“America has only three cities: New York, New Orleans, and San Francisco. Everywhere else is just Cleveland.”
— Tennessee Williams
Even among other great cities, San Francisco is magical.
There’s no other place that packs so much diversity into so small an area. Turn a corner and you find yourself in Manhattan; turn another, you’re in Hong Kong; hop on a bus and, 15 minutes later, you’re in Malibu. This has long been a city of bankers and surfers, construction workers and immigrants, living together, crossing paths with one another, and making San Francisco their home.
Increasingly, though, we’ve become a place that only works for two types of people: those who own Teslas, and those who break into them.
Property crime is rampant. Our streets have been surrendered to a homelessness and a mental health crisis. The median cost of a home is 10 times the median income. And, in return for high taxes, endless fees, and the country’s largest municipal budget per capita, we get what one ranking calls “the second-worst run city in America.”
It wasn’t always like this. What happened?
Decades of far left politics
Defunding the police, standing in the way of school choice and charter schools, and handing out money to drug tourists — all of these ideas sound great to those who can afford hired security, private school tuition, and homes in politically privileged neighborhoods. But they don’t work for the average San Franciscan.
Our city deserves better. We deserve a new politics of opportunity for everyone. All San Franciscans should have the right to choose what’s best for themselves, their families, and their communities — and that right shouldn’t depend on one’s bank account. Whether you call yourself independent, center-right, or conservative, we can all agree: It’s too expensive to be a progressive.
That’s why we started the Briones Society
We believe there is a large, unheard, and underserved constituency of voters in San Francisco who are tired of virtue signaling from the left and conspiracy theories from the right. Voters are waiting for a real alternative — a new politics that’s not just watered-down progressivism.
That’s why poll after poll shows widespread dissatisfaction with how our city is administered, yet the same people keep getting re-elected. That’s why San Francisco perennially ranks first or second among California counties with the highest proportion of voters registered as “no party preference.” Giving voice to the unheard —that’s why we started the Briones Society.
We are building a coalition of voters in San Francisco to realize a new politics of Opportunity for Everyone and help our city thrive. We educate, advocate, organize, and mobilize in support of Opportunity for Everyone candidates and policies aligned with our core principles. Many of us are Republicans and focus our efforts on Republican politics because we believe in the GOP of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan — but some of us are Democrats and independents, too. We never put what’s good for a party before what’s good for our community or our country. If you’ve ever walked the streets of our beautiful city and been dismayed at what’s become of it, thinking to yourself, “someone should do something about this,” come join us — let’s do something about it together.
Our core values
Optimism. We believe San Francisco can be the best place to live in America.
Civility. We assume good intentions, debate with humility, and seek to build bridges, not burn them.
Leadership. We model the leadership that citizens have a right to expect: conscientious, compassionate, and prudent.
Diversity. America is an idea, and we welcome all who embrace it — no matter where they come from, whom they love, or how they worship.
Constitutionalism. We respect the institutions that undergird our free society and condemn attempts to delegitimize or politicize them.
Accountability. We believe that compassion and accountability, in equal measure, create strong communities and healthy individuals.
Consensus. We work to find solutions that address the needs of broad-based, diverse constituencies, not just simple majorities.
Competence. We think that government can be a force for good, but it should start by doing a few big things well, not many small things poorly.
Dynamism. We reject one-size-fits-all solutions and believe in the power of markets to surface diverse, novel ideas that work.