July 29, 2024
At its regular meeting on Friday, August 9, 2024, the San Francisco Ethics Commission will consider and possibly act on proposed amendments to the Ethics Commission’s campaign finance regulations.
Section 1.161 of the Campaign & Governmental Conduct Code (C&GCC) specifies the City’s additional disclaimer requirements for political advertisements by primarily formed independent expenditure committees. This section includes a larger font requirement than what is specified in State law and requires committees to also disclose their “secondary major contributors.”
The secondary major contributors disclaimer rule requires that “if any of the top three major contributors is a committee, the disclaimer must also disclose both the name of and the dollar amount contributed by each of the top two major contributors of $5,000 or more to that committee.”
The proposed regulation creates exceptions for the City’s disclaimer requirements, which can be gradually applied in situations where complying would result in more than one-third of the total advertisement being occupied with the disclaimer. The regulation gradually waives the local disclaimer requirements until either 1) the disclaimer takes up one-third or less of the total advertisement, or 2) the disclaimer requirements are waived to the point that they are comparable to the State’s existing requirements.
This change will allow committees the ability to revert to the State’s font requirements and omit secondary major contributor information when doing so would cause the required disclaimers to take up more than one-third of the total advertisement.
This 10-day notice is provided under Charter Sec. 4.104 to encourage public comment on the proposals in advance of the Commission’s next meeting.
The Commission invites all input on the proposed regulations. Written comments can be sent via email to ethics.commission@sfgov.org. Written public comment received by 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, August 8, 2024, will be shared with the commissioners prior to the August 9, 2024 meeting. Opportunity for public comment will also be provided during the Commission’s meeting.