San Francisco prides itself on setting up a system for opening up doors for fresh leaders — yet buried within its city charter is a quiet loophole that has allowed some politicians to remain in power, leaving no room for young people. Is this intentional or incidental?
District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood has proposed a 2026 measure to be placed on the ballot that would limit supervisors and mayors to two four-year terms, arguing that the current rules make it difficult for fresh faces to enter politics. This fight began with Adrianna Zhang, former Chair of the San Francisco Youth Commission, and Ruth Furgerson, City College Board Trustee, who have been working relentlessly together to launch a petition to place this measure on the June 2026 ballot near the end of last year.
In 1996, San Francisco passed Proposition G with 57 percent in favor of establishing term limits. However, the initiative defined term limits as only applying to consecutive terms within a district. This means, in theory, that an incumbent can abstain for one term or run for a different office before returning. The language within Proposition G doesn’t address the revolving door of being able to keep running after two terms, allowing politicians like Aaron Peskin to remain in office for almost a decade. Ruth and Adrianna felt a profound sense of responsibility for the future of young people to close this term limit loophole by finding an ally with District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood to push for a movement that will pave the way for new leaders to bring fresh perspectives to San Francisco politics.
In San Francisco, the average age of a mayor entering office is 51; for supervisors, it’s 50. In 175 years of the city’s existence, 6.5 percent of 600 district supervisors have been women. These statistics echo a core issue of this loophole: young women are disproportionately disadvantaged in races due to a lack of established networks and big-name donors. While men continue to rely on their name recognition, large donor networks, and political connections to stay in office, young grassroots-led women aren’t able to access elected office to shape policies and laws that affect everyday life.
This is significant to address since, within the past 100 years, women only started running and being elected to local government. However, the evident gap in gendered representation has led to many nationwide efforts to combat this issue.
For instance, the Gender-targeted Public Funding for Political Parties initiative focuses on incentivizing political parties to gain state funding when the party successfully endorses or nominates a certain number of women to be put on the ballot. San Francisco can also follow along on the efforts to focus on reforms and policies that align with opening up opportunities for young women and young people to run for elected office.
But young women are typically more averse to competition than men and less inclined to enter politics in the first place because of the numerous barriers to political office. Furthermore, women often face obstacles such as family care and a lack of early funding support that deter entering politics to begin with. But women do choose to run despite these barriers. Thus, the city has an innate responsibility to level the playing field for women to run for office and to remove politicians who, for far too long, relied on their established political webs.
Some argue that if voters continue to re-elect the same officials, it simply reflects democracy in action. In this view, elections provide voters with the opportunity to decide who represents them, and if constituents choose to keep an incumbent in office, that outcome reflects their democratic will. In my interview with Adrianna Zhang, she believes, “the political factions and the politics of San Francisco don’t work for young people and new voices. This is what makes politics and good governance exhausting. And if you know that you’re going to run in the future again, and you will be seeking re-election, I mean, it’s natural. It’s not even any one politician’s fault. It’s the system that incentivizes people to keep looking at campaigns, and their next re-election. That defeats the whole point of term limits in the first place, which is why we are calling it a loophole.”
Adrianna Zhang at press conference | Image Source: Adrianna Zhang
Moreover, this view overlooks how deeply power and money shape electoral outcomes. San Francisco’s term limit loophole does not accurately measure whether voters prefer fresh leadership; instead, it tests whether new candidates can compete financially with entrenched incumbents — and they usually cannot. These structural advantages make elections far less competitive, often pushing out grassroots leaders before voters get a genuine choice between new ideas and the status quo.
District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood has successfully pushed the ballot measure to be placed on the June 2026 ballot. Yet, some of his colleagues were not fully convinced of the measure’s intentions to effectively give young people the opportunity to run for public office.
Voters in San Francisco restored district elections in 1996 when the city passed Proposition G, which implies that they clearly understood that the eight-year term limit was not a lifetime ban. District Super 10 Shammon Walton argues that labeling this design as a “loophole” misrepresents voter intent, since San Franciscans deliberately voted for a system that allows officials to return after a break. In an interview with Adrianna, she argues, “If I were an average voter, I would assume I’m implementing term limits. This means two mayoral terms on the board of supervisors. Now, what it becomes is very different from what I believe the average voter was expecting in the 90s. You’re not limiting the terms if you’re allowing politicians to come back again.” This points to the systematic error that snowballed into a system incentivizing people to keep looking at campaigns and their next re-election.
Mahmood also mentioned last year’s election, which brought six millennials onto the Board of Supervisors, as evidence that San Francisco is entering a generational shift in leadership. While that instance signals progress, it also underscores the fragility of such change. If structural loopholes allow incumbents to extend their tenure beyond what voters originally envisioned under term limits, opportunities for new leaders can still remain rare and dependent on unusual political circumstances rather than a consistent, fair system.
In that sense, the recent wave of younger supervisors strengthens the argument for closing the loophole: it suggests that voters are open to new leadership, and the city’s laws should reinforce regular pathways for turnover. At the same time, Walton characterized the proposal as “a solution in search of a problem,” framing this debate as a waste of time.
District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar argued that offices like the DA and city attorney require specialized credentials. To run for DA or city attorney, the charter requires a valid license to practice law in California and five years of membership in the State Bar. There are at least 10,000 lawyers in San Francisco who meet that standard. Says Walton, “This measure wouldn’t allow, say, a deputy city attorney with many years of experience to run for that office unless they challenged the incumbent.”
Additionally, District 9 Supervisor Jackie Fielder pointed out that two of the last three city attorneys (Louise Renne and David Chiu) have been appointed by a mayor and had no prior experience in that office, giving individuals the advantages of incumbency even if they weren’t originally chosen by voters for that specific role. Adrianna’s response details: “We’re doing something very specific here with the mayor and Board of Supervisors roles, and if this is a conversation to have later on to implement term limits to different offices, I’d be happy to have that conversation.”
These critics have argued that the measure does little to expand opportunity because candidates have to challenge incumbents directly, and mayoral appointments can recreate incumbency. While incumbency advantages are real, they are temporary under this framework, not endless. They are missing the bigger picture — that charter amendment tackles the core purpose of the reform: to prevent the recycling of political power for the mayor and Board of Supervisors. Even if the measure does not instantly level every playing field, it fundamentally changes the long-term structure of power by ensuring that politicians will exit the system entirely. Nonetheless, this measure directly expands opportunities for young people and women by intentionally restructuring the city’s charter to prevent entrenched power and create real, not theoretical, pathways for new leadership.
San Francisco cannot claim to champion equity and fresh leadership while quietly preserving a system that recycles the same political power. Term limits were meant to create real turnover — not temporary pauses and comebacks. This measure is a correction in San Francisco’s city charter. It restores the original spirit of voter intent and affirms that public office is a privilege, not a career entitlement. If San Francisco truly believes in opening doors for young people and women, then it must close the loophole that keeps those doors shut.
Featured Image Source: Bernard Spragg on Flickr