Op-ed authored by Senator Wiener, Former Senator Mark Leno, and Community College Board Member Rafael Mandelman
In the News
“While I understand why an attorney, in order to win a case, might be tempted to inquire about immigration status, as a matter of public policy it’s a terrible idea,” Wiener said. “The minute people feel unsafe going to court and testifying, our public safety is harmed.”
"It's great that this important public health and safety bill took another step forward," gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), who co-authored the bill with Eggman, told the Bay Area Reporter. "Having a safe space where people can inject will mean less injecting in public spaces, fewer needles on the ground, and more opportunities to get people into recovery programs. Our current situation isn't working. Let's try this pilot and see if it works. If it doesn't work, we can pivot away from it. But let's at least try."
Stepping in to centralize more land use decisions in Sacramento would reveal that there is a strong broad statewide interest in more development. It would mean more jobs and higher middle class living standards, but also higher tax revenue and more resources available for social housing.
Scott Wiener, a state senator from San Francisco, has been pushing housing legislation that would move in this direction — basically forcing cities to streamline their building approvals process if they don’t meet housing growth targets.
“I think LGBT people in San Francisco understand what LGBT people in other states go through in terms of living under discrimination and really being attacked and marginalized,” Wiener said. “So we feel a special responsibility to stick up for our brothers and sisters in all 50 states, including South Dakota; there are a lot of LGBT people in South Dakota and they need advocates.”
San Francisco was ground zero, with three times as many AIDS cases per capita as New York and 10 times as many as Los Angeles. At one point, about half of San Francisco’s gay men were infected and most expected to die within 10 years. I’ve heard horror stories from gay men with gray hair, many of them tearing up just thinking about all the friends and partners they lost.
So it’s telling that it’s a gay man from San Francisco, Sen. Scott Wiener, who is pushing the bill that would greatly reduce the penalties for transmitting HIV.
By Senator Mike McGuire and Senator Scott Wiener
As President Trump and Congressional Republicans plan to reconfigure the federal tax code, the estate tax—defended by liberals as a vital check on inequality and reviled by conservatives as fiscal punishment dealt to the recently deceased—may not be long for this world.
But if the controversial tax should meet its untimely end this year, Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco wants California to introduce an estate tax of its own.
“This bill is about people who are just trying to live their lives; people who are living in fear because of the political atmosphere,” said Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco. “People who need to be able to trust their government.”