2014. san >> hello. okay. let's get started. welcome to our rules

committee meeting for thursday, june 5, 2014. i'm supervisor yee and i'll be cheering this meeting. i'm joined by supervisor tang and supervisor campos. the clerk today is alisa miller. the committee would like to acknowledge the staff of sfgtv, mark bunch and tom loftus who recorded each of our meetings and make the transcripts available to the public online. we're joined by supervisor wiener who will be discussing the first item. in fact, madam clerk can you please, are there announcements. >> make sure to silence electrons and cell phones. complete speakers cards to be included as part of the file. items will appear on the board of supervisor's agenda unless otherwise stated.

>> madam clerk e please call item number one. >> ordinance amending the municipal elections code to prohibit any person from submitting more than one ballot argument per measure for selection as either the proponent's argument or opponent's argument; and to require each author of a proposed proponent's or opponent's ballot argument to swear that the author is not an official or paid advocate for the contrary position. >> ordinance amending the municipal elections code to prohibit any person from submitting more than one ballot argument per measure for selection as either the proponent's argument or opponent's argument; and to require each author of a proposed proponent's or opponent's ballot argument to swear that the author is not an official or paid advocate for the contrary position. >> thank you. so supervisor wiener is the author of this ordinance and he's here to discuss it. i'll turn it over to wiener. >> thank you for providing me the opportunity to discuss item number 1 which is a basic common sense and long, long overdue reform of our ballot, official ballot argument process to make sure that the system is not gamed as it has been in the past. under our law as you know, the voters receive a voter handbook and for each ballot measure, in addition to paid arguments,

there's an official proponents argument and official proponents argument. this is one of the few ways that a balance measure regardless of how much money they had to spend, regardless if they have an army of volunteers or paid operative, can make their argument to the voters about why they should vote for or against a particular ballot measure. it's the only opportunity for that to happen regardless of how much money a campaign has. and the voters frankly when they say the quote on quote official proponents argument or quote on quote official opponent argument, the voters understandably assume this is actually the campaign in favor of the ballot measure or the campaign against the ballot measure. in terms of the integrity of the process, it's important that we have the proponents and opponent arguments be made by proponents or opponents. we have seen over the years,

the current process be abused and the process has always been that one person can submit as many -- if there's more than one opponent or proponents argument being submitted, there's a lottery conducted to select which will be the official argument. over the years we've seen people submit sometimes dozens of proponents or opponent arguments and they'll take the same arguments and tweak it and submit 20 or 30 or more of the same argument, so if you're the actual opponent or proponents and you in good faith submit one argument thinking, okay, i'm going to go into the lottery, little do you know, that someone else submitted 50 and they're going to swamp you in the lottery and they're going to win. so we've seen that happen a number of times over the year, but even

when the gaming was occurring, it was the case as far as anyone can recall that the person who was selected to be on the official proponents or opponent or proponents or opponent of the ballot. the process leading up to the selection of the official proponents and opponent, somebody who was very -- was ultimately the campaign manager submitted 25 arguments as the official proponents and selected as the official component although he was the campaign manager for the other side. that makes a farce of our process. it misleads the voters and it absolutely does not serve democracy well. so this legislation would do two simple things. it would require when you submit an official

proponents or opponent argument, you have to certify under penalty under perjury and you are not in a define group of people with the opposite campaign. that you're not campaign manager on a campaign committee, either being compensated or promise of compensation by the opposite side. a very simple certification under penalty of perjury. and then the second thing it would do is require that people submit no more than one. that if you want to submit an official proponents or opponent argument and you want to be considered to be the official proponents or opponent, you should submit one argument and get it right in that one argument and no more of the submitting dozens and dozens of arguments and then if more than one person submits an argument, there's a lottery and one is selected. colleagues, as i stated at the beginning, it should have been adopted a long time ago,

but better late than never and i would ask for your support today. john director of elections is here and i would like to invite him up to address the legislation. i understand that he may have an amendment that he would like us to consider. >> yeah, thank you. good afternoon, supervisors. as far as the language in the amendment is concerned, the department is fine of it. we can implement it, i think, rather easily, so one amendment that i suggests is section 530-e. it talks about the consent required if someone is named. an argument is being for a measure or in agreement with an argument. i'm suggesting that we amend that so we include that someone is for or against a measure. and being named in the argument. the department's practice currently is asking for consent and now in these situations so the change in the ordinance

would track the department's current practices. >> just to be clear, this is an existing section of section 530 that we're not -- that is not apart of the legislation, but while we're doing the legislation, you're requesting that we make this tweak to the subsection e? >> correct. >> can you just briefly explain when the consent requirement is triggered for the benefit of the members of the public. >> if i submitted an argument and i named you as being in support of a measure our against a measure that i would ask that you sign a form saying that you agree with your name being mentioned in the argument. >> oh, and -- okay. right now only -- it's only required for people who are in favor, but not against, and it should be clarified that it is really both. >> correct. >> the department's practice has been to require it for both. >> right. >> great. i'm supportive of that, and so colleagues, after

public comment i would offer an amendment to reflect what mr. arms just described. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> so i guess that's -- i'll take public comments. do you have cards? >> are there public comments on this item? come up. you have two minutes. >> good afternoon, my name is karine wood and i was an opponent on prop b on the last ballot and i support this change because it was extremely frustrating and absolutely -- i don't know -- we couldn't believe that the actual supporters of the measures were trying to make the official argument against the measure, and it

just wasn't fair, and having legislation, if that's what we need to stop this kind of trickery, i think is very useful. thank you. >> okay. any other public comments on this item? >> good afternoon, i'm peter, executive director of library's user association and i didn't come here to speak on this and i'm not familiar with the legislation, but as i described, it's an important matter how a ballot book is composed. i think it's extremely important issue. as someone who have provided a number of ballot arguments and paid, official, the importance of who gets to say what and where i think is very, very

significant and needs to be studied and dealt with very carefully. with respect to item 1 that was described, in terms of the two elements, having to square the person is not on the opposite side, i would be careful how that's laid out and people might change their mind. how do you get evidence of that? i'm not clear how that is measured in terms of what is somebody's actually position. that's partly a question, but certainly an alert. again, people may change their mind and chan sides, how do you, you know, the thread of perjury is a strong one and needs to be done with care. item 2, people submitting no more than one. it one clear from me from the supervise's description how one person in the past

can submit more than one on one item, but what i'm concerned with is a person should be allowed to submit into lottery or be interested in commenting on more than one ballot measure. it wasn't clear to me when you say "no more than one that a person can submit a ballot argument for measure a and b." that should be allowed in my opinion. as for the endorsements, i think those are sometimes overly complicated especially when somebody has made endorsements. >> your two minutes are you up. >> sir, can you -- can you repeat your sentence for the endorsement? >> i have had ballot arguments where i had to get the permissions from the person who people that i was naming as endorsers and

we did that successfully but if it was the political club or the sierra club or someone who had written an argument in the newspaper, i think to it would be burden some to have the bargain arguer to dig up that person and get their signature when in fact you could say in an article in the chronicle dated may 1st, supervisor scott wiener said blah, blah, blah, blah, which supports my side. >> thank you. >> any other public comments? seeing none, then public comment is now closed. supervisor wiener, can i ask you a clarifying question? in regards to the officers, it's related to the officers, and i probably have to answer this because i want to make sure i have the

right answer, so if the board for instance submits something for the ballot, and there's a board member that doesn't agree and would that somehow be related to officers at all and that they couldn't make a ballot argument? >> thank you for that question. no, this is limited to committees which is a campaign committee that has been formed under the campaign finance laws so it wouldn't count for a someone who put in the ballot. i'm glad he asked this question. it's limiting people to one argument per ballot. if you want to do one for a, and one for b, and one for c, but no more that's gaming the system but submitting 25 nearly identical ballot

arguments for one ballot and swamping everyone. there's no limit that you can submit 300 if you want and it's a gaming of the system. and in terms of, i think we tried to be very precise in how we design who is considered a non supporter of a particular position, to be limited but to at least try to address the problem that we had in the past elections with the campaign manager for the f side, mr. gullenger hijacking the opposite side. and hopefully the city attorney's office was able to allow him to withdraw that fraudulent ballot argument that he submitted. with that colleagues, i do support the amendment and so i would ask that we amend section 530-e which is on the second page at the end

of 23. after the phrase "which is represented as being for" and then insert the two words "or against." so that would be the amendment i would offer. and then to the city attorney, i would ask whether that's a substance amendment that would require continuance? >> deputy city attorney, john, that would be require a continuance. in keeping with mr. arms recommendation, it goes onto say "which is represented for supporting or endorse." you should say with supporting or opposing endorsing." after the phrase "which is represented for supporting." we insert, comma, opposing, comma, and then it would continue or endorsing the views. and are there any other phrases that need to be adjusted in that subsection. just those two. so those two

amendments would be my request that the committee adopt. >> okay. any comments about this? >> supervisor tang. >> thank you supervisor wiener. i think we were surprised about what happened in light of the ballot measure and what highlighted this motion, so i would like to accept the amendments and move it to the board for full recommendation. >> for amendment -- to accept the amendment, if there's no objection, we pass it. moving onto recommendations. before we do that, i also -- and i'm thankful for supervisor wiener for bringing this ordinance to us. this makes sense to me and one of these things were

maybe an oversight when the original ordinance was put in there and never thinking that one would actually abuse the system that much so. thank you for closing that loophole. >> thank you. >> i neglected -- i wanted to thank my legislative jeff for working on this. so thank you. >> there's a motion on floor to pass out with positive recommendation. without objection, the motion passes. >> thank you colleagues. >> madam clerk, can you please call item number 2. >> motion confirming the mayor's reappointment of leslie katz to the port commission, for a term ending may 1, 2018. >> okay. mrs. cats, come on up. and would you like to make a brief comment about why you're reapplying. >> thank you, supervisors. it's an honor to be here before you and it's fun to be on this side of the desk. i'm very pleased and

honored to have have been reappointed by the mayor to serve on the port commission. i was initially appointed to an unexpired term and have been there and have seen firsthand, how extraordinary the port is than i realized before. it's one of san francisco's jewels and one of the things that i think is particularly exciting having had a number of activities taking place along the water front in recent years is that more residents and people throughout san francisco recognize the incredible beauty and opportunities to partake in all of the activities down at the port. we've over seen the opening of the exploratory museum, and there's an incredible photography museum there and we're working on the green way which is an extension of path and walkways from south of the bay bridge down