Phil Ting

In 2005, Ting was appointed San Francisco Assessor-Recorder in 2005 by then-Mayor Gavin Newsom, becoming San Francisco’s highest-ranking Chinese-American official at the time. He was then elected to the post in November 2005, garnering 58 percent of the vote.[2]

As Assessor-Recorder, Ting cleared a five-year assessment backlog, which resulted in the collection of more than $200 million in unpaid property taxes.[3] In February 2012, Ting commissioned the country’s first real study of mortgage fraud that spurred national action,[4] uncovering "widespread mortgage industry irregularity" in San Francisco foreclosures.[5]

Specifically, Ting commissioned an audit of nearly 400 homes in the city that had been foreclosed upon in 2009-2011. The results of the audit, which demonstrated that more than 80% of the sampled foreclosures contained at least one clear legal violation, provided documented support for the state legislature to push for increased oversight of the mortgage industry.[6]

Ting was re-elected Assessor-Recorder in 2006 and 2010.[7]

Ting ran in the San Francisco Mayoral election of 2011 but was defeated by incumbent Mayor Ed Lee. Ting set a California record for highest campaign expenditures per vote after spending $500,000 on his 2011 campaign for San Francisco Mayor only to finish in 12th place.[8][9][10] The majority of the money came from the city's public campaign financing system which provided Ting's campaign with over $300,000.[9]

In 2012, he was elected to the California State Assembly, comfortably defeating fellow Democrat Michael Breyer, son of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. In 2014, Ting announced his support for a $100 million property tax-break for large corporations in San Francisco's Mid-Market District.[11]

A Democrat, Ting represents the state's 19th District, which includes the west side of San Francisco, in addition to Broadmoor, Colma, Daly City, and South San Francisco.[1] Ting is currently Chair of the Assembly Committee on Budget and is first Asian-American to hold the position. He previously served as Chair of the Assembly Committee on Revenue and Taxation and Chair of the Assembly Democratic Caucus.[1]