Ethics Commission narrows local disclaimer rule to avoid large-ad burdens

The San Francisco Ethics Commission on Aug. 9 adopted an amendment to local campaign finance disclaimer rules that allows committees to omit "secondary major contributor" information when including it would cause a disclaimer to occupy more than one-third of an advertisement.

Policy and Legislative Affairs Manager Michael Canning told commissioners the change responds to prior legal challenges and seeks to balance robust disclosures with the need to preserve space for political messages. "The prior court order ... had stated that a disclaimer requirement that leaves roughly 2 thirds of an ad's total space for the political message, would be a reasonable outcome," Canning said, citing a 2020 court order from Judge Breyer and Proposition F (2019) as background.

Under the proposed rule, if requiring the secondary major contributor text would push the disclaimer beyond one-third of the ad, the committee may follow state disclosure requirements instead of the city's secondary-contributor expansion. Canning said the commission's dashboards will retain the detailed contributor information; committees and reporters can access it on the commission website and data dashboards.

Commissioners asked whether pending litigation (a writ referenced for Socherari) could affect the amendment; staff said the potential impact was unclear and that the commission has been communicating with the city attorney's office about litigation. After public comment, the commission moved to adopt the regulation; the clerk recorded Aye votes from Vice Chair Flores Fang, Commissioner Salahi and Commissioner Francois and the motion passed unanimously.

Action: motion to adopt proposed amendments to the ethics commission regulations on campaign finance disclaimer requirements was approved unanimously.