SF Assembly candidates lay out LGBTQ priorities
No matter who is elected to San Francisco's 17th Assembly District seat, they will work to ban the use of conversion therapy on adults and end unnecessary surgeries on intersex children should the two controversial legislative proposals be revived again in the state Legislature.They are among the LGBTQ priorities backed by the quartet of candidates running in the special February 15 election for the vacant Assembly seat.
The four, three of whom are straight, aim to succeed fellow Democrat David Chiu, who resigned in November when he became San Francisco's first Asian American city attorney.Gay former District 9 supervisor David Campos and District 6 Supervisor Matt Haney are seen as the two most likely to advance to the April 19 runoff election.
No candidate is expected to secure the 50%-plus-one vote needed to win the seat outright next week.But former Obama administration staffer Bilal Mahmood has flooded the screens of television viewers for weeks with campaign spots, raising his visibility among voters, and was endorsed this month by the San Francisco Chronicle.
The more memorable spot features him as a young boy dressed like Superman.Haney, endorsed by the San Francisco Examiner, and his union backers have also paid for TV ads.
