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Ethics Reform

Last June, Harvey Rose, the Supervisors’ Budget and Legislative Analyst, released a report Comparing Ethics Policies in San Francisco and Los Angeles putting the issue of ethics reform on the front burner.  To track ethics in SF, go to www.citireport.com or follow Friends of Ethics on Facebook

The Harvey Rose report focused on four areas of policy and enforcement: (1) campaign financing; (2) enforcement and education; (3) lobbying; and (4) transparency. The comparison revealed alternative policies and approaches that San Francisco could consider with regard to influencing campaign financing, enforcing laws, educating and informing the public, and managing lobbying practices. In addition, the analysis indicated that investigations into ethics improprieties resulted in significantly different outcomes in San Francisco and Los Angeles, with San Francisco dismissing 76% of its cases, compared to just 19% in Los Angeles. Furthermore, Los Angeles levied higher average fines than San Francisco — $7,746 in the City of Los Angeles compared to $6,088 in the City and County of San Francisco over the seven-year period ending in November 2011.

Friends of Ethics and others submitted a letter to the Ethics Commission outlining next steps to fill the Ethics gaps identified by the report, including

• Greater disclosure of contributors to soft money spenders;
• Creating a Guide for Contributors that makes clear to everyone what the rules are for making donations;
• Allowing private citizen suits to enforce penalties;
• Requiring committees that make robocalls to voters to disclose their funding sources and providing a reasonable threshold for when disclosures must be made;
• Limits the amount of contributions that candidates may accept from independent expenditure committees if the candidate accepts public financing or agrees to the expenditure ceiling;

• Banning  political contributions from registered lobbyists – as is the case for both Los Angeles and the State of California, but not San Francisco;
• Identifying regards attorneys who give political advice as lobbyists who must register and report their activities;
• Banning contributions from political appointees to those who appoint them;
• Prohibiting contractors from making contributions to officials who will make the decisions on their development permits;
• Ban the bundling contributions from others by city hall power brokers;
• Ban the acceptance of accept political contributions in City Hall and City buildings