S.J. considers campaign finance overhaul
Proposal comes in the aftermath of a toxic, racist attack ad that rattled city’s election
On the heels of a divisive election cycle flooded with money, misleading advertisements and concerns over racist campaign messaging, San Jose is exploring new campaign finance regulations.
C ou nc i l member S er g io
Jimenez is proposing a range of reforms — from requiring the disclosure of top donors contributing to political action committees to reviewing and updating the city’s code of ethics to mandating that committees making independent expenditures file mailings with the city clerk.
A San Jose council committee, which appeared to be supportive of at least some of Jimenez’s ideas, voted this week to conduct a study session this winter for the full City Council to discuss the proposals.
“I think everyone wants to see cleaner elections,” Jimenez, who was reelected to the council in March, said in an interview Thursday. “So I think this should be a nonpartisan, collaborate effort that I hope we can all rally around.”
The council member said that the toxic campaign practices exhibited this election cycle, including a racist campaign ad posted by the SVO last month, served as the motivation for his proposal.
“This time it was just more prominent and elevated given the battles that were being had as it related to the council majority and how it was going to affect the council,” Jimenez said. “It would be easy to say ‘it was just this election’ and kick the can down the road, but I think this is important to address and something that our residents care about.”
Candidates running for office in San Jose face regulations related to contribution caps and limited fundraising windows. A person or organization cannot contribute more than $600 to a council candidate and no more than $1,200 for mayoral candidates. Candidates also are prohibited from fundraising more than 180 days before a primary.
But campaigns orchestrated by outside political committees and groups such as that of the South
Bay Labor Council and the SVO PAC — which is now defunct — have faced far fewer restrictions. Under federal law, the government cannot limit the corporate funding of independent political advertisements and messaging.
Council member Dev Davis, who quickly denounced the SVO’s racist attack ad against her opponent Jake Tonkel in the November election, cited the limited regulation on PACs as her support for exploring Jimenez’s suggestions.
“You never get to have full control of your own messages as a candidate because of independent expenditures, which is very frustrating for all of us I think,” Davis said. “So I am happy to have this discussion.”
Jimenez’s proposal calls for requiring that committees making independent expenditures — money spent on political messaging either in support or against a candidate outside of the candidate’s own campaign — submit mailings with more than 200 copies with the city clerk, who would act as a” repository for the literature without commentary.”
He also is advocating for a clearer and centralized website for campaign finance disclosure information, such as the site used by the San Francisco Ethics Commission, and requiring that all San Jose campaign mailers and ads include a link to the website to give the public a clearer understanding of who is behind a PAC or mailer.
Council member Sylvia Arenas supported the idea of creating a consolidated location where residents could review campaign ads to find out who was funding each of them, calling the city’s current online campaign finance system “very complicated”
“Having to look through different systems just muddies the water even more,” Arenas said during a committee meeting Wednesday.
Team members working on the campaign for Tonkel, who lost his San Jose District 6 City Council race this month, took it upon themselves to track the funding poured into the two San Jose City Council races this year through independent expenditures.
According to their calculations, nearly $2 million was spent on the District 4 and District 6 races in which the power on the City Council hung in the balance. Organizations that contributed the most included labor unions, the region’s chamber of commerce and the city’s police union.
Hiwad Haider, Tonkel’s former campaign manager, said the city doesn’t currently maintain the infrastructure to “support the public when they’re looking for the truth” and urged the council to move swiftly on these “commonsense reforms and infrastructure.”
“We’d like to see the truth come out and I think the least we can do is follow what Council member Jimenez has laid out,” Haider said during the committee meeting. “Bring this opportunity forward for the city to put up campaign materials and give them (the public) more details about who this was spent by.”