2018 San Francisco mayoral special election
A special election was held for Mayor of the City and County of San Francisco on June 5, 2018. The winner of the election will serve until 2020, filling the unexpired term of Ed Lee, who was elected in 2011 and 2015, and died in office on December 12, 2017. Upon Lee's death, London Breed, President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, became Acting Mayor of San Francisco, but a vote of six supervisors replaced Breed with Supervisor Mark Farrell. The mayoral election was held concurrently with the statewide direct primary election. In San Francisco, the election for the eighth district member of the Board of Supervisors was also on the ballot.
San Francisco Public Defender's Office
Jeff Adachi, who was elected in 2002 and has held office since 2003, is the only elected public defender in California and runs an office of more than100 attorneys and 60 staff members, which has a $24 million budget and serves 23,000 clients each year.. Because Adachi answers to the voters rather than the mayor, he has used his position to advocate for increased public defender funding, reduction of racial disparities, police and prosecutorial accountability, and criminal justice reform in San Francisco.