Sacramento mayor’s race gets ugly as progressive Black woman is urged to quit | Opinion

The head of a Sacramento-based public affairs firm has called on a candidate for mayor to drop out of the race because she allegedly raised too much money too early from too many supporters. Steven Maviglio has no legal standing to force Flojaune Cofer to end her campaign, but in a broader sense, this skirmish reveals a bruising power struggle within Sacramento’s city politics.

Cofer is the one truly the grassroots candidate for mayor in that she has not held elective office, in contrast to her noteworthy male competitors. She is a social activist candidate with an extensive background in public health. The former leader of a city advisory committee to oversee the use of “Measure U” sales tax funds, Cofer was an outspoken critic of city decisions to use Measure U funds to supplement the budget of the Sacramento Police Department.

Opinion

She would be the first Black woman elected mayor of Sacramento and, depending on the outcomes in other races next year, Cofer would join a growing roster of progressives who could one day swing a traditionally moderate council leftward.

Maviglio claims he is confronting Cofer solely on his own personal dime. But his challenge to Cofer is a picture-perfect mirror of the talking points of business and civic leaders alarmed by the proliferation of homelessness in Sacramento and concerned about the ascendancy of a new and progressive generation of leaders in Sacramento.

Because of her background and her ability to raise money, Cofer’s candidacy is a threat to establishment politics running scared in Sacramento.

In campaign documents filed with the city for the first half of this year, the Cofer campaign reported raising $158,738.16. That is an impressive amount considering the preponderance of modest-sized contributions made to the Cofer campaign. This demonstrates that Cofer may be a force to be reckoned with.

It also may be a problem.

Sacramento Mayoral election gets ugly

“No mayor or candidate for the city office of mayor shall accept contributions totaling more than $67,900 in any single off-election year,” reads the relevant portion of the Sacramento City Code. “For purposes of a regular election for city elective office, the period from January 1st through June 30th of the year preceding the year of the election is considered an off-election year.”

If $67,900 was the limit for all mayoral candidate fundraising through June, Cofer exceeded that by more than $90,000.

Her contribution tally led to an Aug. 2 “cease and desist” letter to the Cofer campaign from Sacramento attorney Gary Winuk, who is representing Maviglio.

“Your actions in violating this ordinance are now willful and knowing, particularly since you have been notified of the rules and have publicly stated your intention to continue violating them,” wrote Winuk, who is now in private practice but previously was chief of enforcement for the Fair Political Practices Commission. “Therefore, you must not only correct the violations by returning the excess contributions, but should also now terminate your campaign immediately.”

Cofer is showing no intention of dropping out of the race.

“It struck us as remarkably bad faith,” said campaign spokesman David Kempa. “We engaged with them for a few weeks until, last Friday, it became clear that they weren’t willing to see reason. We ended discussions.”

Chalk this up, in part, to politics at a much higher level — the race for the presidency. Since 2020, California has held its primary in March instead of June. This was a failed attempt to increase California’s clout in the presidential selection process. But it also moved up the clock for all the other primaries on the ballot, including the race for Sacramento mayor.

The Sacramento City Council did not make any adjustments to its ordinance regulating the beginning of the year-long campaign season for local races when the state moved its primaries to March. This portion of the city code continues to assume that the 12-month countdown begins in June.

“Everyone else played by those rules is really the point,” Winuk said. ”I think once you have retained that excess money and you have not returned it, you are continuing to violate the prohibition.”

Progressive Black woman asked to quit

The Cofer campaign is relying on yet another portion of the city code with yet another calendar for the campaign year preceding the primary. The official definition of the “primary election period” begins “April 1st of the year preceding the year of the election.”

“It’s important to read the City Code sections in context,” wrote John Ivy, a lawyer representing the Cofer campaign.. “You can’t read just one word, or one sentence, or one part.”

Enforcement is equally complicated and contentious.

Only two people in Sacramento County can try to disqualify a candidate for violating ordinances addressing the timing of campaign contributions. They are Sacramento City Attorney Susana Alcala Wood and Sacramento County District Attorney Thien Ho. They alone have the standing to bring misdemeanor criminal charges based on the city’s election ordinance.

“The City Attorney’s Office is currently reviewing the allegations as well as the City’s municipal code that covers campaign finance,” city spokesman Tim Swanson said.

At the District Attorney’s office, “we are in receipt of two letters that allege violations of campaign finance laws committed by a candidate or committee for a candidate in the upcoming Sacramento mayoral race. We are reviewing the matter and will proceed as is determined appropriate under the law.”

The campaign ordinance reads, “If a candidate is convicted of a violation of this division at any time prior to election, his or her candidacy shall be terminated immediately and the candidate shall no longer be eligible for election.”

Put another way, Maviglio or anybody can tell any candidate to quit running, and the candidate can take it as unsolicited political advice. A citizen cannot convict in court a candidate of an elections crime. Only Alcala Wood and Ho can bring criminal charges that could lead to disqualification.

Citizens do have more recourse, however, when it comes to forcing a candidate to give contributions back that were ultimately proven to be improperly received for one reason or another.

In Sacramento, there are two possible venues for such a dispute. One is before the city of Sacramento’s Ethics Commission.

Investigation of Cofer ongoing

Maviglio’s complaint with the commission has been assigned to an independent evaluator. “I think they have the authority to correct and to prevent violations,” Winuk said. “Under that authority, they can craft a range of different remedies to address violations.”

Swanson of the city said that the independent evaluator “is expected to share their findings with the commission next month.”

A citizen can also bring a civil case to Sacramento County Superior Court to compel compliance with the ordinance. While a citizen case cannot bring the criminal charges that could result in a candidate being removed from a race, a candidate could face restrictions on campaign contributions. Remedies range from “disgorgement” of the funds to the city “or potentially a prohibition on receiving additional contributions from these particular donors,” Winuk said.

This is, and should be, a crowded mayoral race to replace the outgoing Mayor Darrell Steinberg. Candidates include former state Sen. Richard Pan, former City Councilman Steve Hansen and Assemblyman Kevin McCarty.

Maviglio is one of those Sacramento voices who doesn’t seem to like the camp within the Democratic Party that includes Cofer, who questions police spending and opposes sweeps of homeless encampments. My week is not complete on X, formerly known as Twitter, for example, without a Maviglio complaint about downtown Councilwoman Katie Valenzuela, the subject of numerous ethics complaints lodged by Maviglio — her unofficial heckler.

Calling for a credible and popular candidate to quit the race at this stage is a step too far, even by Sacramento’s deteriorating political standards. The City Council should review its election codes to determine whether any clarifications are in order. And a speedy resolution by the Ethics Commission would serve everyone’s interests.

In the meantime, the future of Sacramento is at stake. Voters should be fully prepared to wipe away a lot of mud to find clarity about who is best qualified to lead the city going forward. It’s only September, and it’s nasty.