Notice of Final Rules and Opportunity to Comment

04/03/2020

The New York City Campaign Finance Board (CFB) voted to adopt a set of proposed rules on February 13, 2020. The proposed rules were published in The City Record on February 24. After a 30-day public comment period, a hearing was held on March 26. Based on comments received, the CFB made several changes to the proposed rules. Click to read the revised proposed rules, including changes, on the CFB's website.

There will now be a second 30-day public comment period, after which the Board will vote to adopt the rules as final.

A summary of the substantive changes made since the rules were proposed is below. Please email any written comments to rules@nyccfb.info by May 4, 2020.

Rule 2-03 is amended to provide that candidates may change their office sought until the certification deadline or until they receive public funds, whichever comes first. If the Board declares an extraordinary circumstance, thus creating a new certification deadline, then a candidate for any affected office (meaning that the declaration applies either to the original office sought or to the new office sought) may change their office sought, provided that they must refund any contributions that exceed the limits applicable to the new office sought, raise any additional funds required to meet the threshold applicable to the new office sought, and repay any public funds previously received that exceed the amount for which the candidate is now eligible. If an extraordinary circumstance is not declared, any candidate who changes their office sought after receiving public funds will be ineligible to receive additional public funds for the covered election and must repay all public funds previously received for that election.

Rule 6-02(a) is amended to provide that, if a candidate or their sole opponent is removed from the ballot, the candidate may make qualified expenditures for a different election held later in the calendar year, unless the candidate is running as a write-in candidate for that later election.

Rule 6-02(a) is further amended to provide that qualified expenditures for candidates in a small primary election may not exceed $5,000 per candidate.

Rule 7-01(e) is amended to provide that a candidate who does not appear on the ballot, or is not opposed on the ballot, for an election is ineligible to receive additional public funds for a later election held in the same calendar year unless the candidate demonstrates that they will appear on the ballot in that later election.

Rule 7-05(c) is added to provide that candidates in a small primary must return to the Board any public funds received in excess of $5,000, except that the funds may be used for a different election later in the calendar year for the same office, as long as the candidate is on the ballot in the later election. If the candidate uses the excess funds for a later election, the amount of the excess funds will be deducted from the total amount of public funds the candidate would otherwise be eligible to receive for that later election.