Ethics Commission amps up anti‑corruption draft but stops short of June ballot; seeks joint talks with Board of Supervisors

The San Francisco Ethics Commission on Feb. 16 adopted a bundle of staff‑recommended changes to its long‑debated Anti‑Corruption and Accountability Ordinance but stopped short of putting the measure before voters in June.

Pat Ford, the commission’s policy analyst, told commissioners the package before them combined the ethics commission’s November draft with staff amendments and a recently introduced proposal on major‑donor financial disclosures from Supervisor Aaron Peskin’s office. Ford said staff recommended adopting the amended text and placing it on the June ballot to give voters a say and to spur action at City Hall.

The meeting devolved into sustained, often contentious discussion over a handful of provisions that commissioners and members of the public said could either strengthen enforcement or, if written too broadly, chill ordinary civic activity. Key changes that the commission adopted included: making a contributor attestation card voluntary rather than compulsory for donations of $100 or more (1.114.5); narrowing bundler disclosures to a financial record rather than inquiries into whether a bundler “attempted to influence” an official (1.125); removing a contested land‑use restriction…