San Francisco District Attorney Race Sparks Campaign Intervention Allegation
962 Lincoln Blvd., Presidio of San Francisco, California. The one with sunlight. This view is the back yard view. My room with my two younger brothers was upstairs, far right.
My early childhood was spent very house rich. I lived in a multi-million dollar house right across the street from the Golden Gate bridge, courtesy of the U.S. Army for whom my father worked. On the Presidio of San Francisco. I even saw Richard Nixon one day when he flew into Crissy Field. Its a park now but that used to be a real military air strip on the Presidio. I was a multi-millionaire and my mother drug me and my brothers and sister there to wave as the President drove by in a black up-armored limousine. My father didn’t go, he wasn’t impressed. I remember Nixon waving back, no kidding. Damn, I am old.
Anyway, the race for San Francisco District Attorney between incumbent Brooke Jenkins and challenger Ryan Khojasteh has provoked an interesting case study on prohibited campaign intervention. Stop Crime SF is a tough-on-crime nonprofit organization out in the Bay Area. Its motto is “lock ’em up and throw away the key.” I made that up, but it might as well be the organization’s motto. Stop Crime SF pretty clearly engages in prohibited campaign intervention if you ask me. For example, it puts out a “judges report card” frequently and if it doesn’t like how a judge sentences people, it gives that judge a failing grade. You remember the case in which a bar association graded judicial nominees, right? The Court found the activity violated the prohibition against campaign intervention. Stop Crime SF is careful to put some distance between its release of a judicial report card and a judge’s bid for reelection but we all know what’s going on. There is always an “imminent” election and Stop Crime SF is advocating for a judge’s defeat. Let’s not be stupid. The two judges receiving “fail” grades are up for reelection later this year. I don’t think Stop Crime SF gives a rat’s ass, actually. The group asserts a First Amendment right and they are probably right. So once again I say: the restrictions on political activity are so thoroughly unenforceable as to be not worth the trouble.
The spectacular front yard view of 962 Lincoln Blvd. My dad and his whiny sons spent many days manicuring that lawn just like you see it now. We didn’t appreciate it then. In fact, we hated it.
By the way, the Service has an online bibliography of the some of the rulings and guidance on nonprofit political activity. And here is an April 2024 CRS report that includes all the rulings and caselaw you would ever need. One of those sources makes clear that whether a communication constitutes campaign intervention depends on a lot of factors, including timing. A nonprofit that editorializes about a politician is less likely to be engaged in campaign intervention if the speech happens a year or two out. From the next election, I mean.
Campaign intervention as a function of timing is what Khojasteh is complaining about. Stop Crime SF hosted a mayoral debate just a few nights ago. Right before the start of the debate, Stop Crime SF presented a “Crime Fighter of the Year” award to the incumbent Brooke Jenkins. It didn’t say “re-elect Jenkins,” exactly. But if that isn’t an endorsement, I don’t know what is. The election is only a few months away, by the way. It’s what the Court meant by “imminent,” in Association of the Bar of New York v. Commissioner. So Khojasteh responded by filing a complaint with the IRS. Click on the X page below to read his announcement. Read or download the complaint here:
Stop Crime SF denied it all, of course, even though this is the first time they have ever given such an award. In a response likewise posted on the platform formerly known as Twitter Stop Crime SF said this:
The IRS confirmed in Revenue Ruling 2007-41 that a Section 501(c)(3) organization may invite a candidate to appear at the organization’s event in a non-candidate capacity. Stop Crime SF is honoring Brooke Jenkins for her work as the incumbent District Attorney. The timing does not change the nature of the award’s purpose, which is to highlight the importance of reducing crime to the well-being of San Franciscans and also to increase public awareness of Stop Crime SF and its mission.
Ms. Jenkins is not appearing at this event as a candidate and there will be no campaigning relating to the office of District Attorney. In addition, individuals do not lose their First Amendment right to free speech just because they serve on nonprofit organization boards. The leaders of 501(c)(3) organizations may freely express their own personal views on public policy or elections, so long as their individual views are not expressed at the 501(c)(3) organization’s events or in its publications. As stated by the IRS in IRS in Revenue Ruling 2007-41, “The political campaign intervention prohibition is not intended to restrict free expression on political matters by leaders of organizations speaking for themselves, as individuals.”
Sounds like both sides are right to me. We all know it.
darryll k. jones