MARK LENO

Mark Leno has a way of reaching across the political divide and disarming not just conservatives but those on the far right who would seem predisposed to regard his views and identity with antipathy. Unconventional Politics

San Francisco—Even here, in a qualify as a lobby. seem predisposed to regard his city accustomed to unconventional But there they were gathered in views and identity with antipathy. politics, Mark Leno is no the hotel’s Soma Room, its perimeter Because he carries his beliefs with conventional politician. adorned with hemp jackets and such deep conviction, but rarely Milwaukee boy, rabbinical school hemp dresses and hemp Christmas strident, they sense genuineness about dropout, San Francisco transplant, stockings, to applaud the senator’s him, whether the issue is same-sex printer by trade, the first openly gay determined efforts to legalize the marriage or his fight for single-payer male to ever serve in the California farming of hemp in California. His universal health care in California. State Senate. Not your run-of-the-mill legislative agenda may have been “I happen to be gay, I happen legislative bio, for sure. filled with far more weighty matters, to be Jewish, I happen to be a small But it’s not until he walks into the but there he stood before hemp’s forty business owner, I happen to be conference hall at the Holiday Inn in true believers. liberal. It’s all part of my identity. I’ve downtown San Francisco and starts Sen. Leno had somehow never run from who I am, and each working the room—in this case the managed to persuade two of the most piece is as important to my identity 18th annual convention of the Hemp conservative law enforcement officials as the other. I’d like to think even my Industry Association—that you begin in rural California, the sheriffs of critics respect that.” to appreciate just how refreshingly Kern and Kings Counties, to embrace His bio says Leno is sixty years different Leno is. hemp as the good seed of cannabis. old, born before Eisenhower even ran It’s safe to say that most The two lawmen had ended up for president, but from the front row, politicians don’t lie awake at night writing letters in support of the bill— he appears at least a decade younger. thinking of ways to make the hemp no easy feat for a politician from San A product of Milwaukee, Leno crowd happy. Unlike its cannabis Francisco. was shaped by a city more liberal than cousin, hemp isn’t grown anywhere in Mark Leno has a way of reaching one might expect. The nation’s beer the country, legally or illegally. The across the political divide and capital, Milwaukee was an immigrant men and women pushing the virtues disarming not just conservatives but town made famous by Schlitz and of hemp oil, seed and fiber hardly those on the far right who would Braves pitcher Warren Spahn and all those progressives who turned it into “People have different definitions was all this incense and aromatics America’s hub of the Socialist Party in of when they identify that day— in the air, music, the beat of drums, the first half of the 20th Century. They the day they declare themselves to very spirited. I was still in the process were hardly anarchists. Known as the themselves. Yes, there were lots of tears of coming out as a gay man. In the “Sewer Socialists,” they dedicated and pain and hard work that took place midst of all these hippies and activists, themselves to a platform that kept the before that kid found his footing. But there was a lot of flamboyance, sewer, water and electrical systems he could determine back then what he people in chiffon and purple and pink running, at all costs. wanted that footing to be.” costumes, sheets of fabric that blew Leno grew up as the middle child Leno chose to attend the in the wind. They were embracing and only son of Manny and Esther University of Colorado at Boulder— themselves. Leno. Both sides of the family were for no greater reason than it was “It was the first time I had seen Russian Jews who came to America far from Milwaukee and a couple such a public declaration in my life. between 1910 and 1916. Manny ran of friends were going there. The It was very liberating, of course, but an office machinery business; Esther I hadn’t yet come out to the people was a stay-at-home mom. Like so I was traveling with, so I had to keep many suburban Jews of the 1950s and this recognition, this pride, to myself.” 60s, they attended a Reform Temple The following spring, on a trip and didn’t keep a Kosher home. to Los Angeles, Leno had his first Yiddish was the language of secrets. relationship. “Then the truth started “I had a great childhood, a lot of to unfold with family members, close positive memories. In high school, friends, other relatives, other friends. I was a well socialized kid who ran Yes, my coming out is a California for office every year and somehow story. It is woven into California. It won, president of my freshman class, happened in California.” treasurer of the student council in After a year in Boulder, he the 10th grade, president of the junior returned to Milwaukee and enrolled class and president of the student at the University of Wisconsin. He council my senior year.” soon found himself impatient with his Even before he graduated from studies, smitten with Thoreau and a high school in 1969, Leno had desire to experience life off-the-beaten more than an inkling of his sexual track. His search for his own Walden orientation. In his small sphere, he Pond turned up a small island in had a difficult time pointing to an the Caribbean—the most southern example of a gay man, at least one of the Grenadine Islands, a place who was out of the closet or depicted called Bequia. He joined the crew of as something other than a caricature. a charter boat company, learned how At 18, despite feeling isolated and to raise an anchor, set sails, cook and different, he took his first steps to prolonging of the Vietnam War clean. come out. He looks back with awe at had unleashed a fury of activism on It was there on the island that he the courage of that kid, seeing himself college campuses across the country, came to the realization that returning in the third-person. and Boulder was no exception. Leno to college didn’t necessarily mean “I marvel at it sometimes, that decided to apply for Conscientious returning to the U.S. He could such a young man could determine Objector status, and in November combine his love for travel and other with certainty, unequivocally, that 1969, he hopped into a VW van with cultures and still get a useful degree every message he was receiving from a handful of other schoolmates and by attending the American College faith leaders, political leaders, his headed west to San Francisco for a in Jerusalem. So he ventured to the parents, everybody, was completely massive anti-war rally. It was the first Middle East in January 1972, a time counter to what he believed and time he set eyes on the city. of particular turmoil, the ‘67 War still understood in his core. At 18, he “I remember crossing the Golden fresh and the Yom Kippur War just could say to himself. ‘No, I am right. Gate Bridge on a damp, foggy day ahead. They are wrong.’ and heading into the park. There “It was a fascinating time for me. I floated very much between the Israeli frayed since his coming out, shared father reacted terribly to my coming and Arab worlds. I got to see both with Leno an idea for a sign making out. It was more that he had no sides. I had a lot of Arab friends. But business. Leno found it intriguing and reference point, no experience with all that changed dramatically after war began doing research. He took out a gay people. And then there was his broke out again.” $15,000 loan, rented shop space and real worry about what I was going to Leno earned his psychology bought a flatbed press with hard type do with my life. So when I showed the degree in Jerusalem and became that could churn out large-lettered initiative to start my own business, it so fascinated with religion, his signs for local businesses. This was gave him enormous pride. He was a own Judaism in particular, that he a time, before computers, when small business owner, and now I was a committed to a five-year course of commercial signs were either hand small business owner, too.” Rabbinical studies at Hebrew Union lettered or silk screened in quantities. One day in 1980, a handsome College in New York—the first year in Budget Signs was thus born, young man named Douglas Jackson Jerusalem and the next four years in churning out signs for Bay Area walked into Leno’s shop to order signs New York. to promote a disco party marking “I was going to need a vocation, the opening of the Municipal Metro and I had this very keen spiritual line from Van Ness to Castro. Leno curiosity, so it made sense to me. But I printed the signs, went to the party went in with a question hanging over and ending up falling in love with me, a question I could not answer at Jackson. They became partners in first: ‘Could I be a sexually active gay business and life, working side by side man and a rabbi at the same time?’ at Budget Signs and living in a cozy There was nowhere to look, no one blue home on Clipper Street in Noe to turn to ask or find out. There were Valley, until June 1990, when Jackson absolutely no role models. In fact, the died of AIDS. seminary I attended did not ordain an As the business grew and Leno out-gay man as a rabbi for another 10 could hire more staff, he joined local years.” Democratic clubs and volunteered his Leno dropped out of the program time for non-profit groups, pouring during the second year. It was the his passion into raising money for beginning of the most challenging HIV causes and gay and lesbian period of his life. “I was without rights. “I found out a very dangerous direction. I started doubting my thing about myself. I had a talent worth and esteem. And there were for fund raising. It’s very dangerous a lot of negative messages of who I because everyone wants you to be was, and my honesty about it. I was on their board of directors.” Leno really struggling to find a purpose was so skilled at fundraising that in life. That’s when I came to San Budget Signs became a must-stop Francisco.” realty companies, bank branches, for a growing list of gay and lesbian His move to the city in 1977 conventions and conferences. “I candidates—future friends and rivals happened to be the same year that realized the multiple branches of Harry Britt and Carole Migden Harvey Milk won a seat on the county savings and loans could use my among them. board of supervisors, the first openly signs. These are the signs that when As a member of Congregation gay elected official in California you walk into a branch they appear Sha’ar Zahav, with its large LGBT history. Leno found an apartment in in a stand with a frame. Well, the membership, Leno became an the Tenderloin and a job selling men’s branches were changing these signs important intermediary between the clothing. He took up long distance every week, so it was steady money. gay and lesbian Jewish community running, his “salvation” as he calls it, And I could print the signs at a better and elected officials. It was in this role and was soon competing in marathon price point than anyone else.” that he first caught the attention of races. As the business took off, Leno mayoral candidate Willie Brown in It was then that his father, whose found his relationship with his father the mid 1990s. relationship with his son had been growing stronger. “It wasn’t as if my In 1998, the Board of Supervisors found itself with another vacancy. that dwarfed the other houses on the of the gay rights struggle. Outgoing supervisor Susan Leal, block. “About a year into it, I realized The campaign was bitterly fought a Latina and a lesbian, had that I loved the legislative process, and split the LGBT community. On been elected county treasurer. and I was pretty good at it,” he said. election night, as the results showed Mayor Brown promised to find a By 2002, his ambivalence turned Leno winning by four percentage replacement of the same gender, race into ambition, and Leno set his points, he was surrounded by his and sexual orientation. This was no sights on the 13th Assembly District parents and sister Jamie at a gay and small order—a Latina lesbian who seat—San Francisco’s east side—held lesbian community center he helped could drop what she was doing and by Carole Migden, who was termed found. “It was a dream of Harvey work 70 hours a week in a job that out. His opponent was none other Milk that one day a gay man would paid thirty grand and who had the than former supervisor Harry Britt, serve in the state Assembly,” Leno name recognition needed to win an the legendary civil rights and gay told his supporters. “We are going to election that was seven months away activist who had served as Harvey Sacramento,” he shouted. The crowd and required a quarter million dollars roared. to fund. In Leno’s first year in the A month later, Willie called a Assembly, his bill to add gender press conference and introduced his identity to the Fair Employment choice: Mark Leno. and Housing Act was signed into “I thanked the mayor for his law by Gov. Gray Davis. In 2005, trust in me and for this important Leno authored the nation’s first appointment, recognizing that I was bill to give same-sex couples the not his first choice but hoping that I freedom to marry, only to see Gov. was at the top of his list of gay, Jewish, Arnold Schwarzenegger veto it. small business owners,” Leno recalled Undeterred, Leno worked to get the with a chuckle. same bill passed two years later, but So began his political career. Schwarzenegger vetoed it again. Despite all the class presidencies “We beat New York by six years in high school, Leno felt deeply getting that law to the governor’s ambivalent. “I had never done public desk,” Leno said. “Unfortunately, we policy before. I didn’t know if I could didn’t have Andrew Cuomo as our attend to the responsibilities at City governor.” Hall and keep my business running. As Leno’s two terms in the I didn’t know that I could take the Assembly wound down, he wasn’t political heat. I didn’t know if I would sure what his next step would be—in even like public life.” or out of politics. His desire to run As it turned out, Leno was a for state senate was complicated by natural. He plunged right into the presence of incumbent Carole neighborhood frays—the debate Milk’s successor to the county board. Migden. over the size of a Rite Aid sign Indeed, it was Milk himself, writing in Leno took the bold step of on 24th Street and a proposed his will, who had named Britt as his challenging Migden and defeated ban on coffee shops and specialty political heir. her by 15 percentage points in the grocery stores in the area, using A fierce progressive backed by primary, running strong not only his steady temperament to craft big labor and tenant groups, Britt in San Francisco but in Marin consensus between merchants and had been out of office for more than and Sonoma counties, as well. On neighborhood groups. a decade and pledged to challenge election night in Nov. 2008, he In a tight race in 2000, he kept Leno from the left. Leno faced a easily outdistanced his Republican his supervisor’s seat and used it as delicate balancing act: he had to stake challenger with 80% of the vote. a platform to compel residential out his own positions on housing, President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg developers to build more affordable education, health care and energy showered the rookie senator housing and to slow down the without painting Britt as an out-of- with not one but two committee construction of “monster homes” touch relic from the pioneering days chairmanships—public safety and a budget subcommittee on health and words, we rank just above Slovenia. ill-fated health system putting a human services. “We have over 60,000 different ‘for profit’ middleman in between Today, Sen. Leno calls universal health plans in the state of California. the consumer and the provider, a health care “one of the most If we had just one, there would be middleman who provides no health important civil rights issue of our huge savings. By providing health care, does no health care research, time.” Indeed, he has emerged care for all, we would be investing provides not a single hospital bed. as one of the most articulate and in primary and preventive care and “This middleman makes millions knowledgeable voices in California on keeping the population healthier. in profits by denying us health care. the need for a single-payer system of This would be another huge savings. Let’s put him in charge. And that’s health care. Off the top of his head, Making sure everyone has a primary what we have. And it makes absolutely he cites even the smallest details of care physician would mean less use of no sense.” the case—the fact that we waste one- the most expensive health care—the Whether it is hemp or health third of our health care dollars on county emergency room.” care for all, this is the same passion, administrative costs, that Medicare’s In 1960, the U.S. spent only five dedication and optimism the San overhead is a mere five percent, percent of our gross national product Francisco politician brings to that we rank 37th among nations on health care. Today, we’re fast nearly every issue he tackles in the worldwide in cost, quality and access approaching 25 percent. “No other Legislature. ❖ to health care and in life expectancy country does health care like we do. and infant mortality rates. In other Just imagine the most ill-conceived,