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Rules Committee continues elections-code cleanup, defers final vote
Summary
The Rules Committee heard an ordinance to amend the Municipal Elections Code to align local nomination and withdrawal deadlines with state law, adjust petition and voter‑guide rules and reinstate some filing-fee provisions. The committee moved the ordinance for amendment and continued it to a subsequent hearing.
Supervisor Kim presented an ordinance to tidy the Municipal Elections Code after last year’s public-finance reforms and the June 2011 U.S. Supreme Court decision that limited certain public-finance triggers. She said the package would incorporate state-law nomination procedures for City College and Board of Education races, move the mayor and Board of Supervisors nomination deadlines to June, standardize withdrawal windows and clarify petition-circulator badge rules. "We did move up the declaration of candidacy to June...so that we would know the full field," she said.
Department of Elections Director John Arntz described the draft as largely technical. He highlighted one notable change: removing a supervisor-disclaimer that asks supervisors to restate support or opposition in the voter information pamphlet after they already voted. "This confuses everybody because the supervisors think they've already voted," Arntz said, describing the record-keeping difference between how a measure got on the ballot and the separate disclaimer language the city has used.
Members questioned whether changing deadlines would affect ballot printing and the mechanics of signature‑gathering. Arntz explained the June nomination deadline for mayor and supervisors would preserve the same signature-gathering period previously available for an August deadline by shifting start and end dates (examples cited in committee discussion included a 45-day circulation window and a 21-day withdrawal window tied to state law). A public commenter urged retaining signatures-in-lieu of filing fees as a civic-engagement mechanism; Supervisor Kim responded that paying a filing fee or collecting signatures would both remain options.
Deputy City Attorney Andrew Shen advised that the substantive amendments Supervisor Kim read into the record required an additional Rules Committee hearing. The committee moved to amend and continue the ordinance to the next Rules Committee meeting so staff can incorporate the changes and provide the additional notice and review required. No final vote on the ordinance was taken at today’s meeting.
Next steps: the committee directed staff to return the ordinance with the proposed amendments at a subsequent Rules Committee meeting for further consideration and possible forwarding to the full Board.
