Silicon Valley political groups fail to meet transparency requirements

Campaign finance reports are crucial to learning who’s funding elected office seekers. But new data shows Santa Clara County is rife with disregard for election transparency laws.

Nearly 40 political campaign committees across the county have failed to file transparency reports by legal deadlines since 2018 — in many cases even after receiving two written warnings. Nearly 30 of those committees have been flagged to county prosecutors and state watchdogs for investigation, according to an August report from the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters.

Many of those committees have failed to file on multiple occasions, with 80 total instances where candidates’ funding sources didn’t materialize on time for public inspection, data shows. County elections officials on 50 occasions had to send two warning letters and contacted authorities 63 times over the last six years.

The issue can stem from unfamiliarity with the rules. The data also shows committees for campaigns that ended years ago haven’t been deactivated. For candidates who are new to politics, missed deadlines are an inevitable learning curve. But experts argue more experienced elected officials and candidates who should be well acquainted with the rules are likely ignoring them.

“There’s very little enforcement for violations of this nature. It is pretty much known amongst political parties and elected officials and campaign consultants that that is the case,” Mindy Romero, a political sociologist and founder of the Center for Inclusive Democracy, told San José Spotlight. “To be honest, it’s really an honor system.”

One of the most frequent names in the county’s report is Magdalena Carrasco, a former San Jose councilmember who has spent years running for various local offices. A committee she set up to support her 2012 run for the East Side Union High School District board of trustees was still active and subject to reporting deadlines as recent as June of this year, according to the report.

The report shows her committee failed to meet financial disclosure deadlines six times since 2018. Five of those instances have been referred to District Attorney Jeff Rosen and the Fair Political Practices Commission, the state’s election transparency watchdog. FPPC enforcement records show Carrasco’s campaign committee received one warning letter in 2018, but no fines. Separate FPPC records also show county and state elections officials referred Carrasco to authorities five other times from 2017 through prior years.

Carrasco did not respond to requests for comment.

Romero said the FPPC is backlogged and everyone knows it, incentivizing some politicians to calculate whether ignoring disclosure deadlines will reap harmful repercussions — or whether they’ll have left office by the time those consequences come down.

“That is the sad secret,” Romero said.

Officials at both the DA’s office and FPPC declined to comment on the county report and said they’re taking a more diplomatic approach to offenders.

“Our goal is not to punish, but first to gain compliance so no one is violating the law, and to provide the public with the information they need and are legally entitled to, before any election,” FPPC spokesperson Jay Wierenga told San José Spotlight.

Wierenga said the FPPC gets thousands of complaints every year, surging dramatically in election years when complaints become a tool between political rivals. At the same time, he maintains the FPPC can be a hard line when it needs to.

“We will strictly and strongly enforce any violation that deprives people of their rights to this vital information,” he said.

John Chase, public integrity prosecutor for the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, said when it comes to timely disclosure, the goal is “to gain compliance.”

“Most of the missed or late filings are for periods after the election,” Chase told San José Spotlight. “Many local committees are managed by first-timers who do not understand all the filing obligations, especially about closing the committees after the election. Historically this patient approach has almost always resulted in eventual compliance.”

Sean McMorris, a transparency and ethics expert at Common Cause California, lauded county elections officials for keeping track of violations. He agrees investigations tend to take too long, leading to delayed justice. But that’s because enforcement is underfunded, he said.

“The fact that this list exists, warning letters have been sent out and the FPPC and DA have been notified suggest that violators are being held accountable,” McMorris told San José Spotlight. “It is, of course, bad for transparency’s sake that these filers have not filed, but blame here appears to lay with the filers, not the government agencies tasked with enforcing the law.”Still, violations appear to be piling up. The county report logged 19 more instances in which a second warning letter went out to committees for missing disclosures over the previous month — though these latest cases have yet to be referred to the authorities.

Romero said there’s a reason these laws are on the books.

“Violations are quite common. Already we have a system where some Americans don’t trust elected officials,” she told San José Spotlight. “And it leads to fear there’s corruption or undue influence. Repeat violations — they hurt the public’s trust.”

Contact Brandon Pho at [email protected] or @brandonphooo on X, formerly known as Twitter.