Milk disses Newsom: The Harvey Milk Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Democratic Club became one of the first major political groups in town to oppose the reelection of Sup. Gavin Newsom when it voted to back Lynne Newhouse Segal, a former member of the city's Recreation and Park Commission, in District Two. In the Sunset's District Four, small-business owner Barry Hermanson, a Green Party member who did heavy lifting in the battle for the city to come up with a living-wage ordinance, won the endorsement. Sup. Chris Daly got the club's support for another term representing District Six. And Eileen Hansen, who ran for supervisor from the Castro in 2000, won the organization's backing for District Eight. Sup. Sophie Maxwell, who is running for reelection unopposed, got the club's nod for District 10.

In the race for seats on the school board, the Milk club endorsed two Green Party members, Sarah Lipson and Whitney Leigh. A runoff will be held at next month's meeting between incumbents Dan Kelly and Eddie Chin for the third slot on the board.

The Milk club's slate card will feature a "no" on Newsom's proposal to take cash out of the hands of homeless people (Proposition N) and a "no" on Sup. Tony Hall's measure to lift the city's annual limits on conversion of rental units into condominiums (Proposition R). The club took no position on Proposition C, a $123 million bond measure to give the War Memorial building a seismic upgrade.

The Democratic County Central Committee, despite its increasingly progressive makeup, backed Newsom and state senator John Burton's aide Fiona Ma for Districts Two and Four, respectively. The club did endorse incumbent progressives Daly and Maxwell for Districts Six and 10. In District Eight the club decided not to throw its support to any one candidate. BART director Tom Radulovich and Hansen each have strong support within parts of the committee, and both wanted it to remain neutral in the race.

The DCCC member who has frequently served as political consultant to rising machine stars, Tom A. Hsieh, apparently saw no problem in voting for Newsom, Ma, and Arthur Jackson (who is running in District Six) despite the fact that he's a paid consultant to each of their campaigns and despite chair Jane Morrison's admonition that as a matter of policy those members who stood to financially gain from the races of any particular candidate should refrain from voting. (Member Bill Barnes, for example, who works as an aide to Daly at City Hall, recused himself on the District Six vote).

Hsieh told us that since the DCCC has no law prohibiting a member from casting votes for candidates he or she works for, he felt his votes did not in any way constitute a conflict of interest.

"I am following the rules and felt comfortable with my votes,'' he said. "If you question my votes, you should question the city employees [on the DCCC] who voted for [the proposal that would provide] paid parental leave [for city workers].'' We don't think that's quite the same thing.

The DCCC opposed Newsom's so-called Care Not Cash plan (Prop. N) and supported Ammiano's alternative, Proposition O. The party group also opposed Hall's condo plan, Prop. R.

The proxy representing Sup. Mark Leno, who as the Democratic nominee for state assembly from the 13th District has a seat on the committee, cast three votes that have us worried about how Leno will represent the east side of town in Sacramento. Malik Cooper voted for Hall's measure as well as Newsom's attack on the homeless. He voted against Prop. O. Leno later told us that the Prop. R vote was a mistake. (Savannah Blackwell)

Registration rumbles: The race to get folks to the polls for the November election has officially taken off in San Francisco – and the city's thousands of public housing tenants are once again being eyed as a crucial voting block. The San Francisco Housing Authority Commission voted 5-0 Aug. 22 to spend $50,000 to help register tenants and get them to the polls.

That's a great idea. The only problem, critics say, is the nonprofit the commission hired for the job, the A. Philip Randolph Institute, has a history of dubious behavior around election time.

In 1999, the APRI – a national African American labor association – registered a massive 10,000 voters but was accused, along with the San Francisco Housing Authority, of working on behalf of Mayor Willie Brown's reelection campaign (see "By Whose Authority," 12/22/99).

At Thursday's meeting, James Bryant, an organizer with the San Francisco chapter of the APRI, assured the commission that the group had no political agenda. "We cannot legally solicit for one party or register potential voters for a specific party or candidate," he said.

But electioneering isn't the only charge against the APRI. Prior to the March 2002 election, the group entered into similar contract with the SFHA. Though 800 new voters were registered, only a meager 10 percent of them turned out on Election Day (compared with a citywide average of 45 percent).