{"id":433161,"date":"2026-08-14T21:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T21:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/433161\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T21:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T21:54:09","slug":"s-f-commission-votes-to-end-campaign-finance-loophole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/433161\/","title":{"rendered":"S.F. commission votes to end campaign finance loophole"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a growing<\/a> San Francisco tradition for candidates to rake in unlimited dollars by running ballot measure committees while they separately run for office, de facto skirting campaign finance limits and aiding their election bids. But perhaps not for long.\u00a0<\/p>\n

City ethics commissioners today voted unanimously to suggest closing a loophole that allows candidates for local office to inflate their reach by advertising through multiple political committees, even if they are not related to their campaigns.<\/p>\n

While city law caps donations to candidates at $500, <\/a>those same office-seekers can receive<\/a> unlimited amounts of cash through separate committees that they have set up to oppose ballot measures, for example, or raise legal defense funds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A candidate for mayor, for example, can also set up a ballot measure committee, direct supporters to send money there above the $500 limit, and use that committee to plaster the city with physical and digital ads featuring the candidates\u2019 name and face \u2014 ostensibly for the ballot measure.<\/p>\n

Doing so is a longstanding practice. An April report<\/a> by the commission noted that politicians like former mayor London Breed and mayoral candidate Mark Farrell used committees they controlled \u2014 to support ballot measures \u2014 to raise and spend money advertising them while seeking election in parallel.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The ethics commissioners on Friday sought to end that in a 4-0 vote. If approved by the full Board of Supervisors in a subsequent vote, the commission\u2019s proposal<\/a> would apply city candidates\u2019 $500 contribution limits to the other committees they control. (A separate piece of legislation would raise the limit<\/a> to $1,000.)<\/p>\n

The new rules would also specify that if a third party, like a political action committee, spends money to republish a candidate\u2019s campaign materials, those expenditures would be considered a contribution to the candidate, and be subject to the city\u2019s contribution limits. The new rules would also establish limits on elected officials using other committee funds to pay for campaign ethics penalties.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust having candidates receive unlimited funds to a committee they control creates a potentially corrupting influence,\u201d said Michael Canning, the commission\u2019s policy and legislative affairs manager, at the Friday morning meeting at City Hall.<\/p>\n

Good governance advocates lauded the commissioners\u2019 vote.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are thoughtful and targeted changes that address important gaps in the city\u2019s current laws,\u201d said Sean McMorris, a political ethics watchdog at California Common Cause, in public comment.<\/p>\n

Farrell emerged as a distinguished culprit<\/a> on these ethics loopholes during his failed 2024 mayoral run. During that cycle, he ran his own candidate-controlled committee and a separate ballot measure committee \u2014 which bore his name and published materials centering his name and face \u2014 supporting Prop. D<\/a>, a charter reform measure which would have dramatically cut the number of San Francisco\u2019s city commissions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A March audit<\/a> found Farrell failed to report payments, misreported spending and did not properly document donations in violations of state and local campaign finance laws, and came 16 months after the commission handed Farrell the largest penalty<\/a> in the ethics commission\u2019s history, at $108,000, just days before the Nov. 5, 2024 election.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While the ethics commission\u2019s March audits<\/a> also found violations in the campaigns of Aaron Peskin<\/a> and Breed<\/a>, Farrell had by far the most \u201cmaterial\u201d violations.<\/p>\n

While the new rules would apply to committees set up for city elections, commissioners on Friday admitted other loopholes remain glaring.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Commissioner Yaman Salahi, who noticeably hesitated before his \u201cYes\u201d vote, asked why the rules wouldn\u2019t apply to San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee elections. Canning responded that state law ties the city\u2019s hands and regulates those elections.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Running for DCCC while seeking public office is also a San Francisco tradition. Candidates similarly open state-regulated committees that, unlike San Francisco, can raise unlimited dollars<\/a> \u2014 and use those committees to advertise themselves widely.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose committees,\u201d Canning said, \u201cdo create a similar risk.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s a growing San Francisco tradition for candidates to rake in unlimited dollars by running ballot measure committees…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[13538,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-433161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-ethics-commission","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}