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In the shaded courtyard of a San Francisco affordable housing complex in early March, California’s most prolific Yes In My Backyard legislator rolled out his congressional campaign’s new housing platform.
For Sen. Scott Wiener, it was all very on brand.
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Flanked by union construction workers, campaign volunteers and some of the YIMBY advocates who have been on “Team Wiener” since his days on the city’s Board of Supervisors, Wiener ticked through the housing policy highlights. The package was a mix of hyperambitious spending proposals — the type that rarely make it beyond campaign literature — wonky left-of-center objectives and a raft of the kind of pro-development, deregulatory proposals upon which Wiener has built his political reputation.
Proposals to cut red tape might seem an odd fit for Congress, which has historically steered clear of local land-use and construction rules. Wiener was happy to address the apparent mismatch.
“It was also an area, first of all, that the state traditionally was not involved in — and we changed that,” he said.
Since Wiener joined the state Senate in 2017, California’s legislature has undergone a historic pivot on housing. Majorities now embrace the notion, at least rhetorically, that the state has an active role to play in promoting the construction of more homes, even if that means bigfooting local governments and neighborhood groups. More so than any other legislator, Wiener has been the hinge of that pivot.
The question now is whether Wiener, if elected, could help orchestrate the same feat of political reengineering in Congress, given its longstanding aversion to legislating on his policy issue of choice — or, as is increasingly the case, to doing much of anything.
‘Where everything good goes to die’
On the one hand, of course Wiener wants to go to Washington.
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s decision last year to step aside after holding the seat for nearly four decades created a once-in-a-generation opportunity in San Francisco, a city brimming with Democratic political talent and few empty rungs further up the electoral ladder. Wiener has been a professional politician going on 16 years and is possessed of a professional politician’s career ambitions. He’s also termed out of the state legislature in 2028. When he announced his candidacy last October, it was a well-foreshadowed decision that caught virtually no one in the political world by surprise.
On the other hand…really, Congress?
While the legislative branch of the federal government is not a body known for its productivity, Wiener is an exceptionally productive lawmaker. He is the rare California state legislator who can plausibly claim a degree of public name recognition not just outside of his district, but outside the state. That’s in part thanks to his knack for taking up searingly controversial, headline-baiting bills – banning ICE agents from wearing masks, decriminalizing psychedelics, regulating AI, forcing corporations to publicize their carbon footprints and repealing penalties for activities related to sex work.
But it’s also because he has a habit of actually getting a lot of them passed.
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