Daniel Lurie speaking during the Mayoral Town Hall presented by the API Council at the Hilton Hotel in Chinatown, San Francisco on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024.
Mayor-elect Daniel Lurie pledged during his campaign that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders — who make up 37% of The City’s population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau — would be well-represented in his administration.
AAPI political director Kit Lam, left, and Campaign Manager Han Zou were among the Asian Americans playing key roles in Daniel Lurie’s successful run for mayor of San Francisco.
“Thirty-seven percent of our community is AAPI, and that will be represented at every level of my administration,” he said forcefully at an Asian Pacific Islander Council town hall in September, referring to July 2022 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau of the Asian American and Pacific Islander population in San Francisco.
Lurie repeated that claim time and time again during his 25-minute appearance at the forum, and throughout his 14-month campaign. His pitch to Asian American voters centered on guaranteeing the ethnic group would be proportionately represented in his administration.
“It’s really important that I keep saying it over and over again — the AAPI community will have significant representation equal to the population of our city, at least,” he said. “That’s how a mayor makes sure that the needs of the community are being met.”
Daniel Lurie speaking during the Mayoral Town Hall presented by the API Council at the Hilton Hotel in Chinatown, San Francisco on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024.
Craig Lee/The Examiner
Now, Lurie has a chance to fulfill the lofty pledge. The potential particulars remain unclear, but The City’s Asian American leaders say they are anxious to see whether the mayor-elect — an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, founder of antipoverty nonprofit Tipping Point and a political newcomer — can make it happen.
“I believe we should give him an opportunity to work towards that goal, starting with department heads and top management positions,” said Claudine Cheng, an attorney who has served on multiple organizational bodies within City Hall.
Lurie’s 37% pledge didn’t mention much in the way of specifics. It is unclear what staff constitutes “every level of his administration,” and whether he is speaking about mayoral appointees, his office staff or the entirety of City Hall. Lurie, who didn’t respond to The Examiner’s request for comment, would not have control over many hires in the latter camp.
But larger disparities exist higher up the political ladder. Only 21% of managers in city government at the time were Asian — still the most out of any minority group — while 50% of them were white.
Jaynry Mak, a longtime Chinese American community advocate and a close ally of outgoing Mayor London Breed, said it will be important to track the positions to which Lurie is appointing Asian Americans.
“Are these people also going to be in an executive position where they can make decisions and actually have a say,” she said. “If it’s like your scheduler and your handler, then does that count?”
In 2022, 37 out of the 145 workers — about 26% — in Breed’s office identified as Asian American. If Lurie’s office is the same size as Breed’s, he would need to add another 17 Asian American employees to reach 37%.
Most Asian American advocates and politicians who spoke to The Examiner said they were at least hopeful that Lurie could make good on his word. But they were also reluctant to predict whether or not it could be accomplished.
Nancy Tung, chair of the San Francisco Democratic Party and a member of Lurie’s transition team, called it a “laudable goal.” During an interview conducted before the announcement that she was joining Lurie’s transition, she said Asian Americans’ historical lack of interest in political careers has generally made it difficult for people to fill city positions with people from those groups.
“Perhaps this is an opportunity that we’re able to encourage more young Asian American Pacific Islanders to see politics as a viable career, as some place where their perspectives can be valued and that they have something to offer in these specific realms,” Tung said.
Donald Luu, president of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, said he was dubious about Lurie’s goal because he feared there weren’t enough qualified Asian Americans for that amount of positions.
“I don’t think, to be honest with you, we have a good bench to propose to them,” Luu said.
Mayor-elect Daniel Lurie pledged during his campaign that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders — who make up 37% of The City’s population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau — would be well-represented in his administration.
Craig Lee/The Examiner
Luu endorsed Lurie as his second choice for mayor behind Breed and was front and center walking with him through Chinatown the day the mayor-elect declared victory in the race.
Luu said he spoke frequently with Lurie throughout the campaign. In most of those conversations, Luu said Lurie emphasized his priority to build a City Hall staff representative of the amount of Asian Americans in San Francisco.
“It’s a goal for him to achieve. But we don’t have the talent,” Luu said. “We don’t have experience in our community to put them in positions so that they can be influential and be effective in his administration.”
Still, Luu said he “sincerely believes” that Lurie will try as best he can to deliver on the campaign promise.
Former San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Norman Yee vigorously disagreed with Luu that there aren’t enough Asian Americans for Lurie to hit his target.
The Levi Strauss heir spent mountains on his mayoral bid
Yee, who endorsed San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin as his first choice for mayor and Breed second, said Lurie can only make recommendations on who to hire in many City Hall departments and commissions. Those calls are not his to unilaterally make, which Yee said could prevent progress toward the mayor-elect’s representational goals.
Yee said Lurie’s representation pledge was a “straight-up political” move during his campaign.
“He was trying to convince Asians to vote for him,” Yee said. “Whether he’s going to fulfill it, time will tell.”
Mayoral candidate Daniel Lurie stops for a photograph while marching through the streets of Chinatown on Nov. 2, 2024.
Adam Shanks/The Examiner
Preliminary results indicate that Lurie was able to garner a significant share of the Asian American vote. Lurie was the leading first-place vote-getter in heavily Asian American neighborhoods such as the Richmond, Sunset and Portola. Even in Chinatown, Lurie (26.1% of first-place votes) just barely finished second to Peskin (29.2%), the district’s longtime representative.
Lurie’s success came without earning endorsements from three of the most prominent Asian American political organizations: the Rose Pak Democratic Club (which solely endorsed Peskin), the Chinese American Democratic Club (Mark Farrell) and the Ed Lee Asian Pacific Democratic Club (Breed).
Yee credited Lurie’s success to the combination of a message that resonated throughout the Asian American community and having the finances to spread that message to every corner of The City.
“He had plenty of money to get his message out there, versus somebody like Peskin, whose message wasn’t out there as much,” Yee said. “I didn’t see it. I mean, I was getting daily mailers from Lurie.”
Mak attributed Lurie’s claims about creating deep representation for Asian Americans in his administration as making a “huge” difference in the election.
“I think when he said it, people believed him and relied on what he was saying,” she said. “It probably had some impact and influenced their vote on him. He should be held accountable to that.”
Hanley Chan, a board member of the historically moderate Chinese American Democratic Club, said he is confident that Lurie’s pledge will become reality.
“His promises reflect a genuine intent to bring meaningful change and honor the diverse voices in our city,” Chan said, who made clear the longstanding organization is firmly behind the new mayor.
But even organizers from the Rose Pak Democratic Club, a usually progressive political group, admitted that they were enamored with the moderate Lurie.
While Peskin, the lone progressive in the mayoral race, was its clear No. 1 choice for mayor, club Vice President Alvin Lee said leadership had a lengthy and substantive discussion about endorsing Lurie as its second pick.
Lee said that fascination stemmed from the formal conversation the club’s board of directors had with Lurie as it was making its endorsement decisions.
The organization met privately with every mayoral candidate before the election. Its talk with Lurie, Lee said, stood out above the rest.
“We were very surprised with how he was able to really connect with the API community,” he said. “He came off really polished and very well-prepared, and I think it was very clear he took the time to really get to understand our community.”
Lee said Lurie’s apparent popularity among many Asian Americans without the support of most of the community’s political establishment indicates that organizations such as his need some self-reflection about how they conduct outreach.
“It was a signal for our club to listen to our communities more — not just listen to certain members of certain parts of the community, but the community at large,” he said.
“And I will say, I don’t know if the other clubs really took the time to debate and really look into Lurie, engage with him, and even consider him for a No. 2 or No. 3,” Lee said.
AAPI political director Kit Lam, left, and Campaign Manager Han Zou were among the Asian Americans playing key roles in Daniel Lurie’s successful run for mayor of San Francisco.
Craig Lee/The Examiner
Lee credited Lurie’s decision to surround himself with longtime Asian American political operatives, including Han Zou, his campaign manager, and Kit Lam, his AAPI political director.
“Han is very well versed in the community and in organizing within the community,” Lee said. “I’m sure Daniel’s spent the time listening to not only Han, but others around him that would really get the issues. It seems like he did a lot of listening and understood what the pain points were.”
As to whether Lurie will be able to fulfill his promise of 37% Asian American representation in his administration, Lee would only say he thought it was a “realistic” goal.
“It seems to me that he is making the effort to reach out to people like myself and others,” Lee said. “I think I’m very hopeful that he’s gonna keep his campaign promises.”
