Santa Clara County supervisors could relax restrictions on how much they can raise for their reelection campaigns.
The issue sparked a 30-minute debate at the Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday about whether a higher ceiling for candidate fundraising would help or hurt poorer people’s chances of winning elected county office.
For 30 years, county supervisor candidates have been barred from accepting more than $500 in direct donations from a single person – or $1,000 if they agree to cap their campaign spending at $250,000. Candidates for district attorney, sheriff and assessor have to cap their spending at $500,000 to be able to raise $1,000 from an individual.
Board of Supervisors President Otto Lee proposed the idea of raising the limit, but without an exact figure in mind. He suggested bringing the county’s campaign finance regulations in line with the state. California’s Fair Political Practices Commission sets contribution limits at $5,900 for city and county office candidates in areas that don’t have their own more restrictive limits. That’s a 490% increase from Santa Clara County’s current limit.
Lee called the idea necessary to grapple with the inflating expense of running for office, namely the ever-increasing postage cost of mailing campaign materials. He said less affluent candidates would have a better chance against those with more connections and resources.
“I’m frankly shocked to see there’s no one in the public here to speak on it,” Lee said at the meeting, referring to the lack of requests to make public comments in the half-empty meeting chambers. “It’s a practical step toward modernizing our election policies while ensuring fairness, consistency and alignment with well established practices across California.”
Other county leaders are hesitant. Supervisor Susan Ellenberg said Lee’s proposal is “well-intentioned,” but she isn’t convinced it’s a solution to the real problem.
“I’m concerned about this making it even harder for new candidates, young candidates — those who may not have well-resourced friends or colleagues to be able to compete. We’re just making the divide that much larger,” Ellenberg said at the meeting. “Every incremental increase is going to make it harder for some candidates. I would argue the very candidates that we want to represent us, that bring in more diversity and life experience, are going to find it even harder to raise those funds.”
She pointed out political action committees and special interests can still spend unlimited amounts of money in support of candidates as long as they’re not direct donations, regardless of Santa Clara County’s laws, thanks to a landmark 2010 Supreme Court ruling that found campaign money constitutes free speech.
“At this time I’m not comfortable supporting the flow of more money into supervisor races. I think the focus should be getting money out of politics rather than bringing more money in,” Ellenberg said.
Supervisor Sylvia Arenas said while money is important, it’s not always the deciding factor in a race.
“I’ve had an experience of always having a very budget-limited campaign — I’ve never had a campaign office,” Arenas said. “The first year I ran for council I didn’t have yard signs. My office has always been my home, my garage. I think it really speaks to when your message resonates with people. We are in politics and unfortunately our allies are not always our friends and our friends are not always our allies. And those are tough lessons.”
Yet she and other supervisors agreed on the need to study the issue – and have the county Finance and Government Operations Committee take a microscope to the gap between county and state regulations.
“There is, I think, an opportunity for us to take a look at making sure we don’t close the doors for folks who are well intended and should be part of elected office,” Arenas said. “Because those who don’t have those resources are the ones who should be running.”
Contact Brandon Pho at brandon@sanjosespotlight.com or @brandonphooo on X.