SAN JOSE — The City Council unanimously approved a tougher election reporting law four years ago aimed at shining a brighter light on who is funding the campaigns of San Jose’s elected leaders. But just about everybody who has run for office in the past two years has ignored it.

An analysis by this newspaper found that Mayor Sam Liccardo, Vice Mayor Rose Herrera and Councilmen Don Rocha and Pierluigi Oliverio have failed to report a combined $90,000 in contributions before Election Day as required under the stricter rule — even though all of them voted for the tougher reporting law in 2011.

But to underscore just how little attention is paid to the city’s stricter election law, neither the mayor nor many of his fellow council members who approved the measure even remember voting for it — and most now want to reconsider the rule. Ethics experts call the disregard for the law and lax oversight “troubling” and said it creates a double standard because residents are expected to abide by laws passed by elected officials.

“We shouldn’t have regulations for regulations’ sake,” said Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School and vice president of the Los Angeles Ethics Commission.

Violator ‘singled out’?

The disclosure law has come under fire since the city’s Ethics Commission, which enforces campaign rules, slapped newly elected District 4 Councilman Manh Nguyen with a $10,000 fine for failing to report contributions as it required. Nguyen filed a $10,000 claim against the city on Tuesday, arguing that he was misled by the clerk’s office and unfairly targeted while other violators go unpunished. The Ethics Commission refused to reconsider Nguyen’s fine — even after learning violations were widespread and that City Clerk Toni Taber apologized to him for confusing information about the rules.

“I am deeply concerned that I was singled out by the ethics commission in what was a politically motivated effort,” Nguyen said in a statement.

The city’s law requires candidates to report within 24 hours all donations of at least $250 received in the 16 days before an election. The intent of the law is to make sure voters are fully aware of who’s funding a candidate at the time they cast their ballots. State law also has an “early warning” provision, but it applies only to contributions of $1,000 or more. That means it has limited effect in San Jose — where contributions to council candidates are capped at $500 and to mayoral candidates at $1,100 — which is why the council set its own rule with the $250 threshold in 2011.

A review of campaign finance records by this newspaper found:

Liccardo, a former District 3 councilman, failed to timely report $65,297 in donations during his 2014 campaign for mayor.

Herrera, who represents District 8, didn’t timely report $14,550 in contributions in the 2014 primary in which she ran for mayor.

Oliverio, who represents District 6, failed to timely report $6,700 in contributions during the 2014 primary in which he ran for mayor.