The Case for Connie
Connie Chan’s record on workers’ rights has earned labor’s trust, along with its backing to succeed Nancy Pelosi in Congress
CONNIE CHAN sits with supporters on the steps of SF City Hall during a ballot drop rally in May. | Photo: Jana Ašenbrennerová
For the first time in nearly four decades, voters in San Francisco’s 11th Congressional District will elect someone other than Nancy Pelosi to represent them in Washington.
The first woman to serve as House speaker, Pelosi, 86, will retire when her term ends on January 3, 2027, closing out a congressional career that began in 1987.
Two candidates are vying to fill those shoes after making it through the June primary to the November general election: State Senator Scott Wiener and SF District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan.
The San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council endorsed Chan in February to succeed Pelosi, and they haven’t moved off that position heading into November.
For the building trades, support for Chan starts with her record on the issues.
Champion of Labor
Chan was first elected to represent supervisorial District 1 in 2020 and was reelected in 2024. Since February 2023, she has chaired the board’s Budget Committee.
When Chan first appeared on the ballot in 2020, the SF Building Trades Council backed her opponent. Four years later, Chan had earned the council’s enthusiastic endorsement.
“[Chan] worked hard to gain our trust, and she secured it,” said John Doherty, IBEW Local 6 business manager and SF Building Trades Council vice-president, in a 2025 interview. “It was across-the-board at the council level that everybody was behind her.”
What has Chan accomplished in nearly six years on the SF Board of Supervisors to win the building trades’ support — not only for reelection in 2024, but for Congress in 2026?
For one, as District 1 supervisor, she has sponsored or co-sponsored legislation strengthening construction wage protections, scheduling rights, and contractor accountability. In 2023, she helped pass an ordinance addressing the City’s authority to suspend or bar contractors from city work for wage theft and unfair labor practices. She also co-sponsored legislation requiring labor compliance bonds for certain residential construction projects earlier in the permitting process.
A year prior, Chan tackled the Family-Friendly Workplace Ordinance, which strengthened caregivers’ rights to flexible or predictable work schedules. She also co-sponsored legislation in 2024 that revised prevailing wage penalties and enforcement procedures.
Chan is co-sponsoring a pending ordinance directing the City to negotiate an expansion of its citywide project labor agreement to cover certain city-assisted affordable housing projects and extend it through 2050.
Looking ahead, Chan’s campaign website features “A Plan for Working People,” which details what she intends to pursue in Congress. This includes tackling issues such as infrastructure and jobs, labor protections and workplace safety, and AI and the future of work. She has promised to co-sponsor the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, legislation that protects the right to form unions and bargain collectively.
A Generational Candidate
Born in Hong Kong, Chan immigrated to San Francisco at age 13 with her mother and younger brother. They settled in Chinatown.
After graduating from Galileo High School and UC Davis, Chan volunteered as a Chinese interpreter for pro bono attorneys and worked as a local organizer with longstanding crime prevention nonprofit SF SAFE and the Community Youth Center.
She entered city government in 2006 as a legislative aide to then-supervisor Sophie Maxwell. Chan later worked for then-district attorney Kamala Harris, then-supervisor Aaron Peskin, and then-assemblymember Kevin Mullin. She also held roles at SF Rec and Parks and City College before running for supervisor in 2020.
In her role as supervisor, she championed a $30 million equity fund for the SF-based Asian and Pacific Islander nonprofit coalition API Council and supported tenant organizing rights and immigration defense. Her platform for Congress supports Medicare for all, universal preschool, abortion rights, LGBTQ+ rights, affordable childcare, and higher taxes on the wealthy, among other forward-looking stances.
In 2025, a Politico article described Chan as “a progressive force inside City Hall who, much like Pelosi, is closely aligned with the City’s powerful labor movement.”
Chan’s labor endorsements extend well beyond the building trades. Her backers include the California Federation of Labor Unions, the SF Labor Council, SEIU California, and the California Teachers Association. Several current and former elected officials have also endorsed her, with possibly none more significant than Nancy Pelosi herself.
SF Labor Council Political Director Rosa Shields said that Chan could follow in Pelosi’s footsteps and make history as the first Asian-American woman to represent San Francisco in Congress. Shields described Chan as someone who understands the needs of working families and has consistently supported organized labor.
“The Labor Council and our affiliated unions are all-hands-on-deck focused on electing Connie Chan to Congress in November,” Shields said. “That’s our main priority.”