SAN FRANCISCO — The Board of Supervisors in this famously liberal enclave is expected to give final approval Tuesday to an ordinance that would be controversial nearly anywhere but here.
Only one other American city -- tiny New Haven, Conn., with just one-sixth the population -- has taken such a bold step: mandating that identification cards be made available to all local residents whether they are in the country legally or not.
Big news, right?
Not really. In a city that has turned municipal foreign policy into well-nigh a civic art form, this latest initiative never even cracked Page 1 of the local newspaper.
And why should it, when you consider all that came before, here in a place that seems to channel Vatican City, an actual sovereign city-state whose reach far belies its size:
In 2004, voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition H, which demanded the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq. The next year, voters said yes to Proposition I, which opposed military recruitment in public schools.
A year ago, they voted to impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney. As the San Francisco Chronicle noted in a recent editorial, "it's hardly worth getting outraged when San Francisco supervisors load the ballot with measures of more symbolism than substance. It's what they do."
Political scientist Richard DeLeon, who is writing a book about local politics -- titled, appropriately, "Vanguard City" -- said "people here trip over each other to be the trailblazer."
But it's not simply about being first, being outrageous or exhibiting hubris when the Board of Supervisors makes the city a nuclear-free zone or passes sanctions against Burma, also known as Myanmar, or demands that the president condemn the genocide in Darfur.
The way Supervisor Tom Ammiano sees it, "we are a global society and things are connected. When municipalities weigh in on Burma or other international issues, we're not ignoring the local. We are fully capable of multitasking."
Besides, he said, he's "never bought the argument that it's outside of our sphere of influence."
But then again, he wouldn't. Ammiano sponsored the Burma resolution and is the driving force behind the municipal identification cards.
The genesis of this latest measure -- which Mayor Gavin Newsom is expected to sign once it reaches his desk after Tuesday's vote -- is a 1989 ordinance that declared San Francisco an immigration sanctuary.
