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HB2503 • 2026

campaign finance; caregiver expenses

HB2503 - campaign finance; caregiver expenses

Children Elections
Passed Legislature

This bill passed both chambers and reached final enrollment, even if later executive action is not shown here.

Sponsor
Stephanie Stahl Hamilton, Anna Abeytia, Seth Blattman, Junelle Cavero, Patty Contreras, Quantá Crews, Oscar De Los Santos, Brian Garcia, Nancy Gutierrez, Sarah Liguori, Mariana Sandoval, Stephanie Simacek, Stacey Travers, Betty J Villegas
Last action
2026-01-26
Official status
House second read
Effective date
Not listed

Plain English Breakdown

The bill states it is a clarifying change only, but does not specify if this interpretation was previously disputed or unclear.

HB2503: Campaign Finance Rules for Caregiver Costs

This bill updates Arizona campaign finance laws to clarify that candidate committees can use their funds to pay for the direct care, protection, and supervision of children or other individuals under a candidate's caregiving responsibility.

What This Bill Does

  • Amends section 16-921 of the Arizona Revised Statutes regarding what counts as a campaign expenditure.
  • States that payments by a candidate committee for direct care, protection, and supervision of a child or other individual under the candidate's caregiving responsibility are lawful expenditures.
  • Confirms existing rules stating volunteer services, unpaid travel, news stories, party operating expenses, interest earned on deposits, legal fees, and book publishing costs are not considered expenditures.
  • Clarifies that these changes do not create new substantive laws but only clarify existing ones.

Who It Names or Affects

  • Candidates running for office in Arizona who have campaign committees.
  • Children or other individuals receiving care from a candidate with direct caregiving responsibilities.
  • Campaign finance filing officers and auditors reviewing committee spending.

Terms To Know

Candidate Committee
A group that collects money to support a specific person running for office.
Expenditure
Money spent by a campaign committee on goods or services related to an election, unless specifically exempted by law.

Limits and Unknowns

  • The bill does not define specific dollar limits for caregiver expenses.
  • It is unclear if this applies only during active campaigns or at any time the candidate has caregiving duties.
  • The effective date of the law is not listed in the provided text.

Bill History

  1. 2026-01-26 House

    House second read

  2. 2026-01-22 House

    House Rules: None

  3. 2026-01-22 House

    House Federalism, Military Affairs & Elections: None

  4. 2026-01-22 House

    House first read

Official Summary Text

HB2503 - campaign finance; caregiver expenses

Current Bill Text

Read the full stored bill text 
HB2503 - 572R - I Ver

REFERENCE TITLE:
campaign finance; caregiver expenses

State of Arizona

House of Representatives

Fifty-seventh Legislature

Second Regular Session

2026

HB 2503

Introduced by

Representatives
Stahl Hamilton: Abeytia, Blattman, Cavero, Contreras P, Crews, De Los Santos,
Garcia, Gutierrez, Liguori, Sandoval, Simacek, Travers, Villegas

AN
ACT

amending section 16-921, Arizona Revised
Statutes; relating to campaign contributions and expenses.

(TEXT OF BILL BEGINS ON NEXT PAGE)

Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Arizona:

Section 1. Section 16-921, Arizona Revised
Statutes, is amended to read:

START_STATUTE
16-921.

Exemptions from definition of expenditure

A. A person may make any expenditure not otherwise
prohibited by law.

B. The following are not expenditures:

1. The value of an individual's volunteer services
or expenses that are provided without compensation or reimbursement, including
the individual's:

(a) Travel expenses.

(b) Use of real or personal property.

(c) Cost of invitations, food or beverages.

(d) Use of
e-mail
email
, internet activity or social media messages, only if the
individual's use is not paid for by the individual or any other person and if
the
e-mails
emails
, social
media messages or other internet activities do not contain or include
transmittal of a paid advertisement or paid
fund-raising
fundraising
solicitation.

2. The value of any news story, commentary or
editorial by any broadcasting station, cable television operator, video service
provider, programmer or producer, newspaper, magazine, website or other
periodical publication that is not owned or operated by a candidate, a
candidate's spouse or any committee.

3. The payment by any person to defray a political
party's operating expenses or party-building activities, including:

(a) Party staff and personnel.

(b) Studies and reports.

(c) Voter registration, recruitment, polling and
turnout efforts.

(d) Party conventions and party meetings.

(e) Construction, purchase or lease of party
buildings or facilities.

4. The value of any of the following to a committee:

(a) Interest earned on the committee's deposits or
investments.

(b) Transfers between committees to reimburse
expenses and distribute monies raised through a joint
fund-raising

fundraising
effort, except that contributions shall be
allocated as described in the
fund-raising
fundraising
solicitation and expenses shall be allocated in
the same proportion as contributions.

(c) Payment of a committee's legal or accounting
expenses.

(d) An extension of credit for goods and services on
a committee's behalf by a creditor if the terms are substantially similar to
extensions of credit to nonpolitical debtors that are of similar risk and size
of obligation.� The creditor must make a commercially reasonable attempt to
collect the debt, except that if an extension of credit remains unsatisfied by
the committee after six months the committee is deemed to have received a
contribution but the creditor is not deemed to have made a contribution.

5. The value of nonpartisan communications that are
intended to encourage voter registration and turnout efforts.

6. Any payment by a person that is not a committee
to a filing officer for arguments in a publicity pamphlet.

7. Any payment for legal or accounting services that
are provided to a committee.

8. The payment of costs of publishing a book or
producing a documentary, if the publication and production are for distribution
to the general public through traditional distribution mechanisms or a fee is
obtained for the purchase of the publication or viewing of the documentary.

C. A candidate committee's payment
for direct care, protection and supervision of a child or other individual for
whom the candidate has direct caregiving responsibilities is a lawful
expenditure of CANDIDATE committee monies.

C.

D.
This
section does not imply that any transactions that are not specifically listed
in subsection B of this section are expenditures unless those transactions
otherwise meet the definition of expenditure as defined in section 16-901.

END_STATUTE

Sec. 2.
Legislative intent

The legislature intends that the
amendments to section 16-921, Arizona Revised Statutes, are clarifying changes
only and do not constitute substantive changes to existing law.