Sweet taste of even more Election Night 2015 Schadenfreude

Sweet taste of even more Election Night 2015 Schadenfreude

When the walloping of liberal policies and their enforcers extends to California, I suspect the effects will reverberate for quite some time.

For those of you who enjoy the sweet taste of schadenfreude, there is more to savor. Many will recall the sad death of Kate Steinle in San Francisco, who was shot by an illegal alien released by the sheriff’s department under the city’s “Sanctuary City” policies.

Ross Mirkarmi is now the former sheriff, courtesy of San Francisco’s voters:

The San Francisco sheriff who over the summer became embroiled in a national debate over “sanctuary city” policies on Tuesday lost his bid for re-election amid a host of local controversies.

Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, 54, was defeated by Vicki Hennessy, a former sheriff’s official who had the endorsement of San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and the sheriff deputies association. As of early Wednesday morning, Hennessy had received 62 percent of the vote to just 31 percent for Mirkarimi.

Mirkarimi was the subject of national criticism after Mexican illegal immigrant Francisco Sanchez allegedly shot and killed 32-year-old Kate Steinle on San Francisco’s waterfront July 1. Sanchez had been released from Mirkarimi’s jail in March even though federal immigration officials had requested he be detained for possible deportation.

But since then, the sheriff’s oversight of the department has been plagued by other high-profile mishaps and controversies seen as contributing to his defeat. He had his driver’s license briefly suspended for failing to properly report a minor accident while driving a department-issued car, and he also flunked a marksmanship test.

Additionally, the citizens of America’s most notoriously over-regulated cities quashed a measure that would have restricted people from renting out the homes they own (i.e. bed-and-breakfast style).

Proposition F has failed. The San Francisco ballot measure, which would have more severely restricted Airbnb-style short-term rentals, was defeated last night 55 percent to 45 percent, with about 133,000 votes cast and all precincts reporting. (Citizens in the state of California have the ability to bypass legislature and propose their own laws, which they vote on in these local elections.)

The measure—known casually as the Airbnb initiative—has captured the interest not only of residents living in San Francisco but beyond as a symbol of the tensions in a city grappling with the dramatic effects of the tech boom.

On one side, there are the San Franciscans who maintain that Airbnb and services like it chase long-term renters out of the city by restricting housing supply and sending rents skyrocketing. On the other, you’ll find the residents who say Airbnb helps them make ends meet by letting them make a little more income by renting out their homes. Airbnb reportedly spent north of $8 million on the measure, versus $1 million spent by Prop F supporters.

Across the nation, voters in another solidly blue area voted down a $15 minimum wage measure:

Portland, Maine — the state’s largest city, leaning heavily Democratic — voted 58 percent to 42 percent against a ballot measure that would have raised the local minimum wage to $15 by July 2019 for most businesses, and sooner for those with more than 500 employees.

There are lots of reasons why the measure lost. The business community vastly outspent the mainly Green Party-backed ballot proposition — according to the Portland Press Herald, the funding advantage was about 100 to one. The idea also ran into liberal opposition: The director of the business campaign against the wage hike, Toby McGrath, had run President Obama’s campaign in the state in 2008 and 2012.

If voters in bastions of progressivism reject “Sanctuary City” policies, embrace free market and personal property concepts, and give minimum wage rules a thumbs down this year, I cannot wait to see what they do in 2016.

My parting question: Is it possible to die of schadenfreuede overdose?

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