to finish the statement you were making, but we want to make sure everyone gets the same amount of time. anything else? >> in fact we have lobbyists knows that a stronger does not change the fact that it is not accessible. i feed it to the web page, every link is broken, so you are getting nothing in response. there have been no press releases since early february 2010. supervisor campos: thank you. next speaker please. >> good afternoon, supervisors. thank you very much for holding this hearing. i was on the ethics commission from 1996 to 2000. if you remember, during that time, we passed some

legislation. just some comments real quickly because there's lots of details we can get into here. in answer to supervisor farrell pose a question about other cities, one of the cities we looked at was also new york city. new york city -- very large metropolitan city that has been in the reporting arena for many years. if we were going to look at another comparison, that would be a very, very good comparison. i think it is wonderful that the two of you are working on this and sending it back to the ethics commission. i think the need to do some serious work on this. we really need public input on this before it comes back. quick comment on the $500 -- the idea of the $500 was originally back as the population increase within a district, that would

give a lot more money for the supervisors to have access. you did not have to increase the $500 limit, but inflation by population would increase the amount of dollars that were available. just some comments from what our original proposal was. thank you. supervisor campos: thank you. next speaker please. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i served on the ethics commission for eight years, longer than any other person has, from 1996 to 2003, and i have known supervisors campos wiener for many years, on campaigns, sometimes working for the same candidate, sometimes working on opposite sides. i also agree with the decision to send the proposal back to the ethics commission. i think there are some unintended consequences of some of the proposals. in together, i wanted to

address raising the threshold for having to disclose the source of funds for campaign communications and also eliminating disclosure requirement for committees that are engaging in electioneering adds. i am to go the familiar with the issue because after serving on the commission, i represented a mexican immigrant supervisor who was being subjected to a barrage of hit pieces the last week before the election in 2004, the most notorious with nazi swastikas on the front of the mailer. the only information on the mailer was -- it said 4 doorman avenue. i found the printing house and

chased the consultant, but the contributions were never reported. everyone, even if they did not support the particular supervisor, was shocked by the pieces, and it was not disclosed, where they came from. obviously, it was a week before the election. they claim that what they said was "send supervisor sandoval a message" but -- supervisor campos: thank you. next speaker please. >> thank you for scheduling this. i worked for the ethics commission for years. san francisco [applause] campaign ordinance contains much good, but there are many problems that it does not address, only some of which it does not cover now. in l.a., disclosure reports required 24 hours after independent spending detail

previously undisclosed funders as the budget analyst report indicated. this is critically needed here. funding disclosures should be required whenever we have spending disclosure requirements. moreover, the independence and the disclosure is consistently required only for mayor and board races. for other offices, it is only required if the expenditure ceilings are still in place here last fall the election, we did not have that required. even worse, there's no such supplemental disclosure for measures. 24-hour and of the report should be required regardless of the status of the type of election contest. next up, finding shell game results in awful loopholes. we need special contributor recording requirements for non- san francisco committees that heavily donate locally. we need large local pac's subject to local reporting. campaigns financed by debt often delayed disclosure of their founders often until after the

election. committees should be prohibited from backing of deaths that they do not have the cash on hand to pay for. as for ethics commission enforcement, we need an independent audit of the program. i believe after redacting confidential witness names that we should open up their clothes files so the public can see what has been done over the last 10- plus years -- redact their closed files. thanks. supervisor campos: thank you. next speaker. >> good afternoon, supervisors. i was very active with ethics in the 1990's when i chaired the campaign coordinating committee when we enacted it in 1995 and also active with bob stern in the center for governmental studies in 2000 when we wrote it and embrace public financing in san francisco.

i know quite a bit about the subject. i will tell you that in the first half of the last decade, we tried to amend the ethics charter because we do not have the best practices model in the united states. that model is woefully out of date. simply put, if you look at the organization chart for the city, you will see that ethics is a city department under the mayor, not an independent agency. it is now viewed as more effective to have independent agency status. that would require about 14 lines of amendment to the ethics charter, and you would see a transformation, at least on paper. that said, what really matters is the people and the staffing. you can have the best laws and best ordinances in the country, but it is still not going to matter without the best people. i will tell you that i know for a fact that l.a. ethics has been

blessed with four and now five extraordinary executive directors. these people came out of the fppc, many of them. they were not only technically experts, but they were very much advocates for public ethics, and i do not think that is what we have seen consistently on the commission in san francisco, so thank you for your time. supervisor campos: thank you. next speaker please. >> [inaudible] supervisor campos: there you go. if he could speak to the microphone please. thank you. >> i am a volunteer with the california clean money campaign and the coordinator of it is a local working group here in san francisco. i am here to in particular talk

about the california disclosed act as a model back -- that i would urge san francisco to adopt. the infamous supreme court decision, citizens united, of course, resulted in an unprecedented flood of mostly anonymous money into the political arena, and -- so now stronger disclosure of who is really paying for political advertisements is more needed than ever. i oppose any weakening of transparency and disclosure in san francisco campaign finance laws. i urge san francisco adopt major provisions of the california disclose act, which is before the assembly right now. it would fight back against unlimited hidden spending on campaigns by letting voters know who is really paying for an advertisement, and that is the crucial difference. there would be no more hiding behind nice-sounding committee names.

it would require that each political advertisement showed its three largest actual contributors, no matter how many committees or groups that the contributors had previously passed their contributions through. this would apply to any kind of political ad, whether it is tv, radio, whatever -- what this is here is an example -- that is as it is now on the state -- it was the committee to stop hidden taxes. that sounds nice, and it shows a picture of allegedly the legislators hiding in a back room and trying to raise our taxes on us, but it was chevron, american beverage association, and philip morris, and that past. supervisor campos: thank you. next speaker please. >> good afternoon, supervisors.

i just came here, drop everything when i heard campaign finance was going to be an issue before you, just to physically up here and express how important i think it is because of the damage that has been done to our democracy by the entry of money into the picture. as we saw yesterday, where proposition 29 had a 2/3 margin three months ago and $47 million later, it squeaked out a defeat in that measure. i just want to emphasize also nancy pelosi's remarks about the past toward reversing citizens united. one of the biggest things she said to do is disclosure. with an informed electorate, we at least stand a chance of seeing what is really being done to our opinions. thank you. supervisor campos: thank you very much. next speaker please. >> good afternoon, supervisors.

i am a resident of san francisco, and i want to thank supervisor campos for requesting this audit. it helps to shed the elimination of several issues that the civil grand jury found troubling when we did the san francisco ethics commission report. in particular, the huge percentages of cases that are dismissed by the ethics commission, which gives the appearance of a double standard of treatment to certain candidates running for elective office, and that includes the office of supervisor. the ethics commission has failed to create a fixed schedule for fines and fees to be applied to charges of irregularities, and i want to say thank you to mr. rose and his staff for this analysis, which helps to demonstrate the unwillingness of the commission to do their job, and to advocate their authority to the ethics staff.

thank you. supervisor campos: thank you. next speaker. >> i will try to address some of the questions that supervisors had asked in this hearing. it will be based on my bill will experience. i also served seven years on the sunshine ordinance task force. i will help myself and say i am a guy who asked the civil grand jury when i was on ethics to look into ethics because i saw clear problems. asked about staffing levels, so i will tell you -- when i was on, we looked. some complaints that for a year- and-a-half or more, unresolved, unaddressed. we began to address problems, with a witness memories were fading, whether they had moved out. the lack of investigation bothered us. we did not get extra staff. we did not get expenditure.

there is another aspect that goes to my sunshine experience. i served seven years. you would figure i would have some knowledge of details with exceptions of specifics of that ordinance. i have filed various complaints with the sunshine ordinance task force, recused myself from discussions. they all were upheld unanimously with only one -- or with only one dissenting vote. they all refer to the ethics. they all were dismissed without notification to me. what i find out afterwards, the comment was that they would not hold up in court, but there's nothing in the sunshine ordinance. there's nothingñr in the complat -- you have to have a court case evidence quality complaint. suddenly, there is a standard, a behavior after the fact. in some of those complaints, a person highly knowledgeable like myself got ignored. i question the competence of had

it -- of having adequate staff and training to investigate the complaint. supervisor campos: thank you. is there any other member of the public who would like to speak? please come forward. >> i would like to echo the statements of many of the speakers, in particular, the last speaker. my sunshine case 11048, where four supervisors were found to be in violation, i was perplexed that the mayor's case got to go to the front of the line given that my violation is much older and that the city attorney was aware of the violation. the violations came august 24 and september 27. i wrote them on this issue and i am very, very disturbed. this is my first experience with ethics and city politics.

i am concerned about the democracy for san franciscans as i hear these gut wrenching and horrible stories. i have written to them. certainly, given what is sunshine task force concluded, to have found four supervisors in violation is a very serious matter. furthermore, i think that there are some disturbing things going on with ethics. it is leadership. that is one of the main things that needs to be looked at, to be examined. none of you can do what you do without a very good staff. the only person that i have ever come into contact with, other than john burton, is carol. she had a phenomenal staff and are respected all of them because they knew how to get some answers from her constituents. if it is a matter of training, they need that. if it is a matter of people not

wanting to do their job, in california, you do not have to do -- you do not have to have a reason to permeate. ethics can help. the residents of san francisco, we want to see a better ethics commission. thank you. supervisor campos: thank you very much. is there any other member of the public who has not spoken that would like to speak on this item? seeing none, we will close this item. my hope is -- i would like to get any thoughts that members of the committee have. my hope is that we would continue this item to the call of the chair, come back to it at some point. in the meantime, following this hearing, especially as the ethics commission deals with the next item, that they will take into account the findings of this report. that they would be an open

community process to get feedback on these issues. i do not know whether some of the things los angeles is doing it make sense for san francisco. i think having a discussion about that is a good thing. i think that, to the extent that any member of the committee or supervisor would like to have the budget and legislative analyst's conduct any further review, it is also an opportunity for us to make that clear today. thank you for your time. again, thank you to mr. rose and his staff. and to all the members of the community for being here today. we look forward to the ethics commission considering this issue. i appreciate their interest and willingness to look at this report. thank you. supervisor kim: i just want to thank supervisor campos for requesting this hearing. it was really i-opening.

-- eye-opening. public finance and ethics around campaigning, it is important for us to see what we can do to strengthen our ethics laws. i was not aware of the differences between los angeles and san francisco. it was important for me to hear the key differences so that we can improve and strengthen our ethics guidelines. there are certain things we can do that do not require the ethics commission and the board. such as our website. it is quite basic and the really took that apart. at minimum, we have chinese and spanish translation. it was a challenge for me explaining how the public financing works and out public contributions to campaigns work for members of our community that speak other languages. it would have been quite helpful to have some translated

documents to explain that. it is complicated to explain in english. those are some first good steps. thank you again, supervisor campos. supervisor wiener: i want to thank the budget analyst for performing the report. it would be worthwhile to look at what some other cities do. maybe some other comparable cities that have detailed campaign finance laws that would be helpful. i want to stress what someone talk about, resources for the ethics commission. you can have all of the flaws in the world but if you do not have the staff to administer it, you are not when to get very much. one of the challenges that

ethics has and we will talk about this in the next item, is on ending reports that are being filed day after day after day. in terms of being sure that we are to efficiently processing those and getting information out, being able to respond quickly if there are problems. it is incredibly important. that is a function of staffing. for those of us in campaigns who really try hard to follow the rules, when you are in the middle of a campaign, none of us are perfect, but you try to follow the rules. whether it is another campaign or outside group that is flagrantly violating the rules and nothing is happening, not because ethics does not want to do it, but there are not the resources all the time. that is something we definitely need to take a careful look at to make sure that the ethics

commission has the resources that it needs to administer the law. supervisor campos: colleagues, i hereby move the we continue this item to the call of the chair. we respectfully hope that the ethics commission will look at the report and have a public process for input on that. moving to continue to the call of the chair so that the chair can bring it back at a time that is appropriate for us. i also wanted think hillary, from my office. -- want to thank hillary, from my office. it has been a complicated matter and i want to thank her for her work. supervisor kim: i want to concur with what supervisor wiener said. we do need to look at the resources and staffing at the ethics commission if we are to do a proper job enforcing the laws that we put into place.

we have a motion to continue this item. we can do that without opposition. thank you. can you please call item no. 7? >> and ordinance amending the campaign and government conduct code. to modify and streamline disclaimer and reporting requirements for candidates and third parties raising and spending funds in local elections. require the ethics commission to provide public notice when thresholds are met. eliminate the overall contribution limit on contributions to all candidates on the ballot in a single election. and make various reporting and disclaimer requirements parallel to requirements in that state law. supervisor wiener: this is legislation that would amend the campaign finance reform ordinance. this legislation came up through the ethics commission. at the request of the

commission, i sponsored it at some time last year. as everyone knows, in order to amend this ordinance requires for out of five ethics commissioners and eight members of the board of supervisors, similar to our public financing ordinance. as i think supervisor kim will sympathize, it is a very challenging process in terms of coming to a product that you can get eight votes. it is a positive thing because it requires a fair amount of consensus, but it is very important. this legislation, i tried for a while to interest colleagues in trying to get a consensus around this. i want to thank supervisor campos. i was finally able to reel him in and get him involved. he has been a good partner over the last few weeks in moving this forward.

this legislation, i want to talk about a few of the provisions. the intent is to improve the ethics process. different faults have different views on what is necessary to improve the process, but a couple of the things -- first, in terms of the distant -- the disclosure of language and reporting requirements, there is -- i want to make that process as organized and efficient as possible. right now, those of us who have run for office or have been treacherous in campaigns know that there are times when you are filing one or more than one thing every single day. it is a lot for the campaign and the ethics commission. we do not want to reduce disclosure, but if there is a way to have a certain day or days of the week when filings

are happening, that could be a predictable thing for members of the public, campaigns, staff. it is something we should take a look at, in addition to making more standard language disclosures. that is more consistent and easier to understand in terms of disclosure is placed on materials. this would also indexe of $500 contribution limit. that is the item i thought would evoke the largest reaction. i have not heard any opposition to it, to date. this up -- sometimes this process can be surprising. it also eliminates the cumulative contribution limit of $500 times the number of races on the ballot. i have been informed that that provision is unconstitutional and that if it were challenged

in court, it would not stand up. apart from the constitutionality, which i am sure people can debate, we do have ranked joyce voting. if you believe in rank choice voting, from a policy perspective, it makes sense to contribute to more than one candidate in a race. talking to some of the people who were running last year, including some who were supported by a number of members of the audience today, they will tell you it was very frustrating in terms of people already giving to other candidates. if you got into the race late, people were legally prohibited from contributing to you. that is another topic of discussion. there is a section about having a separate account and caps for compliance costs. that was the item the ethics commission did include by request. the thinking behind that was

when we used to have a $143,000 cap for supervisor races and we have blank the supervisor races these days, sometimes going for over one year. at the beginning, when you set your budget, you have to account for your legal fees. by including that with the $143,000 cap, you are giving people an incentive to skip on accounting. we want people to comply and we do not want people to skimp on accounting. since then, we have increased the cap for supervisor races to $250,000. i think that that takes care of that problem. a separate compliance cap is, in my view, unnecessary given the increase in the cap. it is my request that that be removed. as i noted in the previous item, supervisor campos, over

the last couple of weeks, and i, have been discussing this, trying to figure out how we can move forward with a consensus or something approaching a consensus that accomplishes the goals of this legislation in a way that maximizes, in an effective way, disclosure. that is something that we all support. as a result, at the conclusion, i will be asking the committee to continue the matter to the call of the chair with a request to the ethics commission to take off the item again and forward it to us when it is -- when it completes its process. those are my introductory comments. supervisor campos: thank you very much. i want to begin by thanking supervisor wiener and his staff for taking up this issue. as he noted, this is something where the ethics commission requested