Plenty of (rich) candidates fund their own campaigns. And (sadly) plenty of candidates in San Francisco are getting help from outside independent expenditure committees that can raise unlimited funds.
But here’s a new one: District attorney candidate Sharmin Bock is supported by an IE that is funded almost entirely by her family.
Ethics Commission records show that the Committee for a Safer San Francisco has raised $89,000 from Farideh Mehran, Bock’s mother, who lives in Atherton. Another $30,000 came from Reza Merhan, a relative who is a surgeon in Texas. A few people who don’t appear to be related tossed in a few thousand more, but for the most part, this is a Bock family committee.
The commitee is based in Sacramento, and the treasurer is Charles H. Bell, Jr., a lawyer who specializes in campaign work and is general counsel to the California Republican Party. Audrey Martin, also a lawyer in Bell’s office and the assistant treasurer, told me the firm had been hired to handle the campaign financial reporting, but she couldn’t tell me anything else about it.
The person who formed the commitee, according to campaign filings, is Natalie LeBlanc, a communications professional in the East Bay who is on the board of Emerge California. I’ve tried to contact her through the phone number on the campaign filings and by email, but she hasn’t responded.
I’m wonder: Was this set up entirely (or primarily) as a vehicle for family money, a way for Bock’s wealthy relatives to legally pour unlimited funds into helping her win? It raises an interesting question: By law, an IE has to operate completely independent of the official campaign. Bock told me she talks to her mother regularly (“I mean, she IS my mother”) but insisted they never discussed campaign strategy or the IE.
John St. Croix, director of the Ethics Commission, told me this all appears to be perfectly legal — if unusual. He said he’s never seen anything like it before.
Personally, I’d rather see Bock use her family money than get money from big corporations that might have an interest in how the next district attorney operates in San Francisco. And there are all kinds of corrupt IEs out there; this one is at least pretty straightforward. Still, it strikes me as a little curious.
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