take on these issues. my hope is, in doing that, the ethics commission will take into account some of the points that were raised in the prior report that was conducted by the budget and legislative analysts. again, i thank you for this item and i want to thank supervisor wiener for his work. i look forward to continuing to work with him and the ethics commission, members of the community who are interested in those issues. supervisor kim: thank you both. i am glad you are working together on this ordinance. in light of the hearing we just had, i think it dovetails nicely as we think about how to address some of these other issues that were brought up in the legislative analyst's report. before i moved into discussion, i thought i would open it up for public comment. at this time, -- supervisor

wiener does have the speaker cards. at this time, we will open it up for public comment. supervisor wiener: esther, larry, oliver, charles, francisco. >> thank you very much for allowing me to be able to speak on your proposed amendment. i wanted to agree with supervisor campos. i wanted to start off by reading the provision of the campaign finance reform ordinance and remind people that this is an amendment to a very important ordinance. "these developments, referring

to the public impression that money dominates politics. "these developments undermine the integrity of the political process. the amount of money raised by many candidates and committees supporting or opposing candidates also erodes public confidence in local officials by creating the appearance that elected officials may be unduly influenced by contributors who support their campaigns or oppose their opponents' campaigns." i am grateful that you're planning to send this to the ethics commission for further review before consideration of adoption. i feel that there are five changes that, when i read them, i had to question. who was it benefiting? it was definitely not benefiting campaign finance reform. the part of benefiting finance reform is increased disclosure, public financing, which will level the playing field as far

as contributions, and expenditure limits. these provisions undermine all of that. first of all, i am glad that you are willing to eliminate the campaign overhead expenses. that would create a situation where you are undermining expenditures limits as well as taking away from campaigns competitively warning legal services. reducing the campaign spending and contributions reports -- i am a treasurer for debt -- for an assembly campaign. i have to report 90 days before the campaign, expenditures of $1,000 or more. the last few days, all spoke -- i have to fax a hard copy. it is not a problem. it is easy to do. who is benefiting by reducing

disclosure requirements? third, in terms of the amount of people who can contribute more than $1,500, i doubt very much that you will find very many. again, who is benefiting by removing or changing the requirement? i thought this was especially curious. eliminating the requirement that applicants for public finance cannot make more than 50 total payments to a vendor or contractor that has made a contribution to the candidate. how many vendors and contractors do you know that has the treasurer making 50 payments? it makes me wonder who is benefiting from this provision. thank you very much for letting me speak beyond my time limit. i also wanted to say that one assembly member one-and-a-half and impact on this. campaign finance report --

reform is one of his specialties. i think he would agree with the comments i have made. i wanted to close by saying, also taken from the reform ordinance, if the intent is to help restore public trust in government and electoral institutions, none of these amendments do that. >> thank you again. i will say thank you to supervisor campos for requesting a report from the budget and legislative analyst's office and thank you to supervisor wiener and supervisor campos for working on this legislation. i concur with supervisor campo'' view that these amendments do nothing to further the purposes of the act as is required when

amendments are made without their approval. to the contrary, it is my belief that these amendments reduce transparency, take away disclosures that our corporate and useful, create loopholes, reduces not only transparency but disclosure, and does nothing to help us get a handle on money in politics. we need to educate our community. i appreciate this going back to the ethics commission and having an interested persons hearing or more than one. i would ask that we not just rely on that, but that we asked the ethics commission to engage in concerted and broad-based outreach. that is not something the ethics commission has done in the past. at times, when i was on the ethics commission, when i asked for increased outreach, i was told that i needed to do that

work. so i ask you to ask the ethics commission to convene interested persons hearings and provide evidence and information as to who attends the meetings so we get a full range of people in our community to weigh in. in response to the question about staffing and resources, it is very true that the ethics commission is under-resource, under-staffed. i would love for you to look at that. there is a need to prioritize how the available resources are used. there is not an emphasis on investigation and enforcement. i would suggest that our available resources be shifted to that direction. thank you. >> hello. thank you for taking the position that you will let this be reviewed further with the

ethics commission. my concern is that these proposals have not been road- tested by people who have experienced in campaigns. for example, as supervisor campos mentioned, a campaign you can do with under $5,000 is considerable. we did a campaign last november and we found that, for $1,000, you could have the bay guardian run your add 100,000 times. if you were going to pay for robocalls, they cost about 1.2 since per call. you could send 42,000 calls and none of that would be disclosed under these proposals. that shows a lack of understanding of what really happens in campaigns in san francisco. this is not the first time that the ethics commission has had a disconnect from the reality of san francisco's political life.

one year ago, the proposed new removing the ban on contractors that the redevelopment agency -- that prevented the redevelopment and state agencies from making contributions. they said the officials did not know who the contractor's work. i think it is preposterous to think that they would not know what lennar was doing at the redevelopment agency. it shows a lack of understanding. finally, the los angeles ethics commission collected $2 million in enforcement actions compared to an infinitesimal amount in san francisco. we had a case that was filed about laurie making illegal contributions last fall. it is still pending in san for cisco. it has already been acted upon by the fpcc. there were fined $40,000. san francisco is still sitting on it but they have had a $40 collection.

i also thought you might like to see what the budget analyst is referring to. it really does help people who want to make contributions who want to understand what the rules and limits are. there you have a copy of it. >> midafternoon. -- good afternoon. thank you for holding this hearing. i am going to tell you something you all know. free speech and open elections is something this country has been about for a long time. we still have open elections. unfortunately, we do not have free speech anymore. speech is equated to dollars. and now we have equated dollars to volume. the louder you are, the more dollars you can put in. if you look at the number of people who actually contribute

to your campaigns or contribute to politics, it is an extremely small percentage. what we have is a very small percentage of the population having any speech at all when it comes to determining the issues before the electorate. the only way we will be able to control speech, volume, dollars, is through disclosure. i would encourage that we have as much disclosure as possible through every step of the process. there are so few people who actually participate in funding elections. thank you very much. >> thank you. first of all, this legislation has some drafting errors this by no less than six ethics attorney is reviewing it. reporting for periods with no

activity conflicts with state law. regarding in kind contributions in debt is redundant and conflicts with the provisions of the ordinance. much worse than those are the proposed intentional loopholes and destruction of reforms such as 24-hour reporting and the overall contribution limits. with 48 candidates last year applying the latter proposals to the election, it would have raised the cumulative limit from $1,500 to $24,000. this guarantees increased influence by the deep-pocketed. it did not mention on constitutionality as a basis for removal. their proposed reducing the threshold to the states loophole-ridden standards. supervisor campos mentioned, in

2009, the commission proposed reducing the spending, exempting membership communications, and some more. the board of supervisors unanimously projected that. finally, the amendments along with some other provisions gut disclosure for groups engaged in election communications, restoring the loophole notoriously used in past elections. it eliminates disclaimers for independent advertisements and robocalls. as a whole, the legislation is written against the public interest. thank you. >> good afternoon. i am from district 1. i am a student of history, in particular, american democracy.

i want to remind everyone about the remark by james madison. "if men were angels, no government would be necessary." and the remark about democracy being the worst form of government except for all the others by winston churchill. in this case, the ethics commission is trying to gut the regulations we have in place to govern campaign donations and disclosure. looking at this legislative digest, i am a layperson. i do not know the supper well. -- this stuff very well. i read the ethics digest and thing, that is not so bad. i have to talk to my friends to find out what is wrong with it. for example, the legislation would impose consistent disclosure and disclaimer

requirements whenever a third party spends $5,000 or more for such communications. it does not say that it is not requiring disclosure for spending less than $5,000, which we obviously need. i am concerned about the charitable fundraisers. what is a charitable fund- raiser? it could be an industry advocacy group. i am concerned about the proposal to limit -- to take be removed limit for contributions. somebody like ron conway could come to the city and give $5,000 to every single candidate. i am concerned about the list. when you make lists caught in items one and two in this proposal, you are opening up the legislation to loopholes. thank you.

>> i am a former ethics commissioner. i want to address two issues. first of all, as to where contributions should be made, supervisor wiener is correct. it is much better if contributions are made to and reported by candidate committees rather than some phony ballot measure committee or some phony issue education committee. my commission, at the request of judge grant, i made the motion to put pro o on the ballot, which limited expenditures for and against candidates to $500. because of court decisions, it is difficult to enforce limits on the contributions. it is still better if the contributions are disclosed. secondly, i wanted to educate you about the complaint process. in addition to distinguish

people that i serve with, contrary to the impression that we were sweeping complaints under the rug, most complaints, commissioners unanimously felt that the conduct was sleazy, unethical, a conflict of interest and should be stopped. the city attorney always advised us, unequivocally, that we have to find evidence of a violation of one of the specific laws that the charter mandates the ethics commission enforces. part of the thing that needs to be done in order to strengthen the ethics commission is to amend the laws that commissioners and force so they are able to find specific violations of the laws they enforced and they can take disciplinary action. thank you.

>> i wanted to echo support for the concerns of supervisor campos. about this draft. i hope it does get sent back for it when i hear that some of the options in the draft talk of presenting complaints because from reporting regulations, reducing the frequency, that there may not be a 24-hour requirement, i am asking myself, how does this for the ordinance? it seems it makes it easier for the commission, for the staff, and for those who have to file reports. but is that furthering the purposes of the ordinance? others may speak to that. on the exempting complaints, i am having fun going through all of the possibilities and

playing weasel games with what our compliance costs. when i was on the ethics commission, we would have a sub- forum duo who would try to play weaseled things. how can you get around a regulation? how can you get around a proposal that's what can you do? we didn't -- we not only look at the good, but how can people get around it? that is what worries me about some of these aspects, weakening and lessening it. this goes back to the question of staffing. while ethics may not have money for tv, the idea of having more interested parties meeting is worthwhile. whether they can be on skype or some other technology that is widely available, communicated easily so that others who are not able to attend do not find out about it and can still monitor what was said, what was asked. as much information that is

gained, not just from the text% it -- the text presented, because i went too many meetings and listened to questions. thank you. >> just a brief reference to the agency status question. you should know that supervisors newsom, sandobal, and daly did draft a peace with 14 sentences. it immediately operated ethics as an agency, independent from you all and the mayor and everyone else. i want to thank supervisor campos for talking about the two requirements that must predicate an amendment to the code. that is supermajority and further.

it does have to further the purposes of the act. an easy way to handle that is to require that findings be demonstrated for each amended -- amendment being proposed to the code. i think that would be a good examination for us, to be sure that there is a legal justification for proceeding. otherwise, you might find ourselves in court. this came up when bob stern came up with the mechanism. it was his intent that there be findings to show how the purposes of the acts are furthered. the main response to the arizona decision by the u.s. supreme court is very instructive. we immediately proposed a repeal, but they threw it to a public toin maine and came up with remedies, two of which they

forwarded to the legislature. we did not do that. our committee voted to repeal the act. thank you very much. >> first and foremost, i was the proponent for proposition f. i encountered a it rogue developer that spent $10 million. we, the people, spend $5,000. you need to think about this, referencing all the amendments that are made in this legislation. i would like to see an independent body. this ethics commission is not an independent body. therefore, item #6 and item number seven, and one of you means well. the other one does not mean well. you are going to send it back to

the ethics commission that is dealing with ross mirkarimi and all of those things. what focus will be given to the agenda items? that is my concern. supervisors, whether we like it or not, we need to have an independent body where people do not take instructions from outside. right now, we have very corrupt politicians. let me repeat, very, very corrupt politicians. and i come from a federal agency. i even worked for law enforcement. we know these people. and they influenced every level in this city and county of san francisco. some of you are influenced by a politician. he can make one call and you will just do as he says. some of you will not.

but some of you will. and so, supervisors, look at an independent agency to do the right thing. thank you very much. >> good afternoon. i want to speak to you as a journalist. particularly in the paragraph u, regarding internet advertisements. i think the language needs more precision in terms of who can and cannot pay. also, i think we need some assurances that journalists and others who write paid blogs for the likes of salon.com and politico.com, will not be considered in violation of paid advertisements. i have proposed some new language for this. it is a bit longer, but a bit

more precise. and it is not necessarily perfect, but i think it can be a starting point for revising the language of u language. it contains it"nothing in this section is intended to discourage the use of the and that four persons for whom such communications are a regular source of income." i plan to get with my union on this. you may be hearing from the union or not. i want to leave you with this thought. these amendments would appear to reduce transparency in the political process. each of you could be affected by that. each of you may at some point be frustrated by the reduction in transparency. do you want to assure yourself in the foot on that?

-- to shoot yourself in the foot on that? >> hello again. i just wanted to agree with supervisor campos and some other speakers. in light of the supreme court throwing out contribution limits from all kinds of wealth the entities, this is not the time to reduce transparency. it is not the time to reduce disclosure. also, i had an idea about the staffing of the ethics commission. supervisors have volunteers on their staff. i wondered if there was a way to get volunteers in there to help with some of the work. such as, perhaps, from six classes, if there are any left in high school. something like that. that is a suggestion. i have another suggestion. perhaps he might like to request a comparison of san francisco

and l.a. public financing systems with portland, ore., which did have full public financing until the supreme court threw out the fair fight funds part of it. however, i am not sure if -- how portland compares in size to san francisco. for some years, they have had actual voter-owned elections. you might want to look at that. a few years ago, the ethics commission or someone was going to look into public financing for san francisco. i never heard what happened with that. >> thank you. i neglected to give you three letters that i was asked to provide from people who could not be here today. one is from the vernal heights democratic club. one is from commissioner maufas

on the board of education. another one is from gabriel holland. supervisor wiener: are there any other members of the public who wish to speak in public comment? seeing none, can we close public comment? as i indicated at the beginning, i appreciate all the public comment today. i do not necessarily agree with every characterization that has been made today, but i am not going to go through point by point and express where i agree or disagree. we are going to send this back to the ethics commission for further discussion to make sure that we are furthering our shared goal of transparency and disclosure. while also doing what we can to improve the process to the extent possible. members of the committee, i would request that the committee

continue this with a request to the ethics commission to take up the matter for further deliberation. supervisor campos: thank you. i want to thank all of the members of the public who has come -- who have come out to speak on this item. i also want the bank, in advance, the ethics commission and their staff for taking these items into further consideration. i also want to take the opportunity to thank the city attorney's office. they do good work on these issues and their expertise is always greatly appreciated. i really believe that we have a real opportunity here, in san francisco, to make sure that we talk notwithstanding the context of what the supreme court has decided