In early 2026, the Policy Division initiated work on this project to address issues identified in recent years, particularly during the 2024 election cycle. This project is currently in progress.
In April of 2026, Policy Staff presented the Commission with recommendations to reinforce contribution limits and ensure accountability for violations of City law. This project focuses primarily on shortcomings in current City law that undermine the City’s candidate contribution limit. These gaps in the current rules have been underscored in recent enforcement matters and identified through compliance questions posed to the Commission. The project also seeks to ensure that when City elective officers are found to have violated ethics or campaign finance-related rules, they cannot avoid existing gift rules and accountability by shifting their penalty burdens to committee contributors.
In brief, the report makes the following recommendations:
- Apply the City’s candidate contribution limit to other types of candidate-controlled committees whenever those committees are controlled by a candidate actively running for City elective office.
- Specify that if a third party spends money to republish a candidate’s campaign materials, that spending should be considered a contribution to that candidate and be subject to the City’s candidate contribution limit.
- Establish limits on City elective officers using committee funds to pay penalties issued for violations of the Campaign and Governmental Conduct Code (C&GCC).
Legislation enacting these recommendations would require supermajority approval from both the Ethics Commission and the Board of Supervisors. Any final version of this legislation would have an operative date no sooner than January of 2027. This would allow the Commission sufficient time to prepare or update relevant compliance and training materials, while giving the regulated community time to prepare for these changes.
Links Related to this Policy Project
Interested Persons Meeting Announcements to Discuss:
- Interested Persons Meetings to Discuss Potential Changes to City Rules Regarding Campaign Finance and Committee Coordination – 03/3/2026 and 03/6/2026
Staff Reports & Resources:
- Policy Report: Proposed Campaign Finance Reforms to Reinforce Contribution Limits and Ensure Accountability for Violations of City Law – 04/10/2026
- Presentation: Campaign Finance Project Preview – 04/10/2026
Legislation:
- No introduced legislation. Draft legislation was presented at the Commission’s April 2026 meeting.
Key Commission Meetings:
- April 10th, 2026: Report & Discussion on Proposed Campaign Finance Reforms to Reinforce Contribution Limits and Ensure Accountability for Violations of City Law. This item on the agenda was informational and did not require action by the Commission. ( Agenda | Meeting Minutes | Summary )
For updates on this policy project, subscribe to the Commission’s meeting notices and agendas by joining our Interested Persons E-mail List. Additionally, all policy and legislative items the Ethics Commission considers are posted to an agenda prior to the public meeting in which they are discussed and acted upon.
Please contact Policy and Legislative Affairs Manager Michael Canning at Michael.A.Canning@sfgov.org for more information about this project or the Commission’s other policy efforts.