Los Angeles Unified School District voters will decide this November whether to bring school board campaign finance rules more in line with the rules that apply to LA mayoral campaigns.
Charter Amendment SC would require LAUSD school board candidates to follow many of the same campaign finance rules as candidates running for Los Angeles mayor. For instance, LAUSD board candidates would be barred from taking more than $1,000 from each donor, face time limits on contributions and expenditures, and be subject to audits or investigations by the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission, according to an impartial analysis by the city’s legislative analyst.
But school board candidates would still be exempt from some fundraising rules and would not qualify for the city’s public matching funds program.
Campaign finance rules influence how candidates raise money and compete for seats on the school board. LAUSD board members make decisions affecting students, parents, teachers and schools throughout the district, so residents have an interest in how those officials are chosen and whether any donors have an outsized impact on a candidate’s campaign.
The current rules have been in place for almost 20 years. In 2007, voters approved Charter Amendment L, which set rules for campaign contributions, financial disclosures and campaign finance training for LAUSD school board candidates, according to LA City Clerk records.
Supporters argue that the measure would simplify and modernize the rules governing LAUSD board campaigns by making them more consistent with other Los Angeles elections.
The proposal came out of the city’s larger charter reform process. Mona Field, a former member of the Los Angeles Charter Reform Commission, wrote in the Golden State Report, that she was disappointed the City Council did not pursue some larger reforms but still believed the charter amendment measures on the November ballot deserved “careful attention and yes votes.”
The Los Angeles City Council voted 14-0, with one member absent, to put Charter Amendment SC on the November ballot.
“This is a straightforward good-government reform, and it is worth supporting for exactly that reason,” states the official argument for the measure, signed by Los Angeles City Councilmember Adrin Nazarian, LAUSD Board Member Nick Melvoin and former Charter Reform Commissioner Diego Andrades, California Common Cause and the League of Women Voters of Greater Los Angeles.
No official argument was filed against the measure.
Charter Amendment SC is not expected to have a financial impact on the city, according to the financial impact statement by City Administrative Officer Matthew W. Szabo.
The measure would not raise taxes or directly change school programs, but it would change some of the campaign finance rules candidates follow when running for the LAUSD Board of Education.
This story was produced in collaboration with Cal State LA’s UT Community News.
