San Francisco saw a different kind of earthquake Tuesday: a voter revolt against wokeness on public safety and other issues.
In a backlash against the “doom loop” spiral downward, the public passed four ballot proposals restoring common sense in policing, welfare-type benefits, government ethics and education.
In a rebuke to the #Defund crowd, one measure sets a minimum size for police staffing, lets cops chase suspects even when they can’t cite an immediate threat to public safety — and even OKs public-safety cameras that use facial-recognition tech as well as police drones.
Another requires drug testing of those who get city help on housing (shelters included), utility bills, food or finding employment.
A third tightens rules on when city employees can accept gifts; the fourth guarantees the offering of Algebra I in 8th grade — overruling with 84% voter support a woke ban on the course imposed in the name of racial “equity.”
This follows voters’ ejection of progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin in 2022 and the earlier ouster of three hyper-left school-board members.
Notably, Mayor London Breed, once a police-defunder, backed the cop-empowerment measure as well as the drug-testing one, which both passed with more than 60% support.
San Francisco remains a liberal town, but one that feels mugged by progressive excesses.
As Breed explained in turning her back on the left’s favored approach to drug abuse: “Harm reduction from my perspective is not reducing the harm.”
If only New York City’s public-health authorities had such good sense.
Indeed, Gotham could benefit from a similar explosion of common sense on all these issues.
Mayor Adams should find a way to let the public vote on, for example, his call for modification of New York’s “sanctuary city” policies to let the NYPD talk to ICE about migrants who commit crimes here.
The voter revolt in San Francisco shows a broad appetite for facing facts on crime, public disorder and other common-sense issues, even though the winners of lower-level elections keep imposing progressive lunacy.
If ‘Frisco can beat back suicidal wokeness, New York can, too.