Assemblymember Matt Haney proudly represents California’s 17th Assembly District encompassing the eastern side of San Francisco.
Prior to his election to the State Assembly in April 2022, Assemblymember Haney served on the San Francisco on the Board of Supervisors where he championed bold initiatives like guaranteeing mental health care for all San Franciscans and commonsense policies like 24-hour bathrooms, new bike lanes, slow streets, and universal tenant protections. He also facilitated over 5,000 units of new housing in his district and oversaw record investments in affordable housing, public safety and economic recovery as Chair of the Budget and Finance Committee.
When the pandemic hit, Matt authored legislation to house over 2,000 people experiencing homelessness in hotels and spent time working on the frontlines as a disaster service worker at a community COVID shelter hotels when there were staff shortages. He launched relief programs to keep restaurants and music venues afloat during the shutdown, led the fight to open mass-vaccination sites, and authored laws to ensure workers had masks, gloves and adequate sick pay.
In 2020, Matt authored the “Overpaid Executive Tax,” which was the first voter approved tax in the country targeting the massive gap between worker and CEO pay. The measure was passed overwhelmingly by voters and revenues will provide San Francisco with tens of millions of dollars to hire more nurses, social workers, and emergency responders.
Prior to his election to the Board of Supervisors in 2018, Assemblymember Haney served on the San Francisco Board of Education from 2013-2019 where he fought for affordable teacher housing, expanded computer science education, and cut suspensions that overwhelmingly targeted students of color. He is the only school board member to have visited all 113 public K-12 schools in San Francisco and the only local San Francisco elected official ever to have earned the support of then President Barack Obama.
Haney previously worked pro bono as an attorney defending families from eviction in San Francisco. He was the co-founder of #cut50, a national organization working to end mass incarceration with smarter solutions to keep communities safe. He has also worked as a lecturer and adjunct faculty at the Stanford Design School and Executive Director of the UC Student Association, where he led advocacy and outreach on behalf of the 200,000+ UC students across the state, winning multiple tuition freezes and helping pass the California DREAM Act.
Haney attended Bay Area public schools and holds a BA in Urban Development from UC Berkeley, an MA from Stanford University School of Education, a JD from Stanford Law School, and an LLM in Human Rights from National University of Ireland.
He lives in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood with his two orange tabby cats. He is one of only three renters in the State Legislature and commutes to Sacramento via Amtrak.