The Britt bashers Judging from talks with Sup. Mark Leno and his campaign supporters, the race between Leno and former supervisor Harry Britt for state assembly (13th District) is going to get much, much uglier. Both the Bay Area Reporter and the online San Francisco Sentinel have been taking shots at Britt for an unfortunate off-the-cuff remark he made to Leno – but that's just the start. Voters should expect a barrage of misleading (and sometimes laughably inaccurate) charges against Britt: They'll claim he missed votes that were important to the queer community when he was a supervisor. They're going to suggest that he's a radical leftist – and also that he's a Republican. Then they'll try to say that he's taken a lot of money from corporations.

Britt's camp is ready for the charges. As for Britt's missed votes, it's true that during the last year and a half of his tenure on the board he wasn't around as much as he had been the first 12 and a half years. But Britt's supporters say Leno's campaign director, Robert Barnes, should be careful before rolling this one out, because his absence was due to a deeply personal reason. He was the primary caregiver to his mother, who was dying in Texas, as well as his disabled brother, who died a year later.

Most important, Britt's camp says its guy was there for the community when it really mattered: He was, among other things, the first person to bring funding for HIV-related illnesses to San Francisco. He was the first to push domestic partners legislation, and he stuck with it for the 10 years it took to get it passed. He also authored almost every important piece of tenant legislation in the 1980s, including the rent-control law that makes it possible for many longtime residents to stay in San Francisco.

Maybe those ideas were "radical" when Britt proposed them. But by the standards of progressive politics in the city today, he's hardly a commie nut. Is he a Republican? Well, Leno's folks have an old letter in which a former Britt backer writes that he heard Britt say he was going to vote for Pete Wilson over Dianne Feinstein for governor in 1990. Britt told the Bay Guardian he isn't sure he ever said that (and he swears he didn't actually cast such a vote), but he's hardly the only person in town at the time who was so frustrated with the pro-downtown policies of Feinstein that he would joke about finding her worse than a Republican. It was a pretty common line back then.

As for his "corporate money, the definition of "corporation" being used by the Leno campaign includes "mom and pop" stores and lawyers' and doctors' groups – not the likes of Chevron or Wells Fargo, two multinational biggies that have contributed to Leno. (Savannah Blackwell)

Endorsement roundup On Jan. 16 the San Francisco Tenants Union gave the nod to Britt for the 13th District state assembly seat and Dan Kelly for the 12th District state assembly seat and decided on "no endorsement" in the San Francisco public defenders race. The Alice B. Toklas Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Democratic Club, which has strong ties to Barnes, endorsed Leno for the 13th District assembly post and Kim Burton for San Francisco public defender spot at its Jan. 14 meeting. As for the Harvey Milk Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender Democratic Club, it went for Britt last August and on Jan. 22 backed Kelly for state assembly, Jeff Adachi for public defender, and Michela Alioto for secretary of state over state assembly member Kevin Shelley.

On Jan. 17 the Chinese American Democratic Club endorsed Britt for the assembly seat. According to campaign insiders, Sup. Leland Yee, who is running for the state assembly seat in the 12th District, worked club members on behalf of Britt. No doubt Yee supports Britt, but there may be more to the story: Assemblymember Carole Migden, one of Britt's chief supporters, is helping Yee by remaining neutral in the 12th District assembly race – despite Kelly's seeking her endorsement. (Blackwell)

Getting out the vote With popular progressive Kelly running for state assembly – and collecting endorsements left and right – supporters of his opponent, Yee, are starting to get nervous. According to Susan Suval, president of the Sunset Community Democratic Club, that's the only explanation for what she considers a "Machiavellian manipulation" of her club's endorsement process.

The club's bylaws dictate that in order to vote, a member must have attended at least two general meetings, one within the last 18 months, and paid his or her annual dues. In early December, Suval told us, one club member suggested splitting the voting process into two separate meetings because the ballot was so large. At the next meeting several new people showed up. Suval now suspects that the only reason the endorsement process was split was to create an extra meeting so the new members could vote to endorse Yee on Feb. 1.