By Ian Firstenberg : 48hills – excerpt
Families for an Affordable San Francisco, an Independent Expenditure PAC supporting Scott Wiener’s congressional bid, was the primary employer for a number of staffers who also work on Wiener’s official campaign—something that would have been illegal until recently and is still in a shady political arena, experts say.
Under federal law, independent expenditure super PACs are explicitly prohibited from coordinating with campaigns. That’s because IEs can take unlimited money, and contributions to a candidate’s campaign committee are limited.
The Federal Elections Commission in 2024 issued an advisory saying that IEs and candidates can share fundraising for canvassers. That ruling is the subject of an ongoing lawsuit.
In several cases, Federal Elections Commission records show, staffers have been paid during the same period by both the Wiener for Congress Campaign and Families for Affordable San Francisco.
A former staffer, who worked briefly for the Wiener campaign, shared documents exclusively with 48hills that identify the super PAC as their employer. They noted that a similarly structured employment agreement, with Families as the employer, was circulated “to about 12 people.” Given that the Scott Wiener for Congress 2026 runs Wiener’s campaign, the former staffer expected that committee to be their employer.
“Not only have I never seen this before, but I have only seen it that campaigns and independent expenditures have zero communication, zero coordination,” they said in an exclusive interview with 48hills.
The former staffer, who shared details on the condition of anonymity, said that when they received the employment agreement that listed Families for an Affordable San Francisco as the primary employer, they flagged the concerns to higher ups. They got no response from them and chose to leave the campaign because of the legal concerns…
Jim Sutton, a lawyer who is an expert on election law, told us that the situation is, at the very least, questionable…
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