Cypress city leaders are looking to tighten campaign finance regulation for candidates running for city council ahead of November’s midterm elections.

While the city currently defers to the state’s default limit of $5,900 per donor, per election, council members are eyeing a new limit of $1,250.

Councilmembers approved that new limit in a 4-1 vote during their Tuesday night meeting. It will still need a second approval from city council members, and it would go into effect 30 days after that.

Councilmember David Burke brought the item forward after drafting the changes with the city attorney. It was also discussed at the council’s meeting last month. 

“The two primary reasons for campaign finance reform are to diminish the risk of pay-to-play politics,” Burke said at the council’s Jan. 26 meeting. “That’s essentially where large campaign contributors, independent expenditure-makers, use a lot of money to support a candidate and then get favorable treatment in return.” 

“The second is to improve transparency and give voters more information,” he continued. “I think most reasonable people agree that you should have some idea on who’s actually spending money behind the candidates who are running for office.”

The council was originally considering a $500 limit before it was increased to $1,250 to appease officials who argued $500 was too low, like Councilmember Kyle Chang.

“I believe this is an important piece of legislation,” Chang said. “I believe it’s a step forward in the right direction when it comes to campaign finance reform.”

Councilmember Bonnie Peat voted against the changes after expressing concern about various details of the proposed ordinance language and arguing there was no rush to approve the changes that night.

She argued the city should wait until every district in the city has an election before they start changing campaign finance rules. 

Since the city transition to district-based elections, only two of the five election districts have held an election. Residents living in Districts 1, 2 and 5 will cast their ballots for their election district for the first time this year.

“Just to sum it up: I don’t like this, and I was very clear on that last time,” Peat said at Tuesday night’s meeting.

Councilmembers Peat, Burke and Rachel Strong Carnahan — who was appointed to the council in November 2025 — are set to term out at the end of this year.

Mayor Leo Medrano said he suspected that criticism of the changes could actually be delay tactics.

“I don’t think this is perfect,” he said. “I think we’ll be visiting this again after the election and potentially changing some of the things, but I’m afraid that these are, in some ways, delay tactics, since we’ve been talking about this for so many years.”

Cypress isn’t the only city to review how much money candidates are allowed to accept toward their campaign in recent history.

While Cypress is looking to decrease their limit, officials in Aliso Viejo went in the other direction — lifting the city’s $1,000 to instead match the state’s default of $5,900 at the end of last year.

[Read: Aliso Viejo Officials Raise Campaign Contribution Limit] 

Around the same time, Orange City council members voted to once again ban candidate controlled committees from transferring money to the committees of other candidates.

[Read: Three OC Cities Eye Changing Campaign Finance Laws Ahead of 2026 Elections]

Cypress City Council members are expected to vote again on the new campaign finance limit during their next meeting scheduled for Feb. 23 at 5:30 p.m.

Angelina Hicks is the Voice of OC Collegiate News Service Editor. Contact her at ahicks@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @angelinahicks13.