Riverside County Closes Campaign Donation Loophole: Schools Superintendent Brought Under $20,000 Cap
The Riverside County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously on October 13 to amend the county's campaign finance ordinance, closing a loophole that had left the County Superintendent of Schools outside the county's donation caps for years. Under the amendment, candidates for schools superintendent are now subject to the same $20,000 per-election individual contribution limit as other county elective officials. The vote was 4-0, with Supervisor Chuck Washington absent.
The cap stems from Ordinance 963, adopted by the board in November 2020, which omitted the superintendent's office when it was drafted. A county report prepared for the meeting states: "The purpose of this ordinance is to ensure that individuals and interest groups continue to have a fair and equal opportunity to participate in electing candidates for county elective office." The report said including the superintendent was the board's intent from the start, that the amendment corrects an oversight, and that it applies retroactively to the ordinance's original effective date.
The amendment also bans transfers between a candidate's own campaign committees unless individual donors give written consent. The limits do not apply to a candidate's contributions of personal funds to their own campaign.
Incumbent Superintendent Edwin Gomez was appointed in 2020 and ran unopposed in 2022. The superintendent's office is on the 2026 ballot, to be decided in the November 3 election. The change follows criticism from the 2025-26 Riverside County Civil Grand Jury, which found that under Ordinance 963 the caps fall away entirely in races where a candidate benefits from independent expenditures of $20,000 or more, leaving room for large donors to wield outsized influence. (GSM, based on Inland Valley Daily Bulletin and Riverside Press-Enterprise reporting)
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: Riverside County法院大楼。Photo by nccmrm97, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.
