Matt Haney

San Francisco voters first put Matt Haney in office on the San Francisco Board of Education, where he served from 2013 to 2019. They next elected him District 6 supervisor, replacing Jane Kim in January 2019. Three years later, after David Chiu became City Attorney, Haney won the special election for Assembly District 17 and was sworn into the California State Assembly on May 3, 2022. His public record runs through institutions San Franciscans deal with directly: the school district, the Board of Supervisors, housing rules, street operations and the response to fatal drug overdoses. In Sacramento, he is a member of the California Legislative Progressive Caucus.

THE JOB BEFORE THE JOB

Haney was born April 17, 1982, in Santa Cruz County and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. He attended public schools in Albany; his mother, Kris Calvin, served on the South Pasadena School Board. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2005, then worked as a legislative aide to state Sen. Joe Simitian and served as executive director of the UC Student Association.

His later education crossed law, education and human rights. Haney earned an LL.M in human rights from the National University of Ireland, where he was a Mitchell Scholar. In 2010, he earned a master’s degree from the Stanford Graduate School of Education and a JD from Stanford Law School. He worked at the Stanford Design School and the JFK School of Law, teaching education law at JFK and sociology at Palo Alto University.

Haney also served as national policy director for The Dream Corps. In 2015, he co-founded #cut50, an Oakland-based national nonprofit. His sister, Erin Haney, is senior counsel for the organization.

FROM THE SCHOOL BOARD TO SACRAMENTO

Before running for the school board, Haney spent two years on the Public Education Enrichment Fund Community Advisory Committee and served on the San Francisco Unified School District’s Restorative Justice Committee. He announced his candidacy in April 2012 and placed fourth behind three incumbents that November, replacing Norman Yee. He was the board’s youngest member upon his election.

His school-board work included a May 2016 resolution requiring food vendors to disclose the origin of their products. He proposed renaming George Washington High School for Maya Angelou and removing the school’s Life of Washington mural. In 2018, he and Commissioner Stevon Cook co-authored a resolution to examine school renaming. Haney also introduced a resolution to end the all-choice-based student-assignment system. Barack Obama endorsed his 2016 re-election campaign.

Haney filed for the District 6 supervisor’s seat in September 2017. He won the November 2018 election with 14,249 first-preference votes and 63.12% in the final round, taking office January 8, 2019. In the 2022 Assembly special election, he placed first in the February primary, advanced to the April runoff and won with 62% of the vote. He resigned as supervisor before taking the Assembly oath.

THE POLICY SIGNATURE

Housing is the clearest movement in Haney’s policy record. His position became increasingly supportive of more housing construction and regulatory streamlining. He initially opposed SB 35 and later supported it. He also supported state action requiring cities to allow more housing construction. The sequence matters: it records a change in position, followed by support for a larger state role in local housing production.

His Board of Supervisors record also joined taxes, labor-related ballot politics and the structure of city government. In 2020, he authored the “Overpaid CEO Tax,” Proposition L, and endorsed a No vote on Proposition 22. He introduced Proposition B to create a Department of Sanitation and Streets, moving street sanitation into a separate department.

Haney supported opening a safe injection site in his district, and his representation included districts most affected by fatal drug overdoses. Taken together, the documented interests in his record are additional housing, public-school administration, oversight of street services, a business-tax surcharge tied to executive-to-worker pay ratios and services for communities bearing the effects of fatal overdoses. His method has repeatedly involved the machinery available to a city official: board resolutions, charter measures, ballot propositions and, on housing, support for state action over local rules.