A new law has stricter regulations for campaign finance. What does that mean for Pueblo?

Campaign finance records show who funded candidates’ campaigns and how they spend their money during the election.

A new state law imposes new requirements for how long campaign finance records are kept, as well as contribution limits for municipal races.

However, as a home rule city in Colorado, Pueblo has the jurisdiction to craft its own regulation on campaign finance.

Because of the expected timing of a mayoral runoff race in January — after the bill goes into effect — city council is expected to vote soon on an ordinance that would effectively freeze the current rules in place. Councilors could adopt more stringent requirements later on, if desired.

Pueblo’s current rules for campaign finance

There are some records in the Colorado municipal records retention schedule, rooted in state law, that  need to be held permanently, such as election history files and master copies of sample ballots.

However, campaign finance reports have only been only required to be retained for one year for unsuccessful candidates and one year after successfully elected candidates leave office.

Federal, state, county and school board elections in Colorado have contribution limits. For individuals, that ranges from $225 per election cycle for state legislators to $3,300 for Congressional candidate committees.

There are currently no caps on campaign finance contributions in Pueblo for municipal elections.

A new bill passed by the Colorado Legislature this spring targets campaign contribution limits and retention requirements in Colorado cities and towns. However, as a city with a home rule charter, Pueblo has authority to set its own rules on campaign finance.

Why House Bill 23-1245 was passed

Colorado House Representative Jennifer Parenti, a Democrat, represents parts of Boulder and Weld counties that have been growing rapidly in recent years.

Parenti told the Chieftain that she co-sponsored this bill because tens of thousands of dollars have been pouring into local elections in her district.

“That kind of money in our small-town politics is disruptive … to the entire democratic process,” Parenti said.

This new house bill makes several new requirements to campaign finance laws for cities in Colorado, including imposing a $400 contribution limit for individuals, political parties and small donor committees.

The bill also updates the filing schedule to increase the amount of campaign finance disclosure reports candidates need to file and ups the retention requirement for at least 10 years — and six years for candidates who were elected.

“In my personal opinion, I don't think these records should ever be thrown away. I think they remain in the public interest as long as the people who are on the disclosures remain in the public sphere — and that could be for a very long time,” Parenti said.

The Colorado Municipal League opposed this bill unless it had been further amended.

Kevin Bommer, the executive director of CML, told the Chieftain that ideas for the Denver area don’t always apply to smaller cities and towns in Colorado.

“Municipal clerks in small towns wear a lot of hats. This is just a good, old-fashioned unfunded mandate,” Bommer said.

It’s not campaign finance disclosure requirements that are the issue, Bommer said — those decisions shouldn’t be made at the state legislature, he said, but in local government. Also, smaller towns often see less raising and spending in local races.

Home rule cities are different

Pueblo, along with many of the larger municipalities in Colorado, is a home rule city. Under Colorado’s constitution, home rule cities have more autonomy to pass their own rules, but still need to comply with the state constitution,

Home rule cities such as Pueblo can choose to adopt the new requirements but can also create their own regulations that differ from the bill.

"From a legal perspective, Pueblo has the opportunity to decide to incorporate (the new regulations) whole-cloth, or in the alternative, to create a separate and different standard," City Attorney George Hypolite told the Chieftain.

Parenti said that three towns in her district — Erie, Fredrick and Firestone — are some of the biggest statutory towns in Colorado, which means that they have less local autonomy and need to comply with more state regulations.

Still, Parenti said local governments of home rule cities should consider adopting some of the new requirements. "This is good policy,” especially when it comes to disclosure and retaining records, she said.

“I would really encourage any municipality who's going through this process of looking at the law and trying to decide how it works in their community to err on the side of accountability and transparency,” Parenti said. “There's really no reason to throw these records away, particularly after one year.”

Why Pueblo is expected to freeze the current requirements

City staff will soon introduce an ordinance for Pueblo City Council to freeze the current requirements before the bill goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2024.

A runoff election is expected for the mayoral contest in January, as long as one of the nine candidates does not receive more than 50% of votes.

(Stoller and her staff are preparing to administer this election, since Pueblo County election staff will already be working on the presidential primary in March. Administering two elections at once is unadvisable, Deputy Clerk Karen Long told the Chieftain in August.)

City staff are preparing an ordinance to be introduced soon for city council so the current state rules are preserved in Pueblo’s regulations before the bill goes into effect on Jan. 1.

Hypolite told the Chieftain that a mayoral runoff election is expected, so it would be cumbersome to change the campaign finance regulations before election season is over.

"You would have candidates who started an election under one standard — with no campaign contribution limits, with different campaign reporting requirements, different committee recording requirements, different record retention — then would finish that election cycle with entirely different and significantly higher requirements," Hypolite said.

City Clerk Marisa Stoller told council at a work session last month that they could adopt more stringent requirements in the future.

Stoller said that increasing the retention policy for campaign finance records from one to 10 years would be "particularly burdensome" and require more storage space for the clerk's office, as the records are still filed on paper. She also said that increasing the filing schedule could also be burdensome on staffers in her office who need to follow up with candidates if they do not file their reports on time.

Anna Lynn Winfrey covers politics for the Pueblo Chieftain. She can be reached at awinfrey@gannett.com. Please support local news at subscribe.chieftain.com.

This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: What a new campaign finance law with stricter limits means for Pueblo