Couple of things:
- After I posted this point about the fact that the Ethics Commission’s enforcement procedures — and impartiality — will be put to the test in a way it hadn’t before, I ended up talking the Stacey Fulhorst, the commission’s director. She made an interesting point.
If Luis Acle does end up being forced into a full trial-like administrative hearing in front of the commission, somewhat of a spectacle might follow.
Fulhorst said the Ethics Commission will have to debate his guilt and potential punishment in public. They’ll have to deliberate about everything right in front of Acle and the public.
That’s weird. Fulhorst pointed out that should put their logic for doing whatever they do on display and the public will be able to judge them on whether they were impartial or not.
- I think we’re having a great time today talking about campaign finance reform. Gil Cabrera is setting the foundation for an argument that we may need to publicly finance local political campaigns. And he claims that restricting donations has had a positive influence on the process. John Kern, the political consultant and former chief of staff to former Mayor Dick Murphy, has laid out well his contention not only that campaign contribution limits have done little to change the perception of corruption in the local political scene but the city should simply not have limits.
Here, of course, was my take in the column today.
- On Monday, in the Café we’re excited to have Anurag Kashyap hosting. Kashyap won the 2005 Scripps National Spelling Bee. He’s a junior at Rancho Bernardo High School. I’m not going to spell check it.