This repository contains campaign finance reports for candidates running for elected office in the City of Minneapolis, as filed with Hennepin County Taxpayer Services.
Within each office folder (e.g. Mayor, City Council), campaign committees for candidates who have announced their candidacy are included in the root of the directory. The folder "Terminated" includes committees that have officially closed down. The folder "Abandoned" includes committees that are technically open, but haven't filed campaign finance reports recently and are presumed abandoned. The folder "Unannounced Active" includes committees that are open, have filed reports, but the candidate hasn't announced their candidacy - these are usually candidates who lost but keep their committees open in case they decide to run in a future election.
This is not machine-readable data. Hennepin County provides fillable PDFs and Microsoft Word .DOC templates for candidates to print and file in-person or via mail, so nothing is electronic at all. Many candidate filings are actually hand-written. Documents here have had pages rotated to correct orientation as necessary, and OCR'd to make some information a bit more readable.
There are a number of laws in Minnesota Statutes on campaign finance reporting just for jurisdictions of a certain size. Minn. Stat. § 383B.043, subd. 2, requires that no contributions be accepted while a treasurer is vacant and no anonymous contributions greater than $20 be accepted (excess amounts must be forwarded to the State for deposit to the general fund).
Pursuant to Minn. Stat. § 383B.045, et seq., any candidate which receives contributions or spends greater than $100 must register as a principal campaign committee within 14 days of such an expenditure or contribution. Committees are required to register with and publicly report:
- the name and address of the political committee, political fund, or principal campaign committee;
- the name and address of the chair, the treasurer, and any deputy treasurers;
- the name and address of the depository used by the committee or fund;
- the name and address of any supporting association of a political fund; and
- a statement as to whether the committee is a principal campaign committee.
The original filings are accessible (but difficult to navigate) at http://www16.co.hennepin.mn.us/cfrs/welcome.do.
Nothing stated herein is legal advice.
Campaign finance reports are public records. No license is explicitly provided or stated; consult an attorney if you have questions. Errors may have been introduced by the County or during my download process. All content is provided AS-IS and without warranty of any kind.
Questions? tony@tonywebster.com or https://tonywebster.com/