YIMBY-backed S.F. housing ballot measure Prop. D is being bankrolled by these tech power brokers

But Prop. D also counts among its top contributors a range of leading tech executives, founders and investors, according to campaign finance records. The donors’ involvement is a sign of how San Francisco’s most prominent industry continues to play an influential role in the city’s most salient political debates, even as some tech firms have reduced their local office footprints or moved elsewhere in recent years.

Among those who have given six figures to the Prop. D campaign are Twilio co-founder John Wolthuis, Pantheon CEO Zack Rosen, Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, Twitch CEO Emmett Shear and the venture capitalist Garry Tan. Angel investor Ron Conway, who is known for rallying support behind pro-tech causes and San Francisco’s political moderates, has kicked in $50,000 and another $40,000 non-cash contribution related to mail. Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger and his wife Kaitlyn each gave $50,000 in August.

It’s not the first time this year that tech money has flowed into a prominent local race. Industry-affiliated donors, including Tan, also gave to the successful campaign to recall former progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin . Conway helped solicit contributions to the recall effort.

Some of the Prop. D donors gave money while supporters of the measure, also known as Affordable Homes Now, were running an expensive signature-gathering campaign to qualify for the ballot. Others have contributed more recently as Prop. D began gearing up for an electoral showdown against a rival measure, Proposition E, that was placed on the ballot by the Board of Supervisors — stoking concerns that voters might be confused between the two.

Tech-affiliated donors account for at least two-thirds of the more than $1.5 million the Prop. D campaign reported raising from the start of the year through Sept. 24, records show. After accounting for expenses, the campaign had about $185,300 in the bank.

The competing Prop. E campaign — which launched later and did not need to run a signature-gathering effort — had raised $286,100 through Sept. 24 and ended the reporting period with about $200,000 cash on hand.

In a statement to The Chronicle, Tan said he donated to Prop. D in part because the “anti-housing majority” of the board — which is dominated by progressives — “has blocked the building of new affordable and market-rate housing.” He pointed specifically to the board’s rejection last year of nearly 500 new units proposed for a Nordstrom valet parking lot at 469 Stevenson St. in SoMa.

“That action by itself speaks volumes about why we need (Prop. D) to prevent petty progressive politics from stopping new housing,” Tan said in his statement. “Voters have had enough of Supervisors blocking new housing and killing pro-housing legislation, all of which has led San Francisco to become the most expensive city to build housing, and the slowest city to approve housing.”

Todd David, a senior adviser to the Housing Action Coalition who is helping run the Prop. D campaign, said Tan isn’t the only donor who was motivated in part by the board’s rejection of the Stevenson Street project.

“Projects like 469 Stevenson St. really stick in people’s minds,” David said. “The complete failure of the Board of Supervisors to address our affordability and displacement crisis has energized a new generation of people who see their role as being really great stewards of the city.”

Breed tried and failed multiple times to get supervisors to put a measure that would accelerate housing development before voters. After her most recent effort failed in January , the mayor’s allies launched a signature-gathering campaign that later resulted in Prop. D making the November ballot.

While San Francisco’s big businesses have always been politically active, the involvement of tech industry leaders in local candidate races and ballot measures is more recent, tracing back to the last decade or so beginning with the tenure of the late Mayor Ed Lee, said Corey Cook, a political scientist at St. Mary’s College of California.

Tech executives and their employees were heavily involved in the fight over 2019’s Proposition C , a business tax intended to help reduce homelessness that was supported by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. Notably, Jack Dorsey, the former CEO of Twitter, and Stripe CEO Patrick Collison publicly opposed the measure — siding with Breed.

The involvement of tech-affiliated donors in the Prop. D campaign after the industry’s contributions to the Boudin recall now shows “a level of consistent engagement” in San Francisco issues, Cook said.

“Some folks will say that’s a good thing, some folks will say that’s a terrible thing,” he said. “Certainly, it shows that these tech leaders are invested in policy outcomes in the city. They wouldn’t be giving if they didn’t.”

Both Prop. D and its competitor Prop. E aim to shorten San Francisco’s notoriously lengthy approvals process for certain new housing proposals, but they differ in the kinds of developments that could qualify for the faster timeline and whether supervisors retain oversight of city funds used for each project.

Prop. E’s backers say the measure’s provisions would ensure that the homes it produces are affordable to working people — since Prop. D raises the average income threshold for affordable housing projects —while preserving accountability for how public dollars are used. Critics of Prop. E, however, say it is so restrictive that it will result in little, if any, new housing being built.

If a majority of voters approve both measures, only the one with the most votes will take effect.

The role of wealthy donors in supporting Prop. D hasn’t gone unnoticed by the rival campaign.

“It’s clear that this is an initiative that is primarily bankrolled and backed by billionaires and tech investors — that is, a small handful of individual contributors who are able to write five- and six-figure checks to influence policy in San Francisco,” Prop. E spokesperson Julie Edwards said of Prop. D.

Prop. E has been backed by the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council, which contributed $200,000 to the measure in recent weeks, campaign finance records show.

Rudy Gonzalez, the Building Trades’ secretary-treasurer, wrote in a post on the union’s website that Prop. E would support the construction of affordable housing while ensuring that it is “built with a certain number of skilled-and-trained workers.”

Other labor groups including the Northern California Mechanical Contractors Association and UA Local 38 have also contributed in support of Prop. E, records show.

“Unions represent thousands of working men and women in San Francisco who are invested in both creating good jobs and building housing their workers can afford,” Edwards said. “They have a lot of skin in the game as far as making sure that we have a housing policy that works for working people.”

Some of Prop. E’s other endorsements have come from the United Educators of San Francisco, the Council of Community Housing Organizations and the San Francisco Tenants Union.

David, of the Prop. D campaign, pointed to his measure’s major backing from the carpenters’ union as evidence of its support among workers who construct homes. The union has contributed about $114,300 to Prop. D this year, making it one of the measure’s top donors, according to a Thursday campaign finance filing.

David also stressed that Prop. D has also been endorsed by Habitat for Humanity Greater San Francisco and the Mission Housing Development Corp., among others.

“We have a diverse and large coalition of people who want to see housing built for low- and middle-income people in San Francisco,” David said. “Prop. E, it’s a joke … It will not get housing built.”

J.D. Morris (he/him) is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jd.morris@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @thejdmorris

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to correctly identify the first name of Stripe’s CEO, Patrick Collison.