Secretary Fontes Notifies Campaign Committees of Opportunity to Clear Outstanding Fines Under New Law

Fontes welcomes H.B. 2874 as a step toward fixing Arizona’s outdated campaign-finance system and urges eligible committees to act before the deadline

PHOENIX – Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes announced today that his office has proactively contacted campaign committees it believes may qualify for relief under House Bill 2874, a new state law addressing campaign-finance penalties for committees that reported no financial activity.

The Secretary of State’s Office is urging potentially eligible committees to review the new law and take the necessary action before December 31, 2026.

“For too long, Arizona’s campaign-finance system has allowed fines to pile up without necessarily producing better disclosure or compliance,” Secretary Fontes said. “H.B. 2874 recognizes that there is little public benefit in allowing thousands of dollars in penalties to accumulate against an inactive committee that didn’t raise or spend any money. I welcome this bipartisan reform, and my office is moving quickly to make sure Arizonans who may qualify know about it.”

H.B. 2874, signed into law in June, provides relief from certain late-filing penalties when a committee had no contributions or expenditures during the applicable reporting period. It also creates a simplified process for terminating committees that never received contributions.

The legislation addresses a problem that has become increasingly apparent in Arizona’s campaign-finance system: committees can remain on the books for years while penalties continue to accumulate, sometimes creating substantial outstanding balances without providing voters with additional information about money being raised or spent in elections.

Recent litigation highlighted the problem when a former campaign committee associated with a state legislative candidate was reported as having accumulated more than $20,000 in unpaid campaign-finance fines dating back several years. The resulting dispute raised complicated questions about enforcement, liability and even candidate eligibility.

“Twenty-thousand-dollar fines sitting on the books for years are not evidence of a campaign-finance system that is working,” Fontes said. “The purpose of campaign-finance law should be transparency and accountability. Voters deserve to know who is raising money, who is spending it and who is trying to influence their elections. Our system should be designed to produce that information on time—not simply generate enormous fines that may never be collected.”

The Secretary said H.B. 2874 is an important step in the right direction, but emphasized that additional reforms are needed.

“This bill fixes one piece of a much larger problem,” Fontes said. “Arizona still has a campaign-finance system that is too complicated for ordinary candidates and committees to navigate, difficult for filing officers to administer and enforce, and too often fails to give voters information when it actually matters. We should continue working across party lines on reforms that make compliance easier, enforcement more effective and campaign-finance information more accessible to the public.”

To implement H.B. 2874, the Secretary of State’s Office reviewed its campaign-finance records to identify committees that may qualify under the new law. The Office has contacted those committees directly and provided information about the steps they can take before the deadline. Local committees formed in a county, city, or town should contact their local filing office for assistance in complying with the new law.

Receiving a notice from the Secretary of State’s Office does not constitute a final determination that a committee qualifies for relief. Committees remain responsible for determining whether they meet the statutory requirements and submitting the required certification.

“Our job isn’t to play ‘gotcha’ with people who tried to participate in our democracy,” Fontes said. “Our job is to enforce the law, protect transparency and help Arizonans comply with it. That is exactly what we are doing here.”

Committees that believe they may qualify are encouraged to act promptly and complete the required filing before December 31, 2026.

For campaign-finance filing information and resources, committees can visit the Arizona Secretary of State’s campaign-finance website.