The proposed amendment would have required certain entities to register as measure finance committees — the city’s version of a political action committee — if they communicated anything in support or opposition to a candidate in the four months leading up to a city election. All donors to measure finance committees must be disclosed.

Lynne Anderson, president of National Association of Industrial and Office Properties, was the only audience member to rise in favor of the proposal. “We have been trying to get big money out of politics,” she said.

“Suddenly out of nowhere a nonprofit used that money to influence that election. I would hate to see big money get back in politics by not preventing that kind of politics.”