For more than 12 years I have worked closely with someone whose leadership, connection with diverse communities and passion for justice inspires me. That person is Jane Kim.
I have been with Kim during one-on-ones, community meetings, legislative hearings, and events with people all across San Francisco. She makes a human connection that is authentic. Kim brilliantly connects new policies to problems facing our city and those most vulnerable. She is a hard-working, effective legislator who draws from our citizenry the passion and purpose to fight for affordable housing and act forcefully to keep our city from losing its identity due to the affordability crisis.
Kim is running for state Senate because she sees the California Legislature taking meaningful action on critical issues and passing groundbreaking laws that are unfortunately bottled up in the Republican-led Congress.
Education and justice reform are just two important examples. Kim is the former president of our school board who understands the best tool to prevent crime is to improve education and keep kids in school. We have already seen what the more traditional "punishment centrist" approach has done in siphoning money from schools to build prisons. Here in San Francisco, we should favor Kim's prevention-first stance.
We have been fortunate to have LGBT leaders push the envelope when they went to the state Legislature. Carole Migden established domestic partner benefits, building a foundation for marriage equality. Mark Leno did the unimaginable when he secured state legislative approvals for marriage equality and demonstrated that no pro-equality legislator lost their election. Tom Ammiano established unprecedented protections for transgender and gender-expansive students to be safe and supported in our schools.
I am supporting the candidate that I believe will push the envelope.
Kim is willing to stand, even alone, to demand higher rates of affordable housing, free SF City College, and to ask why the city spent $5 million to subsidize services during the Super Bowl, when the NFL is worth more than $50 billion.
Some will recall that then-Supervisor Ammiano made many powerful businesses uncomfortable when he authored legislation in the 1990s requiring that companies doing business with the city had to provide equal benefits for domestic partners as they did for married couples.
United Airlines even threatened to close its hub at San Francisco International Airport. Ammiano didn't blink. He fought to advance our civil rights and equal benefits, once enacted, became a watershed that saw thousands of major businesses establish benefits for same-sex couples. Ammiano is supporting Kim because he knows she will not waver under pressure.
No matter how comfortable some members of our community may feel, we are not the Establishment.
LGBT people are twice as likely to be homeless in this gay mecca. We need leaders informed about the lives of many LGBT people who are at risk for eviction, lack access to jobs paying a living wage and are being squeezed out of this city.
Kim is the candidate who will craft solutions to the affordability crisis that threatens our city and our community.
Kim has fought to protect tenants and stop evictions, she has led the effort to increase requirements for production of affordable housing, and she has taken risks to negotiate record levels of housing that is accessible to low- and middle-income people and families.
Kim is drawing a spectrum of support from the LGBT community – accomplished leaders such as Ammiano, Migden, Cleve Jones, Supervisor David Campos – and a new generation of LGBT activists who, like Harvey Milk, know that our struggles are in solidarity with other disenfranchised people – those who are homeless, immigrants, the transgender community, single mothers, seniors, and all those who are barely making it in today's San Francisco.
Kim is the leader we need in the state Senate to advance California and to fight for a more just and fair San Francisco.
I respect that each voter must weigh the issues and candidates in making their decision. Thank you for considering my thoughts.
Bevan Dufty is a member of the Democratic County Central Committee and served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors from 2002 to 2011.
For last week's Guest Opinion in support of Scott Wiener, see http://ebar.com/columns/column.php?sec=guest_op&article=561.