In the race to replace Nancy Pelosi, the congressional campaign of California state Sen. Scott Wiener has forged an unusual arrangement with a federal super PAC: They are directly coordinated with one another.
The Wiener campaign and its coordinated super PAC, Families for an Affordable San Francisco, are pushing their relationship to legal extremes — sharing staff, a fundraising consultant, a pollster and a headquarters, according to a Washington Sun review of spending documents filed with the Federal Election Commission.
The super PAC has also spent money in coordination with the campaign on items seemingly unrelated to canvassing — a legally permissible activity usually involving on-the-ground voter outreach — including payments for a DJ at Wiener’s birthday party earlier this year.
A 2024 Federal Election Commission advisory opinion opened the door to super PAC-campaign coordination when it comes to paid canvassing activities, but federal election law typically does not permit campaign committees and super PACs to coordinate efforts beyond that.
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Families for an Affordable San Francisco emerged on Oct. 20, two days before Wiener officially entered the primary for California’s 11th District. The super PAC, which may raise and spend unlimited amounts of money, describes itself as a “coordinated campaign supporting Scott Wiener’s congressional campaign.”
Wiener placed first in the June primary and is facing Connie Chan, a fellow Democrat who sits on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, in November’s election.
Pelosi, who has served in the House since 1987, endorsed Chan over Wiener.
The super PAC’s treasurer is Todd David, whose work with Wiener goes back over a decade. David was Wiener’s political director in the 2016 state senate race.
Wiener’s campaign committee pays David for “campaign consulting” while the super PAC pays him for “canvassing consulting.” David’s son Noah is listed as a member of the “campaign team” on the super PAC’s website and receives paychecks from the campaign while using an email address connected to the super PAC.
“We fully comply with Campaign Finance Law,” Families for an Affordable San Francisco spokesperson Sam Singer said in a statement to The Sun. “Any services provided to the Congressional Campaign that go beyond the scope of a Coordinated Canvass are paid for by the Congressional Campaign, an arrangement that fully complies with Campaign Finance Law.”
The Wiener campaign did not respond to a detailed list of questions about its relationship with the super PAC.
In a statement, the Wiener campaign said that while the candidate “supports overturning Citizens United and will fight to do so when he gets to Congress,” he would not put his campaign at a disadvantage in the race against Chan.
“At the end of the day, when the voters look at Scott’s record, they will see a fighter who has beaten powerful corporate interests over and over again to deliver some of San Francisco and California’s most impactful law,” Wiener campaign spokesperson Joe Arellano said in a statement.
The Chan campaign is demanding that Wiener release records related to his campaign’s coordinated activities.
“Scott Wiener found a loophole and drove an entire second campaign through it,” Chan campaign spokesperson Ian Krager said. “Wiener and his super PAC must immediately end any coordination beyond the narrow canvassing exception and publicly release every contract, time sheet and data-sharing record. Until then, he does not have an independent super PAC supporting him. He has a campaign without contribution limits.”
It is often difficult to determine where one Wiener committee begins and the other ends. The super PAC pays for the “Team Wiener” website, which lists 20 staffers under a banner reading “our campaign team.” At least five people are paid by both the campaign committee and the super PAC at the same time. Super PAC-funded emails promote the campaign committee’s merch store, which generates money for Wiener’s campaign.
The super PAC has raised nearly $900,000 through June 30, largely from unions and individuals giving large sums of cash that are too big for Wiener’s own campaign committee to legally accept. The super PAC is only allowed to accept unlimited donations so long as it adheres to campaign finance regulations. It maintains that all its spending and coordination are permissible under the FEC’s 2024 opinion.
The Memo
Since super PACs may raise unlimited amounts of money, federal election law generally does not allow them to coordinate with a congressional candidate in the way that Families for an Affordable San Francisco and Scott Wiener for Congress are.
Campaigns sometimes skirt this rule by employing an indirect method of communication known as “redboxing,” where a campaign publicly posts details about what it wants voters to hear or see, sometimes within an actual red box buried in a corner of its campaign website. Another political group, such as a super PAC, may then take that information and adjust their own messaging to voters accordingly — without violating federal coordination prohibitions.
Wiener’s campaign takes that approach, sharing a 2,085-word missive on its website that details what would-be voters need to “see” and “hear.” Families for an Affordable San Francisco’s website also hosts a welcome video of Wiener himself and shares the campaign’s Mobilize feed live. The Mobilize site hosts invites for over 100 events, each bearing the disclaimer “Paid for by Scott Wiener for Congress.” Some of the events are led by staffers on the super PAC’s payroll.
Families for an Affordable San Francisco shared a memo prepared by Andrew Werbrock, a campaign finance lawyer and a founding partner at law firm Olson Remcho, that details its interpretation of the 2024 FEC opinion: “[T]he FEC has found that certain types of communications do not qualify as ‘public communications’ and, therefore, do not result in coordinated communications, even if they are coordinated with a candidate.”
“Under that analysis, a PAC can conduct a canvass in coordination with a candidate without making a contribution, subject to” certain parameters, the memo said. Canvassing typically consists of paid canvassers or volunteers going door-to-door or working the phones, it said.
One of the parameters is that the super PAC “may not reproduce or redistribute the candidate’s own materials. Such activity would qualify as an in-kind contribution to the candidate, subject to the federal contribution limits and source restrictions.”
Olson Remcho has been on both the campaign and super PAC’s payrolls; both paid the firm on April 16 for “legal services,” 10 days after the memo was prepared. It’s one of a number of shared vendors that include a fundraising consultant, Bedford Grove, and another consultant, KMM Strategies.
Federal campaign finance regulators are broadly viewed as toothless, and the restrictions on what campaigns can and cannot get away with have only loosened in recent years. Because of a lack of action by President Donald Trump, and more recently, the U.S. Senate, the FEC has not had enough commissioners to issue penalties, pursue audits or approve civil investigations since May 2025.
“The law on coordination is, you know, almost a joke at this point because of a series of rulings by the FEC and failures to pursue investigations,” said Ellen Weintraub, a Democrat who served as an FEC commissioner from 2002 to 2025, including four stints as chairperson.
“I wouldn’t recommend it, but the FEC has not done a particularly effective job of policing this kind of thing,” Weintraub said of campaign-PAC coordination. “I cannot recall seeing very many instances of the super PAC and the candidate actually sharing space; it’s not a good look for sure.”
Wiener’s Birthday Bash
The pro-Wiener super PAC broadly characterizes its coordinated activities with Wiener’s campaign as “canvassing” even when there is little to no evidence of such.
Take, for instance, “Scott’s B-Day Bash & Office Grand Opening.”
The May 15 opening of the Wiener campaign’s headquarters at 2055 Market St. in San Francisco coincided with the week of Wiener’s birthday, and the campaign promised a DJ “to keep the vibes going” and drag performances “to christen the space.” It delivered on both, per photos and videos of the event posted to social media.
In party invitations and jointly posted Instagram updates, neither the super PAC nor Wiener’s campaign mentioned canvassing as part of the party. But when it came time to pay the DJ, the party was described as a canvassing event by the super PAC.
The DJ, Chloe Young, is also a salaried employee of the super PAC. The super PAC paid Young $825 for “DJ services for canvassing office event.” The campaign later paid the super PAC $275 for “campaign event entertainment” — exactly a third of the cost of the DJ.
This 2:1 split is consistent among other expenses jointly incurred by the Wiener campaign and super PAC.
The campaign reimbursed David $255 for “Campaign event security,” while the super PAC reimbursed David $510 for security for a “canvassing event” on the day of the birthday party.
On the June 2 primary, the super PAC spent $1,338.52 at Costco for “food and beverage for canvassing.” The campaign later paid it back $446.17 for “office supplies” — a 2:1 split down to the penny. Rent for a campaign headquarters is also split 2:1.
Conflicting payment descriptions are also present among staffers supporting Wiener.
The super PAC paid Rebecca Kee $3,000 for “canvassing consulting,” but her profile on the Team Wiener site until recently listed her role as “Events, endorsements, and rapid response across the campaign,” according to federal records. Wiener’s campaign paid her $5,250 in “campaign consulting” over the same weeks, and the PAC paid her another $750 for “project management consulting.”
A key parameter of Olson Remcho’s memo is that “The PAC must either recruit, employ, train, and direct the canvassers itself, or retain a vendor to do so.”
Jose Luis Gandara, a super PAC employee and the campaign’s “Policy Lead & LGBTQ Outreach Manager,” has led several GOTV canvasses, according to invites reviewed by The Sun that were labeled “Paid for by Scott Wiener for Congress.”
If super PAC staff were being paid to service campaign events, and the campaign did not reimburse the super PAC at fair market value, then the super PAC would be making an illegal in-kind contribution, per federal regulations.
Families for an Affordable San Francisco has raised nearly $900,000 in support of Wiener’s candidacy through June 30, per FEC records. Most of that money came from two union super PACs, which each gave $250,000 and individuals, including Andrew Chatham, the vice president of engineering at Waymo.
On June 29, the super PAC paid EMC Research $49,600 for “canvassing polling data.” In September, the campaign updated a July filing to include a $24,800 debt — half the cost of the poll. No filings show that debt as being paid per the most recent reports; the campaign has reimbursed the super PAC nearly $10,000 to date.
Paying another committee’s bills can effectively be a loan, which would count as an impermissible contribution. Wiener himself has said he opposes the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. FEC that opened the door to super PACs and their raising unlimited amounts of money. He has also dinged Chan for accepting super PAC support from a former rival.
Saikat Chakrabarti, a self-funded multimillionaire who placed third in the primary, has urged his supporters to vote for Chan, a fellow progressive, over Wiener, who is viewed as more moderate.
A few super PACs are supporting Chan. They are contributing six figures each to bolster her run, including SF Solidarity PAC, which is funded by Chakrabarti, who also serves as its treasurer.
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