Campaign Transparency Act Eliminates $200 Donor Reporting Threshold: Every Contribution Must Now Be Public

This new legislation, dubbed the Campaign Transparency Act, cuts straight to the heart of campaign finance reporting. Currently, federal political committees only have to report the names of donors whose total contributions exceed $200 in a calendar year. This bill wipes that threshold out completely. Under this new rule, if you give a federal political committee any amount of money—even five bucks for a bumper sticker—your name must be included in their public campaign finance reports. This change applies immediately to all reports filed after the Act becomes law.

The End of Anonymous Small-Dollar Donations

For most people, this is a huge step toward transparency. Think of it like this: Before, a campaign could receive thousands of $199 donations and never have to disclose who gave the money. Now, the public and watchdog groups will get a full, itemized list of every single person funding a political committee. This fulfills the core goal of the bill: making sure everyone knows exactly who is financially backing political operations. If you care about following the money, this is the deepest dive you’ve ever gotten, down to the last dollar.

The Compliance Headache and the Chill Factor

While the transparency boost is real, let’s talk about the practical side for the people running the campaigns. For political committees—from the biggest national PACs down to small local congressional campaigns—this is a massive administrative burden. They now have to track, verify, and report every single name associated with every single transaction, no matter how small. This requires more staff, better software, and significantly more time spent on compliance (Section 2, Lowering the Reporting Threshold). For smaller, grassroots campaigns that already operate on thin margins, this increased cost and complexity could be a real challenge.

There's also the question of the small-dollar donor. Many people donate $10 or $25 to a cause they believe in because they want to support it, but they also value their privacy. When every contribution, regardless of size, is made public, some people might hesitate to donate at all. If you’re a teacher or a trade worker who just wants to support a candidate without having your name publicly linked to a political cause, the loss of anonymity could discourage you from participating financially. This potential “chill factor” could inadvertently reduce the pool of small-dollar political participation, which is a key source of funding for many campaigns today.