San Francisco Blog

A San Francisco court keeps Prop H on the ballot because the lies its supporters told about it went through proper channels
By Benjamin Wachs

Which is more important: protecting the voters from being deceived, or protecting their right to put stuff on ballots?

It’s a big, important question, and as anyone who’s ever fallen asleep at a trial knows, the legal system usually crushes important questions into really small details that no one cares about.
This morning, San Francisco’s Superior Court ruled that the voter’s right to put stuff on ballots … even if they don’t know what it is … is so important that it excuses lying to them.

This is why lawyers are so expensive – they’re paid not to laugh.

Just over 18,000 San Francisco voters signed petitions this summer to put Proposition H on November’s ballot. The 500 word summary of the bill given to these San Francisco voters said that Proposition H would increase parking at residential homes. Specifically, that it would increase the number of parking spaces per residential unit from 1 space per four unites, or 1 per 3 (the current legal limit) to 3 spaces for every four unites, or even 1 for one.

Trouble is, that’s not true at all: the current law states that there will be three parking spaces for every 4 residential units – or even 1 for 1.

Oops.

Prop H, it turns out, does little-to-nothing to increase residential parking. What it will do is increase downtown office parking by 556%, and downtown retail parking by over 1,500%.
What does the ballot summary shown to those voters say about that?

Nothing. Seriously.

It’s patently obvious at this point that those 18,000 San Francisco voters were lied to when they were asked to support Proposition H.

But that’s not what concerned San Francisco Superior Court Judge Peter Busch this morning as he considered the question of whether to remove Prop H from the ballot.

What concerned him were the procedural issues. That is to say: was the system working properly when it deceived 18,000 voters, or had the system broken down somehow and deceived them improperly?

Procedurally, Prop H passes with flying colors. The deceptive ballot summary was written by the city attorney (again, oops), and posted publicly with plenty of time for anyone who knew enough about Prop H and about city parking ratios and who happened to see the erroneous posting to complain and have it fixed.

Nothing illegal there.

Furthermore, the canvassers who were getting people to sign Prop H’s petition had copies of the full 66 page ballot proposition, which anyone who was concerned could have looked at to see that, in fact, the 500 word summary bore almost no relation to the actual ballot measure they were being asked to support.

Once again, the system worked.

Finally, and to Judge Busch most importantly, the 500 word summary was at least vaguely kinda sorta right, in that it did say there will be more parking spaces under Prop H, and yes, there will indeed be more parking spaces under Prop H. He called that “substantially correct.”

He was specifically impressed by the statement “This ordinance would amend the Planning Code in several ways to increase the number of accessory parking spaces required or allowed in the City.” The fact that such a statement was there, and technically accurate, is sufficient. Procedure had been followed.

It doesn’t matter if the example given is a flat out lie, and the major impact isn’t even mentioned in the summary: the point is that voters’ right to put stuff on the ballot is so important, so sacrosanct, that it trumps their right to know what it is they’re putting there.

“The court needs to be incredibly cautious in disenfranchising the right of the 18,000 people who signed the petition,” he said.

Somehow, nobody in the court laughed.