Judge says no to Alioto’s attempt to restrict Leno’s funding in SF mayor race

FILE-- Former San Francisco supervisor and state Sen. Mark Leno initializes his intent to run for mayor at the department of elections on Thursday, May 4, 2017, in city hall in San Francisco. San Francisco mayoral candidate Angela Alioto lost her bid to restrict rival Leno’s campaign funding. less FILE-- Former San Francisco supervisor and state Sen. Mark Leno initializes his intent to run for mayor at the department of elections on Thursday, May 4, 2017, in city hall in San Francisco. San Francisco ... more Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close Judge says no to Alioto’s attempt to restrict Leno’s funding in SF mayor race 1 / 5 Back to Gallery

San Francisco mayoral candidate Mark Leno should not be prevented from accessing potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in public financing money, a San Francisco judge ruled Friday, thwarting an attempt by one of Leno’s rivals to block his attempts to do so.

Angela Alioto, another candidate in the mayor’s race, sued the Leno campaign last week, claiming Leno should not be allowed to use funds he’s raised since announcing his candidacy for mayor last May to apply for matching public financing money from the city.

In San Francisco, candidates must raise specific thresholds of donations from individual city residents before they can apply for public financing. Non-incumbent mayoral candidates can get up to $975,000 from the city, which is meant to help offset the costs of campaigning.

Alioto claimed Leno’s significant head start on fundraising compared to the other candidates gave him an unfair advantage, considering he could apply for public financing while his rivals were just starting to raise money for the June 5 election. The mayor’s office became open when former Mayor Ed Lee died unexpectedly in December.

Alioto’s legal team, led by prominent conservative attorney and GOP party official Harmeet Dhillon, argued that San Francisco’s campaign finance ordinance prevents candidates from obtaining matching public financing contributions “if the funds were contributed to support the candidate’s election to the same office, but in a different election year.”

Leno was originally running in an election scheduled for November 2019. Alioto contended that Leno’s bid for mayor in 2019 was technically a different campaign, and that he should be prevented from using the funds raised for a different campaign in the 2018 mayor’s race.

In his ruling, Judge Richard Ulmer disagreed, pointing out that the law excludes contributions made to a candidate seeking the same office in a different election year, but only if they were leftover funds “carried forward” to a new campaign after an election takes place.

“Leno’s contributions are not ‘carried forward’ (if anything, they are carried backward — from the November 2019 election to the June 2018 election),” Ulmer wrote.

Dan Newman, a Leno campaign representative, called the suit “a frivolous attempt to shut down thousands of Leno supporters and to stop his momentum.”

Joe Alioto-Veronese, Angela Alioto’s son, said that the full extent of the Alioto campaign’s arguments weren’t considered because Ulmer declined to hear further arguments not contained in the initial pleadings presented to the court.

“The merits of our argument in some respects weren’t considered based on a technicality,” he said outside court.

Before the hearing ended, Dhillon said that “we may need to seek further review on this from the appellate court.”

Dominic Fracassa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dfracassa@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dominic

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