Connie Chan Is Part of the Political Machine

Connie Chan, San Francisco’s District 1 Supervisor, is running for Congress. Her pitch, laid out in the SF Examiner, rests on a single word: pragmatic.

When asked if she sees herself as a progressive, Chan said she is “pragmatic” and evaluates herself “based on results.” She told the Examiner her record speaks for itself. It does.

Chan is a politician handpicked by the establishment, who tried to defund the police and block affordable housing — and then blamed others for the predictable consequences of these policies. She has made scamming a political strategy, and hypocrisy the status quo. She abandoned the needs of the Asian American community, and then claimed to be a champion of it.

Chan, despite her attempts to suggest otherwise, is not a victim of the powerful political machine that runs SF politics. She is the machine.

Made by the Machine

Chan’s pragmatism is a recent discovery. SFist described her as “something of a protege of progressive board vet Aaron Peskin.” She worked as Peskin’s staffer before ever running for office. Her predecessor, Sandra Lee Fewer, personally recruited her to run for the District 1 seat. She won that first race by 134 votes.

She now chairs the Board’s most powerful budget committee. She isn’t running against the political establishment. She is the establishment.

But when the machine’s track record becomes a liability, Chan puts distance between herself and it. She frames herself as the underdog against better-funded opponents, telling the Examiner, “We never had enough resources.” She chairs the budget of a city facing what even the Examiner calls a “jaw-dropping deficit.”

She’s selling herself as an outsider because she knows that the establishment that she is a part of has failed San Francisco.

Defund, Then Demand

From 2020 to 2021, anti-Asian hate crimes in San Francisco surged 567%. SFPD Chief Bill Scott called it “significant, concerning and alarming.” Elders were being shoved, chased, attacked on camera. The community was terrified.

Yet at a 2024 candidate forum, Chan said it was time to “dismantle [and] restructure our police department.” As Budget Chair in March 2023, she refused to calendar Mayor Breed’s $27.6 million supplemental for SFPD and the DA’s office. When the proposal finally moved forward, her committee cut another $2 million from the overtime budget — calling it wasteful at a moment when officers were working mandatory overtime because the department was nearly 600 people short. She backed Prop B, the “cop tax” requiring voters to pass a new tax before the city could hire any officers. Voters killed it, 73% to 27%. She voted against live camera access for police even after a 94-year-old was stabbed on video.

Chan also campaigned until the final day for DA Chesa Boudin to remain in office. Boudin characterized the murder of 84-year-old Vicha Ratanapakdee — the grandfather who became the face of the Stop Asian Hate movement — as “some sort of a temper tantrum.” He did not pursue it as a hate crime. His family was devastated. The city was watching. Chan stood with Boudin. While the community buried its dead and elders stopped leaving their homes, she defended the system that was failing them.

And yet, Chan refused to acknowledge her own culpability. One day before a violent attack in the Richmond District, Chan sent demands to Mayor Breed asking to bolster SFPD’s presence in her neighborhood. The same police presence she had spent years dismantling.

Block, Then Claim Credit

Chan’s congressional campaign video features a building at 383 Sixth Ave and claims she “built real affordable housing.” FoglineSF’s audit found the project was started in 2019 by Sandra Lee Fewer, before Chan was even sworn in. It was funded with $52 million in state money, drawn from the Sacramento housing laws Chan actively opposes. State Sen. Scott Wiener pointed out the obvious: the state-level housing approach Chan attacks is what built the housing she now takes credit for.

The building in her campaign video was started by her predecessor, built with state money, using laws she opposes.

Chan opposed Mayor Lurie’s upzoning plan, sending “non-negotiable” demands that would block new housing construction. She voted against the Family Zoning Plan that would allow buildings like the one in her campaign ad. She blames billionaires and the absence of progressive taxation. Not supply. Not zoning. Billionaires.

That’s her “record.”

Even the Examiner noticed the gap. They reported that Chan’s description of her legislative record was “largely based on opposition to others’, rather than affirmative measures of her own.”

Taxation Over Pragmatism

Chan champions a CEO tax and a wealth tax, framing them as the way to help San Francisco’s most vulnerable. It’s the same false-choice logic Boudin used: help the poor OR let the rich keep their money. A binary that was never real and was never the only option.

But look at who actually pays. First- and second-generation Asian American families are building generational wealth for the first time. Of all racial groups in America, Asian Americans hold the strongest belief in the American dream — the conviction that what you build through hard work is yours to keep and pass on. Chan’s economic agenda takes direct aim at that belief.

The cruelest detail: the revenue from these taxes is earmarked for healthcare. Not housing. Healthcare. Housing is the number one affordability pressure crushing San Francisco families — not healthcare. She is taxing the wealth this community is just beginning to build, to fund programs that don’t address the thing actually forcing families out of the city.

It’s the same pattern every time. A false choice. A community that pays the price. And a politician who frames obstruction as advocacy.

Chan’s Strategy

Defund the police, then demand more police. Block housing, then claim credit for housing. Back a recalled DA, then run as the pragmatist.

When the machine’s record is an asset, she wraps herself in it. When it’s a liability, she pretends she’s outside it.

The idea of the first Chinese American woman holding this congressional seat is powerful. It deserves to be honored by someone whose record actually reflects this community’s values, its sacrifices, and its dreams. Not someone who defunded the police while elders were getting attacked, blocked housing while families got priced out, and campaigned for the DA who dismissed a grandfather’s murder as a temper tantrum.

Safety is not a privilege. Housing is not a talking point. The American dream is not something to be taxed away from families who are just now beginning to live it.

Garry Tan

@garrytan

Don’t fall for the ruse. The machine has expensive PR spin but we actually have eyes and a long memory Connie Chan is a machine politician chosen by the same players who created the SF doom loop, caused the housing crisis and want to destroy prosperity and public safety

Frank Smith

@frank_smith1111

Remember that Connie Chan said she wanted to "dismantle the police" and voted against SFPD supplementals, only to later complain to Breed about the lack of police officers in her district. Now she is branding herself as pragmatic. You can't make this up. sfexaminer.com/news/politics/supervisor-connie-chan-bid-for-congress/article_0ad05f66-ee11-4699-b949…

May 13, 2026

3 2 5 884

Connie Chan is not working to overcome the SF political machine. She is the machine. Don’t let her tell you otherwise.