Good morning and welcome to our January 26, 2026 Rules Committee meeting.

I am your Chair Supervisor Shimon Walton.

I'm joined by Vice Chair Supervisor Cheryl, soon to be joined by President Mandelman,

and we have Supervisor Mahmoud with us here this morning.

Our clerk is Victor Young, and I want to thank Jamie Eshevery for making sure that this proceeding is advertised on SFGovTV and made available to the public.

Mr. Clerk, do we have any announcements?

Yes. Public comment will be taken on each item on this agenda.

When your item of interest comes up and public comment is called, please line up to speak on your right.

Alternatively, you may submit public comment in writing in either of the following ways.

Email them to myself, the Rules Committee Clerk at victor.yong at sfgov.org.

If you submit public comment via email, it will also be included as the file.

You may also send your written comments via U.S. Mail to our office in City Hall,

1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, room 244, San Francisco, California 94102.

Please make sure to silence all cell phones and electronic devices.

Items acted upon today are expected to appear on the Board of Supervisors' agenda of February 3,

2026, unless otherwise stated.

That completes my announcements.

Thank you so much, Mr. Clerk.

Please call item number one.

Item number one is a charter amendment to amend the charter of the city and county of

San Francisco to change the current two-term limit for the Office of Mayor and the Office

of members of the Board of Supervisors from consecutive term limits to lifetime term limits

at an election to be held on June 2, 2026. Thank you so much, Mr. Clerk, and I do believe we have

Supervisor Mahmoud here to speak on this item. Supervisor. Thank you, Chair, and thank you,

members, for the opportunity to share more about this charter amendment. I'll share a little bit

more about what this charter amendment is intended to do and what message we're sending by having

this on the ballot in June. This charter amendment will do something quite simple. It will enforce

that term limits that the voters already voted on for mayor and the board of supervisors should

remain at two terms over their lifetime. This closes a loophole where currently supervisors

and mayor have the opportunity to serve in two terms, take a gap for a term, and come back over

and over. This is important because it closes off access to a pipeline of a next generation

of candidates. Every campaign, every four years, when you have termed up politicians with the

ability to come back, it closes off the opportunity for the next generation to raise their hand

and say, I'd like to have an opportunity to represent my community as well. If we look even

over this last year. A little over a year ago, there was not a single millennial on the Board

of Supervisors. A year later, a majority of the board is now representative of a new generation

of leadership. As a result of that new generation of leadership, we've had amazing progress on

housing, safety, and small business. It shows that representation leads to results. And lastly,

this is important in the context of the times that we're living in today.

It gives voters the opportunity this June in San Francisco to send a message to Washington

to say that when our charter says that it's two terms, it should remain as two terms with no

loophole. And when you have the president of this country saber-rattling about his third term,

this will give voters the opportunity to send a message that we believe in term limits and

closing a loophole. Colleagues, that is, I hope to have your support today and looking forward to

the dialogue thus far. Thank you so much, Supervisor Mahmood. I don't see anything from

colleagues, I do have a couple of things that I do want to say about this legislation.

I really think that this is really a solution in search of a problem.

If you think different, I would love to have all of the former mayors and former supervisors

come line up that have actually ran for office again after they were termed out.

And even furthermore, I would love to have the former mayors and former supervisors that have ran for office and turned out and have actually won.

I think that we are focusing on a policy that may affect one, two, or three people at some point in time,

which I think is almost ridiculous because we have a billion-dollar projected deficit here in this city.

We have a $300-plus million deficit projected for MTA.

And let's not forget that elections cost money.

People spend money on elections.

And why this is our focus, I truly don't understand.

We have affordability issues for 800-plus thousand residents.

But since we do want to ensure that more people have bigger opportunities

and that we provide space for new ideas,

I think my colleague is not going far enough with this legislation.