Transparency: S.F. mayor wants texting banned during city meetings

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom wants a ban on text messaging during meetings of the Board of Supervisors and city commissions to limit the influence of  lobbyists texting city officials and to keep the city government more transparent. -db

March 10, 2010
By Heather Knight

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom wants to push the off button on the trend of text messaging during meetings of the Board of Supervisors and various city commissions.

The tech-savvy mayor, himself an avid texter on his beloved iPhone, has asked the city attorney’s office to draft legislation curbing electronic communication during public meetings for fear of city officials being unfairly influenced by lobbyists’ texts.

“There’s no transparency,” Newsom said Tuesday of officials getting text messages from those trying to sway their votes. “No one’s walking to the microphone to say, ‘Here’s what I think’ and identifying themselves.”

Newsom may introduce legislation at the board as soon as next week, but admitted many details are yet to be worked out.

Ideas being discussed include banning text messages from lobbyists during meetings, though it would be virtually impossible to enforce; prohibiting the use of all cell phones during meetings, while acknowledging receiving messages from family members and staff may be crucial; and even banning the use of laptops, which allow for instant messaging and e-mails during meetings.

Barbara O’Connor, a political science professor at California State University Sacramento, said lobbyists have found ways to influence lawmakers during meetings for decades – including stepping into the hallway for a hush-hush chat.

“This is a gadgety solution to a long-standing problem,” she said, while adding that technology advances so quickly it may be impossible for politicians to halt its influence.

“The question is, ‘Can you put the genie back in the bottle?’ ” she said. “I don’t know that you can.”
exting not a problem

City officials receiving text messages during meetings have become increasingly common, perhaps most notably during last week’s Police Commission vote on allowing Chief George Gascón to draft guidelines on Taser use.

Supervisor David Campos, a former police commissioner and Taser opponent, confirmed Tuesday that he text messaged Police Commissioner Jim Hammer during the meeting to “express concern about the process.”

The commission voted 4-3 against the chief, with Hammer in the majority despite appearing with Gascón to support adopting Tasers at an earlier press conference.

Of Newsom’s legislation, Campos said, “If the mayor wants to have a discussion about when we should be texting, when we should be e-mailing, when we should be Facebooking, I’d be happy to have that discussion, but it should be applied uniformly.”

Campos and board President David Chiu said they frequently get text messages during meetings from the mayor’s own staff. Chiu said the communication isn’t distracting, but rather moves the debate forward.

“I think increased communication between all parties is a good thing,” Chiu said. “I haven’t heard of it being an issue.”

Newsom got the idea last week while in Sacramento attending the swearing-in of new Assembly Speaker John Pérez, who during his speech called for a ban on text messages from lobbyists to lawmakers on the Assembly floor. The Rules Committee is working on the details of such a ban.

Several states’ legislatures have restrictions on electronic communication during meetings, ranging from self-policed no-texting rules to making inoperable any device used to transmit data, including cell phones and computers.
alling for disclosure

The San Jose City Council last week approved what is believed to be one of the country’s most far-reaching policies on the matter, requiring that council members disclose text messages or e-mails received during meetings from lobbyists or others with a financial stake in whatever is being debated. The rule would apply to both publicly owned and privately owned devices and e-mail accounts.

Also, the council members would be mandated to turn over any e-mails or text messages – including on private accounts and phones – related to government business if public disclosure was requested.
ights not violated

Peter Scheer, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, a San Rafael nonprofit that pushes for open and accountable government, said city officials would have no basis to claim that not being able to receive text messages from lobbyists during meetings would violate their First Amendment rights.

“It’s not an absolute,” he said of the amendment. “It’s subject to reasonable restrictions and regulations.”

He added that the San Jose strategy of public disclosure would be far more effective than the Sacramento or San Francisco bans.

“If you really did want to curb the influence of special interests, what you would do is not ban any communications but simply require disclosure of them,” he said, while noting San Franciscans shouldn’t hold their breath for Newsom to propose a public disclosure requirement.

“The reason the mayor won’t support that, I suspect, is because he likes using his own texting device and he knows what might come next,” Scheer said.

Indeed, Newsom has long refused to turn over his iPhone text messages sought by reporters and others through public records requests, saying it is a private phone and the messages, too, are private.

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