City Hall
Panel Places New Restrictions on City Campaign Finance
The Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission upheld ethics staffers' interpretation of city campaign finance law yesterday, affirming that a if a candidate for one city office wants to run for a different city office, that candidate can roll his or her existing campaign funds into the new campaign, but that the existing funds are subject to the city's campaign contribution limit of $700.
More significantly (and going beyond the scope of the original question they were asked to answer, by longtime campaign treasurer Phil Lloyd) the commission ruled that if a candidate wants to transfer surplus funds from one campaign to another campaign for the same office, the funds that get transferred are subject to the $700 limit. Next month, the commission will propose changing the city's elections rules to reflect that new interpretation.
In other words: If I give $700 to Sally Clark's campaign for city council in the final days of the campaign, and Sally Clark ends her campaign with a surplus, I can't give $700 to Sally Clark's campaign for reelection. Contributors who are subject to contribution limits are determined on a "first-in, first-out" basis: That is, if a candidate ends up with a $100,000 surplus, the city starts counting back from the most recent contributor until it gets to $10,000.
That's a big change---one that will impact not just candidates for different offices (such as Tim Burgess, who may run for mayor), but candidates running for reelection, who routinely end up with surpluses tens of thousands of dollars. For example, Bruce Harrell ended his last council campaign with $63,000 in the bank (including recent maxed-out contributions from the Building Owners and Managers Association, public affairs consultant Roger Nyhus, and political consulting firm Strategies 360). Under the old rules, all late $700 contributors would have been allowed to give again to Harrell's 2015 reelection campaign. Under the new rules, they can't.
Lloyd raised the initial question because he objected to the fact that city staff, not elected officials or the appointed elections commission, originally determined that city law bars candidates from using surplus funds from one campaign for a campaign for a different office. (State law has no such restrictions.) He says it's "interesting that [the commission] came to a conclusion that was different than the state conclusion, but I'm glad that the issue was resolved at the commission level," rather than the staff level.
The city council could consider changing the law setting contribution limits in the future. In a blog post today, council member Mike O'Brien suggested that the council consider restricting "rollover" contributions, placing a cap on the amount of contributions that can be rolled over, or banning them altogether.
More significantly (and going beyond the scope of the original question they were asked to answer, by longtime campaign treasurer Phil Lloyd) the commission ruled that if a candidate wants to transfer surplus funds from one campaign to another campaign for the same office, the funds that get transferred are subject to the $700 limit. Next month, the commission will propose changing the city's elections rules to reflect that new interpretation.
In other words: If I give $700 to Sally Clark's campaign for city council in the final days of the campaign, and Sally Clark ends her campaign with a surplus, I can't give $700 to Sally Clark's campaign for reelection. Contributors who are subject to contribution limits are determined on a "first-in, first-out" basis: That is, if a candidate ends up with a $100,000 surplus, the city starts counting back from the most recent contributor until it gets to $10,000.
That's a big change---one that will impact not just candidates for different offices (such as Tim Burgess, who may run for mayor), but candidates running for reelection, who routinely end up with surpluses tens of thousands of dollars. For example, Bruce Harrell ended his last council campaign with $63,000 in the bank (including recent maxed-out contributions from the Building Owners and Managers Association, public affairs consultant Roger Nyhus, and political consulting firm Strategies 360). Under the old rules, all late $700 contributors would have been allowed to give again to Harrell's 2015 reelection campaign. Under the new rules, they can't.
Lloyd raised the initial question because he objected to the fact that city staff, not elected officials or the appointed elections commission, originally determined that city law bars candidates from using surplus funds from one campaign for a campaign for a different office. (State law has no such restrictions.) He says it's "interesting that [the commission] came to a conclusion that was different than the state conclusion, but I'm glad that the issue was resolved at the commission level," rather than the staff level.
The city council could consider changing the law setting contribution limits in the future. In a blog post today, council member Mike O'Brien suggested that the council consider restricting "rollover" contributions, placing a cap on the amount of contributions that can be rolled over, or banning them altogether.
