ARTICLES

He Tells It The Way It Is

A Politician with Guts

By Joe Marti

Residents of San Francisco enjoy the reputation of being some of the most tolerant and unflappable people in the world. But even hard-boiled San Franciscans were taken aback in late August when one of the city's leaders took a public stand for the pro-life movement.

Tony Hall distanced himself early on in his term (now in its second year) from the nine-member city board of supervisors. He didn't follow any of the trends normally associated with the city fathers. Speaking of fathers, Hall is the father of seven and is often the cantor at his parish of Saint Brendan's.

In the August board meeting, Hall (considered by many a viable candidate for the city's next mayor) was drawn into a public debate by another supervisor, Gavin Newsom, who also has set his eyes on the mayor's office. Newsom, who grew up in Marin County, recently sponsored two pro-abortion resolutions. One of the resolutions, co-authored by Newsom, exhorted Governor Gray Davis to increase accessibility of RU-486, known as the "morning after" pill. A second resolution was purely symbolic -- a commendation on part of the city to the National Organization of Women for it's efforts in the area of abortion.

Allegedly, the language employed in the resolutions had very little to do with what it stated but very much to do with drawing Hall into a public debate on abortion. "[Abortion] is not stuff we need to contemplate," Hall told this reporter. "The only reason it was brought up was to draw me into a debate. That's the only reason that these two items were on the agenda. They were designed by Newsom to elicit a pro-life response by me to use against me if I were to run for mayor."

At the meeting, Hall apparently took the bait. Saying "he pulls no punches," Hall voted no on the resolutions and said that his vote represented "thousands of San Franciscans and millions of others around the country."

But instead of becoming an embarrassment to Hall, Newsom's plan has only helped the pro-life supervisor. "Our lines have been jammed, and emails have flooded in," said Hall. He added, "Interestingly, it's a lot of non-Catholics. They're elated to hear from someone who just tells it the way it is." As to negative response, Hall replied, "I've had no negative responses. That's the thing that amazes me."

In addition, Hall took the opportunity at the meeting to square off against Newsom, who is a Catholic (he was married last year at the Jesuit Saint Ignatius Church). Hall stated publicly that these resolutions were nothing more than a political ruse designed to use Hall's pro-life position against him in the event of a mayoral run. Again, Hall criticized Newsom for bringing this issue into city business. Hall later commented to the me that, "it doesn't [have anything to do with city business]. It was introduced for expediency by a kid who has a lot to learn."

Despite his claim to this reporter that " I would love to tell the real story about that [meeting]. I would love that," Newsom failed to answer the several attempts I made to allow him to comment on the incident.

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