Mission Local is publishing campaign dispatches for each of the major contenders in the mayor’s race, alternating among candidates weekly until November. This week: Daniel Lurie. Read earlier dispatches here.
Daniel Lurie can say one thing: He is unlike his four major rivals, in that he has never held public office and never had a job in City Hall. The civic ills that have befallen San Francisco in recent years, Lurie says often on the campaign trail, can be laid at the feet of his opponents. These include not only policy failures, but corruption and ethics scandals.
On Monday, Lurie made that point more emphatically than he has thus far, announcing an “aggressive” agenda to clean up corruption on Day One of his administration.
“All of my opponents have been fined by the Ethics Commission — all of them,” Lurie said, speaking in front of a wall of blue “Lurie for Mayor” signs at his campaign headquarters at 800 Irving St.
“This includes the largest ethics fine in city history for an elected official,” Lurie continued, a reference to the rival at the center of Monday’s press conference: Mark Farrell, who was fined $191,000 in 2010 for illegal coordination with an independent expenditure campaign.
That penalty was walked back to $25,000 when Farrell sued the city, and the Ethics Commission cleared him of wrongdoing in a 3-2 vote; one commissioner resigned in protest.
Lurie referenced Farrell’s purported ethics lapses throughout the 15-minute press conference. He called for “immediately ending money laundering through ballot-measure committees,” a broadside aimed at Farrell, who has been accused of this several times during this campaign, without the benefit of naming him.
Farrell is running a ballot-measure campaign for Proposition D, the measure to cap the number of city commissions and expand mayoral power. The committee created to support that measure has taken in vast sums from a few wealthy donors, and is sharing tens of thousands of dollars in expenses with his mayoral campaign.
That has led to allegations that Farrell is effectively subsidizing his mayoral campaign, which can take a maximum of $500 per donor, with his ballot measure committee, which has no donation cap.
Paul Yep, the former San Francisco police commander who showed up to back Lurie on Monday, also mentioned a recent article from San Francisco Chronicle columnist Emily Hoeven, who visited the ostensible joint headquarters of Farrell for Mayor and Prop. D. She found it devoid of Prop. D material, however, raising questions about Farrell’s accounting.
In a press release sent Monday afternoon, after his speech, Lurie called out seven “mounting ethics issues facing Mark Farrell,” naming, among other things, the commingling of funds, and sprinkling in words like “pay-to-play,” “improper,” and “laundering money.”
Targeting Farrell is good campaigning: As the city enters the heyday of election season, candidates will begin drawing blood to tank their rivals, thereby ensuring they can secure their opponents’ second- and third-place votes. In a ranked-choice election, Lurie’s path to victory likely lies through knocking Farrell out in an initial round and picking up his No. 2 picks.
“These baseless accusations from, and being driven by, my political opponents continue to fall on deaf ears,” reads Farrell’s statement in response to Lurie’s attacks. “Everything we do is vetted, approved, and signed off by legal counsel. My opponents are working overtime to drag us in the mud, because they are trying to distract voters from their failed leadership and inability to deliver real change for our city.”
Also a target: Every other candidate
Farrell aside, there was plenty of fodder for Lurie’s ethics unveiling on Monday.
Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin was fined $8,000 in 2019 for misleading ads during his 2015 supervisorial campaign, and fined another $500 in 2020 for failing to report contributors who donated to his campaign in 2016.
Mayor London Breed was fined $23,000 in 2021 for her ethics missteps, which included failing to disclose contributions to her Pride float in 2015, using her position to seek clemency for her long-incarcerated brother in 2018, and accepting some $5,500 in car repairs from ex-beau and Public Works boss Mohammed Nuru, who was later federally convicted of corruption.
District 11 Supervisor Ahsha Safaí also received a penalty of $500 in 2021 for distributing some 5,900 campaign ads via text messages that failed to include required disclaimer language for his supervisorial race.
Lurie’s ethics plan, now the 11th and latest addition to his platform, sought to achieve what he called “further steps to root out corruption” by fully funding the Ethics Commission. That, he said, differentiates himself from Breed, whom he accused of “gutting the Ethics Commission’s budget” in retaliation for the fines against her.
Lurie also said he would close a campaign-finance loophole that benefits candidates running for both local office and the Democratic County Central Committee, the local branch of the Democratic Party.
Donations for candidates running for local office, like supervisor or mayor, are capped at $500. But, by running for the Democratic County Central Committee at the same time, they can accept unlimited donations and boost their general name recognition, easing their path to victory in a local race.
Lurie is proposing that sitting members of the Board of Supervisors be prohibited from running for Democratic County Central Committee, another oblique reference to Farrell.
As a supervisor in 2016, Farrell used funds from his DCCC race to entertain people after being elected. He kept the account open, and accepted large donations from entities that had businesses before City Hall, including $5,000 from the city’s trash-service provider, Recology, and $2,500 from Mayes Oyster House, a restaurant on Polk Street.
Three incumbent district supervisors were elected to the DCCC in March: Matt Dorsey in District 6, Catherine Stefani in District 2, and Connie Chan in District 1 (who is running for re-election).
Four supervisor candidates also won seats on the DCCC: Marjan Philhour, who is running to unseat Chan in District 1; Bilal Mahmood, who is running for District 5 Supervisor; Trevor Chandler, who is running for District 9 Supervisor; and Michael Lai, who is running for District 11 Supervisor.
Paul Melbostad, an attorney who served on the San Francisco Ethics Commission from 1995 to 2003, said he has doubts Lurie can make the prohibition work. “The party is entitled to have its own rules about who to sit on the committee,” Melbostad said. “I don’t believe that’s under the control of the mayor.”
Melbostad, however, did agree with Lurie’s proposal in spirit, as he thinks it is not a wise use of time for a San Francisco elected official to spend their time sitting in DCCC meetings.
Lurie additionally called for a requirement that reimbursements for shared expenses have concurrent public disclosure to the Ethics Commission, breaking down staff time and details about how other resource allocations relate to each committee.
“There is a $500 campaign contribution limit for a reason,” Lurie said. “To limit the influence that any person can have over a politician and ensure our elected leaders aren’t bought and paid for.”
Lurie also proposed that elected officials and candidates with major ethics violations in the past two election cycles be charged higher candidates’ filing fees to pay for added staffing enforcement.
And, he said, the city should integrate machine learning — an artificial-intelligence tool — into the Ethics Enforcement Dashboard, which would analyze campaign finances, commissioner appointments, and city contracts for the public, as well as for internal investigation for the Ethics Commission.
“If you care about ethics and want to root out corruption,” Lurie said in a firm tone, “then I’m asking you to put me number one on your ballot.”
While this all plays well, I’ll cynically note that since there’s no limit of how much you can spend of your own money (correct?), hard donation limits give an enormous competitive advantage to independently wealthy candidates. But I’m sure that’s a coincidence.
Old money is just as corrupting as new money.