page_title: Ed Lee
section_title: Appointment as mayor
hierarchical_section_title: Ed Lee / Appointment as mayor
caption_attribution_description: English: Mr Ed Lee, Mayor of San Francisco at the lighting ceremony for the Rainbow World Fund's World Tree of Hope on 10 December 2013 in San Francisco City Hall
context_page_description: Edwin Mah Lee was an American politician and attorney who served as the 43rd Mayor of San Francisco, and was the first Asian American to hold the office.
  Born in Seattle, Lee was a member of the Democratic Party. He took office as San Francisco city administrator in 2005 and was appointed on January 11, 2011 by the Board of Supervisors to serve out the remaining term of former Mayor Gavin Newsom after Newsom resigned to become Lieutenant Governor of California. On November 8, 2011, he won the election to serve a full term as mayor. He was reelected in 2015 and served until his sudden and unexpected death on December 12, 2017.
context_section_description: In 2010 a vacancy in the office of mayor was impending when incumbent Gavin Newsom was elected as Lieutenant Governor of California. Under the San Francisco City Charter, vacancies in the mayoral office are filled by a majority vote of the Board of Supervisors, in which each supervisor is barred from voting for themselves. Speculation about possible appointees and debate on whether or not the old Board of Supervisors should cast the vote for the new mayor soon followed Newsom's election as lieutenant governor. (Four old supervisors were term-limited and four new people were elected in the 2010 election to take their place.)
  The Board of Supervisors nominated four people  — former Mayor Art Agnos, Sheriff Michael Hennessey, former Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, and Lee. None of them captured the necessary six votes at a meeting of the board on January 4, 2011, but after debate, some supervisors expressed willingness to switch their support to Lee, and the meeting was recessed until January 7. At the January 7 meeting, the old board voted 10–1 to elect Lee as mayor, with outgoing Supervisor Chris Daly casting the lone "no" vote. At the time, Lee promised not to seek election if appointed, a statement that helped to gain support for his appointment. The board included people who aimed to run in the November 2011 mayoral elections, none of whom wished to give the mayoral position to someone who might be their competitor in those elections, which would give that person the significant political advantages of incumbency.
  The vote was preliminary and non-binding, as Newsom had delayed his resignation until new members of the Board took office. A final vote was taken on January 11 by the new board to confirm Lee, one day after Newsom's resignation. The board voted unanimously for Lee and he took office immediately thereafter.
caption: San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee
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