Wiener’s Run for Pelosi’s Seat Marks a New Phase for California’s Housing Politics

[This column was reported for Political Breakdown, a bimonthly newsletter offering analysis and context on Bay Area and California political news. Click here to subscribe.]

Scott Wiener has represented San Francisco in the state Senate since 2017. In those eight years, the 55-year-old Democrat has become one of the most prolific and effective lawmakers, particularly on housing issues.

Earlier this month, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Wiener’s landmark SB 79, which allows greater housing density — up to nine stories — along public transit corridors and major bus stops statewide, even in neighborhoods where local zoning restricts development to single-family homes.

“I fight hard and I can be stubborn about it, but I’m being stubborn because people need housing and the system is broken,” Wiener said Tuesday.

Wiener has been a leading advocate for removing barriers to housing construction, including the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, which has often been used to stop, delay or scale down housing projects since its passage in the 1970s.

“He’s authored some really big, really consequential bills — including bills that have a lot of opposition,” said Brian Hanlon, founder of the pro-housing group California YIMBY (Yes in My Backyard). Hanlon called Wiener “one of our strongest housing champions,” and said he often goes the extra mile to get controversial bills over the finish line. “He’s just not afraid to stand up for what’s right.”

Wiener also seems to relish taking on contentious issues, including legislation to regulate artificial intelligence, protect gay and trans youth and to prohibit federal immigration agents from concealing their faces.

His political courage has won him plenty of admirers — and more than a few enemies.

“I’ve been in a lot of different situations where I’ve been willing to break glass and sometimes piss people off, but it was the right thing to do. And so I want to take that approach to Congress,” Wiener said.

He said he has faced “thousands of death threats,” primarily from “the MAGA hard right,” over his bills supporting LGBT youth.

It was widely assumed that Wiener, who has long expressed interest in running for Congress, would wait until Rep. Nancy Pelosi announced her retirement before entering the race. But he said this week he could no longer wait to see whether the 85-year-old Democrat will retire.

“This really isn’t about Nancy Pelosi,” Wiener said. “Nancy Pelosi has moved mountains for the country and for San Francisco and I think the world of her. She’s not said whether she’s running again and we’re now to the point where we’re just a few months out from the filing deadline. And so it was time to enter the race.”

Pelosi’s spokesperson Ian Krager declined to comment directly on Wiener’s announcement, though he confirmed Wiener called the speaker emerita before declaring his candidacy.

“Speaker Pelosi is fully focused on her mission to win the Yes on 50 special election in California on November 4th,” Krager said in a statement. “She urges all Californians to join in that mission on the path to Democrats taking back the House.”

Pelosi is likely to clarify her political plans after next month’s election.

An advisor to Wiener said his decision to move forward was partly prompted by the candidacy of Saikat Chakrabarti, a wealthy software engineer capable of self-funding his campaign. Chakrabarti has generated buzz for his insurgent campaign against a San Francisco icon he says should step aside.

Chakrabarti knows something about knocking off entrenched incumbents. In 2018, he managed the upstart congressional campaign of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who unexpectedly defeated incumbent New York Democrat Rep. Joe Crowley. He later served as Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff in the House, helping draft the Green New Deal.

According to his economic disclosure form, Chakrabarti, who officially launched his campaign against Pelosi earlier this year, is worth at least $167 million, much of it equity in Stripe, the payment processing company where he was a founding engineer. If elected, he would be one of the wealthiest members of Congress.

Wiener, who opened his congressional campaign committee last year, reported raising more than $1 million in his most recent filing with the Federal Election Commission, with $867,105 cash on hand at the end of September.

By comparison, Chakrabarti’s FEC filing shows total contributions of just under $1 million, about half from personal loans to his campaign. After spending on infrastructure, he reported $95,384 cash on hand and $755,000 in outstanding loans and debts. But given his net worth, he can presumably self-fund this campaign going forward.

Pelosi, long one of the Democratic Party’s most prolific fundraisers, reported contributions of just over $2 million for 2025, including at least $450,000 transferred to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. She reported $1.5 million cash on hand through September.

Expect Wiener to cast Chakrabarti as a kind of political dilettante with weak ties to San Francisco and little experience governing.

“It’s not enough just to say, ‘Oh I want to challenge the establishment and do all these things,’ when you don’t necessarily have the track record of showing that you know how to do that,” Wiener said, without mentioning Chakrabarti by name.

Chakrabarti responded in a statement: “I have experience turning big ideas into reality even in a gridlocked Congress. Scott has experience tinkering with regulations in an overwhelmingly Democratic Sacramento.”

One issue that could separate Chakrabarti from Wiener, who is Jewish, is Gaza. Israel’s war there has drawn widespread condemnation for the devastation and deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on a music festival in southern Israel that killed hundreds and took about 240 civilians hostage.

A bill currently languishing in the House, H.R. 3565, would block the sale or transfer of certain bombs and other weapons to Israel. Chakrabarti has aired ads calling on Pelosi to support the bill, which has not passed out of committee. Interviewed this week, Wiener twice declined to say how he’d vote on H.R. 3565, but said, “I do not think that we should be selling offensive arms to Israel under this government or any government like it. We need to get a government that’s committed both to democracy and to peace and not to this devastation.”

Veteran San Francisco political consultant Eric Jaye said while he disagrees with many of Wiener’s policy positions, he acknowledges his effectiveness.

“Scott Wiener has been one of the most productive legislators we’ve ever seen in San Francisco, and in many respects he’s the Nancy Pelosi of his generation. He’s the Willie Brown of his generation. He’s the Phil Burton of his generation,” Jaye said.

When this congressional seat became vacant after the death of Rep. Sala Burton, Pelosi received a deathbed endorsement from Burton’s widow but she was relatively unknown beyond Democratic Party insiders. More than a dozen people ran including four San Francisco supervisors. Jaye doubts there will be that kind of candidate stampede this time.

“(Pelosi) didn’t scare anybody out. Now, if it’s Wiener and Pelosi, I don’t think others will look at that and say, ‘I could beat one of those two,’” Jaye said. At the same time, he added that Pelosi “suffers from a suspicion that grew in the American electorate about octogenarian leaders, based on what happened with former President Biden.”

Still, an open House seat is too enticing for politicians to ignore. Supervisor Connie Chan is reportedly considering a run. Pelosi’s daughter, Christine, has also considered running.

Whoever enters the race, Jaye said, will face “a moment in San Francisco politics, California politics, national politics where voters are pretty frustrated with the slow pace of change. So it’s a very, very roiled political environment.”