Political Reform Act of 1974: campaign disclosures

The law strengthens transparency for paid digital advocacy supporting or opposing candidates and ballot measures. It makes committees share responsibility when required disclosures are missing.

What the law does ​

• Requires paid third-party online posts about candidates or ballot measures to carry a clear disclaimer identifying the paying committee.
• Requires committees to tell paid posters that missing the disclaimer may result in penalties.
• Makes the paid poster and paying committee jointly and severally liable for civil or administrative penalties when a required disclaimer is omitted.
• Allows the Fair Political Practices Commission to seek a court order compelling compliance after notice.
• Requires committees to label reportable payments for these posts as payments for a paid third-party post on campaign reports.

Who it affects ​

• Political committees paying people to post online campaign or ballot-measure content.
• People paid by committees to make those posts.

Context ​

The disclosure requirement does not apply to certain content already subject to other disclosure rules, posts on a committee's own pages, or certain employee social-media posts.