I get his question asked of me often when traveling. I have to offer my explanation in numbers.
* Over
two-thirds of San Franciscan renters live in rent controlled units,
that is roughly 200,000 people.
* 60,000 people live on trust funds.
* Finally, 30,000 San Franciscans are government employees.
All these numbers represent the highest proportion of people for any large city in the U.S. (excluding government employees in D.C)
I have no way of knowing how many occupants of rent controlled units are trust funders or government employees. Assuming that not all trust funders and not all government employees (several thousand earn over $200,000 a year) are living in rent controlled units, we still have more than 200,000 people who either have no reason to care what the tax bill for San Francisco is, or have reasons to want it increased because they work for the government.
Again, I have
no idea what percent of the 200,000+ San Franciscans in these three
groups vote, but there is good reason to believe they are at least the majority (90,000) of the 180,000 people who regularly vote.
Thus, San Francisco appears to have a majority of voters who are not impacted by rising local taxes or else they benefit from higher taxes. No wonder we have tax and spend socialists running the City.
That is my explanation.
Of course my demographic explanation ignores the radical history of San Francisco that had a citywide general strike by concerted union effort in 1934 and an openly Communist labor union leader (Harry Bridges, whom I knew) for thirty years.