"Working for you to keep you safe, working with you to protect our City." The San Francisco Police Officers Association's motto
Since joining the California Senate a decade ago, Wiener, 56, has championed a sweeping array of progressive criminal justice and LGBTQ reforms. He has advocated for reduced penalties for HIV-positive prostitutes, exemptions from mandatory sex offender registration for adults convicted of oral or anal sex with minors, and the elimination of mandatory minimums for opioid trafficking and other drug crimes. He has worked to make California a "refuge" for parents seeking gender-related medical interventions for children—procedures banned in other states. Most recently, he backed S.B. 627, the "No Secret Police Act," which would bar most California law enforcement officers from wearing masks, despite concerns from officers about doxxing and personal safety.
Wiener has not camouflaged his disdain for law enforcement. In June 2020, amid national protests over George Floyd's death, Wiener announced he would no longer accept contributions from law enforcement unions. "Our policing/criminal justice system is broken & needs drastic change," he declared, adding that the system "kills/harms countless people, especially people of color." It was a clear message: Wiener considered police unions part of the problem.
In recent years, the San Francisco Police Department has seen an average of 100 officers resigning or retiring each year. This has contributed to a staffing shortage of nearly 600 officers.
In 2025, the San Francisco Police Department saw 3,375 entry-level applications, which was an over 40% increase compared to 2024, and 195 officers from other jurisdictions applied, marking a 364% increase in lateral applications, according to sanfranciscopolice.org. Not a good trade.
So why are those same unions still financing his career?
The answer lies in a pass-through arrangement that lets unions claim clean hands. State records show that since January 2020, the political action committees of the Peace Officers Research Association of California (PORAC), the California Correctional Peace
Officers Association (CCPOA), and the California Association of Highway Patrolmen (CAHP) have donated a combined $210,000 to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Caucus Leadership Fund. Wiener sits on that caucus and previously served as its chair. During the same period, the LGBT caucus fund turned around and donated $11,000 directly to Wiener's campaign committees and spent another $27,000 in independent expenditures to support his 2020 re-election.
While those state-level unions have not cut direct checks to Wiener lately, the connection is unmistakable. It is a charade that fools no one paying attention.
Wiener's latest headline-grabbing move came just weeks ago, when he killed a bill that would have barred anyone required to register as a sex offender from seeking elective office in California. The bill passed the Assembly 60-0, but Wiener blocked it because he believed it should apply only to Tier 3 offenders—the worst of the worst—apparently unconcerned that Tier 1 registrants can include those convicted of misdemeanor child pornography. One such registrant, Rene Campos, recently mounted a campaign for Fresno City Council, failed to gather enough signatures, and has vowed to "run again."
This is the lawmaker California's police unions are effectively subsidizing.
Rank-and-file officers have noticed. Sgt. Tony Romo, a nearly 40-year veteran of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, resigned from the board of the L.A. County Professional Peace Officers Association in 2023 over frustrations that the group was "selling out the members" through its political relationships. Romo says Sacramento lawmakers keep passing bills that "handcuff" officers, and police unions are facilitating the damage by refusing to fight party leadership. "They just kind of want to go to status quo," he explained.
Romo recalled that while he remained on the board, the PPOA discussed donating to Wiener even after Wiener's 2020 pledge to reject police union money. Each time, Romo rejected it. "Scott Wiener has shown throughout the years that he is no friend of law enforcement," Romo said. "He's more of a nemesis to law enforcement. And if he had it his way, there would be probably no law enforcement."
Now Wiener is running for Congress, seeking to replace Nancy Pelosi in representing San Francisco. If he wins, the same police unions that claim to represent the interests of California law enforcement will have played a supporting role—however indirect—in sending one of the state's most strident police critics to Washington. California's officers deserve leadership that fights for them, not a shell game that funds their opponents.
Editorial comments expressed in this column are the sole opinion of the writer
