How to Run for City Council

Co-authored by Clinton M. Sandvick, JD, PhD

Last Updated: April 17, 2024 Approved

City councils are the local legislators at the city level. Common tasks include deciding which services the city will provide and how to pay for them. Every city has a different process for electing, and retaining city council members. In general, you will have to qualify as a candidate (i.e., meet age and residency requirements), register as a candidate (i.e., appear before the city clerk and obtain voter signatures), and run your campaign.

Part 1

Part 1 of 3:

Qualifying for Candidacy

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Meet your city's age requirements. Before you can run for city council, you must meet certain requirements laid out by statute or ordinance. One of these requirements is always an age requirement. In order to run for public office, which includes city council, you must be over a certain age. For example, in San Mateo, California, you must be at least 18 years old to run for city council. In Denver, Colorado, you must be over 25 years old in order to run.^{[1]
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- Check your election rules to make sure you qualify.
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Be a citizen of the United States and the state you want to run in. In every city in the U.S., you must meet national and state residency requirements in order to run. You must be a citizen of the U.S. and you must also be a citizen of the state you are going to run in.
- Denver, Colorado requires you to be a citizen of the city and county of Denver for two years preceding your election run.^{[2]
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- San Diego, California only requires you to be a citizen of the city at the time you assume office.
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Ensure you are registered to vote in the right location. To run for city council, you must be registered to vote in the district you are running in. This is the case in order to prove your connection to the district you wish to run in. Each city will have different voter registration requirements.
- For example, in San Diego, you must be registered to vote in a specific council district for at least 30 days prior to submitting nomination papers.
- However, in Denver, Colorado, the only requirement is to be registered to vote in the city and county of Denver (i.e., there is not time requirement).^{[3]
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Live in the district you are going to run in. In addition to living in the city you will run in, you must also live in the specific district you are going to run in. Again, this ensures you have sufficient ties to the community in which you are trying to represent. Each city will have different requirements. Be sure you know yours before filing your candidacy.
- For example, in Denver, Colorado, at a minimum, your second year of residency within the city must be in the district you will be running in (i.e., you need to live one year in your district before running).^{[4]
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- In San Diego, California, you simply need to be a resident of the district at the time you take office.
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Avoid conflicts of interest. A number of cities will also restrict your ability to run for city council if you do business with the city council on a regular basis. For example, if you are a business person who commonly goes in front of the city council in order to petition for building permits or to enter into city contracts, you may not be able to run for city council.
- This is the case because the law does not want to allow people to gain an unfair advantage by being a part of the council they also do business with.
- Some conflicts can be avoided if, when you are elected, you abstain from voting when necessary or by disqualifying yourself from discussions.^{[5]
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Cities want their council members to be upstanding citizens and role models for others in the community. Therefore, laws will often bar individuals with felony records to run for city council In addition, in Denver, you cannot run for city council if you have ever evaded paying taxes or been found guilty of bribery or corruption.^{[6]
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Part 2

Part 2 of 3:

Applying to Become a Candidate

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1
Appear before the city clerk. If you are eligible to run for city council, you will have to successfully apply in order to become a candidate. The first thing you must do is personally appear in front of the city clerk. You cannot apply through the mail or over the phone, you must show up in person.
- The only time you may be excused from appearing in person is if you are serving in the military or if you have a disability that prevents you from coming in person.^{[7]
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- The city clerk's office can be found by searching the internet for "[your city] city clerk." Find the address and make an appearance.
When you visit the city clerk's office, you will let an administrator know you wish to run for city council. This declaration must be made within a certain time period in order to be valid. Some cities offer a beginning date and an ending date in which you can apply. Other cities link their time frames to other events, such as when the election will take place. If you are at the city clerk's office in a timely manner, you will receive a packet of information that will contain your statement and affidavit as well as your nominating petition.^{[8]
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Sign a statement and affidavit. The statement and affidavit sets out your qualifications for the position you are running for. It must be signed at the time you pick up your packet of information and the city clerk must sign it as well. This form will be signed under the penalty of perjury, which means if you make false statements you can be convicted of a crime.
- The statement will name the candidate (you), your residence, past residences, your date of birth, the office you are seeking to be elected to (city council), the term in which you are running, and your occupation.^{[9]
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The nominating petition is the main package of information that will make you a candidate for city council. It will contain your personal information as well as information about the office you are running for, space for voter signatures, and a circulator's affidavit. It must also contain a note verifying the number of signatures you will need in order to have a sufficient nominating petition.^{[10]
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Obtain voter signatures. When you obtain the nominating petition, you will have to go out and get a number of voter signatures in order to prove you are a viable candidate. Your nominating petition will have space for these signatures. In general, the voter must sign the petition in their own handwriting, print their name, their place of residence, and the date of their signature. Without this information, a voter signature will be invalid.
- In San Diego, California, if you wish to run for city council, you must obtain a minimum of 100 signatures from voters residing in the district you will be running in. Each voter who signs the petition must have been a registered voter in the district for at least 30 days prior to signing your petition.
- If any of the petition signatures do not meet the required standards, it will not count. For this reason, you should always get more signatures than you need in case some are found to be invalid.
- If you are obtaining signatures by circulating your petition, any person who helps you must be over 18 years old and a U.S. citizen. These circulator's must sign an affidavit stating all the information on the signature pages are true and accurate.^{[11]
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Submit the nomination papers to the city clerk. When you have received the requisite number of signatures on your nominating petition, you must return the completed petition to the city clerk's office. This must be done before a certain date to ensure your petition is valid. To be acceptable, the nominating petition must, on its face, contain the requisite number of signatures. If this is so, the city clerk will accept your petition as filed.
- Once your petition is filed, the city clerk's office may verify the validity of the signatures on your petition.^{[12]
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Pay the filing fee. When you file your nominating petition, you will have to pay a filing fee. In San Diego, the filing fee is $200. the fee is non-refundable and must be paid at the time you file. However, you can offset the filing fee completely, or in part, by submitting more signatures than required. If you are planning on using extra signatures to reduce your filing fee, you must tell the city clerk when you file. Each extra signature will reduce your filing fee by $0.25.^{[13]
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- For example, if you are required to get 100 signatures and you only get 100 signatures, you will owe the complete $200 filing fee. However, if you want the filing fee completely gone, you would have to get an extra 800 signatures (on top of the 100 required). Therefore, if you received 900 valid signatures, you would not have to pay a filing fee.
Once everything has been filed and your signatures have been verified, the city clerk will send you a notice of sufficiency. Once you receive this notice, you will be a candidate for city council.^{[14]
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Part 3

Part 3 of 3:

Running Your Campaign

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Hire a campaign team. As soon as you become a candidate, if not before, you need to begin assembling a group of individuals to help you run your campaign. Start by filling in key positions and then build where help is most needed. To start, you need to hire the following individuals:
- Campaign manager. This person is responsible for your entire campaign. The campaign manager should understand political strategy, be trustworthy, and have impeccable organization skills.
- Treasurer. This person is responsible for managing your campaign money, which means keeping track of contributions and expenditures. The campaign manager needs to understand the reporting requirements and other regulations that will apply. This person may also be tasked with managing your fundraising activities.
- Volunteer coordinator. This person will recruit, organize, and schedule your team of volunteers.
- Scheduler. This person will keep track of all your obligations and make sure you manage your time appropriately.
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Develop your message. Campaigns are all about persuading voters to vote for you. To do this, you will need to effectively communicate your message to the voters. Your message needs a rationale, a theme, and a position.
- The rationale of your message is the reason you are running for office. You should be able to rattle off your rationale in one or two sentences. It should combine the best parts of your personal, professional, and political life. You should be able to explain why you are running, what you hope to accomplish, and the qualities you have that make you a good candidate. For example, your rationale might state: "I am running for city council because I have seen our city's infrastructure go from bad to worse. I am running because I am motivated to turn things around and I have the ideas to get it done."
- Your campaign theme is a phrase that makes your rationale relevant to voters. You should try to answer the question: why should voters care? When thinking about a theme, make it succinct, relevant, and memorable. For example, your theme might be: "Improving our infrastructure, investing in our future."
- Your positions should cover a variety of key issues you want to address if elected. Try choosing three issues that matter to voters and focus on those. You should be passionate about the issues you choose and make sure volunteers and other voters supporting you can get behind the issues as well.
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Deliver your message effectively. When you communicate to the voters, you need to be clear, focused, and compelling. You need to make sure your audience understands your message and will be willing to respond positively. Be sure you can contrast your positions with those of other candidates. Tell the voters why they should vote for you and not someone else. However, if you criticize an opponent, do so respectfully and professionally.
- You also need to think about how you are going to respond to attacks from other candidates. Ignoring attacks or being ill-prepared to respond can hurt your campaign. One way to do this is to release any harmful information about yourself before the other candidate can. This way you can control the message. If you need to respond to something you didn't anticipate, do not do so by throwing a counter-attack. Respond to the criticism with professionalism and explain your position.
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Fundraise. To run a successful campaign you need to raise money so you can advertise and get your position out to the public. The more money you have, the more mediums you can use and the more often you can use them. To successfully fundraise, start by creating a budget. Figure out how much money you will need and how it will be used. You can estimate costs by looking at past campaign finance reports from candidates that have won. In addition, you will need to:
- Identify the amount to be raised
- Identify the team that will raise the money
- Assemble a list of every possible source of funds
- Incorporate every method of fundraising into your plan
- Set up a tracking system to stay on top of progress
- Always thank the donor and don't be afraid to come back and ask for more
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Mobilize voters. At the end of the day, you will only win your city council seat if people get out and vote for you. You need to mobilize the voters and make sure they turn out on election day. To do this, you need to calculate how many votes you need to win and build a list of supporters that will mobilize on election day.
- You can estimate the number of votes needed to win by asking and answering the following questions: How many votes did last election's winner get? How many registered voters are in your district? What percentage turned out last time? Is there any hot button issue on the ballot that would increase or decrease voter turnout?
- Once you have an idea of how many votes you need, you can begin to build support. To do so you will need to canvass, make phone calls, and hold meetings and gatherings. All of these things should be done with an eye toward gaining support from undecided voters and keeping the votes you already have.
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Await election results. As a candidate for city council, your job will not end until all of the results are counted and a decision has been made. Even on the day of the election, you should still make yourself available for any last minute questions or concerns. At the end of the night, if the election goes your way, be sure you congratulate all the other candidates for all their hard work and sacrifice. Celebrate with friends and family and get ready to start your position as a city council member.
- If the election doesn't go your way, be sure you hold a speech to thank your staff and supporters. In addition, make sure you congratulate the winner.