Deborah Brennan is out this week.
Two years after the passage of SB 1439, California’s local elections have seen a significant shift in campaign contributions. Large donations—those over $250—have sharply declined, with candidates now receiving 28.4 percent less in overall contributions.
In 2022, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed SB 1439 into law. The bill – which was overwhelmingly passed by the California State Legislature, implemented new conflict-of-interest rules for local elected officials. It prohibited any member of an elected agency from voting on any issue that would affect any donor who gave $250 or more to that elected official’s campaign. The voting prohibition lasts 12 months following the contribution.
For most observers, it seemed clear this would likely impact local candidates’ ability to fundraise. While there are many donors who contribute because they believe in the candidate’s vision, there are plenty others who contribute because they have an economic interest in the outcome of elections. It’s this pool of donors that the law targets.
However, it wasn’t clear just how significant that impact would be. After the law passed and candidates began filing disclosure reports (which detail their campaign contributions), it seemed like there was less money flowing into campaigns—at least among the handful I observed. However, this was based on a small sample size. What if we could have access to a much larger one?
We do. To conduct this analysis, I relied on NetFile, a company that specializes in providing local governments with software to file campaign disclosure forms. Fortunately, they’ve recognized the value of this data, and have made it relatively easy to access in large amounts through a public API. The data was then processed and analyzed using Python and pandas, powerful tools for handling large datasets.
This analysis looked at campaign finance data for 61 different local agencies throughout California – primarily cities and counties. In total, more than 450,000 contributions to local campaigns were analyzed across two periods: 01/01/2021 – 06/30/2022 and 01/01/2023 – 06/30/2024.
After applying a few filters—specifically focusing on contributions from individuals to committees directly controlled by candidates (as opposed to independent political groups) and filtering out self-funding candidates (those who primarily finance their own campaigns) to avoid skewed results—the data was ready for analysis.
However, looking at individual donations can be misleading, as the law applies to the total contributions a donor makes to a candidate’s committee. This analysis aggregated all contributions by each donor to ensure accuracy. For example, if John Smith made two $25 donations to Jane Thompson’s City Council campaign, these are treated as a single $50 contribution. This approach defines what is meant by “contribution” in this analysis moving forward.
In the period starting 01/01/2021 and ending on 6/30/2022, there were 61,320 contributions totaling $89.6 million. Of this, $87.4 million came from donations of at least $250, highlighting the importance of larger contributions in local campaigns.
So, what was the impact of the new law?
For the next cycle (01/01/2023 – 6/30/2024), the number of contributions increased slightly to 62,482. A slight increase! Perhaps the law didn’t have much of an impact after all.
However, the dollar amounts tell a different story. The total money raised dropped to $64 million—a decrease of 28.4 percent. Contributions of $250 or more fell sharply, from $87.4 million to $60.9 million. Meanwhile, the amount raised from donations under $250 grew from $2.17 million to $3.1 million, an increase of 44 percent.
It’s clear that many donors who had been giving more than $250 either scaled back their contributions or chose to sit out entirely.
While conducting this analysis, I did wonder if perhaps these reduced amounts might be because there were simply fewer candidates soliciting funds during the period after the law went into effect. Yet, within our data set, there were 648 unique committees in the data before the law went into effect and 776 afterward. This makes sense, as ballots during Presidential cycles are more crowded relative to mid-terms. More candidates soliciting funds, but less money sent their way.
There may be noise in this dataset; some might argue that comparing one election to another isn’t sufficient, as different elections, environments, and offices could attract different sets of donors, affecting overall trends. To get a clearer picture of the law’s impact, this analysis focused on nearly 8,600 donors who contributed in both periods—before and after the law went into effect.
By isolating these repeat donors, we eliminate the variability introduced by new or one-time contributors. This allows us to observe how the same group of individuals adjusted their giving in response to the new law. For these donors, contributions dropped from $21.6 million to $17.7 million—a decrease of 18.9 percent. Additionally, the number of donations they made below $250 increased by nearly 52 percent, suggesting that even consistent donors are changing their strategies to comply with the new restrictions. While this behavior change wasn’t as dramatic as the entire dataset, it provides a more focused lens on how loyal donors are responding to the law.
Based on this data, it’s clear that the new law has impacted donor behavior. Candidates are no longer receiving the same level of funding as before, so the question becomes: where is that money going?
There’s an old saying: “Money in politics is like water on concrete; it finds all the cracks.” For donors affected by this law, it’s likely they’ll find other ways to contribute, whether through independent expenditure committees or political parties. Fortunately, we’ll be able to track some of this spending, giving us a fuller view of the law’s impact after the bulk of outside spending happens during the November general election.
More Politics
Last month, Deborah Brennan wrote about one of the 10 California propositions on the November ballot. Proposition 36, which is designed to undo some parts of Proposition 47, a 2014 ballot measure that reduced some felonies to misdemeanors.
We are hosting a discussion on Proposition 36 at Politifest, our annual policy summit this month. The panel will give attendees perspectives from both sides of the debate. We’ll be joined by Patrick Espinoza, chief deputy district attorney, and Genevieve Jones-Wright, executive director of the Community Advocates for Just and Moral Governance.
Also, how easy should it be to raise taxes? State Sen. Brian Jones and Assemblymember Chris Ward will debate Proposition 5. That’s a measure that would allow local governments to borrow money to build things — roads, bridges, affordable housing and more.