On Tuesday May 14, Councilmembers Hugo Soto-Martinez and Eunisses Hernandez spearheaded an effort that ultimately succeeded in watering down recommendations from the Ad Hoc committee on Governance Reform, which is in charge of overseeing and enforcing campaign finance and lobbying by special interests in City Council.
Thirteen members of City Council (including CD5 Councilwoman Yaroslavsky and CD11 Councilwoman Traci Park) voted in favor of gutting the Charter Reforms recommended by the committee on government reform, despite half a dozen indictments and multiple open investigations into their former and current colleagues for corruption in the last few years.
These are some of the provisions that Council opposed:
- The addition of two more commissioners not appointed by politicians
- Setting a minimum budget for the Ethics Commission
- Recouping the cost of investigations into ethics violations
- The ability for the Ethics Commission to put measures on the ballot