Longmont City Council reviews LLC campaign contributions

Yahoo

03-07-2025

The Longmont City Council on Tuesday gave staff instruction to move forward with drafting an ordinance that would limit campaign contributions from limited liability companies under the Longmont Fair Campaign Practices Act.
The intent is to amend the current LFCPA to clarify its language, thereby closing legal loopholes that allow a single individual who owns numerous LLCs to contribute the maximum amount from each of their entities, in addition to their own personal contribution.
The proposed changes, if formally adopted later this year, would take effect Jan. 1, 2026.
City Clerk Dawn Quintana walked council members through the current campaign finance rules and how they differ from those at the state and federal levels.
'Under the current LFCPA, the contribution limit for 2025 is $310 per person,' Quintana said. ''Person' is important because of the definition of person in our code, which is a natural person, a partnership, a committee, an association, a corporation or a labor organization or other organization or group of persons.'
Quintana explained that both the Federal Election Commission and the Colorado Secretary of State's Office require that contributions from LLCs be attributed to individual members according to their ownership share.
'The FEC limits these contributions by having the contribution attributed to members, owners of the LLC, as related to their percent ownership,' she said. Longmont's current code does not include that limitation.
Councilmember Sean McCoy raised concerns about the potential for abuse of the current rules.
'We had a candidate that ran for office and had several LLCs — LLC A and LLC B and LLC C, and down the line there,' McCoy said. 'That candidate did not win this time, and so I'm concerned that there'll be a time that that does occur, and I'm concerned that we need to head that off at the pass.'
McCoy added the individual had 'deep pockets' and used multiple business entities to legally amplify their contributions. 'I just want to make sure that we're clean and fair and equitable and don't have that kind of image of less than squeaky clean,' he said.
Councilmember Matthew Popkin expressed support for increasing transparency but raised questions about how the changes would be implemented. 'If this is a requirement, we just make it required,' Popkin said, referencing the draft language that allowed campaigns to submit LLC ownership disclosures only upon request. 'Let's just make it automatic, as some of the other reporting is.'
Popkin also suggested that the proposed fines might not be strong enough to deter violations. 'From a logistics implementation standpoint, if this were to move forward, the fine seems a little bit low,' he said.
Under the current LFCPA, civil fines for campaign finance violations are capped at $999 per violation. The proposed ordinance, as currently written, does not include a higher fine.
'If our intent is to discourage that, I wouldn't have a problem with this being enacted for this election cycle,' Popkin added, though he noted it was important that no candidate be given a retroactive advantage or disadvantage.
Mayor Joan Peck pushed back against changing campaign finance rules in the middle of an election cycle.
'Changing rules in the middle of the stream is never a good idea,' Peck said.
She asked staff to investigate whether previous changes, such as eliminating post office boxes, to address requirements, may have contributed to the recent lack of LLC contributions in city elections.
After the discussion, McCoy made a motion to bring back an ordinance that would amend the LFCPA to limit contributions from LLCs in accordance with the proposed language in the July 1 council communication. The motion included a clarification that the new rules would apply starting Jan. 1 and that campaigns would be required to file disclosure affidavits identifying the ownership structure of any contributing LLCs. Councilmember Popkin seconded the motion.
Councilmember Diane Crist raised a point of clarification during the vote. 'When you say 'as presented,' I think we still haven't decided whether we're filing the report with the clerk or whether the campaign is keeping the documentation,' she said.
Quintana confirmed that the original draft only required campaigns to retain the records. 'If you prefer to make it required to file that report, we would just need that added into the motion,' she said.
McCoy amended the motion to include the filing requirement, and Popkin agreed to the change. The amendment was accepted as a friendly clarification.
The final motion, to return with a draft ordinance limiting LLC contributions, effective in 2026, and requiring disclosure filings, was passed unanimously.
The ordinance itself will come before the council at a later meeting for a formal vote.