Ed Lee

Based on Wikipedia: Ed Lee

On a cold January evening in 2011, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors gathered to decide who would become the city's mayor. The chamber was deadlocked—four candidates had been nominated, but none could secure the six votes needed. Then, after heated debate, something unexpected happened: the old board voted 10–1 to appoint Edwin Mah Lee as Mayor of San Francisco. Supervisor Chris Daly cast the lone dissenting vote. It was a decision that would reshape the city's political landscape.

The man who had just been handed mayoral power came from humble beginnings. Born in 1952 in Seattle's Beacon Hill neighborhood, Lee grew up as the son of immigrants from Taishan, Guangdong, China—his father, Gok Suey Lee, had fought in the Korean War before working as a cook and later managing a restaurant in Seattle. His mother toiled as a seamstress and waitress. When his father died at fifteen, Lee was left with five siblings to look after. It wasn't a childhood marked by privilege; it was shaped by the quiet resilience that defines so many immigrant families.

Lee attended Franklin High School before ascending to Bowdoin College in Maine, where he graduated summa cum laude in 1974—summa cum laude, a distinction so rare it signals exceptional intellectual fire. He spent a year overseas as a Watson Fellow, then earned his Juris Doctor from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law in 1978. The law school opened doors that would define his career.

Working as managing attorney for the San Francisco Asian Law Caucus, Lee became an advocate for affordable housing and the rights of immigrants and renters—a cause that would echo throughout his political life. In 1989, Mayor Art Agnos appointed Lee as the city's first investigator under the landmark whistleblower ordinance. The appointment was both symbolic and practical: it represented a commitment to transparency in city government at a time when such offices were still being shaped.

The deputy director of Human Relations followed, but Lee's ambitions extended beyond bureaucratic roles. In 1991, he became executive director of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission—a position that placed him at the intersection of civil rights and municipal governance under three mayors: Agnos, Frank Jordan, and Willie Brown. Then came his appointment as director of city purchasing, where among other responsibilities, he ran the city's first Minority/Women-Owned Business Enterprise program.

In 2000, Lee was appointed director of public works—a role that positioned him at the heart of San Francisco's infrastructure. By 2005, Mayor Gavin Newsom appointed him to a five-year term as city administrator, where he oversaw the reduction of city government and implemented the city's first-ever ten-year capital plan.

The path to mayoral office began in 2010, when Gavin Newsom was elected Lieutenant Governor of California. Under the San Francisco City Charter, vacancies in the mayoral office demanded a majority vote from the Board of Supervisors—each supervisor barred from voting for themselves. Speculation about possible appointees followed instantly.

Four old supervisors were term-limited; four new people had just been elected to take their places. The board nominated four candidates: former Mayor Art Agnos, Sheriff Michael Hennessey, former board president Aaron Peskin—and Lee. None captured the necessary six votes at the January 4, 2011 meeting.

But after debate, some supervisors expressed willingness to switch their support to Lee. The meeting was recessed until January 7.

At that session, the old board voted 10–1 to elect Lee as mayor—with outgoing Supervisor Chris Daly casting the lone "no" vote. At the time, Lee promised not to seek election if appointed, a statement that helped gain support for his appointment. He pledged not to run.

The preliminary and non-binding nature of the vote was key: Newsom had delayed his resignation until new members of the board took office. A final vote was taken on January 11 by the new board—Lee received unanimous support. He took office immediately, with his term expiring in January 2012 when the winner of November's mayoral election would assume office.

He originally pledged not to run. But political activists—including Rose Pak (consultant for the San Francisco Chinese Chamber of Commerce), Planning Commission President Christina Olague, Assistant District Attorney Victor Hwang, 'Progress for All' chief consultant Enrique Pearce, and Eddy Zheng—launched a "Run Ed Run" campaign in June 2011 to encourage him to put his name on the ballot.

By July 28, Lee had visited his daughters in Washington state, discussed the possibility of running—and still not made up his mind. Senator Dianne Feinstein, herself a former appointee mayor who went on to win reelection twice, publicly supported his candidacy. The San Francisco Chronicle reported unnamed city officials close to Lee had told media he had "nearly finalized his decision" to run.

On August 7, 2011, Lee reneged on his promise to the board of supervisors and formally announced his decision to seek election—citing the atmosphere of political cooperation during his months in office as inspiration. He won the November 2011 election with 56% of votes in the first round of instant-runoff voting; John Avalos finished second.

His tenure would prove transformative for San Francisco's urban landscape—and contentious.

Lee implemented a revitalization of Mid-Market, providing companies that moved into the area with a temporary exemption from paying San Francisco's 1.5 percent payroll tax. Twitter—having threatened to move out of San Francisco into the San Francisco Peninsula without the tax break—moved into Mid-Market in 2011.

In October 2013, Square, Inc. moved its headquarters to the mid-Market area, followed by Uber and Dolby Laboratories. In 2014, this exemption saved companies $34 million.

The plan drew controversy—for the tax breaks given to corporations, yes—but also for the effects of gentrification on the nearby Tenderloin neighborhood, which remains one of San Francisco's most vulnerable communities.

In 2012, Lee proposed creation of a Housing Trust Fund that would generate between $20 million and $50 million of funding for affordable and middle-class housing per year for thirty years. In 2014, Lee and David Chiu (president of the board of supervisors) announced the Ellis Act Housing Preference Program to help people evicted from their homes by landlords using the Act.

That same year, Lee pledged to construct 30,000 new and rehabilitated homes throughout the city by 2020—with half available to low, working, and middle-income San Franciscans. He launched a small site acquisition program to fund the purchase and stabilization of multi-family rental buildings in neighborhoods susceptible to evictions and rising rents.

Lee sponsored a $310 million bond measure to pay for housing for the November 2015 general election—it passed. In 2017, he approved a $44 million project to build affordable housing for teachers.

On minimum wage, Lee was equally ambitious. In December 2013, he called for an increase to San Francisco's minimum wage. In 2014, the board of supervisors unanimously approved a measure to raise the city's minimum wage for the November 2014 ballot. In October 2014, Lee announced that the city's minimum wage of $10.74 per hour would be adjusted to $11.05 per hour—effective January 1, 2015.

In 2015, Lee co-chaired the minimum-wage campaign with Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and worked with the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West for a November victory.

Edwin Mah Lee died on December 12, 2017—in office, as mayor, leaving behind a legacy that reshaped San Francisco's political identity. He was 65.