Campaign Practices For Municipal Elections
Current law regulating campaign finance does not set limits on contributions to candidates for municipal elections. For municipal elections held on or after January 1, 2024, the bill sets aggregate limits on contributions to candidates for municipal office from persons, including any political party and excluding any small donor committee, for any election cycle in the amount of $250 $400 . The bill sets aggregate limits on contributions to candidates for municipal office from small donor committees for any election cycle in the amount of $2,500 $4,000 . The bill requires that these aggregate contribution limits be periodically adjusted for inflation consistent with other contribution limits and subjects the new contribution limits to existing statutory provisions governing the disclosure of campaign contributions.The bill prohibits a political party from making any contribution to a candidate committee for municipal office and prohibits a candidate committee from accepting any contribution from a political party.
The bill requires campaign contribution reports for candidates of a municipal office to be filed with the municipal clerk for municipalities that have a population of 1,000 or more no later than 90 days, 60 days, 30 days, and 15 days before and 30 days after the major election in election years and annually in off-election years; except that, for a runoff election, reports must be filed no later than 15 days before and after the runoff election. The bill clarifies that an independent expenditure committee that makes expenditures in connection with a municipal election must file its disclosure reports with the applicable municipal clerk.
The bill also extends the retention requirements for campaign contribution reports from one year to 10 6 years and requires that reports be made publicly available without charge on a website or for in-person inspection .
(Note: Italicized words indicate new material added to the original summary; dashes through words indicate deletions from the original summary.)
(Note: This summary applies to the reengrossed version of this bill as introduced in the second house.)