New Campaign Contribution Rules to Have Resounding Effect on Santa Barbara Politics

New rules from California’s Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) limiting campaign contributions now include elected officials, like supervisors and city councilmembers, limiting anyone with business before either the county or city to a $250 campaign contribution. The other change to the rules, which prohibit an official from taking part in any decision involving a donor who’s contributed more than $250 in the 12 months before a vote was final, was that the official now cannot take part if they receive such a contribution in the 12 months after the decision. Formerly, it had been three months.

Both are likely to have a resounding effect on local politics. Developers and large companies routinely give thousands of dollars to elected officials, and smaller donations often cross the $250 threshold. In the hotly contested campaign in 2020 pitting newcomer Laura Capps against incumbent Das Williams for the 1st District supervisorial seat had them raising nearly $1 million between them. (The 1st District is up again in 2024, though Capps now represents the 2nd, having run unopposed in 2022 and being appointed early to the seat by Governor Gavin Newsom when Gregg Hart left the 2nd District for the State Assembly.)

The supervisors, who supported the increased transparency in concept, were flummoxed by the details of how to implement the rule. Staffers had provided a form devised by Orange County to give to applicants for “licenses, permits, solicitations, etc.” But Supervisor Joan Hartmann — from the 3rd District, which is in play for 2024 — pointed out that between the time an applicant for a land-use permit, for example, got to the stage of an appeal before the Board of Supervisors, how were supervisors to know who among the proponents and opponents of a project might have a financial interest in it, much less had contributed $250 or more?