PG&E Reps Fined for Campaign Nondisclosure

A group called San Franciscans Against the Blank Check is about to write checks totaling $240,000 to state and local authorities for not reporting a pair of Pacific Gas & Electric?s campaign donations in 2002. The group ran the campaign against San Francisco?s Proposition D in 2002. That initiative aimed to put PG&E?s electric distribution system in the hands of San Francisco?s Public Utilities Commission. The utility spent almost $3 million fighting off the measure. The initiative lost by 9,000 votes. In the political campaign reporting process, two of PG&E?s checks, one for $500,000 and one for $300,000, went unreported to the city and state campaign watchdog agencies until after the election. By law, the donations by both PG&E and the anti?Proposition D committee should have been reported within 24 hours. Now the group?s treasurer, San Francisco lawyer John Sutton, has taken responsibility and will pay $240,000 in penalties?$140,000 to the state Fair Political Practices Commission and $100,000 to the San Francisco Ethics Commission. ?The fine is the biggest we?ve collected,? said John St. Croix, executive director of the ethics commission. The ethics fine could have been as high as $800,000, the full amount of the donation, but the agency settled for $100,000. ?There?s no indication that the violations were intentional,? St. Croix said. The Fair Political Practices Commission is normally limited to collecting $5,000 per violation. Instead, the agency sued in civil court, allowing it to collect much larger damages. Representatives of the Yes on D campaign did not return calls for comment. In 2002, publicity by Yes on D made a major issue of the lopsided donations from PG&E, which was known to have donated $2.1 million to stop the initiative.

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PG&E Reps Fined for Campaign Nondisclosure

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