Kim Mack’s announcement to run for City Council District 2 was met with some fallout related to an incident in 2009 that is still on the minds of many in the Sacramento area – an incident that could come back to haunt her in the race to unseat incumbent City Councilwoman Sandy Sheedy.

Mack officially joined the election race in October. Her previous campaign experience included managing a grassroots support effort for the Obama presidential campaign. In 2009 she was involved with the Sacramentans for Accountable Government effort to put a Strong Mayor Initiative on the ballot.

In January 2009, emails in support of the strong mayor initiative were sent to people on an email list that originated from an Obama campaign list. Recipients of the Strong Mayor Initiative emails claimed their personal email addresses were used without permission – and used for a purpose other than what was originally intended.

As that situation unfolded, Mack came under fire for allegedly providing the Obama campaign email list to the Sacramentans for Accountable Government group for their use – a claim Mack denies.

According to Mack, she was asked for access to the list by some members of the Sacramentans for Accountable Government group and she “flat out refused” to provide it.

“I said ‘absolutely not. Respecting people’s privacy is incredibly important to me,” Mack said.

The list of unsolicited emails, she said, could have come from donations records collected as part of the Sacramentans for Obama work – a list accessible to many within the Sacramentans for Obama network.

“Every time someone came into the office they filed out a form,” Mack said. “If they bought a button they filled out a form. A yard sign? They filled out a form – they were all listed as donations.”

The only other person who had the same access that Mack did to the Sacramentans for Obama email list was the data manager she worked with on the campaign, Mack said.

Mack declined to name the person – “not without his permission” – but said she does not believe he or anyone else in the Sacramentans for Obama group had anything to do with sharing the Obama email list.

As evidence that she did not participate in the email sharing scheme, Mack points to the fact that the unsolicited email addresses came from “Friends of Obama” – a name her organization was never called – and that not everyone on the Sacramentans for Obama email list received the Strong Mayor Initiative emails.

“Somebody made an assumption that I gave out the email list,” Mack said. “No one asked me if I did, they just made assumptions.”

Reaction to the unsolicited emails was immediately negative. Some recipients commented on news sites and community forums that they felt their emails had been stolen and that Mack and the Sacramentans for Obama group had acted unethically – if not illegally.

According to Lynda Cassady, division chief of the Advice Unit for the Fair Political Practices Commission, however, email list sharing does not violate any part of the Political Reform Act.

“(The Political Reform Act) has no provisions with respect to how campaigns get email addresses or share them,” Cassady said Friday. “We wouldn’t have any jurisdiction over any complaints about the practice.”

Cassaday said that so-called “robo-calls” are governed by the Public Utilities Commission because they occur over telephone lines. However, she said there isn’t anything in the elections codes to prevent political email spam.

Unsolicited emails – political spam – is not covered in the 2003 federal CAN-SPAM Act (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing), either.

The CAN-SPAM Act – which preempts any state anti-spam laws – was designed to control unwanted electronic mail and applies to “commercial electronic mail messages.” Violations of the CAN-SPAM Act can result in fines up to $16,000 per email violation.

No other federal legislation directly addresses the issue of unsolicited email, according to a January 2003 article in the Duke University Law Review.

“Congress does not address political spam because a law that regulates political speech on the Internet likely would not pass judicial scrutiny,” the article states.

Political emails are considered a form of political speech – something well-protected under the First Amendment. Although courts have approved regulation of similar types of speech, such as commercial spam and prerecorded telephone messages (“robo-calls”), these are distinct from political spam and not considered as setting a precedent for regulation of political email.

The use of email communication in any campaign or political effort is not uncommon. It is a cost-effective means of reaching large audiences, according to Amir Zamanian, regional sales manager for Silverpop, a digital marketing platform that handles email marketing, marketing automations and lead management.

“Generally, if you’re sending email to anyone, they need to have opted-in in some way,” Zamanian said. “The best email marketing results come from sending to a small list of interested people.”

Anytime an individual or organization sends unsolicited emails, Zamanian said, they run the risk of those emails being marked as spam – and an abundance of spam complaints can create problems for the sender.

“Email service providers have thresholds for how many spam alerts a sender can receive,” Zamanian said. “(Organizations) need to keep the spam complaints low and a part of that is keeping the number of unsolicited emails low.”

Zamanian said that, if a sender exceeds those thresholds, service providers may permanently block the sender from sending emails.

Using an email list from one political campaign to support another political issue is not illegal, but could raise questions of ethics.

As the City Council races heat up in the coming months, Sacramento may see more of this.

Melissa Corker is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow her on Twitter @MelissaCorker.