City Council: Campaign Finance Reform Ordinance Petition Gets Thousands of Signatures, City Will Challenge Giordano's Lawsuit

Editor's Note: Paragraphs three and four of this article were updated on Jan. 8 to make our explanation of the ordinance more clear and accurate.

Could a New Campaign Finance Reform Ordinance be Coming?

The City Council considered alternatives but took no action during its meeting Tuesday night after City Clerk Mary Lavelle delivered her official report to the Council on the Campaign Finance Reform Ordinance referendum spearheaded by resident Ed Riffle.

Riffle submitted the petition, complete with a few thousand signatures, compelling the City to overturn its ordinance, and approved in October.

The ordinance increases campaign contributions limits from $350 to $500, and includes a provision in which candidates can agree to a voluntary spending ceiling for their campaigns of $60,000. The ordinance says the new law seeks to create a more "even playing field" between candidates, decrease the overall costs of municipal elections, and allow candidates to "spend less of their time fundraising and more of their time discussing substantive issues with their constituents." The ordinance also requires campaign consultants who give 10 or more hours of their time to a candidate's campaign to register with the City within 30 days of beginning work.

One section of the ordinance that seems to have sparked differences of opinions amongst residents is that which requires any candidate who receives a campaign contribution of $100 or more from any constituent or business to disclose it to the City Clerk, who will then publish word of the contribution in a news or legal publication.

Riffle and his supporters have said in the past that they believe the ordinance "seeks to punish those who dare to criticize or challenge the City Council," and "unfairly allows people who are simply trying to exercise their freedom of speech to be ensnared by a requirement to register with the city government. "

Riffle's petition included a total of 4,110 signatures, of which 4,069 were verified. All in all, 3,190 were found sufficient.

Only 2,046 signatures were needed to require the City to officially recognize the petition.

Since the referendum petition met the necessary requirements, the Council must now act within 10 days to either repeal the ordinance or adopt a resolution for a special election before the end of the year.

By a vote of 4-1, with Councilmember Debbie Giordano opposed, it was decided the Council will hold a special meeting on Nov. 12, preceded by meetings with City Attorney Mike Ogaz and the Campaign Finance Reform Task Force, to consider all the alternatives before the deadline.

Councilmembers Armando Gomez and Althea Polanski said they felt that a better, tighter initiative could be crafted and submitted to the voters this year if the current law was repealed.

Ogaz cautioned that any new measure that is "legally similar" to the current Campaign Finance Reform ordinance would require a one-year wait before consideration.

Referendum leader Ed Riffle commented, "The Task Force and the Council could have sought the opinion of a Constitutional expert, but did not do so. I did. If the referendum fails, there will be a court challenge with close to a million dollars wasted." 

At Wednesday evening's special meeting of the City Council, Riffle offered to help draft a new ordinance as part of the Task Force, saying, "I hope you will accept my sincere offer to help."

Comments from the public continued.

"I'm a constitutional professor," said resident Mayvid Maclay. "The Milpitas ordinance seeks to violate the Constitution. Restriction on expenditures have been held unconstitutional."

Resident Brian Moore added, "We have successfully challenged similar ordinances."

Bobby Lopez from the Fraternal Order of Police Officers said, "You are putting restrictions on people that are not fair, stifling the Constitution. This is a violation of the Constitution."

On the flip side, reform proponent Bill Ferguson expressed his concern about developers making multiple contributions to candidates, saying, "Corporations are trying to buy the votes of the Council. Please keep the aggregation limits."

Ajay Talham accused the signature gatherers of not telling voters the truth about the petitions.

Lavelle responded to questions that the petition conformed to the election code. But Polanski said, "There were claims people were mislead in signing the petition."

Giordano said, "I'm for the repeal of the ordinance. I voted No on it before."

Vice Mayor Pete McHugh added, "I see no harm, but benefit, in getting more information."

"I will support the motion for another meeting," said Mayor Jose Esteves. "I want to clean up the Campaign Finance Ordinance."

Council Promises to Vigorously Defend Giordano's Lawsuit

In other City Council news, following Wednesday's special meeting in which Council members and City Attorney Mike Ogaz met in a closed session, Ogaz delivered a statement, saying City Council members had declared they will "vigorously defend" Councilmember Debbie Giordano's lawsuit against the City, in order to preserve safety at City Hall and not allow people to be affected by improper uses of video surveillance and key card records.

The closed session lasted more than an hour. Giordano abstained, as the litigant.

in late December in an attempt to be granted expedited access to key card records and video surveillance of the activities of Mayor Esteves and fellow Council member Gomez, whom she says she suspects have used City Hall for personal, private uses that are inappropriate, and whom she accuses of not complying with mandatory calendaring rules for Council members that require them to document all meetings they take as City representatives on public calendars.

However, a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge to the records made in Giordano's lawsuit, and instead scheduled a hearing for early February to determine whether Giordano should be allowed access to the records at all.

As of now, the City and Ogaz are claiming the records should not be disclosed except in cases of "law enforcement purposes."

Though the matter of whether or not City security records should be disclosable as public records was originally listed on Tuesday night's Council agenda, it was removed from discussion due to the pending litigation.