David Campos

David Campos (born September 28, 1970), is a politician who is Vice Chair of the California Democratic Party.

Around 1983, his father made it across the border and went to Los Angeles, where he became a carpenter.

In 1985, at age 14, with his mother and two sisters, he fled Guatemala and emigrated illegally to the United States.

Campos graduated from Jefferson High School in South Central Los Angeles.

In 1993, he graduated from Stanford University with a degree in political science.

While attending Harvard Law School from 1993 to 1996, Campos became a permanent resident of the United States and met his partner, Phil Hwang.

Campos became Deputy City Attorney for the City and County of San Francisco in 1999.

According to his biography on the Santa Clara County government website, Campos was Deputy City Attorney 1999–2004.

Campos was general counsel for the San Francisco Unified School District from 2004 to 2007.

While general counsel, Campos was on the San Francisco Police Commission 2005–2008.

In 2008 he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, where he represented San Francisco's District 9 (Bernal Heights, Portola, and the Inner Mission) until 2016 when he termed out.

During his tenure, Campos sought to prohibit the construction of market-rate housing in his district.

David Campos was born in Puerto Barrios, Guatemala.

His father was a meteorologist.

His family first tried to cross the border illegally when David was 11, but they were caught and deported.

In 2008, David Campos was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, representing District 9 (Bernal Heights, Portola, and the Inner Mission), succeeding newly-elected State Assemblymember Tom Ammiano.

Mayor Gavin Newsom appointed Campos to the vacant supervisorial seat on December 4, 2008, one month before the other freshman supervisors were elected in November 2008.

His predecessor, Ammiano, had resigned from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in early December to start his tenure at the California State Assembly.

Campos introduced legislation in August 2009 that sought to protect undocumented immigrant youths from deportation and separation from their families by the San Francisco police.

The legislation would have required local authorities to wait for a criminal conviction before turning youth over to ICE.

In September 2012, San Francisco's supervisors voted 8-3 to approve Campos’s CleanPowerSF legislation.

CleanPowerSF is a publicly owned clean energy program that allow residents to choose to buy electricity generated from renewable source rather than from PG&E, the dominant utility in the city.

Ultimately, the plan will use the program’s revenue stream to help construct the city’s own renewable energy infrastructure, including wind and solar generators.

During his tenure on the Board of Supervisors, an average of 157 residences (32 of which were subsidized units) were built in the Mission per year.

According to one estimate, Campos opposed the construction of units capable of housing 6,058 people, including subsidized housing for 3,930 lower-income people.

In May 2013, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously passed Campos’s Health Care Access Buffer Zone legislation.

The legislation created a 25-foot harassment free buffer zone around all free-standing health clinics in the city.

The penalty for encroaching the buffer zone is up to a $1,000 fine or three months in jail.

The ordinance also expands the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which makes it a federal offense to use physical force or intimidation to prevent a person from entering a reproductive health care facility.

They married in 2014.

In 2015 and 2016, while he was on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Campos introduced proposals to prohibit the construction of market-rate housing in his district in San Francisco.

While running for office in 2022, Campos said he had changed his view on banning market-rate housing.

Among the developments that Campos opposed was a 2016 proposal to develop a lot containing an abandoned warehouse into housing for 227 people, including 45 low-income residents.

Campos argued that the development would harm the vibrancy of his district.

The proposal was blocked; by 2022, the lot still contained only an abandoned warehouse.

In 2016, Campos held rallies opposing a "density bonus" proposal whereby developers in San Francisco would be allowed to build taller buildings in exchange for increasing the number of affordable housing units in the buildings.

In April 2016, Campos introduced legislation that would fine short-term rental companies such as Airbnb $1000 a day for each listing that wasn't registered with the City of San Francisco.

After the Board of Supervisors approved the legislation, Airbnb sued the City, claiming that the law violated the Communications Decency Act, which prohibits the government from holding websites accountable for the content published by users.

Campos then introduced new amendments to the legislation to attempt to address the challenges in the lawsuit.

In 2021, Campos expressed opposition to a proposal to build 495 apartment units (25% of which would have been affordable housing) on a Nordstrom valet parking lot.