SEC. 1.114.5. CONTRIBUTIONS - DISCLOSURES.
§ 1.114.5
Campaign committees must collect and report contributor names, addresses, occupations, and employers for gifts of $100 or more; additionally, contributions of $5,000+ made at the request of a City official to ballot measure or independent expenditure committees must identify the requesting official; contributions cannot be made under assumed names or with borrowed funds, and committees must forfeit non-compliant contributions to the City.
When someone gives a campaign committee $100 or more, the committee must get and report that person's full name, street address, job, and employer before depositing the money. If someone gives $5,000 or more in a year to help a ballot measure or independent spending committee at the request of a City official, both the donor and the committee must report which official asked for the contribution. People cannot give money using a fake name or someone else's name, and they cannot use borrowed money that comes with strings attached about where it goes. If a committee breaks these rules, it has to give the money to the City.
- Controversial:The requirement to disclose which City official requested contributions raises transparency versus political privacy concerns that San Francisco voters have debated.
- Complex:Subsection (b) contains multiple nested conditions (the $5,000 threshold, 'at the behest of' language, exceptions for public appeals and contributions to the requesting official themselves) that interact in ways requiring careful parsing.
AI-generated · claude-haiku-4-5 · informational only, not legal advice.
Official text
(a) CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION REQUIRED. If the cumulative amount of contributions received from a contributor is $100 or more, the committee shall not deposit any contribution that causes the total amount contributed by a person to equal or exceed $100 unless the committee has the following information: the contributor’s full name; the contributor’s street address; the contributor’s occupation; and the name of the contributor’s employer or, if the contributor is self-employed, the name of the contributor’s business.
(1) A committee will be deemed not to have had the required contributor information at the time the contribution was deposited if the required contributor information is not reported on the first campaign statement on which the contribution is required to be reported.
(2) If a committee collects the information required under this subsection (a) on a form signed by the contributor stating that the contributor has not made a prohibited source contribution, there shall be a rebuttable presumption that the committee has not accepted a prohibited source contribution.
(b) DISCLOSURE REQUIREMENTS FOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO BALLOT MEASURE COMMITTEES AND COMMITTEES MAKING INDEPENDENT EXPENDITURES.
(1) In addition to the requirements in subsection (a), any person making contributions that total $5,000 or more in a single calendar year at the behest of a City elective officer, to a ballot measure committee or committee making independent expenditures must disclose to the committee receiving the contribution the office and the name of the City elective officer who requested the contribution.
(2) Committees receiving contributions subject to subsection (b)(1) must report the names of the City elective officers who requested those contributions at the same time that the committees are required to file campaign statements with the Ethics Commission disclosing the contributions.
(3) Notwithstanding the provisions of this subsection (b), no committee shall be required to make the disclosure required in subsection (b)(2) for any contribution that constitutes a contribution to the City elective officer at whose behest the contribution was made.
(4) Exception for public appeals. No person or committee shall be required to make any disclosures required under this subsection (b) for any contribution, if the contribution was made solely in response to a public appeal.
(c) ASSUMED NAME CONTRIBUTIONS.
(1) No contribution may be made, directly or indirectly, by any person or combination of persons, in a name other than the name by which they are identified for legal purposes, or in the name of another person or combination of persons.
(2) No person may make a contribution to a candidate or committee in his, her, or its name when using any payment received from another person on the condition that it be contributed to a specific candidate or committee.
(d) FORFEITURE OF UNLAWFUL CONTRIBUTIONS. In addition to any other penalty, each committee that receives a contribution which does not comply with the requirements of this Section 1.114.5 shall pay promptly the amount received or deposited to the City and County of San Francisco by delivering the payment to the Ethics Commission for deposit in the General Fund of the City and County; provided that the Ethics Commission may provide for the waiver or reduction of the forfeiture.
(Added by Ord. 129-18, File No. 180280, App. 5/30/2018, Eff. 6/30/2018, Oper. 1/1/2019)