Weinberg urges limits on electioneering ads and COIB enforcement authority
Weinberg says the charter has banned using public resources to influence elections since 1998, but enforcement has eroded. He asks the Council to give COIB explicit authority to issue rules and guidance on the ban.
Second, we think the council should limit government spending on advertisement for political and electioneering purposes.
This also came up in some of the questions by council members.
So the charter has prohibited using public resources to influence elections and referendum questions since 1998.
But we've seen in recent years that that prohibition has eroded, especially when we have the legislative branch and the executive branch on on.
opposite sides of a ballot referendum.
There are basically no clear guidelines on this issue.
There's no regulator who decides or guides on who crosses the line and when, and no one who enforces the ban on referendum electioneering.
Even in recent weeks, we've seen questions and concerns about the ad campaign by City Hall around the ballot questions.
The truth is we don't really know if those violated the law or not because there's no regulator or watchdog that would tell us whether this does in fact constitute illegal electioneering.
The conflict of interest toward COIB is best positioned to address this gap, and the council should give the COIB explicit authority to issue rules and provide guidance on the existing prohibition.