force

“The existing selection process yielded San Francisco’s most diverse redistricting task force ever — and, most importantly, a fair, equal, and balanced map. The same activist commissioner, Cynthia Dai, who led a failed and unjustified attempt to remove myself and two other redistricting task force members at the eleventh hour, as well as the city’s Elections Director John Arntz, is again at the helm of an effort to gain an unfair advantage in local races. Since the Elections Commission is not authorized to propose legislation and in fact prohibited to take sides on any ballot initiative/candidates, she is looking to get a representative of the Board of Supervisors to propose the initiative, the exact body the change will impact!”

— Ditka Reiner, Former Vice Chair of the Redistricting Task Force

“A coalition of civic watchdogs found that numerous jurisdictions used gerrymandering specifically to preserve entrenched political power and sideline community input,” San Francisco Standard reporter Ida Mojadad wrote this past February. According to the report, “This lack of political independence was a major factor in 2022’s drawn-out process, which saw all-night meetings and accusations that the final map was anything but neutral. Urgent reform is needed before the 2030 cycle. Its controversial redistricting in 2022 illustrates the risks and potential conflicts of interest associated with this model. As San Francisco and numerous directly appointed advisory commissions demonstrated this cycle, directly appointed commissioners often act as proxies for their appointing officials, undermining the benefits of and harming public trust in the redistricting process.” 

Those words sound very, well, political. The only people who found the 2022 redistricting process controversial were those politicians and their allies who didn’t like what they got. District 5 supervisor Dean Preston, for example, cried like a baby when he was handed the Tenderloin. Up until redistricting, Preston had a wealthy, white, far left constituency — just like him. Now, not so much. But Preston and other critics of the mandated remapping rarely mention the reason it was done in the first place: Population growth in San Francisco during the 2010s was concentrated in just a few neighborhoods, which forced the Redistricting Commission to produce a new map of the city’s 11 supervisor districts based on the decennial census count. That meant districts that built less housing and lost population had to take on new neighborhoods, and Preston — who has the most abysmal record building housing in his district of any currently seated supervisor — didn’t make enough beds to lie in, so to speak.

The report is alarmist at best and dishonest at worst. Who wrote it? California Common Cause, the Asian Law Caucus, the ACLU’s Northern and Southern California chapters, and the League of Women Voters of California. I’ve written a lot recently about the ACLU of Northern California because they’re representing the Coalition on Homelessness against San Francisco’s efforts to remove the encampments that have overwhelmed city streets. In April of 2022, the ACLU NorCal also helped throw the entire redistricting process into chaos by writing a letter to the Elections Commission expressing “serious concern” about the way the task force has been drawing lines.

Who else sent a letter? The Asian Law Caucus and the League of Women Voters. “With just a few days left in the mapping process, the needs of many of those groups have been left out of the draft supervisor maps made by the task force. Map 4D received overwhelming community support and was advanced by the task force. Yet, at 2:53am on Tuesday, April 5, the task force reversed its previous decision to advance map 4D, and voted map 4B forward instead,” they wrote. “We call upon you to take action and speak to the Redistricting Task Force members who were appointed by the Elections Commission and reinforce to them their duty and obligations to give due weight to the public input of historically and systemically marginalized, vulnerable, and disadvantaged communities.” After those letters, the Commission set a special meeting to decide whether or not it should remove its own three appointees.

POLITICS AS USUAL

When it comes to redistricting discontent, the mastermind appears to be Cynthia Dai. In February of 2022, City Attorney David Chiu appointed Dai, a commissioner on the inaugural California Citizens Redistricting Commission, to the San Francisco Elections Commission. “Dai has spent over a decade advocating for redistricting reform and educating others of the important connection between redistricting and the electoral process,” the press release states. “I’m honored to bring my experience to the Commission,” Dai beamed. “I will work to keep San Francisco in the vanguard of fair, transparent, and efficient elections.”

The release goes on to say that Dai “served as a Commissioner and Rotating Chair on the California CRC between 2010 and 2020 and has spent years making public presentations on the importance of redistricting and other democracy reforms such as ranked-choice voting and open primaries.” Those words sound very, well, political.

Dai was instrumental in not renewing the contract of Elections Director John Arntz, a position he held since 2002, overseeing a department which even left-leaning Mission Local blogger Joe Eskenazi said “unambiguously accomplishes its core mission.” Dai, Board appointee and commission president Chris Jerdonek, District Attorney’s office appointee Robin Stone, and Public Defender’s office appointee Renita LiVolsi voted to not renew Arntz’s contract. Dai said there was no performance-based reason for the decision — or, as Eskenazi put it, “she didn’t dispute that San Francisco has run free, fair and functional elections for 20 years.” Instead, Dai said it was “time to open up the position to a more diverse field so the City could make progress on its racial equity goals.” 

Sources point to Dai as the leader of efforts to curry favorable press for her political mission. In the Arntz case, Jerdonek directed media questions to Dai so she could add her messaging about the commission’s decision not to renew his contract.

Dai was also a key player in the attempted removal of those three members of the Redistricting Task Force — Chasel Lee and Raynell Cooper and Vice Chair Ditka Reiner. Remember those letters written by the ACLU, the Asian Law Caucus, and the League of Women Voters that led to the special hearing? After listening to representatives from those organizations and several hours of public comment, none of the commissioners suggested recalling any of the appointees. “It is just unrealistic to think you are going to get meaningful public input without anything to react to,” Dai said of the vote, adding that she was “happy they had the meeting” and “not at all embarrassed.”

FIERCE ADVOCACY FOR AB-1248

It turns out Dai has a long and cozy relationship with the League of Women Voters — you know, the group behind the letter pushing for the removal of the three members of the Redistricting Task Force, as well as a contributor to the report that found “numerous jurisdictions used gerrymandering specifically to preserve entrenched political power and sideline community input.” Lai and the League are also huge proponents of California Assembly Bill 1248 (Local redistricting: independent redistricting commissions), which passed in the Senate on September 12 and heads to Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk for his signature or veto on October 14. The text of AB-1248 says it would “require a county, general law city, charter city, or charter city and county that contains over 300,000 residents, and a school district or community college district that contains over 500,000 residents, to establish an independent redistricting commission to adopt district boundaries after each federal decennial census.” That means San Francisco would be swept into the new state law, which is what the League and Dai have been advocating for all along.

One way they do this is through a controversial advisory panel created last May called FIERCE (Fair, Independent, and Effective Redistricting for Community Engagement). “The San Francisco Elections Commission (SFEC) has been engaged in a Redistricting Initiative project to upgrade its local redistricting processes to current best practices since June 2022. It would like to refer a final set of reform recommendations to the Board of Supervisors to amend the Charter in 2024,” the FIERCE city webpage reads. “In order to meet the tight timeline for a ballot measure, the Commission would like to leverage the assistance of good government groups to advise it on how to customize best practice recommendations for San Francisco.”

Along with “Redistricting Initiative leads Commissioners Cynthia Dai and Renita LiVolsi,” the panel includes Jenny Tse, Advocacy Chair, League of Women Voters; Lauren Girardin, Redistricting Team, League of Women Voters; Russia Chavis Cardenas, Voting Rights & Redistricting Program Manager, California Common Cause; Sietse Goffard, Senior Program Coordinator, Voting Rights, Asian Law Caucus … are you starting to see a pattern here?

The other member is Chema Hernández Gil, a supervisor-appointed member of the 2021-2022 Redistricting Task Force. Gil is also politically aligned with Dai, serving on the board of the SF Bicycle Coalition (recently fined by the San Francisco Ethics Commission for not registering as political lobbyists) and went on to manage civic engagement programs “focused on political education and engagement of working-class communities of color across the city” for San Francisco Rising Alliance, which endorsed the “Community Unity Map” that Dai and her allies prefer (it was developed behind closed doors and never vetted by the public).

A May 31, 2023, FIERCE meeting agenda featured its own advisory panel as the “expert speakers” and a discussion that included “Redistricting Initiative Project Plan v6; Summary of Redistricting Reform Recommendations; AB 1248 Fact Sheet; Text of AB 1248; Memo to Elections Committee Regarding AB 1248; FAIR MAPS Act Reform Fact Sheet…” Apparently FIERCE stands for “Fair, Independent, and Effective Redistricting for Community Engagement” as long as it involves fierce advocacy for AB-1248.

DOCUMENTS SHOW DAI’S POLITICAL CARDS

In an email dated November 23, 2022, Commissioner Bernholz sent fellow Election Commissioners a Chronicle story titled, “Why SF elections boss might lose his job” and commented, “I disagree that the communications plan is ‘working.’ From what I’m reading, everyone in the city sees this for what it is.” Dai responds, “Just because you don't think our communication plan is ‘working’ doesn't mean we shouldn't try … I know you know better about replying all with statements that might be interpreted as trying to influence other Commissioners. There is nothing in the Brown Act that prevents us from broadcasting factual information like articles that have appeared in the media or on our reporting back to the rest of the Commission after you assigned us to respond to media requests. But opining can be problematic.”

Dai also pulled sympathetic supervisors Aaron Peskin (who attended a rally in support of removing those three Redistricting Task Force members) and Myrna Melgar, into her plan. “I personally would probably be fine with just aligning with AB 1248 … I gave Aaron a heads up that we were reaching out to Myrna, so he will be expecting it. he may want her to be the lead,” Dai texted fellow elections commissioner Michelle Parker. “As for our good government taskforce, I further discovered that CA Common Cause’s Voting Rights & Redistricting Program Mgr is a Black woman [Russia Chavis Cardenas], so we’ll have some (additional) color in the group. Working on Latinx representation now … I’m speaking with Peskin tomorrow morning and will text you an update afterward.”

Dai and Peskin did have their meeting, after which Dai sent an email with two attachments, explaining, “The former is the recent report from the ACLU/Asian Law Caucus/Common Cause/League of Women Voters and calls out likely impending state legislation based on shenanigans during the past cycle. San Francisco is called out several times as a poor example: once for missing its own deadline, and in particular for political appointments and influence. The latter summarizes key recommendations proposed to the Elections Commission by our expert speakers … this should give you and your colleagues a very good idea of what will appear in a specific reform proposal from the public that the Commission would endorse. I’ll be in touch as we consider who should champion the ultimate proposal.”

DAI JUST WANTS A NONPARTISAN PARTY

According to Dai, all she wants is a nonpartisan body to appoint future redistricting committees. Currently, three bodies — the Board of Supervisors, the Mayor, and the Elections Commission — appoint three each to make up the nine-person task force.

On August 24, FIERCE — led by Dai — turned into Captain Obvious, announcing that appointees should be free of conflicts. Who should be in charge of selecting and vetting those appointees? The Controller’s Office came up, as did the Department of Elections (one elections commissioner actually giggled about that due to the public’s “lack of confidence” in that department). A panel of retired judges was mentioned, as was the San Francisco Ethics Commission.

All of those parties sound, well, political. Let’s take, for example, the Ethics Commission, created by voters with the passage of Proposition K in November 1993. The Commission is responsible for “the independent and impartial administration and enforcement of laws related to campaign finance, public financing of candidates, governmental ethics, conflicts of interests, and registration and reporting by lobbyists, campaign consultants, permit consultants, and major developers.” That may well be true, but as private citizens the commissioners make donations to political campaigns. Chair Yvonne Lee has been an active contributor going back to 1998 when she contributed to Leland Yee for Supervisor. In the 2000s, Lee contributed 58 times, including to Fiona Ma for Supervisor, Gavin Newsom for Mayor, Friends of Phil Ting, and Carmen Chu for Supervisor. She also donated to the mayoral campaigns of Ed Lee and London Breed, and her most recent donation, on June 30, 2023, went to Brooke Jenkins for District Attorney 2024.

Commissioner Yaman Salahi, appointed by the Board of Supervisors on May 19, 2023, made nine political contributions between 2019 and 2022 — four to Boudin for District Attorney 2019 and one to Boudin for District Attorney in 2023 (hopefully he got that check back). The other four went to No on H: Friends of Chesa Boudin Opposing the Recall.

The fact is, there isn’t a party on the planet that is nonpartisan. When Toto yanks the curtain away from the campaign to change how San Francisco draws future supervisor maps, it isn’t the Great Oz you will find pulling the strings but Commissioner Cynthia Dai, surrounded by self-serving reports and “expert recommendations” made by handpicked, likeminded cronies. If all of this sounds very, well, political, that’s because it is.