Silicon Valley is the epicenter of the state’s housing crisis, with even run-down older homes routinely selling for nearly $1 million and with apartment rent averaging over $3,400 in communities within a 10-mile radius of Mountain View. With some exceptions, local leaders generally say the right things about the urgent need to add more housing units.

But a new report about the region’s largest city, San Jose, shows the city has made little progress on its goal of adding 10,000 affordable housing units by 2022. According to a new report issued by city housing officials, 64 units were completed in the 2017-18 fiscal year. While 594 units are now being built and 270 are approved for construction, even if these units are counted, that means the city is on track to achieve less than 10 percent of its target by mid-2019.

Adding to this bad news is a recent San Jose Mercury-News report in which city officials expressed frustration on several fronts. Among the complaints:

• While Mayor Sam Liccardo has been consistent in pushing affordable housing, the head of the city’s housing department – Jacky Morales-Ferrand – sees an overall lack of focus at City Hall (pictured). One week, City Council members are touting rent-control ordinances, then they push the “tiny homes” concept, then it’s on to other issues.
• Morales-Ferrand also expressed disappointment that the state government has never provided cities with a new tool and new funding source to replace redevelopment, which Gov. Jerry Brown convinced the Legislature to gut in 2011.
• Councilman Johnny Khamis also has a complaint. He believes that the series of crime-reform initiatives touted by Brown and state lawmakers have complicated San Jose’s efforts to address housing and homeless issues. “I feel that the state just dumped a whole mess of people out of our prison system, and now we’re just having to deal with them,” he said.

Congress ‘0 for 115’ in approving helpful housing bills

Frustration with a lack of progress locally and in the state Legislature has led the influential, well-funded Silicon Valley Leadership Group to look for relief in a new place: Congress. While CEO Carl Guardino said the Silicon Valley and Bay Area congressional delegation had been helpful on major regional issues such as electrifying CalTrain and expanding the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system to San Jose, he told the Mercury-News that there had been little help on housing from Washington.

Housing experts say ultimately, local and state land-use policies, fees, taxes and regulations are most crucial in whether new units can be built. But federal agencies regulate mortgages, enforce fair-housing laws and have provided billions of dollars over the years to develop housing projects and to subsidize low-income housing.

According to the Apartment List group, in its current session, which began in January 2017, Congress is “roughly batting 0 for 115” in approving housing legislation introduced by federal lawmakers. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, has by herself introduced 11 bills that focus on creating affordable housing. In a March speech, Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Santa Clara, said, “I don’t want to live in the Silicon Valley that only has Facebook or Google engineers able to live here.”

But the Trump administration and the Republicans who control the House and Senate have shown little enthusiasm not only for bold new plans but for continuing policies that have led to 3 million affordable homes being built since the late 1980s. The Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act, which would provide developers of low-income housing with a substantial tax credit, has languished in House and Senate committees since it was introduced in March 2017.

For example, Bay Area Congressman Ro Khanna, D-Calif., reportedly asked Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., and former Clinton labor secretary Robert Reich to run against the incumbent, believing the party needs someone further to the left to occupy the seat.

“There are other voices in our state who are far more in touch with the values,” Khanna told Politico.

While Feinstein has been a fixture of California politics for decades, her softer tone toward President Trump and stances on issues like national security and encryption have caused her to lose favor with some in her party.
“She was totally out of touch when the whole debate happened on encryption,’’ Khanna added, according to Politico, referencing the dialogue that took place in the aftermath of the San Bernardino terror attack. “She didn’t even understand some of those issues.”

Furthermore, she faced jeers from a town hall crowd this summer after suggesting that President Trump could become a “good president” if he would “learn” and “change.”

“Look, this man is going to be president most likely for the rest of this term,” the senator said at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club in August. “I just hope he has the ability to learn and to change and if he does he can be a good president. And that’s my hope.”

Following backlash, she was forced to clarify her remarks.

At 84, she is the oldest senator in the upper chamber and the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
As some reporters noted, the announcement is seen as bad news for L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti and Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León, who were viewed as likely candidates if Feinstein decided to retire. De León in particular is thought to have been eyeing the seat, as he’s termed out of the state Senate next year.

The talks about a primary challenger come as Democrats nationally have been looking to revamp their image with fresh faces and “new blood” after Hillary Clinton’s defeat last November.

“Her policies are completely out of touch with California Democrats, and we think she’d be more at home in a Republican primary,” Corbin Trent of the Justice Democrats told Vox, expressing support for a primary challenger.

With California positioning itself as the center of the so-called “Resistance” against the Trump agenda in Washington, the stage could be set for a challenge to Feinstein from the left. But with support from top Democrats in the state like U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, along with a robust campaign infrastructure and strong name recognition, any effort to take her on will present a steep challenge.

But down the ballot, 10 things stood out.

• Nearly 50,000 people voted for Roger Hernandez, a termed-out Democratic assemblyman from West Covina who had been running for Congress until he suspended his campaign after he was placed under a domestic violence restraining order and was stripped of his committee assignments.

• Congressman Darrell Issa seems to have won re-election. Although it’s still close and the Los Angeles Times had not yet called the race, Issa maintains a nearly 4,000-vote lead over Democrat Doug Applegate. This isn’t noteworthy because Issa was vulnerable and squeaked out a win. It was noteworthy because Issa, the richest member of Congress, wasn’t seen as vulnerable. The Vista Republican, in his 15th year in Congress, has been one of the most high-profile Republicans over the last few years as a constant thorn in the side of the Obama administration. But as national money started flowing to Applegate and an endorsement of Donald Trump appeared to be weighing Issa down, the race tightened.  

• As long as these results hold, Rep. Mike Honda, D-San Jose, will be the only incumbent in California’s 53-person congressional delegation to lose. Fellow Democrat, Ro Khanna of Fremont, finished what he started in 2014, when he first challenged Honda.

• A reminder that California is not as uniformly progressive as it often seems: Voters upheld the death penalty as the maximum sentence for murder. Even more surprising is that a measure to speed up death penalty appeals is clinging to a two-point lead in the returns.

• Republicans appear to have held their seats in the state Senate, beating back a Democratic supermajority. Everything hinges on a Southern California district that extends from Cypress to West Covina to Chino Hills, where Republican Ling Ling Chang, a sitting assemblywoman, is holding an almost two-point lead over Democrat Josh Newman. 

• But in the Assembly, Republicans lost three seats, dipping below one-third of the chamber. In the Los Angeles South Bay, David Hadley was knocked out by former Democratic Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi. In Orange County, Young Kim trails former Democratic Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva. And in the Inland Empire, Eric Linder is losing to Sabrina Cervantes.

• While no Senate incumbents of either party were defeated, five incumbent Assembly members either lost or trail. That includes the Republicans, Linder, Kim and Quirk-Silva, along with two Democrats who lost intraparty challenges. Cheryl Brown, the Inland Empire incumbent, lost to Eloise Reyes in a proxy war between environmentalists and unions that opposed Brown and Big Oil and charter schools that supported her. In the San Fernando Valley, Patty Lopez was ousted after the Democratic Party endorsed her challenger, former Democratic Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra, who also had major support from outside business interests.

• Orange County, the traditional Republican stronghold, voted for Hillary Clinton for president. According to The Orange County Register, the county hadn’t supported a Democrat for president since the Great Depression. That result reflects a consistent slide in Republican registration in the county, which has persisted for decades.

• Speaking of Orange County, Democratic Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez lost her home county in the U.S. Senate race by 9.6 points. Sanchez has represented Orange County in Congress since she was first elected in 1996.

• And speaking of the U.S. Senate race, more that 1.1 million people sat it out. The race made headlines after the June primary, when no Republicans advanced to the general election — a byproduct of the state’s relatively new primary system where the top two candidates advance regardless of party. Sanchez lost to Attorney General Kamala Harris, a fellow Democrat.