Dear friends,
 
It is urgent that you email Supervisor Scott Wiener (scott.wiener@sfgov.org) right away to save our public financing program, which will be voted on by the Board of Supervisors NEXT TUESDAY, February 28. Just like the local one-percenters have been attacking Ranked Choice Voting, they also have been attacking Public Financing of campaigns. They are doing everything they can to undermine our local democracy in their desire to manipulate and win elections, and the next showdown has arrived.
 
Here is the background:  Next Tuesday the full Board of Supervisors will vote on proposals from the Ethics Commission designed to save public financing. The Ethics Commission's proposals deserve our support. They have been cosponsored by Supervisors Kim, Campos, Avalos and Mar.  
 
Supervisor Scott Wiener from District 8 is the key swing vote. If he votes in favor, the measure will pass. If he votes against, it most likely will fail. It is urgent that you contact Supervisor Wiener (as well as Board President David Chiu) and indicate your support. The e-mail address for any Supervisor isfirstname.lastname@sfgov.org. Sup Wiener is known to read his own e-mail, and sometimes even respond.
 
Please e-mail them right away. Below is a sample letter that you can use for your own e-mails. It also tells you more specifics about what the package of changes will do, but the short version is that it will: 1) provide more public financing for qualified candidates, 2) deal with the "zombie candidate" issue that emerged in the mayor's race, and 3) bring San Francisco in compliance with a (yet another) terrible Supreme Court ruling that is undermining public financing across the nation (and that threatens to get rid of SF's program if it is sued, since we are out of compliance). But these Ethics Commission proposals actually turn the lemons into lemonade by using the Supreme Court ruling as a reason to strengthen the public financing program.
 
Below is the sample letter to Supervisor Wiener. Please e-mail him right away and let him know that you believe that the public financing program in San Francisco is worth saving. 

Steven Hill
San Franciscans for Voter Owned Elections
 
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Dear Supervisor Wiener,
 
The Ethics Commission’s proposed changes to our current public financing program will do many good things to improve San Francisco elections, and I urge you to support them. This package of changes is coming from the San Francisco Ethics Commission, which studied this issue in great detail in order to both improve the current public financing program as well as to bring San Francisco into compliance with a recent Supreme Court ruling. In other words, this package is not coming from any partisan group or special interest with a vested interest in the outcome of elections, it is coming from the nonpartisan Ethics Commission.
 
Here is a summary of the good things that the Ethics Commission proposal would do:
 
1) It will bring San Francisco in compliance with the recent US Supreme Court ruling that outlawed the use of a "trigger" that allowed publicly financed candidates to receive more public funds when a privately financed candidate broke the spending cap.
 
2) It will make sure that publicly financed candidates remain competitive against privately financed candidates and independent expenditure committees, despite the loss of this "trigger." It does that by increasing the spending caps for publicly financed candidates, from the current $143,000 to $250,000 for the Board of Supervisors and from $1.475 million to $1.75 million for the mayor's race, to compensate for the loss of the "trigger" that previously allowed publicly financed candidates to receive more money when privately financed candidates or independent expenditures broke the spending cap. It also increases the amount of public funds available to qualified candidates, allowing them to reach that spending cap.
 
3) It will help deal with the "zombie candidate" issue that emerged in the 2011 mayoral election. Currently, candidates can start spending their public financing in February before a November election, and the candidate filing deadline isn't until mid-August. That led to situations in which publicly financed candidates who wanted to get out of the race when other big-name candidates jumped into the race late in August would have had to pay back the public money they had spent. As a result, these "zombie" candidates stayed in the race, even though they had no chance of winning.
 
So here's the solution coming from the Ethics Commission: change the date that candidates can receive public money from February to mid-June, and change the candidate filing deadline from mid-August also to mid-June, a few days before the public money deadline. By doing this, all candidates will know which candidates are in the race before they spend any public money for their campaigns. If a "big name" candidate jumps into the race at the last second, no public money will have been spent at that point, and minor candidates will still have the chance of dropping out of the race before spending any public money.
 
The Budget Analyst has determined that these changes to the public financing program will not cost any additional money beyond what the the current program costs. This reflects that the Ethics Commission has taken time to craft a proposal that is both respectful of the use of public money, making sure public money is not wasted, yet that it fulfills the goals of the Campaign Finance Reform Ordinance which is to ensure robust debates by providing sufficient resources to credible, qualified candidates to run viable campaigns.
 
I think the Ethics Commission proposal will do a lot to improve San Francisco elections, and I am hoping you will support it. Can you let me know what your position is on the Ethics Commission proposal? Will you support it when the Board of Supervisors votes next Tuesday? Thank you.
 

Sincerely,