City Attorney Ethics Enforcement in San Francisco
An article in the San Francisco Chronicle this week says that the city attorney filed a lawsuit against a former member of the board of supervisors (the city's legislative body) who acted as a lobbyist, but failed to register (in arguing that he was acting as an attorney, the supervisor pointed to an unfortunate exception in the lobbying law, for professionals when they are "performing a duty or service that can be performed only by an attorney, an architect or a professional engineer." There is now talk of amending this exception.).
The article says that the lobbyist registration provision "is routinely ignored and enforcement is rare. The Ethics Commission ... has dismissed 12 of the 15 complaints for unregistered lobbying since the law took effect, according to commission records. The other three resulted in settlements with combined fines of $10,750." The top sanction is $5,000 per incident; the city attorney alleged that there were 70 incidents.
In this case, the former supervisor has offered to pay a $75,000 fine to settle the case, but without admitting that he had done anything wrong (the settlement is attached; see below).
An article in the San Francisco Chronicle this week says that the city attorney filed a lawsuit against a former member of the board of supervisors (the city's legislative body) who acted as a lobbyist, but failed to register (in arguing that he was acting as an attorney, the supervisor pointed to an unfortunate exception in the lobbying law, for professionals when they are "performing a duty or service that can be performed only by an attorney, an architect or a professional engineer." There is now talk of amending this exception.).
The article says that the lobbyist registration provision "is routinely ignored and enforcement is rare. The Ethics Commission ... has dismissed 12 of the 15 complaints for unregistered lobbying since the law took effect, according to commission records. The other three resulted in settlements with combined fines of $10,750." The top sanction is $5,000 per incident; the city attorney alleged that there were 70 incidents.
In this case, the former supervisor has offered to pay a $75,000 fine to settle the case, but without admitting that he had done anything wrong (the settlement is attached; see below).