Austin City Hall in downtown Austin
Villalpando, Rob (CMG-Austin)/Austin American-Statesman
Individual donors to Austin City Council candidates may contribute up to $500 per election, not $450 as previously stated by city officials, a city spokesperson confirmed.
The clarification follows recent reporting that raised questions about whether Council Member Paige Ellis had accepted campaign contributions exceeding the city’s individual contribution limit. At the time, both Ellis and the city told the American-Statesman the limit was $450.
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City spokesperson Jenny LaCoste-Caputo also provided a statement on Jan. 29 that suggested Ellis’ contributions could be a violation of city rules, saying that if a finance report listed an amount “above $450 with only one name, that would be an issue for the city’s Ethics Review Commission to review.”
The next day, the American-Statesman noticed the city’s elections webpage had been updated with a higher individual donation cap of $500. Asked about the change, LaCoste-Caputo confirmed that officials had provided incorrect information and that $500 is the current limit.
Another city spokesperson, Jessica King, said city communications officials mistakenly provided outdated information because the staff who were familiar with the current limit were at a court hearing in a lawsuit related to an effort to thwart the ongoing convention center expansion. However, those staff confirmed the $450 limit to the Statesman, which was present at the hearing..
King added that the webpage updates to reflect the actual limit were not related to the Statesman’s reporting.
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Ellis said via text message Friday that she was unaware of the new contribution limit.
“I had not heard it changed,” she wrote.
District 8 Austin City Council member Paige Ellis.
Mikala Compton/American-Statesman
A portion of Ellis’ donations still exceed the cap despite the higher limit. She and her campaign manager have insisted none of the contributions exceed the limit because the donations all came from married people and donating on behalf of both spouses is acceptable. However, both the city and an ethics expert told the Statesman that the donations were an issue, with Ethics Attorney Andrew Cates Ellis telling the newspaper that Ellis should have listed each name if that was the case.
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“If you’re going to have campaign contribution limits, making it transparent enough for people to know, especially when they are running for office, should be of paramount importance,” Cates said Friday. “It’s telling that even Paige is saying ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’”
Under Austin’s city charter, candidate contribution limits must be adjusted annually based on the consumer price index at the same time the City Council approves the city budget. “Some years, this results in no change,” LaCoste-Caputo noted in her statement.”
Last week, the Statesman asked the city to confirm the $450 cap as it appeared it had not changed since 2024. The city confirmed multiple times on the record that the cap was still $450 and had not changed in recent years.
King, the city spokesperson, said the city had no plans to inform current City Council candidates as “it is too early for candidates to file to run for an election.” However, several have appointed campaign treasurers with the intention to run – and have announced their bids.
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Cates called it a “pretty lousy excuse,” adding that anyone with money in the bank, even if they’re not currently in a race, has to account for that money in campaign finance reporting.
He said the city has been sued multiple times for setting limits on when candidates are allowed to raise money.
“They’ve lost every single time,” Cates said, “so that shouldn’t matter anymore.”
The deadline to file to run for one of five City Council seats that will appear on the 2026 ballot is 5 p.m. on Aug. 17.
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LaCoste-Caputo, the city spokesperson, also confirmed another notable change the city made to its elections webpage last week: Older campaign finance reports, including Ellis’ and other current council members, were relocated to a different part of the city website, making them harder to find.
Asked about the relocation, LaCoste-Caputo said it was carried out in accordance with a 2023 state law that says cities only need to post the last five years worth of reports.
“The City’s website had been maintaining Campaign Finance Reports longer than required,” she said in a statement.
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It’s unclear why the city waited until now to make the change, 28 months after the state law – House Bill 2626 – took effect.
“The whole point of campaign finance reports is public transparency of money and politics,” Cates said. “If you don’t make the money in their reports readily accessible, then you’re undercutting the point of the reporting.”