Pre-candidacy

Before you become a candidate for City office, you can raise and spends money. These pre-candidacy transactions are technically not subject to the City’s contribution limits or reporting rules. But once you become a candidate, any funds already raised or spent must be handled differently.

Basic rules for pre-candidacy contributions & expenditures:

Once you become a candidate for City office:

You may not spend excess pre-candidacy contributions to influence your election.
You must account for all excess pre-candidacy contributions received by the committee.
Within ten days of becoming a candidate, you must remove any excess pre-candidacy contributions from the campaign's account.

As a practical matter, if you are considering becoming a candidate for City office, you can avoid the need to calculate and exclude excess pre-candidacy contributions by only raising money within the City’s contribution limits. Another way to streamline the handling of pre-candidacy contributions is by using a segregated pre-candidacy excess contribution (SPEC) account. For more information about using SPEC accounts, see Regulation No. 1, ¶¶1.46-1.48.

What is an excess pre-candidacy contribution?

An excess pre-candidacy contribution is the portion of a pre-candidacy contribution to a political committee that, had it been made to a candidate for City elective office, would have been in excess of the contribution limits.

Example 1: On January 10th, Mr. Rochester donates $5,000 to Friends of Eyre. On February 12th, Ms. Eyre announces her candidacy for City elective office. Now that Ms. Eyre is a candidate, $1,900 of Mr. Rochester's contribution ($5,000 contribution minus the $3,100 contribution limit) was an excess pre-candidacy contribution that Ms. Eyre must exclude from her candidate committee’s checking account.

Example 2: On November 1, 2020, Friends of Brown receives a contribution of $3,500 from Mr. Van Pelt ($3,100 within limits, $400 excess) and a contribution of $3,500 from Ms. Reichart (same). On December 1, 2020, Mr. Brown declares his candidacy for the May 2021 Controller primary election. By December 11, 2020, Friends of Brown must exclude $800 ($400 each in excess contributions from Mr. Van Pelt and Ms. Reichart) from its checking account.

I accepted excess pre-candidacy contributions — now what?

You can exclude the excess funds by either:

transferring those funds to a separate account OR
returning the excess amounts to their donors.

For more information about how to identify, calculate, and exclude excess pre-candidacy contributions, see Subpart J of Regulation No. 1.

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