City and County of San Francisco
Ethics Commission

English

Candidates for City elective office must not accept contributions from certain sources and must not accept contributions totaling $500 from any source. This page explains the primary rules that apply to candidate contributions. Be sure to review FPPC Manual 2 for additional rules.

$500 Limit on Contributions to Candidates

Candidates may not solicit or accept more than $500 from any contributor. The $500 contribution limit is an election-cycle limit, not a calendar-year limit. In other words, a candidate may not accept more than $500 cumulatively (in the form of monetary contributions, in-kind contributions, or loans) from any contributor in connection with the candidate’s campaign for a particular City elective office, including after the election has occurred.

A candidate who has received a contribution for more than $500 must forfeit the excess amount received to the Ethics Commission unless the excess portion is properly returned to the contributor. Information on forfeiting or returning contributions is provided below.

Limit on Candidate Loans

There are limits on the amount of personal funds a candidate for the City elective office may loan to their campaign committee.  At any given time, a non-publicly financed candidate may not have more than the following amounts in loans from their personal funds:

City Elective Office	Candidate’s Personal Loan Limit (Non-Publicly Financed Candidates)
Board of Supervisors; Board of Education of SF Unified School District; Governing Board of SF Community College District	$15,000
Mayor	$120,000
City Attorney; Treasurer; Assessor; Public Defender; District Attorney; Sheriff	$35,000

 

Candidates who receive public funding through the Public Financing program are subject to a limit of $5,000 in loans from their personal funds. A candidate for Mayor or the Board of Supervisors who receives public funding may not loan or donate, in total, more than $5,000 of their own money to their campaign.

Reminder: As discussed on the Reporting Requirements page, if a candidate’s contributions aggregate to $1,000 or more (including loans) to their committee during the last 90 days before an election or on the date of the election, the committee must file a Late Contribution Report (Form 497) within 24 hours of the receipt of the contribution or loan.

Aggregation of Contributions

In certain instances, contributions from separate individuals or entities are aggregated for purposes of the $500 contribution limit. This means that the combined total of contributions from those individuals and entities must be $500 or less. Contributions from any affiliated entities that are directed or controlled by the same person are aggregated. This includes:

• Contributions from an individual’s personal funds and contributions made by an entity when the individual directs and controls the entity’s contributions.
• Contributions from two or more entities that are directed and controlled by a majority of the same persons.
• Contributions made by entities that are majority owned by any person must be aggregated with contributions of the majority owner and all other entities majority owned by that person, unless those entities act independently in their decisions to make contributions.
• Contributions made by children under age 18 are presumed to be a contribution from the child’s parent or guardian and are counted towards the $500 limit applied to the parent.

Earmarking of Contributions

Contributors may not make a contribution to any committee on the condition or with the agreement that it will be contributed to a particular candidate to circumvent the $500 contribution limit.

For example, if a contributor has already contributed $500 to a candidate for City elective office, that person cannot then make a contribution to a separate committee so that the separate committee can forward the money to the candidate. Candidates should not accept contributions that have been earmarked in this manner.

Contributions from Corporations, Limited Liability Companies, and Limited Liability Partnerships

Candidates for City elective office may not accept contributions from corporations, limited liability companies, or limited liability partnerships, whether for profit or nonprofit.

Contributions from Contractors Doing Business with the City

Candidates for City elective office, City elective officers, and committees controlled by such candidates or City elective officers, may not solicit or accept contributions from certain City contractors or their affiliates or subcontractors. This rule applies to contributions from any affiliate or subcontractor of an organization that is seeking a contract or has recently entered into contracts with the City.  The rule applies when:

• The City and County of San Francisco, a state agency on whose board an appointee of a City elective officer serves, the San Francisco Unified School District, or the San Francisco Community College District is a party to a contract (or will become a party to the contract once it is approved),
• The contract or series of contracts in the same fiscal year has a total anticipated or actual value of $100,000 or more in a fiscal year, and
• The City elective officer, a board on which that officer serves, or the board of a state agency on which the officer’s appointee serves must approve that contract or series of contracts.

The rule applies once the City contractor submits a proposal for a contract that meets the criteria listed above. The rule ceases to apply either when the parties terminate contract negotiations or, if the contract is approved, after twelve months have elapsed from the date of approval.

During this period, the City elective officer or candidate, and any committee controlled by the City elective officer or candidate, may not solicit or accept a contribution from the following persons:

• Any party or prospective party to the contract;
• The contracting party’s board of directors and principal officers, including its chairperson, chief executive officer, chief financial officer, and chief operating officer;
• Any person with an ownership interest of more than 10 percent in the contracting party; or
• Any subcontractor listed in the bid or contract.

Contractors with the City are currently listed on datasets made available by the Ethics Commission which should be checked regularly by the committee.

Contributions from Persons with a Financial Interest in a Land Use Matter

Any person who has a financial interest in certain land use matters is prohibited from making a contribution to any committee controlled by an individual currently holding, or seeking election to, the office of Mayor, Supervisor, or City Attorney. Any entities that are directed and controlled by such a person are also prohibited from making such a contribution. Additionally, these officeholders, and candidates for these offices, may not solicit or accept contributions from entities that such persons direct and control.

Candidates for Mayor, Supervisor, or City Attorney (and individuals holding those offices) must take steps to ensure that they do not accept a contribution that would violate this rule. Committees should communicate with contributors and may conduct their own reviews to confirm that a particular contributor does not have a financial interest in a land use matter in order to determine whether the contribution is lawful. Guidance on how to conduct such a review is provided below.

However, a candidate or committee will not be subject to a penalty for accepting a contribution in violation of this rule if the contributor attests under penalty of perjury that the contributor does not have a financial interest in a land use matter. The best way to obtain this attestation is through the proper use and retention of a contributor card. A relying on the use of a signed contributor card to comply with this rule should use the sample contributor card. Contributor cards are discussed more below.

Absent a signed contributor card or other formal attestation from the contributor, candidates should follow the steps provided by the Ethics Commission to determine whether the contribution is prohibited.

Soliciting Contributions from City Employees

No candidate who is a current City officer or employee may solicit political contributions from other City officers, employees, or persons on employment lists of the City.

Contributor Card

If a candidate receives written and signed confirmation from a contributor stating that the contribution does not violate certain campaign finance rules, then there will be a rebuttable presumption for the purposes of enforcement actions that the candidate did not violate those rules by accepting the contribution. Typically, this is done by having the contributor sign a contributor card. A sample contributor card listing the applicable campaign finance rules is available in both Word and PDF format. However, a committee may still be required to forfeit a contribution if it is found to be prohibited by one of the above rules.

Return or Forfeiture of Contributions

If a candidate accepts a contribution that violates one of the rules discussed above, in general the candidate must forfeit the contribution to the Ethics Commission. However, a candidate may instead return the unlawful contribution (or, for purposes of the contribution limit, the amount over $500) to the contributor if the contribution has not yet been negotiated, deposited, or utilized and is returned to the contributor before the closing date of the campaign report on which the contribution would otherwise be reported. For example, if a contributor submits an online contribution of $700 to a candidate for supervisor, the candidate may return $200 to the contributor (and keep $500) if the candidate returns the $200 before the funds are deposited into the candidate’s campaign bank account and before the close of the current reporting period. Reporting periods are discussed on the Reporting Requirements page.

If an unlawful contribution is received within the final six days before the election, it can only be returned within 48 hours. Otherwise, it is considered “received” and must be forfeited to the Ethics Commission.

To forfeit a contribution, you may either mail this payment with a memo indicating the contribution date(s), the contributor(s) name, and reason for forfeiture to the Ethics Commission at the address below, or you may pay and add the required information electronically (Pay Fees – Select fee type: Remittance)

• Make check payable to: City and County of San Francisco
• Mailing address: San Francisco Ethics Commission, 25 Van Ness Ave. Suite 220, San Francisco, CA 94102

Payment of Accrued Expenses

Any candidate who accepts goods or services on credit must pay for such accrued expenses in full no later than 180 calendar days after receipt of a bill or invoice and in no event later than 180 calendar days after the last calendar day of the month in which the goods were delivered or the services were rendered, unless it is clear from the circumstances that the failure to pay is reasonably based on a good faith dispute.

Each calendar day any accrued expense remains partially or wholly unpaid after the 180 days constitutes a separate violation.

Loans and accrued expenses must be reported on each campaign statement until the amounts are paid off or forgiven.

Coordination of Expenditures

When a candidate coordinates expenditures with another person or group, expenditures made by that person or group may be deemed contributions to the candidate. These contributions are subject to the $500 contribution limit and other restrictions that apply to candidates.

An expenditure is considered coordinated with a candidate if is made at the request, suggestion, or direction of, or in cooperation, consultation, concert or coordination with, the candidate. Additionally, an expenditure is coordinated with a candidate if it funds a communication that is created, produced or disseminated after the candidate or the candidate’s committee has participated in making any decision about the content, timing, location, mode, intended audience, volume of distribution, or frequency of placement of the communication.

Additionally, an expenditure will likely be considered coordinated if it funds a communication that meets any of the following:

• It is based on information about the candidate or committee’s campaign needs or plans provided to the spender by the candidate;
• It is made by or through any agent of the candidate in the course of the agent’s involvement in the current campaign;
• The spender retains the services of a person, including a campaign consultant, who provides, or has provided, the candidate with professional services related to campaign or fundraising strategy for that same election;
• The communication replicates, reproduces, republishes or disseminates, in whole or in substantial part, a communication designed, produced, paid for or distributed by the candidate; or
• In the same election that the expenditure is made, the spender or spender’s agent is serving or served in an executive or policymaking role for the candidate’s campaign or participated in strategy or policy making discussions with the candidate’s campaign relating to the candidate’s pursuit of election to office and the candidate is pursuing the same office as a candidate whose nomination or election the expenditure is intended to influence.