Running unopposed on Tuesday's ballot, gay San Francisco Treasurer-Tax Collector José Cisneros cakewalked into a historic sixth term in his citywide municipal elected position. Already the longest-serving gay Latino elected official in the U.S., he is set to become the Bay Area's longest-serving LGBTQ elected official in the same position.
As no other out candidate is expected to be elected to one of the city's six additional municipal offices, Cisneros will remain for the time being the lone LGBTQ leader among the septet. The two gay men who qualified for this year's mayoral race were never seen as having a path to win.
"As always, I am very excited to have the opportunity to serve the residents of the city and county of San Francisco and do the important work of the treasurer's office for four more years," Cisneros, 68, told the Bay Area Reporter.
Already the longest-serving out person of color in elected office, having been first appointed to his post two decades ago, Cisneros could extend his run another eight years, at least, as his position is not term-limited. He has not ruled out seeking a seventh term in 2028, potentially extending his time in office through 2032.
"Again, I have not made any decisions and I will reassess what I will do four years from now," said Cisneros, who is married to San Francisco Human Rights Commissioner Mark Kelleher.
Should he serve all four years of his new term, to which he will be sworn into in early January, Cisneros will reach a historic 24-year tenure as the collector of the city's taxes and watchdog of its treasury. Former mayor Gavin Newsom, now the state's governor, first appointed him to the post in 2004 to fill a vacancy.
"It is hard to think of a more dedicated and effective public servant than José Cisneros," said Tom Temprano, managing director of external affairs for statewide LGBTQ civil rights organization Equality California.
A gay San Francisco resident and former City Hall legislative aide who has long worked with Cisneros, Temprano told the B.A.R. one key to his political success has been his ability to stay out of the fray of the city's rough-and-tumble politics and focus on his job at hand.
"The fact that he is making this history for the LGBTQ community, and for LGBTQ people of color in particular, is remarkable in a place like San Francisco where so often voters and residents have negative experiences with their elected officials and city government," said Temprano, himself a former elected member of the city's college board who was pilloried for his oversight decisions. "Yet, in the case of José as our treasurer and tax collector, a position one would expect would engender a lot of frustration from voters, he has dedicated himself to being above the petty politics of City Hall and focused on running an effective department that meets the needs of the taxpayers of San Francisco."
Cisneros won a competitive race for a full four-year term in 2005; it was the only time Cisneros has been challenged for the citywide post. With his normal four-year terms twice changed due to when his position would appear on the city's ballot, Cisneros only served two years after his 2013 victory before seeking a full four-year term on the 2015 fall ballot.
Voters in 2022 approved a ballot measure moving his and several other citywide races to being held during presidential election years, thus Cisneros is currently finishing up a five-year term. He told the B.A.R. he will be spending election night at home watching the returns come in and rooting for his former elected municipal colleague, Vice President Kamala Harris, to be elected the country's first female president.
He served alongside the Democratic presidential nominee when Harris was the city's district attorney between 2004 and early 2011.
"I am excited to put it behind us and see how it turns out," Cisneros said of the 2024 presidential race.
He will also be watching to see if the local ballot measure Proposition M passes. Cisneros was among a wide array of city leaders who endorsed it and appeared at a joint rally for it last week. It will change the city's business tax levies, particularly in a manner beneficial to smaller, locally owned companies.
"I think it will be a benefit to the city and to the taxpayers if it passes," said Cisneros, noting that if Prop M fails to garner more than 50% of the vote it needs to pass, then "small businesses will see a significant increase in taxes owed starting in January 2025 and another increase beginning in January 2026."
Road to history
In 2019, 15 years into his tenure, Cisneros took the record for being San Francisco's longest-serving openly gay elected official in the same post. Gay former supervisors Tom Ammiano and the late Harry Britt both served on the board for 14 years.
The current record-holder for the Bay Area region is gay former Berkeley City Councilmember Kriss Worthington, who served for 22 years in his position before opting not to seek reelection in 2018. He was Berkeley's first gay elected official.
As the B.A.R.'s Political Notebook column reported in August, the region's longest-serving out female elected leader in the same post is lesbian Oakland At-Large City Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan. First elected to her citywide seat in 2008, she opted not to run again this year and will depart after serving in it for 16 years.
Kaplan has one of the longest time spans as a local elected official, at 23 years, having spent seven years as an elected member of the AC Transit District Board of Directors. The agency provides bus service in Alameda and Contra Costa counties.
The record-holder, at 26 years, in the Bay Area is gay former Santa Clara County supervisor and San Jose councilmember Ken Yeager, who first won election to a community college board seat in 1992. The South Bay's first out elected official, Yeager was termed off the countywide board in 2018.
As for Cisneros, he remains the first and only LGBTQ man to serve in one of San Francisco's seven citywide municipal elected positions. (His lesbian predecessor, Susan Leal, was the first and, to date, only LGBTQ woman to do so.)
"Of course, I never imagined the future and didn't spend a lot of time trying to. But as I have been here the last 20 years, I have really come to love the work the office does, and my and my colleagues' ability to do an important job for the city and county of San Francisco," said Cisneros when asked if he ever foresaw his record-breaking time in office. "I am excited to be able to continue that."
He still has years to go before becoming the longest-serving LGBTQ elected official in the country. Lesbian former Minnesota House of Representatives member Karen J. Clark appears to hold that title, having served in her legislative chamber for 38 years until stepping down in January 2019.
"I am not sure I am going to beat her," Cisneros had quipped to the B.A.R. in August when it became official that he would be the only candidate once again to stand for treasurer-tax collector this year.
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