*Supporters of clean elections ~ * A lot has been happening with public campaign financing in San Francisco in the last couple of weeks. There are two important proposals moving forward as we speak, one to raid the public campaign financing fund, and one to significantly improve the Board of Supervisors program. Dangerous p*roposal to raid the public financing fund:* This proposal, coming out of the Mayor's office, will be heard by the Ethics Commission on *Monday Nov. 5 (election eve) at around 5:30pm*, so we really need as many of you as can make it to turn out and make sure that it is soundly defeated! Please mark your calendars if you haven't already! You can read more about this at www.voterownedelections.org/raid.html *There are also credible rumors that the Mayor's office, worried that they may not succeed at the Ethics Commission and the Board of Supervisors, are considering a February ballot initiative to raid the fund. *The more we can show our strength now, the less likely this proposal is to move forward. Of course, if it does we are ready to stand up and fight for clean elections, but we would prefer to not have to put our energy in this direction. So please, also contact the Mayor and ask him to back off of his attacks on public campaign financing and focus his energy on the important issues facing our City. *Please contact the Mayor's representative on this issue, Wade Crowfoot, at 702-5212 or wade.crowfoot@sfgov.org* *Important proposal to improve Board of Supervisors program: * The Board of Supervisors public campaign financing program is outdated and does not provide candidates with enough matching funds to be truly effective. As a result, candidate participation in the program has been dropping. A very important piece of legislation to raise the level of matching funds will going to the Board of Supervisors for a vote on Nov. 6. In order to pass, the proposal needs 8 out of 11 votes -- so we need you to start contacting the Supervisors to ensure their support. *Please contact Supervisor Bevan Dufty. *Supervisor Dufty has generally been a supporter of campaign reform and valiantly stood with us previously when we created the mayoral public financing program. But because the Mayor is currently trying to raid the public campaign financing fund and because Dufty and the mayor have a close relationship, we want to ensure that Supervisor Dufty hears from us and knows that there is a powerful constituency for public campaign financing in San Francisco. 554-6968 or Bevan.Dufty@sfgov.org Please thank him for his past support and ask him to please support the legislation to improve the Board of Supervisors public campaign financing program. If you're looking for talking points check out: http://voterownedelections.org/improve_our_democracy.html After you've done that, please email or phone your personal district Supervisor. Their contact info is here: http://sfgov.org/site/bdsupvrs_index.asp?id=7271