“Absurd” campaign allegations against Irene Smith campaign dismissed by Fair Elections Committee
For Immediate Release
DATE: January 9, 2023
From: Irene Smith for D3 campaign
Re: Bogus campaign charges tossed. (YouTube of hearing below)
Frivolous complaint by Joe Barco completely rejected by legal expert and local ethics committee; complaint cost local taxpayers $9,095.00
San Jose’s Fair Elections Committee tossed out a bizarre campaign violation accusation against D3 Candidate Irene Smith’s campaign on 12.8.22, completely clearing Smith of any wrongdoing.
The complaint was brought by Joe Barco, who frequented social media sites during the final days of the campaign, peddling false charges against Smith, her supporters, and local online websites who were commenting on the D3 race.
Specifically, Barco claimed, oddly, that Smith’s use (similar to President Joe Biden’s) of Medium.com as a blog to post campaign-related material, ran afoul of Municipal codes regulating “online platforms.” Strangely, Barco claimed that medium.com, which is a free service, was a paid-for-fee membership site. And Barco also contended that each one of Smith’s 22 Medium posts featured advertisements, which was visibly untrue.
The City of San Jose hired a San Francisco attorney to review the complaint, at the cost of $9,095.00. City of San Jose Documents
On November 29, 2022, the attorney responded with a four page recommendation that there is no evidence to support any ethical violation.
Finding that:
- Medium is not an online platform.
- The Smith campaign did not violate municipal code title 12.
- The Smith campaign did not violate the recently updated Political Reform Act.
- Political Reform Act’s recently enacted requirements for advertisements on online platforms do not apply in this case because Medium is not an online platform.
- And that even if the municipal code of title 12 was updated (as suggested by Barco) it would have no impact on this case because “Medium in not an online platform under Government code 84504.6 (under the political reform act) because it neither sells advertisements nor displays advertisements on its public facing website.”
- In addition, FPPC rules specifically state blogs are exempt. Medium is a “blog” and as such under the political reform act, does not require a statement.
“This was always an absurd, frivolous, and ethically dubious allegation. Forty-seconds on Medium would have revealed to the plaintiff that his allegation was false and misleading, and wouldn’t withstand a moment’s worth of serious legal scrutiny. It’s hard not to conclude that serious legal scrutiny was never the intent of the complaint,” Smith said, thanking the Committee for their quick, clear decision. “It is unfortunate that we had to waste taxpayer dollars to reveal what was obvious from the start,” she said.
Notably, at the 12.8.23 hearing, Barco backtracked from his complaint. He said he didn’t understand the law and agreed with the lawyer’s conclusion clearing Smith. During the hearing a commissioner offered to allow him to withdraw his complaint so that he would not be ruled against. Barco appeared to consider the withdrawal option, but the rules were later found to not allow a complaint withdrawal. Without any questions for Dr. Smith, and without discussion or deliberation, the hearing commission immediately closed the case, favor of Dr. Smith.
“We always knew that we were poking the bear by running an unabashedly independent campaign in a very partisan San Jose district,” Smith said. “We were prepared for the blowback and the bogus accusations, and are proud that we were able to stare down the forces of censorship and falsehood with the assistance of fine organizations like the Ethics Committee, national ethics experts, and SJ’s online community,” Smith said.
Hearing & acquital for 12/8/22 on Youtube (21 minutes)
Full committee hearings for 12/8/22 on YouTube (1 hour 30 minutes)
