Francisco

Reporting from Sacramento — It was an iconic image: Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, longtime partners and lesbian activists, embracing after being wed in San Francisco City Hall. The first same-sex couple in the country to receive a marriage license was joined by city officials and advocates choked with emotion — but not the man who set their nuptials in motion, Gavin Newsom.

Instead, the then-San Francisco mayor was purposefully absent, sitting in his office and anxiously awaiting word that the ceremony had been performed before a court could interfere.

Newsom’s decision to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples — just a month into his term — was at once slapdash and choreographed. Almost immediately it spun out of his control. What was meant to be a short-lived act of civil disobedience on Feb. 12, 2004, turned into a 29-day saga during which more than 4,000 couples wed, catapulting Newsom into the national fray.

The move drew rebukes from social conservatives and prominent Democrats, including gay rights icons and Newsom’s political mentors. The fallout rippled into the 2004 presidential election and the successful 2008 campaign for Proposition 8, which banned gay marriages in California.

Now, five years since the U.S. Supreme Court made marriage equality the law of the land, Newsom has made his decision a central selling point in his campaign for governor. In one television ad, he appears with Lyon — whose spouse died in 2008 — reminiscing with a photo album.

Would Newsom as governor take the same risks? “I hope so,” he said in an interview this month. “I’m an idealist … I embrace that.”

There was no hint that gay marriage would be anywhere on Newsom’s agenda when he ran for mayor in 2003. A county supervisor since 1997, he was seen as the conservative candidate — for San Francisco, at least.

Nationally, the issue was gaining prominence. A Massachusetts court case was laying the groundwork to force that state to legally recognize same-sex marriage. In his 2004 State of the Union, President George W. Bush lambasted “activist judges” for redefining marriage. He threatened to back a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman.

Newsom, who listened to the address from the House of Representatives gallery as a guest of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), has said that was the moment he knew he had to do something.

Soon after he told his chief of staff, Steve Kawa, who is gay, that he intended to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. In a municipal quirk — as mayor of San Francisco, both a city and a county — he had authority to do so.

Kawa said his reaction was stunned silence. He and others among Newsom’s senior staff initially had reservations.

As lieutenant governor, Gavin Newsom has had few duties — and he skipped many of them »

“People felt like this could really do him harm,” said Joyce Newstat, then Newsom’s policy director. “This could really hold back his own ability to accomplish what he wanted to accomplish as mayor. It would destroy his political career.”

The hesitation was shared by prominent gay rights activists. Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said her first reaction was fear. In a call with Kawa, she said she appreciated Newsom’s support, but noted Bush’s speech. “We just barely won in Massachusetts. These wins are very fragile,” Kendell said she told the chief of staff. She ultimately came around.

In the course of days, the ceremony was carefully orchestrated. The officiant would be Mabel Teng, the assessor-recorder whose core job was to maintain marriage licenses. Newsom would not be present, to avoid accusations of injecting politics into the proceedings. And the first couple would be Martin and Lyon, who at the time had been together more than 50 years.

Newsom and his allies assumed the courts would shut them down immediately. California voters had passed Proposition 22 in 2000, which said only marriages between a man and a woman would be valid in the state.

But the courts declined to intervene for nearly a month. The image of Lyon and Martin soon gave way to the scene of a line of hopeful couples wrapped around San Francisco City Hall, undeterred by protesters.

Gay rights advocates said the pictures of relatable, ebullient couples instantly humanized the debate over marriage equality.

Newsom eventually officiated a handful of marriages, including Kawa’s and Newstat’s respective ceremonies with their partners.

Opponents of same-sex marriage said Newsom was flagrantly ignoring the will of Californians.

“Mayor Newsom lied when he swore to uphold the law,” Randy Thomasson, who runs Save California, a socially conservative group, said in an interview. “When he raised his right hand, it was almost like he was giving one finger, figuratively, to the people.”

High-stakes California governor’s race debate gets testy as personal and political attacks fly »

The California Supreme Court halted the weddings on March 11, and the court later nullified those marriages that had been performed. Newsom was chastised for not following the law as written; one justice said he had “created a mess.”

But by then Newsom had become an unlikely face for marriage equality; news stories from the time emphasized that he was straight and married. Kendell said it was precisely because Newsom did not have a reputation as an outspoken liberal that he was able to make his decision.

“This move by Newsom played against type,” she said. “People did not expect this Irish Catholic, straight … middle-of-the-road moderate to do something so audacious.”

The mayor’s growing national stature as a gay rights warrior irked some who long had worked for the cause.

“I really think he stood on the shoulders of a lot of people who had suffered and died,” said Tom Ammiano, a former supervisor and assemblyman who is gay. “It really wasn’t all about him, but he made it all about him.”

Republicans predictably made Newsom their foe, and Democrats cringed at how his move might energize social conservatives to vote against them in the 2004 presidential election.

Former Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who is gay, said Newsom had imperiled the strategy in Massachusetts — to show that allowing same-sex marriage in one state would not be disruptive — before the right was pursued elsewhere.

“It troubled me as an example of the kind of politics that puts the interest of the political actor ahead of the cause,” Frank said.

Newsom now dismisses that criticism as “purely political arguments.”

“If they told me it was the wrong thing to do because it was the wrong thing to do, then I would’ve listened to that argument,” he said. “They never said that. They said it was too much, too soon, too fast. That’s not going to convince me.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), a mentor of Newsom’s, said at the time he was partly to blame for John Kerry’s presidential loss. Newsom said the criticism was “heavy,” but he understood the thinking behind it. They repaired their relationship, he said, tongue slightly in cheek, “the old-fashioned way — by never discussing it.”

Now, Feinstein said, she believes “history has proven that Gavin Newsom made the right decision, a very bold decision, which paved the way for marriage equality.”

The California Supreme Court ultimately struck down the state’s gay marriage ban in 2008, prompting a triumphant Newsom to declare that marriage equality would happen “whether you like it or not.” The backers of Proposition 8, which sought to amend the state Constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage, capitalized on those comments in a campaign ad.

That ad and Proposition 8’s success once again put Newsom on the defensive for harming the cause he had so forcefully backed. The ban set in place by Proposition 8 remained in effect until 2013, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned it and, in a separate ruling, found that same-sex couples could marry nationwide.

Newsom said he has no regrets about his decision. But he said he sees the experience now “with a different set of eyes,” with more effort toward “thinking through the intended and the unintended.”

“On such an emotional issue — such a raw issue dividing families, not least my own, down the middle — it’s about what the system can absorb,” Newsom said. “I think about that now differently, absolutely.”

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Rams coach Sean McVay and San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan know each other — and each other’s schematic and play-calling tendencies — better than perhaps any two coaches in the NFL.

Close games between the teams are a constant.

Since they first squared off in 2017, nearly half of their 18 matchups have been decided by three points or fewer, including the 49ers’ 26-23 overtime victory on Oct. 2 at SoFi Stadium.

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Gary Klein breaks down what you need to know for Sunday’s matchup between the Rams and San Francisco 49ers at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara.

So expect another game that could come down to the final possession when the Rams play the 49ers in an NFC West game at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara.

“Two good teams with two good staffs that are familiar with each other,” Rams tight end Tyler Higbee said in explaining the tight nature of the matchup, “and then you throw the rivalry part into it.”

McVay is 7-11 against Shanahan, his former mentor, though the Rams had won three in a row before the Week 5 loss that ended when 49ers star linebacker Fred Warner stopped Kyren Williams on a fourth-and-one play at the 49ers’ 11-yard line.

Rams kicker Joshua Karty missed a 53-yard field goal attempt and had an extra-point attempt blocked in the defeat.

The Rams this week moved to improve their season-long kicking-game issues by signing rookie kicker Harrison Mevis and veteran long snapper Jake McQuaide to the practice squad. Both will be elevated to the roster and play on Sunday.

Mevis, 23, made 89 of 106 field-goal attempts at Missouri, including one from 61 yards. In the United Football League this past season, he made 20 of 21 field-goal attempts.

The 49ers wasted no time addressing their own kicking-game issues.

After a season-opening defeat that included a missed field goal and a blocked kick, they released Jake Moody and signed Eddy Pineiro.

Pineiro has made all 19 of his field-goal attempts and 14 of 15 extra points.

SAN FRANCISCO — Rep. Nancy Pelosi, a trailblazing San Francisco Democrat who leveraged decades of power in the U.S. House to become one of the most influential political leaders of her generation, will not run for reelection in 2026, she said Thursday.

The former House speaker, 85, who has been in Congress since 1987 and oversaw both of President Trump’s first-term impeachments, had been pushing off her 2026 decision until after Tuesday’s vote on Proposition 50, a ballot measure she backed and helped bankroll to redraw California’s congressional maps in her party’s favor.

With the measure’s resounding passage, Pelosi said it was time to start clearing the path for another Democrat to represent San Francisco — one of the nation’s most liberal bastions — in Congress, as some are already vying to do.

“With a grateful heart, I look forward to my final year of service as your proud representative,” Pelosi said in a nearly six-minute video she posted online Thursday morning, in which she also recounted major achievements from her long career.

Pelosi did not immediately endorse a would-be successor, but challenged her constituents to stay engaged.

“As we go forward, my message to the city I love is this: San Francisco, know your power,” she said. “We have made history, we have made progress, we have always led the way — and now we must continue to do so by remaining full participants in our democracy, and fighting for the American ideals we hold dear.”

Pelosi’s announcement drew immediate reaction across the political world, with Democrats lauding her dedication and accomplishments and President Trump, a frequent target and critic of hers, ridiculing her as a “highly overrated politician.”

Pelosi has not faced a serious challenge for her seat since President Reagan was in office, and has won recent elections by wide margins. Just a year ago, she won reelection with 81% of the vote.

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However, Pelosi was facing two hard-to-ignore challengers from her own party in next year’s Democratic primary: state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), 55, a prolific and ambitious lawmaker with a strong base of support in the city, and Saikat Chakrabarti, 39, a Democratic political operative and tech millionaire who is infusing his campaign with personal cash.

Their challenges come amid a shifting tide against gerontocracy in Democratic politics more broadly, as many in the party’s base have increasingly questioned the ability of its longtime leaders — especially those in their 70s and 80s — to sustain an energetic and effective resistance to President Trump and his MAGA agenda.

In announcing his candidacy for Pelosi’s seat last month after years of deferring to her, Wiener said he simply couldn’t wait any longer. “The world is changing, the Democratic Party is changing, and it’s time,” he said.

Chakrabarti — who helped Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) topple another older Democratic incumbent with a message of generational change in 2018 — said voters in San Francisco “need a whole different approach” to governing after years of longtime party leaders failing to deliver.

In an interview Thursday, Wiener called Pelosi an “icon” who delivered for San Francisco in more ways than most people can comprehend, with whom he shared a “deep love” for the city. He also recounted, in particular, Pelosi’s early advocacy for AIDS treatment and care in the 1980s, and the impact it had on him personally.

“I remember vividly what it felt like as a closeted gay teenager, having a sense that the country had abandoned people like me, and that the country didn’t care if people like me died. I was 17, and that was my perception of my place in the world,” Wiener said. “Nancy Pelosi showed that that wasn’t true, that there were people in positions of power who gave a damn about gay men and LGBTQ people and people living with HIV and those of us at risk for HIV — and that was really powerful.”

Chakrabarti, in a statement Thursday, thanked Pelosi for her “decades of service that defined a generation of politics” and for “doing something truly rare in Washington: making room for the next one.”

While anticipated by many, Pelosi’s decision nonetheless reverberated through political circles, including as yet another major sign that a new political era is dawning for the political left — as also evidenced by the stunning rise of Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old democratic socialist elected Tuesday as New York City’s next mayor.

Known as a relentless and savvy party tactician, Pelosi had fought off concerns about her age in the past, including when she chose to run again last year. The first woman ever elected speaker in 2007, Pelosi has long cultivated and maintained a spry image belying her age by walking the halls of Congress in signature four-inch stilettos, and by keeping up a rigorous schedule of flying between work in Washington and constituent events in her home district.

However, that veneer has worn down in recent years, including when she broke her hip during a fall in Europe in December.

That occurred just after fellow octogenarian President Biden sparked intense speculation about his age and cognitive abilities with his disastrous debate performance against Trump in June of last year. The performance led to Biden being pushed to drop out of the race — in part by Pelosi — and to Vice President Kamala Harris moving to the top of the ticket and losing badly to Trump in November.

Democrats have also watched other older liberal leaders age and die in power in recent years, including the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, another San Francisco power player in Washington. When Ginsburg died in office at 87, it handed Trump a third Supreme Court appointment. When Feinstein died in office ill at 90, it was amid swirling questions about her competency to serve.

By bowing out of the 2026 race, Pelosi — who stepped down from party leadership in 2022 — diminished her own potential for an ungraceful last chapter in office. But she did not concede that her current effectiveness has diminished one bit.

Pelosi was one of the most vocal and early proponents of Proposition 50, which amends the state constitution to give state Democrats the power through 2030 to redraw California’s congressional districts in their favor.

The measure was in response to Republicans in red states such as Texas redrawing maps in their favor, at Trump’s direction. Pelosi championed it as critical to preserving Democrats’ chances of winning back the House next year and checking Trump through the second half of his second term, something she and others suggested will be vital for the survival of American democracy.

On Tuesday, California voters resoundingly approved Proposition 50.

In her video, Pelosi noted a litany of accomplishments during her time in office, crediting them not to herself but to her constituents, to labor groups, to nonprofits and private entrepreneurs, to the city’s vibrant diversity and flair for innovation.

She noted bringing federal resources to the city to recover after the Loma Prieta earthquake, and San Francisco’s leading role in tackling the devastating HIV/AIDS crisis through partnerships with UC San Francisco and San Francisco General, which “pioneered comprehensive community based care, prevention and research” still used today.

She mentioned passing the Ryan White CARE Act and the Affordable Care Act, building out various San Francisco and California public transportation systems, building affordable housing and protecting the environment — all using federal dollars her position helped her to secure.

“It seems prophetic now that the slogan of my very first campaign in 1987 was, ‘A voice that will be heard,’ and it was you who made those words come true. It was the faith that you had placed in me, and the latitude that you have given me, that enabled me to shatter the marble ceiling and be the first woman speaker of the House, whose voice would certainly be heard,” Pelosi said. “It was an historic moment for our country, and it was momentous for our community — empowering me to bring home billions of dollars for our city and our state.”

After her announcement, Trump ridiculed her, telling Fox News that her decision not to seek reelection was “a great thing for America” and calling her “evil, corrupt, and only focused on bad things for our country.”

“She was rapidly losing control of her party and it was never coming back,” Trump told the outlet, according to a segment shared by the White House. “I’m very honored she impeached me twice, and failed miserably twice.”

The House succeeded in impeaching Trump twice, but the Senate acquitted him both times.

Pelosi’s fellow Democrats, by contrast, heaped praise on her as a one-of-a-kind force in U.S. politics — a savvy tactician, a prolific legislator and a mentor to an entire generation of fellow Democrats.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a longtime Pelosi ally who helped her impeach Trump, called Pelosi “the greatest Speaker in American history” as a result of “her tenacity, intellect, strategic acumen and fierce advocacy.”

“She has been an indelible part of every major progressive accomplishment in the 21st Century — her work in Congress delivered affordable health care to millions, created countless jobs, raised families out of poverty, cleaned up pollution, brought LGBTQ+ rights into the mainstream, and pulled our economy back from the brink of destruction not once, but twice,” Schiff said.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said Pelosi “has inspired generations,” that her “courage and conviction to San Francisco, California, and our nation has set the standard for what public service should be,” and that her impact on the country was “unmatched.”

“Wishing you the best in this new chapter — you’ve more than earned it,” Newsom wrote above Pelosi’s online video.