Free Republic

SAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom unseated Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado Tuesday night for the state's No. 2 post. The Democratic challenger maintained a lead all night over the moderate Republican incumbent in the battle for the unheralded job of lieutenant governor. Neither side was willing to concede a winner, but Newsom told dozens of cheering supporters he planned to be in Sacramento.

The races for lieutenant governor and attorney general are too close to suggest that any candidate has a firm edge going into Tuesday's election, according to the latest Field Poll released Friday. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, is hanging onto a slim five-point edge of 42 percent to 37 percent over Republican Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado. The survey also found that Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley – the GOP candidate for attorney general – has dipped to a one-point lead over Democratic rival Kamala Harris, San Francisco's district attorney. The latest survey, which was conducted Oct....

Touting education and job creation through green technology, former President Bill Clinton on Sunday night told San Jose State students they will bear some of the responsibility if Democrats lose their control of the House and the Senate on Election Day. "There's a reason people think that the Democrats are going to lose these houses," Clinton said. "The reason is you." So Clinton urged the enthusiastic crowd of 5,000 -- most of them students -- to tweet, text and e-mail their networks of friends to vote Democratic on Nov. 2. Clinton came to San Jose to campaign for gubernatorial candidate...

Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado is running a radio ad criticizing Democratic rival Gavin Newsom, San Francisco's mayor, for a city policy to try to rehabilitate and release undocumented minors being held for crimes – without reporting them to federal officials for possible deportation. Following is an analysis by Susan Ferriss of The Bee Capitol Bureau: Text Narrator: It took a triple murder for Mayor Gavin Newsom to admit San Francisco's sanctuary city policies were a misguided and costly mistake. Second narrator: For four years while Newsom was mayor, San Francisco refused to turn dangerous illegal immigrant criminals over to authorities...

If Tuesday's opening debate in the lieutenant governor's race is a sign of things to come, buckle up. Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado may be the incumbent, but he was on the attack early against Mayor Gavin Newsom, needling the mayor for his handling of the Cosco Busan oil spill, his wife's investments in oil companies and San Francisco's sanctuary city policy in a roughly 50-minute radio debate on KQED's Forum program. The mayor, for his part, tried to paint Maldonado as out of touch with the state on environmental issues and the embodiment of Sacramento political gridlock. Host Scott Shafer...

Former President Bill Clinton begins pitching for Brown and Newsom as "proven leaders" in green tech job creationFormer President Bill Clinton will begin reaching California voters today with a strong enviromental-based election pitch on behalf of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown and Lt. Gov. candidate Gavin Newsom, whom he says represent "the kind of leadership California needs" on green tech and alterntive energy to boost jobs and the economy.Clinton's email fundraising message to voters going out today calls them "two candidates whose creative ideas, proven ability to make progress and passionate commitment to our children's future will bring back the...

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, considered famously liberal by many, released a radio ad Thursday attacking his GOP rival for lieutenant governor for voting to raise taxes.

Former President Bill Clinton, who endorsed then-gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom during the Democratic primary season, will be in California to campaign for Jerry Brown -- and Newsom -- on Oct. 15 and 17, the CA Democratic Party says. The announcement comes in the same week gubernatorial candidate Brown's off-the-cuff comments about Clinton's veracity created headlines -- and a distraction for his campaign. The State Attorney General's public apology to Clinton came on the heels of an ad by Republican candidate Meg Whitman's team which highlighted Clinton's past criticism of Brown as a tax-raiser -- comments which Clinton himself has now...

"San Francisco values" used to be political code for life in what Republicans dismiss as a kinky liberal enclave.But now a top statewide GOP candidate is redefining the epithet as life in a city handcuffed by its progressive mayor, Gavin Newsom, who is so "extreme" that locals can't get a Happy Meal or a plastic shopping bag without official permission. Republican Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado, a moderate running against Democrat Newsom for re-election as lieutenant governor, isn't the first to use San Francisco to fire up his party's base. But at the three-day state GOP convention, Maldonado marshaled a new...

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom didn't get the warmest reception Friday morning when he approached a homeless encampment under a bus overpass for the soon-to-be-demolished Transbay Terminal. "Go away, man!" hollered 60-year-old Kolinio Waqairawai as he sat against a concrete pillar, a koala blanket draped over his legs, a pack of Parliament cigarettes on his lap and a 16-ounce Bud Light tall boy near at hand. "You're wasting the state's money." Within five minutes, Waqairawai was holding Newsom's hand and flashing a smile showing his missing lower tooth as the mayor knelt next to him. After rhapsodizing about Marin County...

It didn't take long for Mayor Gavin Newsom's opponent in the lieutenant governors race to tag the country's "greenest mayor" with setting "some sort of record for political hypocrisy" after our colleagues revealed his wife had hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in oil companies, including the owner of the deepwater rig that exploded in the gulf oil disaster. "Though Gavin claims to oppose offshore drilling when the cameras are rolling, his bank account has been swelling due to multiple investments in what he calls 'dirty' energy companies who make billions of dollars from off-shore drilling," said Brandon Gesicki, a...

It turns out that San Francisco's eco-conscious Mayor Gavin Newsom and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, own a piece of the deepwater rig at the center of the gulf oil disaster. According to the mayor's most recently filed economic disclosure statement, last year the couple invested between $10,000 and $100,000 in Transocean Inc. - the company whose ruptured deepwater rig, which is leased to BP, is spewing millions of gallons of oil, endangering wildlife and beaches all along the Gulf Coast. Just last month, Newsom told the San Diego area East County Magazine that "the environmental catastrophe devastating the Gulf...

San Francisco is generous, good-hearted and socially conscious. It is eager to help the disadvantaged and the poor. There's just one flaw in our civic personality. Tough choices. We'd rather not make them. On Monday, a parade of hundreds of service organizations appeared before the Board of Supervisors, pleading for funding for their programs. These aren't bad people and their programs to help the young, the drug-ravaged, and the homeless are well-intentioned. But the hard truth is there are far too many service providers for this relatively small city. They duplicate efforts, they don't have enough oversight, and they spend...

San Fran Mayor Gavin Newsom speech at LGBT Caucus at the California Democratic Convention April 2010

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announced today a moratorium on official city travel to Arizona after the state enacted a controversial new immigration law that directs local police to arrest those suspected of being in the country illegally. The ban on city employee travel to Arizona takes effect immediately, although there are some exceptions, including for law enforcement officials investigating a crime, officials said. It's unclear how many planned trips by city workers will be curtailed.

Oh, what a difference a day makes. On Monday, Mayor Gavin Newsom was questioning the wisdom of City Attorney Dennis Herrera and Supervisor David Campos' proposed boycott of Arizona for its harsh new immigration law, saying the law was "un-American" but boycotting a state and its businesses was "an extraordinarily complicated matter." "I appreciate the desire to condemn the act," Newsom said then. "I understand how (a boycott) would get a lot of attention, but I also think we have a lot of work to do to have a sober dialogue about, 'Is this something possible?' " He was saying...

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's idea of holding a special election to name his successor if he's elected lieutenant governor appears to be DOA. Newsom doesn't have the six votes on the Board of Supervisors needed to place a charter amendment on the November ballot to require an election, and there doesn't appear to be much interest downtown for an expensive and rushed petition to get the 47,000 signatures needed to go around the supes.San Francisco Chamber of Commerce Vice President Jim Lazarus, who met with the mayor last week to talk about a charter change, said he doesn't see...

The day before Mayor Gavin Newsom announced he would run for lieutenant governor, he spent hours with the city's labor leaders discussing how to bridge the deficit. Saturday, he took a few hours to dial up the homes of truant kids. The point Newsom likes to make is that even though he announced Friday he's running for lieutenant governor, he plans to be as involved and hands-on as possible in running the city."This city is in my blood," Newsom said, "and I don't want to be the guy who just took off and left the city in ruins." But there...

Mayor Gavin Newsom finally put an end to the questions of will he or won't he, and announced this morning that he is running for lieutenant governor.Newsom dodged reporters' questions for weeks about whether he would trade in City Hall for Sacramento. However, he promised to reveal his decision today, which is the deadline for candidates running for statewide office to file their paperwork. He did just that in an interview on CBS5 with our colleague Phil Matier."I'm in full steam ahead," he said.

It could soon be illegal to sit or lie on public sidewalks anywhere in San Francisco, a law Mayor Gavin Newsom says would make city life safer for pedestrians and merchants, but that homeless advocates and others say would amount to profiling against the poor. Newsom will introduce two separate versions of a sit/lie law today at the Board of Supervisors. One version would prohibit sitting or lying on public sidewalks in about 20 commercial corridors throughout the city and is modeled on a similar law in Seattle that was upheld as constitutional by the U.S. Court of Appeals. The...