San Francisco mayoral candidate Mark Farrell accused of violating campaign finance laws

Willie Brown and two other former mayors of San Francisco, along with six additional former city officials, have filed a request for a criminal investigation into candidate for mayor Mark Farrell, citing campaign finance violations.

The letter, addressed to California Attorney General Rob Bonta and San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, claims Farrell "appears to be willfully violating election law," by "laundering significant sums of money through an unrestricted ballot measure committee to cover costs incurred by his campaign for mayor to circumvent the $500 per person limit on contributions."

Former mayors Brown, Art Agnos, and Frank Jordan signed the letter, along with former city attorney Louise Renne, former supervisor Angela Alioto, former state senator Mark Leno, retired judge Quentin Kopp, and attorneys John Keker and Randy Knox.

The letter was also sent to the Fair Political Practices Commission, the San Francisco Ethics Commission, the San Francisco City Attorney, the State Bar of California and the State Bar of Arizona.

The group alleges Farrell used "hundreds of thousands of dollars" from a City Hall reform ballot measure that is backed by a group that also supports Farrell's run for mayor, to pay for his own campaign.

"If you fail to act promptly, Mark Farrell will have exploited inaction by ethics officials and law enforcement authorities alike to unlawfully funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars into his campaign for mayor and perhaps prevail as a result," the group wrote.

Farrell, who previously served as a city supervisor for District 2 and interim mayor from January until July 2018, has consistently argued his campaign operated within the law.

Under San Francisco election law, campaign donations are capped at $500 for any contributor other than the candidate. The campaign is also not allowed to accept a donation of more than $500.

The co-signers of the letter point to recent reporting by the San Francisco Chronicle that an independent committee in support of Proposition D that was created by Farrell pooled payments and resources with his own campaign.

Payments included costs for canvassers trained by Farrell's campaign to educate voters on the measure as well as for rent and payroll. In further reporting, the Chronicle stated they saw no evidence of Prop D staff at the site of Farrell's campaign headquarters and that shared payments to the proposition committee appeared to cover those incurred by the campaign for mayor.

"While candidates can use ballot measure committees to pay for advertisements that have the effect of increasing their visibility with voters," the letter states, "those advertisements actually have to be about the ballot measure––not the candidate's qualifications for office or public policy issues that have nothing to do with the underlying measure."

Fellow candidate Daniel Lurie initially declined to comment on this story, as did incumbent mayor London Breed's campaign.

In a press release, campaign consultant for Lurie said "San Francisco won't see the change it desperately needs by replacing one corrupt City Hall insider with another…They built and exploited a corrupt bureaucracy, and now they're telling voters they're the only ones that can fix it. San Franciscans aren't buying it."

Last week Farrell and current San Francisco Supervisor Ahsha Safaí announced that they have teamed up to encourage their separate supporters to rank the other in one of the top spots on the ballot in the city's ranked-choice ballot.

During a press event to discuss his ranked-choice strategy, Farrell dismissed the allegations.

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