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The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is the legislative body of San Francisco, California. The body consists of eleven members elected from single-member districts through ranked choice voting.
Contents
- Board members
- Common Council
- Four member board JulyNovember 1856
- 12 member district 19th century
- 18 member at large 1900
- Board members and transitions since 1980
- Nonpartisanship
- References
From 1977 to 1979, and starting again in 2000, supervisors were elected from eleven single-member districts. Prior to 1977 and from 1980 to 1998, members were elected at-large, all running on one ballot, with the top vote-getters winning office. In 1980, elections shifted from odd-numbered years to even-numbered years, and because of the shift from district to at-large elections, all seats were up for election, with some members winning four-year terms and some winning two-year terms. Similar cases of supervisors elected to truncated terms happened in 1977 and 2000, when elections shifted to district elections.
Several members were initially appointed by the mayor. San Francisco's city charter gives the mayor the power to fill any vacancies and to suspend members in limited circumstances; the latter case has happened only once, when Mayor Gavin Newsom suspended Ed Jew due to allegations of lying about his residency and extortion. A few members were elected to the board, but appointed to their seat by the mayor during the weeks between the election and the beginning of their term. This has generally been done when supervisors were elected to the state legislature, since the terms of state legislators begin earlier than those of supervisors. The most recent example occurred in 2008, when David Campos was elected to the District 9 seat held by Tom Ammiano. In the same election, Ammiano was elected to the California State Assembly and resigned his seat a month early to take his new office. Mayor Gavin Newsom appointed Campos to the seat on December 4, 2008, a month before he would otherwise have taken office.
The president of the Board of Supervisors presides over all board meetings and appoints members to board committees, among other duties. Board presidents are elected by their colleagues at the beginning of every odd-numbered year, or when a vacancy arises in the office. From 1982 to 2000, the city charter specified that the president would be the highest vote-getter in the previous election, taking the power of electing the board president away from the supervisors themselves, except in the case of a vacancy in the post.
Board members
No official list of supervisors in office prior to 1906 exists as the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed all Board of Supervisors records. However, the names of San Francisco supervisors are recorded in many documents and newspapers from the time.
Common Council
The San Francisco Common Council was the predecessor of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. The Common Council was made up of the Board of Aldermen and the Board of Assistant Aldermen, each composed of one member elected from each of the city's eight wards. The first elections to these posts took place on May 1, 1850 (the same day as the vote on the city charter), and the Common Council took office on May 6, 1850. The Common Council had authority only within the city limits, which stretched west to Divisadero and Castro streets and south to 20th Street.
The seventh and last Common Council served until July 1856, when under the Consolidation Act that unified city and county government in San Francisco, the Common Council was replaced by the first Board of Supervisors.
Four-member board (July–November 1856)
The first Board of Supervisors served only from July 8 to November 15, 1856, and consisted of one justice of the peace for each of the city's four districts. These four men chose George J. Whelan as the city's mayor and president of the board.
12-member district (19th century)
Supervisors from the 19th century are listed in surviving copies of municipal reports, contemporary newspapers, and similar sources.
18-member at-large (1900– )
Article II, Chapter I, Section 2 of the revised charter, ratified by voters on May 26, 1898, specified that "[t]he Board of Supervisors shall consist of eighteen members all of whom shall hold office for two years and be elected from the City and County at large." Former mayors of the city were allowed non-voting seats on the board. Supervisors' terms were later extended to four years, from January 8, 1912, with the nine supervisors with the highest vote counts at the 1911 election serving for four years, and the other nine up for re-election in 1913.
Board members and transitions since 1980
Current members shaded in yellow. Members who served as president of the Board of Supervisors during part of their tenure on the board are denoted with an asterisk (*).
Nonpartisanship
Supervisors are elected on non-partisan ballots, but all current members of the Board of Supervisors are registered Democrats. Supervisor Jane Kim was previously a member of the Green Party, but switched her registration to Democratic before running for supervisor.