Candidate Rejects Code of Fair Campaign Practices

One of three candidates running for Cathedral City Council on Nov. 8 declined to sign the Code of Fair Campaign Practices Form

CATHEDRAL CITY — Every qualified candidate seeking election in this community is given the opportunity to sign the Code of Fair Campaign Practices Form.  It is voluntary, not mandatory. Most candidates sign it to indicate, in large part, that he or she will run a clean campaign void of smear tactics.

The last time someone failed to sign it was in 2020 when Alan Carvalho challenged Rita Lamb for City Council in District 1.

Carvalho was behind a questionable mailer that used an unflattering picture of Lamb to mock and ridicule her as a failure. Carvalho went on to lose the race.

The Code of Fair Campaign Practices Form states that there are basic principles of decency, honesty, and fair play which every candidate for public office in the State of California has a moral obligation to observe and uphold.

This time around, David Koslow, one of three candidates running for District 4, declined to sign it. He and Rick Saldivar are challenging incumbent Mayor Ernesto Gutierrez for the seat.

The form, when signed, is precatory only and entirely unenforceable as it purports (pretends) to modify a signer’s Federal and California Constitutional rights of political speech, Koslow told Uken Report.

“Signing the form is a useless act,” he said.

Anyone running for public office immediately becomes a public figure, Koslow added.  Unfounded derogatory statements about a public figure, especially a public figure running for, or holding, a public office, are protected speech, with very limited exceptions.  The form can’t modify libel and slander laws as they relate to public figures.

“My campaign is a truth-driven campaign anyway,” Koslow wrote in an email statement. “I don’t need to sign any pledges.  I look to the press and media to investigate and evaluate the serious charges I am presenting about the City Council.  Press and media have the same access that I have to the California Public Records Act.  Easily made online, CPRA requests to Cathedral City will confirm the criticisms about the city, City Council, officers, etc.”

If past is prologue, residents in District 4 could be in for a wild ride.

Gutierrez and Saldivar both signed the form. You may read the full Code of Fair Campaign Practices Form and see their signatures here.