Rules Committee advances technical fix clarifying when ethics director can raise expenditure ceiling

The San Francisco Rules Committee on Monday advanced a technical amendment to the Campaign and Government Conduct Code to clarify when the executive director of the Ethics Commission should raise an individual expenditure ceiling for candidates for mayor and the Board of Supervisors.

Sponsor and committee members described the measure as mainly technical cleanup to align definitions across the ordinance. "This is largely technical in cleanup," the sponsor said, adding the main clarification is when the ethics director is to raise the expenditure ceiling based on group spending and not only candidate spending. Ethics Commission representative Mister St. Croix told the committee the change "standardizes definitions of who opposition spending for is being changed so that it's uniform throughout the bill" and that candidates for both the board and the mayor may request a review of whether spending opposes or supports a candidate.

There was no public comment on the item and a supervisor moved to forward the recommendation; the motion carried without objection. The committee moved the item forward to the full board for further consideration.

Next steps: the bill will be scheduled for the full Board of Supervisors agenda for consideration and possible final action.