Is going after what voters know. And as was said, the Supreme Court within the bounds of Citizens United said transparency and disclosure, fine. I have a few examples. This was a district 6 mailer, and the video at the bottom of an internet mailer ad, paid for by a committee, clean and sunset. Major funding by progress San Francisco. And the district 6 version said paid for by san franciscans for change, major funding by progress San Francisco. I think all of us in this room know who are behind that committee, but most regular people would have no reason to know. Two big things. Number one, it will require the dollar amount of the donors to be listed, so that voters get more than a name and an actual piece of data that they can use to say to ask if they wish, whos really behind this and whats their agenda. And more importantly, it pierces the shell of fake name committees like that by requiring that progress San Francisco in this example, the top two donors to that committee would also have to be listed, and the amount of money they gave to that committee. In addition, the font will have to be bigger and some other cleanup things that make it easier for voters to know. Again, were trying to give voters information and ensuring they really know whos behind the Shell Committee and how much they gave. Only other thing ill say on that component and ill get to the last one is some may ask, well, arent the clever election lawyers going to find some other way to hide, and im sure they will. And to that i would say, were going to do that the same way you would eat an elephant, one bite at a time. And i think this will become the strongest in the country and a model for other cities. So at the end, i want to submit some materials, and supervisor mar has the same if you wish to share, is the paytoplay division, which prohibits not just the developer, which is already prohibited, but the top executives associated with that developer from giving to any city official running for the board of supervisors, mayor, or City Attorney or sitting in those offices for the entire time that the measure is pending or for 12 months its approved or after its done. We tried to narrowly craft it, so were talking about big projects, not someone renovating their house. Big developments, 5 million or more. What i submitted for the record in terms of the basis for this is a series of articles. You all are well familiar with the f. B. I. Sting on a couple of former city officials and employees, one of whom said we pay to play in San Francisco. Were the best in the biz to an f. B. I. Informant who posed as a developer, what were trying to prevent, and a series of related documents. I would ask the clerk, if you would, to pass around these three i gave you a copy for the record, but give it to the supervisors. So and ive come across this over the years, and then, over the weekend this is what i do with my weekend, i went and downloaded and organized for presentation from the Ethics Commission theres one specific developer who stands out i think its a really good flash bad example about how theyve done an end run around the corporate ban with a myriad of city officials at city hall. T. M. G. Officials is a big office developer. Theyve been one of the lead developers at 88 bluxome. So for the last 13 years, t. M. G. , top executives of t. M. G. , the same mostly dozen ten to 12 people have given on the same day, in the same amount, to the same person, Campaign Contributions to people running for mayor, supervisor, City Attorney. And ive got, what, 11 pages of this because it started in 2006, and the last data i have it for this last he is for this last election. This is about the interest, this is not about the politicians. There are other laws and other things, but certainly about the developers attempt to curry favor and make it look like their project should get approved, and they should have the inside track. So t. M. G. Partners in the last dozen years, their executives gave 327 contributions to 37 campaigns totaling over 199,000. This would ensure that t. M. G. And their executives cant give money, that the projects are approved on their merits and not based on money. So with that, i have given you my testimony on the three components of the initiatives. Again, i really agree, i really encourage everyone to read it for themselves, and really thank your support for the measure. Supervisor mar thank you, peter, and for all of your work and these important issues protecting our democracy for so many years. I think that concludes the presentation. Chair ronen fantastic. And if supervisor walton has no comments, well open it up for Public Comment. Please come forward. Vice chair kopp good morning, members of the committee. Im quentin kopp, a former member of the board of supervisors, and id like to divide my remarks in procedural and substantive categories. This has been a long, long process which began in San Francisco in 1973. The trivia question before the committee this morning is what is the first municipality in california to adopt an ordinance to control Campaign Contributions and expenditures. Its not San Francisco. We were second. San diego was first. After san diego adopted an ordinance, i telephoned the City Attorney, obtained a copy of it, introduced it in 1973, and it was enacted my memory fails as to whether it was unanimously enacted by the board of supervisors, and it had both spending and donation limits in it. And those spending limits remained in effect until one of the cases John Gollinger referred to, buckley versus vallejo was decided by the United StatesSupreme Court which held that the First Amendment was violated by a spending limitation. And so american government, local, state, and national, has been struggling ever since to control a campaigns spending through laws addressing [inaudible] chair ronen judge kopp, can you continue with the point that youre making, please. Oh, did you have a time limit on testimony . Chair ronen i wanted to hear both. All rig. Vice chair kopp all right. Let me see how fast i can say i wa want i was appointed to the commission by the board of supervisors until i resigned out of a feeling of futility. And i know that peter keen isnt dramatic in his presentations or public pronouncements, but he was understandably dramatic, and if he isnt dramatic enough, i know my friend, mr. Ammiano will be dramatic because that was once his profession. And we should have done this two years ago in the Ethics Commission of the city and county of San Francisco. And the record which mr. Gollinger amassed is absolutely persuasive to anybody who doubts what happens underneath the spotlights and out of the public sunshine, and i am pleased that the board of supervisors has adopted what otherwise would have cost much time, money, and effort to put before voters, a. And i know this is just informational, but i believe it will be successful with a combined effort of all those who believe in trying to present voters with honest choices of people with integrity who are not the minions of vested wealthy developers or other professions in San Francisco. Thank you. Chair ronen thank you. Assembly member ammiano, would you like to speak . Drama queen. Good morning. If you dont mind, mr. Young, i just wanted to say hi, its been a long, long time, and its nice to see you. I think the eloquence that youve heard today, as an elected, i think you all know you get that swearing in ceremony, and youre just so happy, and were going to take on the world. And then, the kind of offers that come in because you won not because they necessarily agree with you when you were running are somewhat astounding. When i was first elected, i was approached by an entity who said they might be able to raise 25,000 for me. I dont want to embarrass anybody, but ill give you its initials, which is pg e. Needless to say, stopped in the hole by a prominent member of the community, mentioned his name, and presented me with an envelope of cash. This is how blatant it was. And i think the senator can relate to sacramento, things are bad here. In sacramento, they are amazingly tricky, and theres so much stealth that goes on. I was walking to work one day and was approached by a lobbyist. Wanted to know if i wanted to stop at starbucks. And i said no, and she said here, heres a check. And i said no. And she was actually hurt because its been so inured into the system, and in the system, its things that are wrong. So im very happy to have the sponsorship and i thank you, supervisor mar, for your leadership, and i look forward to a victory. And just one kind of caveat, a spoiler, but i cant help as a citizen [inaudible] chair ronen thank you so much. Mr. Bush . Thank you very much. Im larry bush. Im a member of friends of ethics. In 2016 and 2018, both times, we paid for professional polling to find out what the public sentiment was on contributions coming from developers and those with land use issues, and ive provided you copies with that, but it was shown that 70 of the people felt we needed to go further than we had. With charlie marstellar, we did a review of lobbying in San Francisco city hall and found that 90 of the lobbying is about development, but our law only addresses contracts, not developers per se. This will close one of those loopholes. Theres been a lot of talk about what examples we have, and i would point your attention to an article i provided from San Francisco public press, which was about allies of the mayor who were called in by the mayor and his top aides, as well as some officials from the board of supervisors and told that their applications for development hinged on whether or not they gave contributions. It was very explicit, and there was a billionaire who was present who said if you dont want to give directly, i will give money in your name to someone so that it will still be covered and the money will still be raised. It was then raised by commissioner kopp for investigation by the Ethics Commission, and while there was some interviews that took place from the City Attorneys office, the City Attorneys office decided not to seek subpoenas and put anybody under oath about what had happened, so this is something thats very real and very much influences how decisions are made in San Francisco. Thank you. Chair ronen thank you so much. Is there any other member of the public who wishes to speak on this item . Good morning, jordan. Thank you. You know, i was not here for is this item. I was here i was not here for this item. I was here for another item, but i wanted to speak on this item. I am a district 6 resident. I did a lot of volunteering on supervisor haneys campaign, and he won, which im really glad he did, but a lot of dark money came in to his opponents. Funny story. You know in district 6, theres a lot of concern about the fate of the streets. Well, our streets were littered with all these glossy mailers funded by god knows who. Im, like, whats going on here, and i would often take pictures of it and postit on facebook, saying, you know, if youre going to litter our streets, youre automatically not fit to be supervisor. And of course, like, there was the other things, like, you know being like, influenced by diagnosed like, who knows, ron conway or whatever . But you know, i kind of, like, took the opportunity to troll some people. I said send some pictures of glossy fliers with bad color schemes. And said pick up your trash. And i want to know where that fucking trash is coming from. This proposition is so fucking necessary. We need to get it on the ballot and get rid of this shit, and if we cant get rid of this shit, we need to know whats littering our streets with it. Chair ronen good morning. My name is vivian torelli. I have been a Campaign Worker since 1985, for art agnos. I carefully choose my candidates in terms of what they can bring to my city in terms of values, organization, and insight, and then, their chances of getting elected are threatened when their opponents have huge war chests to slam us. These are not only designed to affect the outcome of the election but are designed to exert undue influences on the policies of our opponents. A striking example was mayor breed, who in obvious deference to her donors who would be taxed under prop c did not support this strong source of revenue that was the antithesis of what her donors wanted. Yet, then she turned around and said her priority was Homeless Services and lamented that we need money for that. Donations have a loud voice and can shout down candidates who have the moral integrity who refuse to do the same in return. We need your support for the package of Public FinancingCampaign Reform to give admirab admirable candidates a fighting chance against elections seeking control and elected officials. Chair ronen thank you. Next speaker, please. Eileen boken. Coalition for San Francisco. And San Francisco education and action committee. Here on my behalf here in support of the sun light on dark money initiative. This initiative would take steps to level the Playing Field by increased disclosure, limiting contributions, and enforcement to ensure compliance. It would take steps to control some of the excesses created by Citizens United. It would repeal the board of supervisors ordinance from 2015 eliminating certain Disclosure Requirements for independent expenditure committees. It would implement safeguards against paytoplay for that appearance on development decisions. I would like to acknowledge each of the supervisors who have sponsored this initiative. It would move the election process in a better and more equitiable direction. It would make elections more competitive even for those candidates without deep pocket donor base. It would encourage more candidates to run who might not otherwise because of the daunting task of competing with candidates connected to super p. A. C. S, and hopefully this will reign in the endless reporting in the media about which candidate has raised the most money. Thank you. Good morning, supervisors. My name is holda garofalo, and i have served on two grand jurys. The Ethics Commission was one of our topics, but that led us to looking into how nonprofits and super p. A. C. S really prevent present a huge problem in our city. We always here about the swamp hear about the swamp in washington, d. C. San francisco has a pretty murky swamp of their own, and its time we tie up all those loopholes, have a city for the people, not for the lobbyists, the politicians who benefit because theyre totally selfinterested. Its time to start serving San Francisco. Oftentimes, our Public Servants forget Public Servant means serving the people. You work for us. Its time to start doing that without the slime and murk attach tod attached to it. Thank you. Good morning, supervisors. Im charles marstellar, formerly with common cause and certainly now with friends of ethics. I do want to say that at one time, we had a very robust investigative press, and like the rest of the country, weve seen a terrible decline in the ability of the press to fund that type of investigative reporting. Were working our way through that, but right now, theres a deficit that we really need to makeup for, and i think it goes to the law. We need to adjust our law accordingly and now to take action to make sure on this side of the law, we rewrite our laws to deal with some of these loopholes that we hear about and no longer expect the press to address those through robust reporting. They do what they can, but its not enough. And i think the supervisors here saw that in the last election process season that brought them to this body. And i do want to thank them for their efforts and interest because they saw what that means, and the corruption in this town that the press could not pick up the story on. So nows the time to address the law, and i think youve done an excellent job with this bill, and i want to thank the sponsors, mr. Keen and John Gollinger and mr. Ammiano on this, and im glad that eight members of the board are supporting this, a Broad Spectrum of the board, as we are on this issue, a Broad Spectrum of america. Chair ronen thank you so much. Next speaker. Hello. My name is agatha vassilar, and im speaking to you as a regular constituent whose family has been here 30 years. Before the 2018 election, i travelled around the country doing a project called inside out book project, and you know the San Francisco mural thats on display in the sf moma, its the same project thats on the voter registration. I talked to hundreds, if not thousands of people, and the major reason i heard that people dont vote is in a system where a corporate machine drowns out our vote, its very easy to believe that our conversations with elected officials dont matter. This is it. Big money out of politics is that root cause issue, and its my greatest wish to revitalize the culture of democracy in San Francisco and the country, and i think this is such a great step towards enacting that movement, so thank you so much. Chair ronen is there any other member of the public who wishes to speak . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. [