The Bay Area will be well represented when President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union speech Tuesday night to a joint session of Congress.
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee will be sitting near the First Lady Michelle Obama.
"The mayor is honored to be invited and to sit with the First Lady and other great Americans in that box and he's excited about that," said Christine Falvey, Lee's spokeswoman.
At the State of the Union, the First Lady's guests are often picked because they symbolize an issue the president wants to promote.
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There is speculation Lee was invited because of the president's push to raise the federal minimum wage. Under Lee, San Francisco has the highest minimum wages of any city in the country at $10.74 an hour -- a figure the mayor has pushed to increase.
"It's not the only issue where the two men have common ground," Falvey said, adding Immigration reform and health care access as others. "So the mayor is very much looking forward to working with the president over the next year."
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Alison Howard, who chairs the political science department at Dominican University, said everyone should expect a lot of calls to action from the president during his speech -- most of which may never be fulfilled.
Howard said her analysis shows the president made at least 41 calls to action during last year's State of the Union. Only two proposals were enacted.
"Other presidents have also had poor years," Howard said. "Back in 1986 Reagan only had about 5 percent of his partially enacted."
Lee will be seeing more of the First Lady, who is scheduled to be in San Francisco Thursday for a Democratic fundraiser.
Lee on Tuesday posted the following photo on Twitter:
With @jasoncollins34 & @jarronctwin at the @WhiteHouse Blue Room as guests of @FLOTUS for #SOTU pic.twitter.com/OuLKqHaG62 — Edwin Lee (@mayoredlee) January 29, 2014
