Gordon Mar

Gordon Mar is an American politician from San Francisco. He is a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, representing District 4. Prior to joining the Board of Supervisors, Mar was a longtime labor and community activist and former Executive Director of Jobs with Justice San Francisco and the Chinese Progressive Association. He is the brother of former District 1 supervisor, Eric Mar.

District 4 includes the western San Francisco neighborhoods of Central Sunset, Outer Sunset, Parkside, Outer Parkside, and Pine Lake Park.

After incumbent District 4 Supervisor Katy Tang declined to run for re-election in 2018, Mar filed papers to run for the District 4 seat in the November election. The election was the first District 4 election without an incumbent candidate since 2006, which was won by Ed Jew. In the months leading up to the race, Mar's campaign was frequently criticized for employing underhanded campaign tactics against his opponents. Paid campaign staffers of Mar's campaign were caught tearing down opponents' posters, while Mar himself ran less on a policy-focused message and instead criticized the youth and inexperience of his primary opponent, Jessica Ho.

Mar was elected supervisor for District 4 on November 6, 2018, receiving 10,314 first preference votes (36.29 percent of all valid votes). After allocation of preferences from eliminated candidates in San Francisco's ranked-choice voting system, Mar received 56.84 percent of final-round votes, compared to 43.16 percent for runner-up Jessica Ho, an aide to the incumbent supervisor Katy Tang.

Education - Mar led negotiations with San Francisco Mayor London Breed to fully fund City College of San Francisco's free tuition program for ten years beginning in 2019, and negotiated a deal to provide full reserve funding for raises for San Francisco Unified School District educators.

Homelessness - Mar opposes building a Navigation Center in District 4, despite fellow Supervisor Matt Haney's desire to build a Navigation Center in every district in San Francisco. Mar also spearheaded multiple Board of Supervisors resolution which denounced California State Senator Scott Weiner's SB 50 bill, which would have legalized higher density development in areas close to public transit. Despite these measures, Mar has not introduced any meaningful alternatives to Weiner's bill. District 4, which Mar represents, has not had any meaningful housing development in the past decades.

Public Safety - Mar has called on SFPD to release aggregated demographic data on Asian-American crime victims, following an increase in hate crimes in San Francisco and several high-profile attacks on members of the Chinese community, and announced legislation requiring this data to be released annually.

Electoral Reform - Mar is the author of a number of ordinances reforming San Francisco's electoral system and addressing money in politics, including 2019's Proposition F addressing pay-to-play politics, corporate contributions, and dark-money donations, and Public Financing 2.0, which tripled the impact of San Francisco's public financing program for elections.