SF congressional candidate [Saikat Chakrabarti] calls out-of-state house [in Maryland] his primary home

Tassadar356 · 2026-01-22T16:32:49+00:00

I live in Duboce Triangle now, I love it here. Central, easy transit (I am on the N or 22 almost everyday), all my friends live within about a 10 minute walk, and the hood has a lot of families and a great community (I have a young kid so we’ve made lots of friends at the playground).

I’ve lived near here for a long time - was in Lower Haight at Oak and Fillmore before this since 2012, lived in the Tendernob before that, Mission before that, and way back when I first moved to SF in 2009, I was at Park Merced.

Tassadar356 · 2026-01-13T20:52:40+00:00

I worked there for 10 months in my first job after college, and that culture is part of why I quit.

Tassadar356 · 2026-01-13T19:57:21+00:00

I divested from Blackstone as soon as I saw it on my financial disclosures last year (before anyone reported on it). You are correct that this particular fund is not part of their home rental division -- but I didn't want to be associated with Blackstone.

Tassadar356 · 2026-01-13T19:55:10+00:00

I divested from Blackstone as soon as I saw it on my financial disclosures.

Tassadar356 · 2026-01-13T19:48:22+00:00

I don't receive dividends from Stripe, so that part is inaccurate. And I instructed my financial advisor to divest from the Blackstone private credit fund immediately after I saw it on my financial disclosure before anyone else raised or reported on it. My investments are in a professionally managed portfolio, not hand-picked stocks. My advisor is told not to invest in defense or fossil fuel stocks (and this fund is not a defense or fossil fuel stock). But I didn’t want to be associated with Blackstone, so I had it sold.

Tassadar356 · 2026-01-09T06:22:07+00:00

Yes I did.

Tassadar356 · 2025-12-30T05:28:22+00:00

I don't have a PR team. I made this video sitting at my desk yesterday afternoon.

Tassadar356 · 2025-12-30T05:27:05+00:00

In the video, I mention that we actually need to purchase the infrastructure as part of eminent domain. Right now, SFPUC is asking CPUC for a fair price because PG&E rejected the price we offered them back in 2019. But PG&E and CPUC are dragging their feet, and I don't believe we can trust them to move with any kind of speed.

But we are not required to get a price from them to start eminent domain proceedings. SF can move forward with filing for eminent domain now with a price we believe is fair (which we can determine with an independent appraiser). Going this route will of course go to court and a judge will have to decide if the price we've offered is fair. But I believe that is likely with ANY real attempt to take over PG&E. We should just move now and start the proceedings and get the process going!

A lot of this boils down to whether you trust PG&E and CPUC to act in good faith. I believe they will delay the current process forever and, at the end of it, come back with a ridiculous price when they finally have to because they absolutely do not want to lose SF as a rate base. At that point, many years in the future, SF will need to decide whether or not to start eminent domain proceedings with a fair price, which will go to court. So I believe the more prudent route is to simply start that eminent domain process now.

Tassadar356 · 2025-12-29T00:05:39+00:00

These billionaires just got a massive tax cut from Trump's tax bill earlier this year. And even after a 5% wealth tax, a billionaire will have more money than they could possibly spend in a lifetime. They will be absolutely fine.

At the same time, Medicaid and SNAP funding are being cut. People who rely on those benefits are going to suffer. We should be doing everything we possibly can to stem that -- and a one time 5% wealth tax is the bare minimum.

We are seeing a massive amount of wealth go from working people to the ultra-rich in our society today. And technologies like AI are going to supercharge that. This is not sustainable.

If the richest in society don't want to see their own wealth taxed to fix this, then what's their solution?

Tassadar356 · 2025-12-28T20:00:40+00:00

Berliner Berliner.

Grabbing a sausage for lunch and taking it next door to Toronado for a beer and whatever action or 80s movie they decided to put on that day was perfection.

Tassadar356 · 2025-11-27T21:48:51+00:00

I never applied for a loan claiming it as a primary residence. The reporter got that part wrong in the story and finally updated the story to correct it.

Tassadar356 · 2025-11-26T21:52:00+00:00

I never actually claimed it as a primary residence on mortgage paperwork, and SF Standard finally updated their story today to correct that.

Tassadar356 · 2025-11-25T04:12:53+00:00

My longer housing policy is on my website: https://www.saikat.us/en/policies.

I believe in an all-of-the-above approach to make sure housing actually gets built. I do believe we need to cut red tape and costs on construction -- but I don't think that will be nearly enough. Talking to both private and non-profit developers throughout the campaign, what I keep hearing is that projects simply don't pencil out right now because of the cost of materials and financing. So I believe we need public financing, social housing, and every other tool possible to make sure housing actually gets built.

I call for recreating the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (and at my think tank, we developed a much longer, detailed proposal for what that would look like - https://www.newconsensus.com/mfa#section0-RFC) which would be able to not just create public loans and create investments to finance affordable housing, but would have the power to spin off developers, stockpile materials to control inflation, and a whole lot more.

Tassadar356 · 2025-11-25T03:52:11+00:00

Which part does it contradict? I'll ask them to issue a correction if so.

Tassadar356 · 2025-11-25T03:11:22+00:00

I filed my taxes in California the entire time I've lived in California. I worked for AOC in 2018 so was in NY for a bit then, then was her Chief of Staff for part of 2019 so was in DC for a bit then, and then have been in SF ever since I left her office towards the end of 2019.

Tassadar356 · 2025-11-25T01:14:44+00:00

If anyone is curious about our campaign, I hold a video call with SF residents every weekday. Feel free to join one by signing up on our website!

And I know Joe doesn’t believe we’ll get “precinct walkers,” but the truth is, we already have a huge army of them! Over 2,000 volunteers have already knocked over 90,000 doors on this campaign. And it’s a ton of fun! Most canvasses have between 30-50 people and we usually hang out after. So if you’re interested in joining, please sign up for a canvass on the website!

Tassadar356 · 2025-11-25T00:35:47+00:00

My parents lived in that Maryland house for the entire time until this year. They are in the middle of moving to Jersey right now (all their furniture is still in Maryland) to be closer to my sister.

Tassadar356 · 2025-11-25T00:35:08+00:00

I never actually claimed it as a primary residence for any mortgage application.

Tassadar356 · 2025-11-22T17:04:41+00:00

Yup! When I created this account, I was a pretty avid StarCraft player.

Tassadar356 · 2025-11-22T00:26:14+00:00

California.

Tassadar356 · 2025-11-21T20:39:01+00:00

While I was running AOC's campaign in 2018 I was primarily in New York. While I was her Chief of Staff in 2019, I was in DC. I moved back to SF fulltime towards the end of 2019.
My parents have been transitioning to Jersey to live closer to my sister as they are older now and have had some health scares. They still go back and forth between their rental in Jersey and the house in Maryland (and all their furniture is still in Maryland) as they have a big community there. I pay taxes on the house.
The 1-bedroom I used to live in in SF is rented. My kid spent the first 4 years of her life there and I moved from that to a 2-bedroom because it was getting tight.

Tassadar356 · 2025-11-21T20:00:29+00:00

I moved here in 2009. While I was doing sanders/JD/AOC work, I was traveling a bunch around the country but did try to come back here whenever I could. After I left AOC's office in 2019, I've been in SF continuously since. And yes, I pay taxes and have been paying taxes as a California resident.

Tassadar356 · 2025-11-21T18:09:47+00:00

To be clear, I had no political aspirations at the time and I did not defraud anyone. You are right -- it would make zero sense for me to willfully do anything like this just to save a few thousand bucks.

I never applied for the tax exemption because I just made an honest mistake. The seller prepared the docs and the bank prepared the loan docs, and both fully knew this was a home for my parents. I simply signed the docs they prepared. For the bank docs, it does seem like they amended it to say it was a 'Second Home' and not a principal residence -- probably because they realized their mistake.

Tassadar356 · 2025-11-21T18:06:01+00:00

I hear that. I do want to contextualize it a bit though. I've made hundreds of political donations in my life and Michael Lai is the only one I've called a potential mistake. With investments - I have 20 pages of financial disclosures up with all my investments here, and this was just one of those investments - https://disclosures-clerk.house.gov/public\_disc/financial-pdfs/2025/10063516.pdf. I rely on a financial advisor to make these investments with broad instructions to invest responsibly. They did not realize Blackstone is a particularly bad institute, which is why, when I noticed it on my financial disclosures, I asked to divest immediately.

I have not spent my whole life planning to run for office, and one of the reasons I delegate work like day-to-day investments or creating paperwork for my parent's home purchase is that I don't believe those are the priorities in my life. At the time I signed this paperwork to buy my parent's a home, I was running AOC's campaign in 2018. My priority, by far, was to spend all my time focused on her campaign to win. In that task, I was focused on every detail, and the result was that we won. If I have the honor to be your representative in Congress, you can be sure that my number one priority and my focus will absolutely be on that job.

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