A New Ethics Issue

Money, Power, and the Threat to Self-Governance

What Is Self-Governance?

Self-governance means the people are in charge of their own government — not just in theory, but in reality.
Among other things, the people decide:
what issues matter
what information is available
who represents them
and the culture of City Hall

What Self-Governance Requires?

Self-governance depends on a few essential conditions:
Candidates can communicate with voters on a reasonably level playing field
Voters hear multiple perspectives
The City provides neutral forums and reliable, accessible information
Elected officials demonstrate independence of judgment, impartiality, and accountability, disclose conflicted relationships
When those conditions are met, elections reflect the will of the people.

What Has Changed

In Santa Clara, those conditions have shifted.
Since 2020, the 49ers — the City’s largest private partner and Levi’s Stadium tenant— have contributed than $10 million to 49er PACs to pay for independent campaign expenditures supporting selected candidates and opposing others.
This spending is legal.
Its effects on self-governance are devastating. 
In a city where virtually all candidates accept a voluntary campaign expenditure limit of about $29,000, outside expenditures of $1 million or more per race fundamentally change the environment in which voters make decisions.

How That Affects Self-Governance

At that scale:
Messaging can be tested, refined, and repeated across thousands of voters
Digital and mail campaigns dominate what voters see and hear
Opposing candidates cannot respond at the same level
The agenda — what issues matter, and how they are framed — is shaped by the Team’s PACs, not by the people.
At the same time, the City has eliminated the very programs that once supported informed voting:
No candidate forums aligned with the City’s Code of Ethics & Values
No nonpartisan, City-sponsored voter education
Fewer shared spaces for residents to hear and compare viewpoints
Public input limited to brief statements at formal meetings
Communication increasingly flows in one direction
This is not just more campaigning.
It is a fundamentally different decision-making environment.

What This Means

A $1 million campaign is not a larger version of a $29,000 campaign.
It creates a different information and persuasion system.
One designed to shape what voters see, hear, and ultimately decide.
With effectively unlimited resources, PACs can construct a decision-making environment whose sole purpose is to elect preferred candidates and defeat others.
By contrast, Santa Clara’s earlier Vote Ethics program was designed to create a very different environment — one focused on fair, issue-based information that helped voters make independent judgments.
That environment no longer exists.

The City’s Responsibility

The City cannot control independent expenditures.
They are legal.
But the City is responsible for how — if at all — it responds to their effects.
That responsibility includes:
Providing neutral forums for candidates and public discussion
Ensuring access to reliable, balanced information
Supporting meaningful public participation
Protecting the integrity of the decision-making process
This is not about regulating speech.
It is about preserving the conditions that make self-governance possible.

The City’s Response

Since 2020, the City’s response has been silence.
No public effort to address the effects of large-scale independent expenditures
No sustained discussion of the implications for self-governance
No visible action to strengthen the conditions for informed voting
No discussion of the conflicts of interest Stadium Authority Board members have and the weakening of public trust every time they vote on 49er issues without disclosing the conflicts. 
At the same time, five of seven Council/Stadium Authority seats have been filled by candidates supported by these expenditures.
The ethical questions raised by that reality have not been publicly addressed.



Why This Matters Now

Santa Clara is not just facing difficult decisions.
It is facing decisions that will shape who controls the direction of the City — and how those decisions are made.
That is why self-governance is not an abstract concept.
It is the goal of Santa Clara’s democracy–and it is under siege.orem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius enim in eros elementum tristique. Duis cursus, mi quis viverra ornare, eros dolor interdum nulla, ut commodo diam libero vitae erat.