San Francisco Examiner: Retired judge Kopp appears headed for reappointment to Ethics Commission
By Joshua Sabatini
Retired judge Quentin Kopp appears headed for reappointment to the Ethics Commission for a full six-year term…
Common Cause rallied opposition against Kopp for his opposition to the passage last year of Senate Bill 1107, a Common Cause-supported state law reversing the 1988 voter-approved Prop. 73 ban on public financing. Kopp pushed Prop. 73 at the time and he has since filed a lawsuit over SB 1107.
Charter cities like San Francisco were exempted through litigation from Prop. 73, which is why San Francisco has a public financing program.
Common Cause members said that Kopp’s views on public financing should prevent him from serving on the commission since it is an integral component of The City’s campaign finance system.
Kopp’s supporter Larry Bush, head of Friends of Ethics, defended Kopp’s position on SB 1107, calling it about voter rights and not about Kopp’s position on public financing.
“It is totally unrelated to us in San Francisco,” Bush wrote in an email to the committee. “It is about the authority to create changes in other cities, by the voters or action by political leaders in Sacramento.”
